1269 Book(s) Related to 2 story apartments near me

I barely spoke a word before I turned six. Behind our backs, he townsfolk whispered that some foul thing had sealed my tongue.
The first time I truly spoke, I was pointing at our neighbor, Emily.
She was flying a kite just outside our fence. Floating right above her head was a stark, blood-red number.
"Three."
My mom poked her head out of the kitchen, asking if I had just spoken.
I nodded and pointed at Emily again.
By the time they looked, the girl had already run off.
Three days later, Emily was struck and killed by a turning delivery truck at the corner of our street.
After the funeral, my parents held me tight and swore it was just a coincidence.
The second time was when my grandmother, Eleanor Hart, was hospitalized for a stroke.
Dr. Grant took off his glasses, his tone brutally calm. "She is in terrible shape. The family needs to prepare for the worst."
I stood at the end of the hallway. Above my grandmother's head, the number flickered like a slow-burning fire.
"Two hundred and forty."
Claire clamped her hand over my mouth.
Daniel went pale. He knelt down, his voice a harsh hiss. "Sophie, shut up! You cannot say things like that out loud."
Grandmother did not die that night.
After being brought home, she miraculously began to recover. She even spent her afternoons listening to the radio in the sun.
Until the two-hundred-and-fortieth day. She passed away in her sleep.
That was when my family finally understood exactly what my numbers meant.

My boyfriend of five years was actually Gideon Pryce, Vale City's wealthiest heir—and our entire relationship was just a gold-digger test.
Then he handed me the receipts. Every dollar he’d spent on me in five years. He wanted it back.
He didn’t know about the ultrasound in my purse. Eleven weeks. A rare complication. One surgery that afternoon was my baby’s only chance, and I’d scraped together every cent of the $120,000 it cost.
He drained my account and bought his childhood best friend a Birkin.
I lost the baby. He said I was being dramatic.
Fine. He wants to talk money? Let’s talk money.
He spent five years hunting for a gold digger. By the time I’m done, he’ll find one—staring back at him in the mirror.

To get the only targeted drug for my sister's sudden rare disease flare-up, I knelt before the city's elites in a grease-stained janitor's uniform and barked like a dog. My wife in name only glared at me with absolute disgust, cursing that I was worse than a dog. The chaebol heir even crushed the medicine bottle under his shoe, forcing me into a "no fighting back" death match in the underground black market.

Enduring the agony of broken bones, I survived ten brutal rounds, only to be handed swapped poison and witness a monstrous fire engulf the clinic.

Watching my sister's life-support indicators gradually fade in the sea of flames, and looking at the female doctor whose legs were shattered while trying to protect her, I shed no tears.

I calmly pulled a glass shard from my ribs and took out the black satellite communicator I had kept hidden and sealed away for three years.

"Command received, Supreme Commander."

Tonight, I will make the chaebols of this city completely vanish from the face of the earth.

Four years. Ninety-nine times on the altar, and the Alpha I was going to mate held the door for every one of them.
I heal from anything. That is the only reason they picked me.
The Moon Goddess promised that the hundredth offering would buy back the night somebody stole from me. The night Cassian knows it was me who dug him out of that mine, and looks at me the way he used to.
Not this one. In this one I am what his priestess practises on.
So I never refused. Not once, not through any of the fevers.
Tonight is the hundredth. The drug hasn't taken, and the two of them are talking on the other side of the door.
"It'll hold. We built that voice out of her own memories."
"The heart tonight, not an eye. When she wakes, don't let anything slip."
There is no Moon Goddess. There never was.
And he doesn't know my healing was never mine. Something else lives in my chest, and it stays there because my heart does.
Take it out and I don't wake up.

Beau and I have been together for three years. I paid for the entire yacht charter out of my own pocket, and he shows up with his childhood best friend Sadie in tow, then goes around telling everyone it was his idea, his grand gesture.

Out on the water, Sadie spots a small octopus drifting near the surface and decides she has to have it. The thing pulses with glowing blue rings.

I'm a certified expert diver. I know exactly what it is the second I see it. I try to stop her.

She bursts into tears and tells Beau I'm going after her.

So Beau, ever the hero where Sadie's concerned, jumps in himself and fishes the thing out.

Sadie plays with it. It bites her. She's on the deck before she even knows what hit her.

Beau grabs me, screaming at me to suck out the venom. I refuse. He calls me a cold, heartless bitch, and in the chaos, shoves me overboard into shark-infested water.

I die out there. Nothing left of me.

They use my phone to fake a suicide note. Depression, they say. Jumped on her own. Then they take my company, my assets, everything.

They post online hinting I tried to push Sadie in and slipped.

My parents, worn down by the online harassment and the grief of losing me, both die of heart attacks.

Then I open my eyes. And I'm back. The morning of the trip.

My husband, Caspian, faked his company’s bankruptcy. We had to sell our luxury cars and our mansion, squeezing into a leaky, moldy basement.
By day, I worked back-to-back shifts in the ER saving lives. By night, I slipped into revealing dresses to sling drinks at a bar, all to shoulder a massive debt that never even existed.
Until I bumped into him in a VIP room. The man who was supposedly drowning in stress was lounging on a sofa with his suit unbuttoned, swirling a glass of whiskey, a secretary in his arms. His mistress leaned in and smirked, telling me Caspian had found me boring for a long time.
She also bragged that while he claimed to be working until 3 AM, he was actually going back to our old house at 10 PM, sleeping in our master bedroom.
Caspian showed zero remorse. Instead, he demanded I roll over and accept the woman, tossing me a meager payoff and threatening to ruin my medical career.
I threw away my wedding ring. I swallowed my tears. I finally saw it all for what it was.
From today on, I am only doing one thing: taking back what belongs to me, piece by piece.

The ninety-ninth time I slept with Alexander, he dragged me back into his arms and said he was going to take me “home.”
I thought he finally wanted to acknowledge me. Turned out he just wanted me to go with him to meet his future Luna.
Later, when the car crash happened, the one he threw himself over to protect was someone else. At the hospital, he carefully held and fed the soup to someone else. On the night of the engagement party, he interlaced his fingers with hers under the lights and publicly announced their wedding.
I stood in the corner and watched him kiss another Omega.
That was the moment I finally understood—twenty years of devotion still couldn’t compare to a single soft “I’m scared” from her.
So, I turned around and walked away. Deleted his contact, blocked his number, disappeared from his world.
I thought he wouldn’t care.
I never expected that ten minutes before his wedding ceremony began, he was standing backstage, calling my number like a madman.

News broke that a classmate had fallen from a building. The forensic assessment said it was homicide. Someone claimed they’d seen the killer: a young girl in a red coat.
The police came to our home. My stepsister shoved me forward. Mom said, “My daughter owns a red coat and she wasn’t at home yesterday.”

"You want to marry me and have my name, Amy?" His breath grazed my ear, sending an involuntary shiver down my spine. "Then you’ll take everything that comes with it."
My eyes widened slightly. “What do you mean?”
He brought his smiling face directly in front of mine with our noses almost touching.
"You have to take everything," he murmured. "My money, my status and my body."
My breath hitched but I quickly shook my head. No. No, I couldn’t do that.
“I want a strictly contractual marriage. With a time limit,” I said, my voice steady, but my hands clenched into fists.
His lips curled into a smirk. "And a contract marriage is what you’ll get. No feelings. No strings attached. One year.”
I narrowed my eyes, “I won’t sleep with you.” I truly didn’t trust myself around a man like him. If I actually slept with him, what if I developed feelings? There was no way I would let myself fall for another Wellington.
His next words however knocked the air right out of my lungs. "Oh, no, I need you to understand this, sweetheart. There will be no sleeping. Only fucking."


Amy Hart thought she had it all, a fated mate, a future as Luna of Rainwood Pack, and a wedding just two months away. But when she walks in on her mate, Derek with another woman, just hours after her father's funeral, her perfect world shatters.
That same day, her mother ended up in the hospital and needed emergency surgery. Desperate for money to save her dying mother, Amy turns to the one person who can help her: Richard Wellington, Derek's uncle, the ruthless Alpha of Darkwood Pack.
Amy offers herself as his contract wife for one but he insisted on her officially being his Luna and sharing his bed.
In return, he'll save her mother, fund her education, and give her the ultimate revenge, watching Derek grovel after her feet.
But Richard is no savior. He's a patient predator who's been waiting years to claim her. And the contract she's about to sign gives him every access to her.

Congratulations, Mrs. Miles, you're pregnant with quadruplets!
Estella Miles, after years of emotional turmoil, is overjoyed to learn she’s expecting two boys and two girls. Married for five years to a renowned billionaire capitalist, Cameron, she rushes home to share the news as the perfect birthday surprise. But her world shatters when Cameron, unmoved by the pregnancy reveal, tears up the test results and serves her divorce papers. In a cruel twist, he replaces her with her twin sister, Riana.
A heated confrontation between the sisters lands Estella unconscious in the hospital where she works. There, she’s saved by a charismatic, sexy doctor—who also happens to be her boss, the billionaire owner of the hospital. As sparks fly, Estella finds herself falling for the man who mends her broken heart.
Meanwhile, Cameron uncovers Riana’s deception—she’s scammed him and fled, leaving him to grapple with the truth about Estella’s pregnancy and his grave mistake. Determined to win her back, he vows, “I must find her.”
Will Estella forgive her ex-husband and rekindle their past, or will she surrender to the passionate connection with her billionaire doctor boss, whose touch ignites undeniable chemistry?

For three years, I was Julian Vance’s perfect shadow.

By day, I was the flawless executive secretary who kept his multi-billion-dollar empire running without a single hitch. By night, I was his secret, contract wife a convenient arrangement kept hidden behind the closed doors of his penthouse to satisfy a dying man's wish. I loved him in the quiet darkness, enduring his coldness, his family’s venom, and the cruel taunts of his elite childhood friend, Victoria.

But three months ago, the illusion shattered. When I was trapped in a hospital room losing our unborn child, Julian was on a red carpet with Victoria. His message to me through his assistant? “Do not interrupt important business meetings with minor domestic emergencies.”

That was the day Vivian Lane died.
The moment our three-year contract expires at midnight, I slide two papers across his mahogany desk: our signed divorce decree and my immediate resignation.

Julian scoffs, arrogant and completely convinced I’ll be crawling back to him within a month when my bank account dries up. He thinks I'm a penniless outcast with nowhere to turn.

He has no idea that while I was playing his submissive secretary, I was quietly building my own foundation. Now, his biggest corporate clients are jumping ship to my new boutique firm, and an international venture capital network has just hired a legendary, anonymous digital strategist known as "The Cipher" to engineer a hostile takeover of Vance Enterprises.

That strategist is me.
As his empire begins to bleed out brick by brick, the billionaire who once looked down on me finally drops to his knees. But I’m no longer his secretary, and I’m no longer his wife. If he wants me back, he’ll have to survive the ruin I’m about to bring to his doorstep.

I still remember the way the air felt when it left my lungs for the last time.

For five years, I was the Quiet Luna of the Blood Moon Pack. I was the wolf-less girl who wasn’t supposed to be there, the one the Omegas mocked and the elders ignored. I thought Nikolai Grey was the kind brother—the safe choice. I loved him through every cold look, and every night he left me alone because I couldn't give him a pup.

I was his wife, but to him, I was just a prophecy to be fulfilled. And when I didn't fit the mold? He didn't just discard me. He ended my life in front of everyone.

But the Moon Goddess gave me a second chance.

I woke up five years ago. The Knight family expects me to marry a Grey. They think I’m going to choose the charming, smiling Nikolai again.

They’re wrong.

I’m done being the victim. If I’m going to survive this life, I don’t need a husband; I need a weapon. I need the brother Nikolai is terrified of. The one they call a monster because he doesn't know how to pretend.

Alexander Grey. He’s ruthless. He’s cold. He’s the Alpha everyone avoids in the hallways. I walked right up to him, ignored the warning growl in his chest, and asked him to marry me.

Nikolai thinks he’s getting a submissive bride. He has no idea that this time, I’m bringing his worst nightmare home to dinner.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked finally.

“What I should have done a long time ago,” I replied, not turning around. “Leaving you.” My hand closed around the door handle.

“Not with my child.”


Married off to him to settle a debt that was never mine, I was nothing more than a contract… a means to an end.

An heir.

That was all Adrian Blackwood ever wanted from me.

Not my love. Not my heart. Not me. But still… I gave it to him anyway.

Year after year, I loved a man who never once looked at me the way I looked at him. And when my time was up, when the contract ended and no child tied me to him, I walked away.

Until fate played its cruel joke.

Because just when I finally left him behind, I found out I was carrying his child.

Now the man who never wanted me… refuses to let me go.

Twenty-one-year-old Adrian Blood had nothing — no parents, no money, he was just a scholarship and a girlfriend he thought was worth saving for. Valentine's night stripped even that away. Teresa chose his bully. Ricardo's men put him in the garbage, literally.

Then a voice activated in his head.

The Chosen Heir System doesn't do sympathy — it does missions. Its first order: save the sister of the man who just destroyed him. Adrian ran through the rain, bleeding, and did it anyway.

One mission. One million dollars.

Ricardo Rodriguez has no idea what he just created. And the system is only getting started.

I swear, I hate my husband.

At my birthday party, my husband whispered to his mistress in French that he missed her. His voice was low, but I heard it all—the black lingerie, the bit about how pregnancy makes you more sensitive. His French clients around us were laughing. He turned and put his arm around me, claiming he was just helping his clients come up with sweet nothings.

He doesn't know I understand every single word. Just like he doesn't know that inside my body, I'm carrying his other surprise. And his mistress—she's pregnant too. Two wombs, one secret.

Confrontation would be too cheap. Tears are worthless. I quietly started cataloging the hidden networks my father left behind, activating the Swiss accounts.

In seven days, Zoey Smith will cease to exist. And what will my husband's reaction be?

Adrian Vale thought he had planned the perfect accident.
His mistress would receive my kidney. My unborn child would disappear. And I would wake up too broken—and too frightened—to expose him.
Instead, I escaped.
Now the world believes Claire Whitmore is dead, my husband is mourning beside an empty grave, and every secret he buried is being delivered to the police.
He wanted me gone.
He should have made sure I stayed dead.

Ten o'clock on a Friday night. I'd just gotten my daughter down when my phone lit up.
A name I hadn't seen in three years: Preston Kane.
Sophie, it's been three years. You've had long enough to cool off. I land at Logan tomorrow night. Come pick me up, and bring your parents. Let's set a date.
Let's do the wedding on Isla Perla. You always talked about that place.
I stared at the screen. I sent back a single question mark. Then I added: We broke up three years ago.
A voice memo came back almost instantly. He sounded exactly the same. That same unshakable certainty.
"Broke up? Says who? I never said that. You haven't dated anyone in three years. You were waiting for me, obviously. Don't worry, I'm going to marry you. As for Nina, try to be the bigger person. She's the one who took care of me in London all this time. I'm sure you two will get along fine."
I turned my phone face down on the nightstand.

A Hollywood producer pays stunt performer Mara Keene half a million dollars to move in with her movie-star son. She'll get another half million if she can keep Theo Mercer away from the actress who's been taking advantage of him.

Theo opens the door, learns what his mother has done, and tells Mara to get out. Mara is ready to return the money—until his mother offers the second payment. She turns back with her suitcase. Theo can hate the arrangement all he wants; Mara isn't leaving. But sharing a house with a man who refuses to be managed may prove harder than taking the job.

I lost my memory.
When I woke up, my biological parents and aloof wife were fussing over the fake young master's bedside.
I, the real young master who had just awakened from a coma, only received my wife's cold command: "Sebastian needs a blood transfusion. Go donate."
Looking at the scars on my wrists from her suicide attempt, my amnesiac mind only felt absurdity.
I calmly donated blood, then turned and signed the divorce papers, leaving with nothing, and unilaterally published a notice severing all ties with my family.
Later, the fake young master's conspiracy was exposed. My arrogant female CEO wife destroyed her entire family, flew halfway around the world overnight, and knelt at the airport, tears streaming down her face, begging me to come home.
I, however, took the hand of a haired female professor and looked at her coldly: " Sorry, I already have a partner ."

On the eve of the wedding, Dante sold me to Alex, a deranged auto mechanic, for two dollars.
His friend confused.
“You’re going to marry Chole, that adult film actress. Just send Lucia away. You two were betrothed as children, and she’s lived with the Costellos for ten years. You must care about her at least a little.”
“That mechanic’s violent and ugly. She’ll suffer terribly if she marries him.”
Dante smirked.
“It’s just a small punishment. Chole comes from the bottom and is riddled with insecurities; all she wants is the title of wife. But Lucia refused to be my mistress, and worse, she made Chole cry.”
“Mark my words. Before half a day passes, she’ll throw a fit, threaten to take her own life, and beg me to let her stay by my side.”
His friend shook his head.
“Aren’t you scared she’ll go through with the marriage out of spite?”
Dante sipped his tea unhurriedly.
“No need to worry. She’s believed since childhood that she’d be my wife. Even if she’s furious for a moment, she’d never give herself to another man. I’ll rescue her after I marry Chole the day after tomorrow, then take her on as my mistress. She’ll only grow more devoted to me afterward.”
I clutched the two dollars tight and turned away without a word.

When my younger brother got into a top university, the whole family celebrated for him.
I, suffering from a terminal illness, clutched my chest and desperately cried for help, only to be met with a disgusted slap from my mother and the words, "You just can't stand to see your brother doing well!"
She thought I was a spoilsport, so she roughly dragged me back to the room and locked the door from the outside.
She didn't know that those were the last words I ever heard in my life.
The next morning, she opened the door with breakfast in hand, only to find my corpse.

In the Hall of Divine Selection, my younger sister stepped on me and declared that she was the only one worthy of becoming the Dragon Queen. Then she threw Kaelorn at me—a broken, half-blind dragon she had tortured until even his tail was severed—like he was nothing more than a worthless mate for a worthless bride.
In my last life, I was stripped to the bone and imprisoned by the Dragon God, while she lived free and untouched.
But this time, the moment she raised her hand to slap me, I had already made up my mind—
In this life, I'll be the one to drag her into hell.

I bled to death on a cold hospital bed, my unborn child gone, all because I took a shift for my coworker.
Heaven granted me a second chance. I opened my eyes, sitting safely at my office desk. Before I could shake off the nightmare, Vanessa clicked her heels toward me.
"Claire, can you cover for me at the investor party tonight? It’s my anniversary with my boyfriend."
In my past life, I agreed, only to be locked in a private room by monsters and tortured to death. This time, I looked her in the eye. "No."
Vanessa was stunned. Because of my refusal, she missed the crucial meeting and was mercilessly fired by the director.
I thought I had escaped hell and saved her life too. But when I got home to my loving husband, I realized the true nightmare had just begun...

In my past life, we were camping in the wilderness area of a state park when my best friend handed out "lucky charms" to the whole group. Charms she'd secretly packed full of wildlife attractant.

A wild boar knocked me to the ground outside the cabin door. Its tusks tore into my stomach. I pounded on the wood with both fists, screaming. "Help! Open the door!"

Inside were my boyfriend of two years and the best friend I'd been quietly supporting for just as long. Autumn Warren.

"I'm so sorry, Brynn." Autumn's voice broke into sobs, but her weight stayed pressed hard against the door. "There are boars everywhere. We open that door, we're all dead."

"Just hold on! I'm calling 911!" Wyatt Fletcher's voice rang out with the kind of conviction that cost him absolutely nothing.

I paid for that trip. I'd fallen behind because I'd stopped to pull Autumn along.

And they stood on the other side of that door, my blood soaking into the dirt, and locked me out.

I open my eyes. I'm back. It's the day we left.

"Come see our wedding invitations!" I excitedly held up the document folder I'd grabbed from ,my fiancé, Lorenzo's study, showing it off to his men in his private safe house on the Upper East Side.

Lorenzo and I had been running ourselves ragged this month preparing for the wedding.

Lorenzo's guys raised their glasses, waiting to see our custom-designed invitations. I eagerly turned the folder upside down—

Marriage certificates, wedding photos, and a property transfer document came tumbling out onto the floor.

Dead silence.

"Oh, these aren't our invitations..." I was still grinning foolishly. "Must be the wrong folder."

"Let me see which lucky lady is about to become a happy bride."

I looked down at the wedding photo. A beautiful brunette woman in an elaborate white gown smiled from the center of the picture, looking so blissful, so content.

When my eyes shifted to the groom beside her, my world collapsed.

It was Lorenzo. He wore a perfect black tuxedo, but he was tenderly embracing a woman I'd never seen before.

Alexandra Moretti has not taken a single step down the aisle when the cathedral doors open behind her.
A nurse comes in with a newborn and a birth record. The mother is in surgery. The father, she says, is the groom.
Vincent DeLuca does not deny it. Neither does his family. They offer ten minutes in the priest's office and a simple arrangement: the boy will be provided for quietly, and Alexandra will still be Mrs. DeLuca.
They have misjudged her.
This was never a wedding. It was a merger, and Alexandra is the only person in the room who read every clause. She sets the ring on a pew, orders her security chief to recover the signed papers, and walks out of St. Patrick's before the ink is dry.
Her father does not stop her.
By tonight, the DeLucas will find out how much of their empire was only ever borrowed.

As I sat in the police station with Yvonne Harper, my boyfriend’s childhood sweetheart, waiting for bail arrangements to be made, the decision loomed.
One of us could go home tonight.
My mate, Alpha Jackson, chose to take her.
"Nicole, just wait for me one more night. I’ll come back for you tomorrow," he said.
He was worried about her fragile health, but he didn’t care about my fear of the dark.
Later, I called him. My voice was steady, though my heart ached.
"Jackson," I began, "for the past few years, I’ve been waiting for you."
"But I won’t wait forever."

When her fated mate chooses her best friend, Euphyllia Ivara Ruinart discovers a cruel truth that she has been reborn countless times, only to be betrayed in every life.

In her despair, one forbidden night binds her to Lucretius Xior Franciosa, Alpha of the Golden Eclipse Pack, commander in the royal military, and her mate's own uncle and sworn enemy. From that night on, cryptic notes and a single chrysanthemum begin to appear, which she soon discovers are from him. It's his constant reminder that she is being watched, claimed, and marked as his.

Then comes his offer: vengeance, in exchange for her body, her trust, and perhaps even her soul. A deal with the devil, which she accepts, swearing to destroy the mate who cast her aside and the friend who betrayed her.

What starts as revenge becomes an entanglement with his darkness, where obsession devours love and ruin is the only end. But amidst the chaos of betrayal and desire, Euphyllia yearns to uncover the mystery of her past lives and discover who she truly is.

Warning: Contains strong language, smuts, abuse and some really explicit content, please read at your risk. "Let go of me…" Arabella said. She grimaced, shaking her head. "Do you think I would let you go so easily?" He questioned, then tutted. Sandro's nostrils flared as he sniffed her hair wrapped in his hands, Vanilla and Strawberry. The innocent yet naughty scent he remembered her with. "That would never happen, Cara Mia." Arabella gasped as Sandro pressed his body into hers. She moved to shove him away but he grasped her hands and pinned them above her head before pointing the gun at her temple. Arabella shut her eyes tightly as the gun cocked. She inhaled and bit her tongue whilst saying her last prayer inwardly. She wanted to run far away from him. Away from the surface of the earth if possible. But she was certain no matter how far she went, he was going to find her. ------------------------------------- Arabella's life took a u-turn after falling into her enemy's hand. She should feel nothing for him, however. He made her lose all her senses, even her clothes. At the mercy of her foe, she discovers some secrets about him and wishes to unravel more, but got what she didn't bargain for. Alessandro, an Alpha werewolf assuming the identity of a mafia Lord. He was the most wanted criminal in COOAN, and his name incites fear in all werewolves' packs. He was a man fighting his demons and needs a saviour before he drowns. After a traumatic childhood event that left him scarred, Blaze often kept to himself and trusted no one until he met Arabella, whom he believed was the perfect mate sent to him by the moon's goddess. However, she was taken. The powerful urge to save her from her...

I killed my fated mate to survive.

Beta Shax Wulfric was the pack’s most ruthless hunter, sent to drag me back in chains. So I ended him. Or I thought I did.

Months later, he finds me again. Alive. Amnesiac. And utterly convinced I’m his wife… and the child in my arms is ours.

Now the monster who once rejected and humiliated me looks at me like I’m his entire world. He touches me like I’m something precious.

If he remembers, he’ll kill me.
If he doesn’t, I might fall for him all over again.

The Koch family is the oldest family in the Blue Star Kingdom. As the new generation heir, Chad Koch has encountered many women—some attracted to his wealth, others to his looks, but none genuinely cared for him as a person. Consequently, Chad Koch has perpetually upheld a demeanor of aloofness towards the fairer sex.
Amidst a twist of fate, Daphne emerges as the savior of Chad Koch's venerable grandfather.
Thus unfolds the tale of emotional intricacies between a haughty scion of royalty and a humble maiden of the farmlands.

I used to think love was supposed to hurt.

Sidney forgot me five times in one month, left me waiting in the dark, and always had a reason—Azalea needed help, his friends needed him, something else came first.

I told myself he loved me.

He just loved me lazily.

Then one night, after I missed the last bus from my competition, I called the Lawson house. Sidney wasn’t there. Elijah answered.

He was rude. Cold. Infuriating.

But he came.

When three men cornered me on an empty street, Elijah became a wall between me and danger. When I cried in my bathroom, he cleaned my bruises. When my calf cramped so badly I couldn’t stand, he knelt on the tile and fixed the pain with careful hands.

He never said sweet things.

He just showed up.

Again and again.

Soon, I started looking for him in every crowd, every rainstorm, every silent night. I told myself it was gratitude. Dependence. Anything but love.

Because falling for Elijah meant betraying Sidney.

But how long can a heart stay loyal to someone who never protects it?

He once swore the whole world to me，yet he threw me aside without a second thought，all for his precious adopted sister.
He trampled on my love, ruined my youth, and let me fall into the abyss alone while doting on another woman.
Years later, I return from the ashes, powerful and cold.
I will step into his world, shatter his fame, destroy his fortune, and take away everything he holds dear.
He abandoned me for his adopted sister.
Now, I am his inevitable ruin.

My wife was sleeping with her assistant.

I didn’t confront her. I was in the middle of a critical funding round and about to take over as CEO, and I couldn’t afford to act on emotion.

Then my PI told me the truth: the affair was only the beginning.

On her birthday night, she planned to drug me, send my secretary into my room, and frame me for cheating—maybe even saddle me with a fake child scandal.

If it worked, my CEO promotion would be dead, the funding would collapse, and my reputation would be finished.

She thought the setup was flawless.

Too bad she forgot one thing:

I’m not good at explaining myself. I’m good at letting people walk straight into the trap I built for them.

So that night, the man carried into the room wasn’t me.

It was her lover.

I’m a werewolf.

Three months ago, I got involved in a back-alley “not my problem”—a man held a knife to a woman clutching her child. I rushed him and tore his throat out with my teeth.

Now the police are hunting me. My pack can’t protect me. The only option left is to slip out of the country.

The fixer at the meet hands me a bottle of “calming meds,” says it’ll get me through the checkpoints.

I smell the drugs anyway. I drink it.

When I wake up, my hands are tied behind my back inside a sealed metal cargo truck. Someone beside me is crying. Someone else is shaking.

That’s when I realize I’ve been sold into a trafficking ring. They slap a number tag on me, lock me in a steel cage, and wait for dawn to ship us out.

A guard cracks my face with a rifle stock—sure I’m just another desperate man trying to disappear.

He has no idea a cage can’t hold a werewolf.

Especially not tonight—under a full moon.

There was a project at our company that promised a £50,000 bonus upon completion.
As the lead planner, I had worked my fingers to the bone for over half a year, pushing the project to 99% completion. Yet, just a week ago, right at the final hurdle, Charlotte—the daughter of the company’s largest shareholder—got jealous.

Eager to steal the ultimate credit, she forcibly parachuted into the project department, hijacked my position as the lead planner, and insisted on presenting the pitch to the client’s top executives herself.

Amateurs dictating to professionals—the outcome was entirely predictable.
Her arrogant, clueless micro-management completely infuriated the client’s Big Boss. They flipped out on the spot, threatening to terminate the contract and seek damages.

After causing this catastrophic disaster, the "princess"—who normally paraded around calling everyone her "bros"—played dead at the speed of light.
She ignored calls, left emails unread, and threw the entirely collapsed, hopeless mess right into my face.

For the sake of my team's blood, sweat, and tears, and even more so to prevent my boyfriend Bastian’s company from getting sued, I paid £24,000 out of my own pocket. I stayed up for three consecutive nights, scrambling to find a backup crew, booking restaurants to humbly appease the client, and ultimately breathed life back into the chaotic mess she left behind.

I thought that when I brought the receipts in for reimbursement, I would at least get a guilty "thank you." Instead, she flipped through the stack of invoices, let out a cold sneer, and smacked them right back into my face.

"Bella, after making such a massive compliance mess, you actually have the nerve to ask me for a reimbursement?"

Five years ago, my fiancée and a chaebol heir broke my ribs and threw me into the sewer like trash.

Five years later, they implanted a neurotoxin bomb into the back of my sister's neck, forcing me on all fours to crawl between the security guards' legs into their engagement banquet at a Manhattan penthouse hotel.

My ex-fiancée poured champagne over my wounds, while the chaebol heir ground caviar into the muddy water with his leather shoes, forcing me to lick it clean like a dog.

The room full of Wall Street elites laughed at my humiliation, thinking I was still the same bottom-tier temp worker from back then.

They had no idea that through my micro-earpiece, a heavy armored division was already on standby under the cover of night.

When the confirmation came that the bomb had been defused, I slowly stood up straight.

Outside the window, engines roared. Ten heavy Black Hawk helicopters tore through the curtain of rain, their heavy machine guns instantly shattering the banquet hall's reinforced glass.

Looking down at the chaebol heir who was now slumped in the muddy water, I drew my sidearm: "The debt from five years ago—today, I'm collecting it with your family's lives."

Everyone said I was just a shadow of Ethan, that I was nothing without him.
So during the tryouts, to comfort his "scared" sweetheart, he let go mid-jump, almost costing me my life.
He was betting I couldn't leave him, that I'd forgive him like I did the last eighteen times.
But he lost.
This time, I didn't cry or throw a fit.
I simply tossed the apartment key that symbolized our seven years together into the trash, then turned and walked toward my own world championship.

I was going to donate a kidney to my fiancé.

Before telling him I was a match, I lied and said I was the one with kidney failure. Dean froze for only a few seconds before canceling the wedding. He said sick people should leave on their own instead of burdening everyone else.

I was about to ask whether he had wanted to call off the wedding all along when his biological sister walked out of his bedroom wearing his shirt.

Translation

Zombies besieged the city. I fought through the infected zone alone and brought back the vaccine.

All of humanity hailed me as their savior.

But at the medal ceremony, my superior and fiancée Amy shoved me aside. "You're covered in blood. Stand over there. Would it kill you to be more like David?"

"A man who can't even bear to look at violence—that's what a civilized person looks like."

For the sake of being her idea of civilized, I locked away my weapons and spent three years as her errand boy. I took countless bullets meant for her, and still she complained I wasn't gentle enough.

Then the virus mutated. To save David, I crushed a Tyrant's skull with my bare hands.

She threw her arms around the trembling David, slammed the table, and screamed at me: "If you don't get this violent streak under control, you can forget about being the Chief's husband. Apologize to David. Now."

The vaccine I'd risked my life for—she used every last drop of it to win favor with her pretty boy.

I ejected the magazine from my rifle and tossed my medal into the rubble.

"That position of yours? Give it to whoever you want."

All I wanted was five dollars for boba from my older brother.

Our university's freshman leadership program included outdoor fitness training. By the afternoon break, I was exhausted enough to beg.

“Your favorite sister is dying out here. Send milk tea. Please.”

No answer. I tried again.

“Ignoring me now? Found yourself a better little sister?”

This time, his account replied immediately.

“Brother this, brother that. Is that the only way you know how to get a man's attention?”

I thought he was being weird. Then I woke from a nap to find my picture and our messages on the campus gossip page.

A senior I'd never met had posted them.

“My boyfriend left his spare phone with me while he's away on business. Look what I found. She's a freshman here. Already chasing someone else's man, and she can't even afford a five-dollar drink.”

Someone offered fifty dollars to find out what else “Boba Girl” would do.

The senior replied, “Fifty? Five would cover it.”

I saved screenshots and a recording of the post, so angry I could barely hold my phone steady.

If this was the woman my brother planned to bring into our family, he and I needed to talk.

I straighten up after three back-to-back all-nighters, my stomach aching so badly I can barely stand up straight. At one in the morning, I head to the twenty-four-hour diner below my studio for a bowl of soup, just to keep myself going.

Steam rises off the bowl, and when I look up, my blood goes cold.

Beckett Wexford, my husband, head of the Wexford Group and a man with a serious germ phobia, sits right there, completely out of place in this greasy late-night diner.

He patiently picks the onions out of her burger, one piece at a time, while the girl next to him laughs, bright and carefree, her profile eerily close to what mine looked like at twenty.

"Beckett, you're so bad at this. It's just an onion."

The man who's been ice cold to me for years has a look in his eyes I've never seen before, soft, doting, like she's something precious to him.

"Hold on, almost done."

Eight years of marriage, and I turned myself into some neurotic housekeeper. Turns out all that tenderness was just going somewhere else.

I pull out my phone and open the divorce agreement I drafted a while ago.

Eight years. It's time to get myself out of this.

Three years of companionship, I secretly suppressed her violent S-class psionic power with my mortal body.
Yet on the day of her awakening, she cast me out like garbage.
The night I left, her genetic collapse began.
When the Zerg invaded and she knelt begging for mercy, I walked onto the battlefield alone—where my Nullification Field passed, the Zerg Overmind was reduced to a punching bag.
Star nobles dared to touch my sister?
I single-handedly breached their orbital fortress.
Now I've established the iron law of the universe, and all races bow before me.
And that woman who once drove me away is now kneeling in acid rain, her forehead bleeding from kowtowing.
Too bad—my hot pot is ready, and I have no time to open the door.

"You were like a starved beast last night," I complained, spreading jam on my toast.
Gideon's hands froze mid-knot on his tie. He turned to me, his eyes filled with utter bewilderment.
"Nadia, are you out of your mind? I was in the study finishing up that proposal last night. I crashed on the couch at three in the morning. I never even went into the bedroom."
The knife dropped from my hand onto the table.
If the man I made love to all night wasn't my husband.
Then... who was it?

For three years, I had a secret affair with my uncle—Alpha Lucius.
We explored every inch of desire, every way two people could belong to each other.
I thought it was love.
So when I found out I was pregnant, I ran to him without hesitation.
But the moment his first love returned, I understood—I was just a stand-in.
He sent me away.
Said we were over.
All because he wanted to give her a grand wedding.
Five years later, I returned to the Blackthorn Pack… with a child.
Alpha Lucius stared at me in shock.
“Whose child is that?”
I pulled the boy closer into my arms.
“My son. He’s five.”
Then I looked down and said softly,
“Say hello, Liam.”

Three years after my first love, a Mafia Don, handed me over to his enemies, he finally came to “rescue” me.
Not out of guilt—but because his daughter needed my blood.

Don Silas held me and cried as if his heart were breaking, saying he had thought of me every day.
How ridiculous—his wife Serena stood beside him, and behind them was their daughter, Ava.

I pretended to be moved.
Pretended I still loved him.
Pretended I was willing to be his daughter’s blood donor… and his second wife.

Only one person knew I was acting.
Underboss Liam—the only one who ever managed to get messages to me during those three years of captivity.

“I’ll find a way to get you out.” he said.

But on the day we planned to escape, the Gravoni family—the very people who had imprisoned me—arrived.

Their Don, Joe, looked at me with deep remorse.
“Vera, I’m sorry. Back then, I didn’t know… you were my late sister’s daughter.”

Now both families want me.

But all I want… is to leave alive.

To pay for her daughter’s leukemia treatment, Nora takes every job she can find. But the wedding she’s hired to plan belongs to the one man she never expected to see again.
Five years ago, Xie Yanchen was her first love. Now he’s a powerful CEO… and about to marry another woman. Worse, she must plan their wedding herself.
What he doesn’t know is that she secretly gave birth to his child.
What she doesn’t know is that this reunion will change both their lives forever.
As the truth slowly comes to light, he realizes the woman he once lost has spent five desperate years raising his daughter alone.

After being poisoned by her foster sister for years—fed weight-gain hormones disguised as vitamins—Chloe Harrison lost 90 pounds and clawed her way back from rock bottom.
Her cruel foster sister Mia even tricked her into a humiliating one-night stand with what she called "a fat, balding stranger." But that night was anything but shameful—it was unforgettable.
Now Mia has one final insult: marry the "pathetic cripple" Mia publicly rejected—a bankrupt, wheelchair-bound recluse named Julian Astor.
However, everything changes when Chloe walks into that conference room. Julian isn’t a broken old man—he’s six-foot-three of raw power in a Tom Ford suit, a devastatingly possessive billionaire CEO who makes her forget how to breathe.
All of a sudden, her contract marriage turns into something dangerously real. Julian doesn’t just want her on paper—he wants to worship every curve, trace every scar, and take her every single night.
Why does his touch feel so hauntingly familiar? And why does he look at her like he’s been searching for her since that rainy night?
A ruthless billionaire couldn’t possibly be obsessed with the woman he was never supposed to keep… could he?

A cheating husband. A burning curse. One forbidden night with a stranger who isn’t a stranger at all.
When Rose DeLuca’s world falls apart, the man who saves her turns out to be the Alpha she was destined for....and the billionaire who’s ready to claim everything, including her.

18+ WARNING: This novel contains mature themes, including explicit sexual content, betrayal, and dark romance.

I accidentally entered an S-rank horror dungeon, but thought it was some immersive dating show.

Facing the bloodthirsty Ghost King BOSS:

Others: Begging for mercy.

Me (blushing): Those pecs, that battle-damaged look—where did they find such a gorgeous contestant? I'm obsessed!

When he tried to strangle me, I touched his hand. "You're so cold, let me warm you up~"

Ghost King: ???

Facing the psycho doctor with a chainsaw:

Others: Screaming and running.

Me (swooning): Doctor, those beautiful fingers are meant for piano, not chainsaws. Be sweet and put that down!

Doctor: ...

Facing the flesh-eating demon:

Me: Raw meat isn't healthy! Here, have some chocolate instead!

Seven days later, the dungeon collapsed.

Me, waving goodbye through tears. "Even though it was acting, you became my family!"