1339 Book(s) Related to her dirty little secret

For three years, she was the invisible wife in a marriage of convenience, her quiet love met only with his cold indifference. Now, with her departure date set, the photos of him with his true love are the final proof she needs to walk away forever.

Her bags are packed, her future is hers alone. She plans to vanish without a trace, leaving behind only a signed divorce paper.

He never saw her—until he found her closet empty and his world unraveling. The man who took her for granted is now in a desperate race against time, tormented by a single question: Can he undo his greatest mistake, or has he already lost the one person who truly mattered?

Her father and stepmother died, leaving her in the brutal hands of her stepbrother. Her stepbrother is heartless.
He treats her as a maid, is it a torture?
She, however, discovers that she has been sold. Sold to a Ruthless Mafia, just to serve as a settlement for her stepbrother's debt. Now she fears her life. Would her life take a turn for the worse or for the best?

Chloe wasted ten years loving arrogant Zane. To win a Porsche bet, he publicly humiliated her, taking her devotion for granted. Finally awake, she cut him off and rebuilt herself as a brilliant top-university elite.
After losing her, Zane drowned in regret, begging desperately for her forgiveness. But it was too late. Chloe met the wealthy, gentle genius Liam, who healed all her wounds. Zane gambled with her heart—and lost her forever.

At the Eternal Night Realm admission ceremony, Carly suddenly grabs my hand.

My heart pounds. I think he is going to announce our relationship to the entire continent.

Instead, he says, "Eve, thanks for everything these past five years. But Lym didn't make the cut. She's hurting right now, and I need to go back and be there for her."

He crushes the realm token right in front of thousands of people.

For five years, I hid my pureblood lord identity. I drained my magic until I literally coughed up blood, quietly paving every step of his way.

I thought we loved each other. I thought after this ceremony we would rise to the top together.

But his casual thanks for everything crushes five years of my devotion into dust.

What is even more laughable is that the moment the online backlash hits Lym, he calls me on the comms.

"Eve! You need to put out a statement to clear this up right now! As my friend, you owe me this!"

Friend?

My hand holding the crystal shakes.

I tried twenty times to finalize my betrothal with Caius for our overseas fellowship, but accidents kept hurting me. I thought it was fate’s test—until I heard him admit he planned it all. He wanted another girl, using my pain to make me quit, all to keep his reputation clean. Now awake, I ended this lie for good.

At the Met Gala, I heard my husband tell his friends in French that I'm "boring." That his 22-year-old girlfriend is "so much more exciting in bed."

He laughed when they asked if I knew. "Elle ne comprend même pas 'bonjour'." (She doesn't even understand 'bonjour'.)

What Marcus doesn't know: I spent two years at the Sorbonne.

Je comprends tout, Marcus. I understand everything.

The diamond necklace he gave me after my miscarriage suddenly feels too tight. I smile at him across the champagne and candlelight.

He has no idea what's coming.

After my eighth trip to the psychiatric ward, I finally became the perfect, obedient wife my husband always wanted—even when I caught his childhood friend giving him a handjob in our living room.

"Ever heard of knocking?" Eric snapped, his eyes dark with irritation. "If those hands are useless, might as well chop them off." Without a word, I grabbed a kitchen knife and raised it toward my wrist. He kicked it away, screaming at me to stop being dramatic. So, I turned and charged headfirst toward the floor-to-ceiling window.

When I woke up, I heard him laughing with her. "She's fine. Just another attention stunt." He didn't know that the "treatment" he authorized had broken my mind into a million jagged pieces. He didn't know about the shock collars, the waterboarding, the dark cells. He thought I was finally "cured" of my jealousy.

It wasn't until a rafting trip, when his friend pushed me into the rapids and my prosthetic eye popped out and rolled across the deck, that his world shattered. As he stared at the empty black socket where my left eye used to be, he finally realized what those facilities had done to me. He dropped to his knees, screaming my name, but the woman who loved him was already dead.

Will his tears be enough to bring back the wife he destroyed, or is this just the beginning of his hell?

I'm dead.

Died that rainy night, desperate because I couldn't scrape together five thousand dollars to save my dog.

Liam laughed at me over the phone—my childhood friend told me to quit the sob story. His new girlfriend Sarah said I should get on my knees and beg if I wanted her to toss me some scraps. They had no idea every dollar I owed those loan sharks was to cover up Liam's hit-and-run.

My dog died. So I jumped into Black Lake.

It wasn't until they pulled my body from the water that Liam found the surveillance footage in that tin box and realized what a massive mistake he'd made. Then he snapped, dragging Sarah and everyone else who killed me down into the depths, one by one.

Too bad it was already too late.

Three months after my miscarriage, at the celebration dinner he hosts for my "recovery," he tells his partners in French, "She's just a trophy wife. Doesn't understand basic business."

"What about that new assistant? The twenty-two-year-old?"

"So much smarter," he laughs. "And in bed? Way more exciting."

They think I don't understand. To everyone here, I'm just the stay-at-home wife who gave up her VP position at an investment bank to play house.

They don't know I minored in French. I spent a full year studying abroad at the Sorbonne.

As I lay in the operating room, bleeding out from the miscarriage, he was already seeing her.

Je comprends tout. I understand everything.

Over the champagne and candlelight, I smile at him.

He has no idea this is the last time he'll ever see it.

On our wedding night, my husband wanted to play a game.
Trade secrets. The kind that could destroy you if they ever got out.
He went first.
"I hurt a girl once. At a ski lodge. She shouldn't have been in that room. But she was."
He said it like a parking ticket. Then he took a sip of whiskey and moved on.
My turn.
"I killed someone," I said. "Do you believe me?"
He laughed. He thought I was joking.
He really shouldn't have kissed me after that.

“Did you ever love me?” Summer Hayes asked her husband once.

Kieran Cross never answered.

For two years, Summer believed their marriage was revenge—cold touches, ruthless control, and silence sharp enough to wound. The billionaire boy she ignored in high school had finally made her pay for it.

Until the night he died saving her.

As their yacht sank beneath freezing waves, Kieran shoved her onto the rescue boat, blood on his lips, and mouthed the words he’d never said before:

“I love you.”

By the time Summer understood the truth, he was gone.

Three years later, destroyed by grief and PTSD, she crashes her car—and wakes up at sixteen.

This time, her mother is alive.
And Kieran is not the untouchable billionaire she remembers, but a poor scholarship student everyone overlooks.

Quiet. Exhausted. Starving himself to support his deaf little sister.

When no one offers him a seat, Summer does.

Because this lifetime, she’ll save the boy who died for her.

But falling for Kieran again may uncover the devastating truth behind the man he became—and why loving her always seems to end in tragedy.

Five years ago, Maya Vale came to a gala with a pregnancy test hidden in her clutch, ready to tell her billionaire husband, Adrian Cross, that they might finally have a child.

Instead, Adrian stood silent while his powerful family accused her of leaking pediatric records, stripped her of her work, and pushed her out of the marriage that should have protected her. Maya left with one secret and one rule: no one from the Cross family would ever get quiet access to her child.

Five years later, Maya returns as the founder of ValeCare and the mother of Lily, the daughter Adrian never knew existed. She did not come back to be claimed. She came back with rules, boundaries, and a life built far away from the Cross name.

But when Adrian sees Lily, the truth breaks open. His regret is immediate, but Maya refuses to let guilt become possession. As old accusations resurface and the Cross family reaches for Lily through schools, headlines, and family pressure, Maya must protect her daughter while forcing Adrian to face the truth he once refused to defend.

Can a man who erased his pregnant wife ever earn the right to stand beside her again?

For three years, I was his hidden wife. His secretary by day, his wife by night. No ring, no ceremony, no recognition. I gave up my medical career to save his dying company.
Then she came back. His first love. He announced her as his fiancée at his victory party. Right in front of me.
He asked for a divorce. I signed.
But he never knew the truth. That I was once the top student of a medical legend. That the secret drawing he found—the one he thought was another man—was actually him. That the woman he discarded is about to become the one he can never reach again.
Now? It's my turn to rise.

He drained my blood to save his mistress; now, I'm back to drain his empire dry.
"How can you do this to me, Zane?!" I ask in a heartbroken and devastated tone as tears roll down my cheeks in torrents.
"I stood by your side when everyone else left you! Hell, I donated my skin to you!" I say in a frantic tone as I try desperately to understand the reasons behind his actions.
"Stop being pathetic, Zara. You have lost the one thing that made you useful: your beauty, and in turn, your modelling career. The only woman who can secure my inheritance is Elora. You were only good while you lasted." Zane says with a sneer on his lips.
"It's over between us," Zane says with a tone of finality.


Zara Smith, blinded by love, abandons her heiress legacy and hides her identity to marry an illegitimate billionaire heir, Zane Wesley.
After getting into an accident staged by his step-siblings, he urgently needs saving. Despite being informed of all she had to lose, she donates parts of her skin to heal him.
When Zane no longer sees a need for her, he divorces her and marries another heiress to secure his inheritance. Three years later, she returns and is determined to bring Zane down.
To do this, she reclaims her legacy and... forms an alliance with her all-along silent investor and billionaire heir, Leo Armstrong. Watch them ruin the cheating couple—piece by piece!

When star hockey player Jack Reynolds tosses divorce papers at his wife Emma, he believes he's trading up for a more glamorous model who "understands his lifestyle." What he doesn't know: the quiet, supportive woman he's discarding is the secret heir to an $18 billion fortune – and the granddaughter of the man who owns his hockey team.For eight years, Emma Mitchell hid her true identity, supporting Jack's career while secretly learning the business from the ground up. Now, with her grandfather's health failing and the Boston Blades facing financial crisis, Emma is poised to step into her rightful role as majority owner.*Some men have to lose everything to realize what they had. Some women have to lose a husband to find themselves. In this game, the most dangerous plays happen off the ice.

"I'm on a business trip. I'll be home in two days."
That's what my husband told me before he stopped answering my calls.
That same night, our son was rushed to the hospital.
While I sat beside his bed, terrified and alone, I discovered a truth my husband had spent years hiding.
One lie led to another.
The deeper I dug, the less I recognized the man I'd loved for ten years.
He thought I would keep believing him.
He thought I would never leave.
Most of all, he thought everything he took from me would stay his.
He was wrong.
Because while he was busy protecting his secrets, I was gathering the truth.
And when the day finally came, I didn't just walk away from my marriage—
I made sure he paid for every lie.
This time, I'm not fighting to keep what we built together.
I'm taking back everything that was mine.

At seventy-two, Richard Hayes finally asked my mother for a divorce.

He thought he was setting himself free.

He did not know Eleanor Hayes had been waiting ten years for him to say the words.

By sunset, his new woman would be calling my mother cruel.

By winter, he would be standing on her porch with two suitcases and nowhere soft to land.

And my mother, who had spent nearly half a century opening doors for him, would finally learn how peaceful a locked door could sound.

I was always the extra daughter in the Cross family.
To my parents, I was nothing more than a walking blood bank for Clara. To my husband Adrian, I was a sinner who needed to atone for her crimes.
When Adrian forced me to donate a kidney to my sister, I agreed.
Not only did I agree, I liquidated every asset I owned and transferred it all to my research lab.
They thought I was stupid, thought I was still desperate for their love.
But all I was doing was putting my affairs in order.
The night before the surgery, I coughed up blood all over the table.
Adrian sneered over the phone. "Cut the act, Evelyn. You'll do anything to dodge responsibility. You just want attention—how pathetic."
The surgery was a "success."
My sister got the kidney she'd always wanted.
And I died in the recovery room.
My soul floated above my body as I watched Adrian walk into the hospital room, that patronizing smile on his face, ready to put on his "repentant husband" act.
"Eve, I know you've been hurt. Let's start over..."
The only answer he got was a white sheet pulled over my face.

I built Elias’s billion-dollar FinTech core system from the ground up. We once endured countless late nights in a basement, vowing to stick together. After the IPO, he grew obsessed with his fragile step-sister Mia. He shared my confidential code with her, ignored my pregnancy emergency, and lost our baby while comforting her. He even erased the secret love note I hid on page three of our architecture. Months later, his business crumbled, and he begged me for forgiveness with diamonds and his CEO resignation. But every chance he had is gone. I’ve built my own thriving tech company, and I’m never coming back.

My mad mother, in her final moments, pressed a set of Russian nesting dolls into my arms.
"These cost me thirty years of my life. In return, they'll give you three ways out of death."
The first doll told me to go to a bar and bring home the third strange man I met.
The second doll, she said to open on the eve of my wedding. There was no note inside. Only a photograph — my groom, killing a woman wearing the exact same wedding dress as mine.
Three years later, on the eve of another wedding, I opened the last doll. I read the note, smiled, and dropped it in the trash.
It was only later that I understood —
This mad woman saw more clearly than anyone sane in this world.
Mom, I'm sorry.

I've caught my fiancé Henry cheating ninety-nine times. And every single time, I forgave him.

That's because I have this rare condition—short-term memory loss. Every morning, I wake up with no memory of what happened the day before.

But then, out of nowhere, a car accident actually cured me.

I was so excited. I rushed over to tell Henry the good news, but stopped cold when I heard him outside the door, joking around with his friends:

"Didn't Judy get sick because she walked in on you and Kenna having sex?"

My sister Chiara and I had fought over Matteo for more than a decade.

In my first life, I got my wish and married him. Everyone said he adored me, trusting me to manage the entire Salvatore family's books and money laundering operations. I worked myself to death, literally dying from exhaustion. On my deathbed, he coldly told me the truth: "I never loved you. You're the one who begged to marry me."

In my second life, I let Chiara have her chance. She bore him four children in five years, trying desperately to earn his love, only to die in childbirth. I rushed to her bedside for her final moments, and she cried out to me: "Matteo doesn't love me either... there's another woman in his heart..."

When I opened my eyes again, it was my third life.

This time, we would NOT make the same mistakes.

My serpent mate has locked me in the castle, nine months pregnant. A dozen serpent guards watch me day and night. I can't even leave the room.

A month ago, his brother died in a hunting accident. He became the serpent clan leader. Then he brought back his brother's widow, the woman he grew up with. His first love.

He said he needed to take care of his brother's widow. He told me we'd all live together in the castle, nice and peaceful.

I said no.

I'm his mate. I'm a beastman. My pride won't let me accept that. And they grew up together, childhood sweethearts. How could I not think about it?

She came to him in tears, heavily pregnant. She said I poisoned her medicine, that I wanted to kill her and the baby.

He believed her.

He decided I was just some rogue beastman with no background, jealous and vicious, only after his title and money. So he locked me in this freezing castle while he camped outside her delivery room.

When labor hit, I screamed for a healer. I swore I never hurt her. I just couldn't live with her under the same roof. I only ever loved him.

He just laughed. "You're good at acting. I don't believe a word out of you. Once she delivers safely, I'll deal with you. Don't think you can trick me into coming back."

But when a trembling guard reported "Your mate and the child... they didn't make it," he lost it completely.

For a century, Carlos and I were the most envied lovers of the Dawn Court—yet our story ended in a cage of mutual, agonizing torment.

He loathed me for shattering a forbidden spell to forcefully awaken his memories, a desperate act that drove his precious half-elf, Lilia, to plunge to her death from the Astral Tower.

And I resented him for completely erasing our sacred vows. The very man who had once taken a lethal dragon's breath to save my life had awakened only to draw his blade against my throat—and offer his heart to my closest friend.

For the dark centuries that followed, he chained me in a sunless dungeon, using every conceivable cruelty to break my spirit.

Right up until my mana withered and I drew my last, agonizing breath, the venom he had spat through gritted teeth still echoed in the darkness: "Cecilia, you disgust me. I would rather have never remembered you at all."

In the cold embrace of death, clarity finally pierced my obsession. I understood then that I never should have used the ashes of our past to chain a man whose heart had already moved on.

I opened my eyes and found myself thrust back to the exact day Carlos returned hand-in-hand with Lilia, his memories entirely wiped clean...

One night. No names. No rules.
Willow thought it was just a wild, unforgettable mistake.
Until she walks into class the next morning—and meets Professor Declan Ashwell.

They agree to keep their distance.
But the tension in the room is electric, and the line between right and wrong begins to blur.
As secrets unravel and emotions deepen, Willow and Declan must decide:
Is love worth the risk... or will it cost them everything?

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'm the mafia heir's practice girlfriend.
He uses me to learn how to control his temper, how to kiss, how to make love.
All so he won't freak out his true love after they get married.
His guys worry: "Boss, you're not actually catching feelings for the maid's daughter, are you?"
Michael laughs coldly: "Would you fall for a sex toy?"
Everyone thinks I'm pathetic, but I keep smiling while I hand him knives and light his cigarettes.
Until news breaks that he's engaged.
His mom slaps down a hundred-million-dollar check: "Get away from Michael. Disappear forever."
I take the money like a good girl and vanish.
But that night, I hear Michael tried to kill himself and got rushed to the ER.

Every night, he slips through my window. He never tells me his name.
He also never lets me touch him.
He owns me in the dark, then disappears before dawn.
For two years, he’s ruled my nights, taking me in every possible way.
Controlled me in ways I can't tell you.
Made me crave things I don’t understand. But when morning comes,
he returns to me as someone else. Natte Johnson.
The global hotel tycoon and rock star.
The man I grew up loving, my first love and losing.
Now I’m assigned to interview him.
The moment our eyes meet, something inside me pulls.
My body reacts to his voice alone and his gaze.

And I can’t stop wondering,
what if the man who commands me in the dark, makes me lose my sanity,
is the same man pretending not to know me in the light?
And if he is,
how long before he stops pretending
and claims me completely?

"You shouldn't wear underwear." He says as he rips off my panties.
"Fuck, you're so tight." He groans. "Tell me you aren't a fucking virgin."
"I'm not a fucking virgin." I grit, arching my back. "Please. Make me come."
"Lay back on the bed." He orders.
My obedience is quick, I need him so much I will do anything he says.
"Put your hands above your head. Hold onto the headboard."
Oh my God. I reach up and hold onto the headboard as he has instructed, and Julian does quick work of grabbing his abandoned tie and tying my wrists to it.
"Make me come," I whisper.

Ginevra Espocito was born into a low-level mafia family, but fate made her have a one-night stand with Julian Rivera, the powerful, dominant high-level mafia.
Her long-term secret love seems to have a good result. They fell in love with each other, leaving traces of their love everywhere.
But fate seems to have played another joke, she is pregnant, only to find out that Julian was engaged to another woman.
She cried and hugged her best friend who had a crush on her, but Julian begged her to come back and expressed his willingness to give up everything for her.

How should she choose between Julian and her best friend?

Faced with the dying Demon King's curse, my princess fiancée threw herself in front of the mage, shielding him with everything she had.

She shoved my battered, bleeding body toward the demon's most vicious curse.

Three years later, she arrived at my homeland with the kingdom's knights.

"Where is Lord Hero? I'm here to marry him."

The old man at the village entrance glanced at her:

"The Hero? He's been dead for a year now."

She froze.

Behind her, the knights who had served me loyally finally drew their swords.

"Your Highness, give us back our Hero!"

I was dying — and he was loving someone else.
I left.
Now he wants me back… but will I let him?

Omega Lyra, once betrothed to Alpha Kyle, is forced to sew his new Luna’s wedding dress.
On the wedding eve, an out-of-control Kyle violates her; the chaos that follows kills the bride, and Lyra is falsely branded a murderer.
Kyle binds Lyra as his nominal Luna to torment her—for three years, she endures mockery and isolation, finding solace only in late-night piano playing.
His coldness and closeness to the late Luna’s sister Rhea shatter her hope.
Humiliated at Kyle’s birthday banquet, Lyra demands to end their bond.
Fleeing, she awakens hidden Alpha powers but is attacked by rogues—Beta Darren, who secretly cares for her, saves her.
Now, Lyra must evade Kyle’s family, find her lost sister, and fight for a place in the wolf world, turning her painful escape into a journey of redemption.

He filled my head with lies.
Then he set my world on fire.

Gavril Vaknin.
Richer than God.
Crueler than the devil.

And if he has his way…
My new fake husband.

A chance meeting turns into a once-in-a-lifetime offer.
The billionaire don needs a blank slate to turn into his perfect politician’s wife.
I’m homeless and desperate—what do I have to lose?

But Gavril is hiding secrets. Cloaked in lies.
Stepping into his world is a one-way ticket to a hell I won’t survive.

Did I do the right thing?
Or did I just sell my soul to a monster?

The first thing they took was my baby.

The second was my parents.

The third was my freedom, my eyes, and every reason to live.

My husband gave me to three men on our anniversary. He chained me in a doghouse while his mistress laughed. He fed me my own son’s remains and called it mercy.

He said I was dirty. He said I deserved it.

But the DNA test he trusted was a lie. The video was staged. And the woman he’s about to marry is the one who destroyed us all.

I tried to die. Four times.

Now I’m done trying.

They put a dead woman in the ground. They’re about to find out she brought hell back with her.

Ella is betrayed in her 25th birthday by her boyfriend, leading to a one-night stand at a bar. She Initially mistaking Eric for just a call boy, later, she discovers that he is actually an Alpha of a pack, leading to an unwanted pregnancy. She ran away without a trace, bearing and taking care of the twins alone. It's later turned out to be an interesting romance. What happens when Eric discover that the twins are actually his? Will Ella forgive Eric for betraying her?

My marriage to Matthew was a transaction, a substitute—everything except love. When his white moonlight came back, I was abandoned, diagnosed with gastric cancer, and carrying his child. His late regret could never bring back my life, nor could it keep our unborn baby.

"Where is my son?"
My husband wouldn't look at me.
I had just come out of anesthesia. The bassinet next to my hospital bed was empty — except for a stack of cash, a christening card, and a ring pinned to the corner of the card.
The card had another woman's name in the godmother box.
That woman walked in behind my husband. She picked up the ring and slid it onto her own finger.
"He's safe, sweetheart. We've been talking about this for months."
My husband is Damiano Marchetti. He runs the family that runs this city. The woman wearing the ring is his father's young widow.
The baby on that card is my son.
For four years now I have been the woman this house pretends not to see. The wife told to use the servants' entrance. The mother of a boy who calls another woman Mommy.
Last night I asked my husband for a divorce.
He laughed in my face.
He has no idea how much that's going to cost him.

The moment I saw my name on that wedding invitation, I was already dead.

On Highway 23, a steel rebar had pierced straight through my chest. I was two months pregnant.

I called my fiancé Michael seventeen times. The first sixteen, he hung up without a word. On the seventeenth, his voice dripped with impatience: "Marrying Sophia is just for show. Stop making a scene."

The man who once knelt outside my family's estate for three days and nights, swearing to love me for a lifetime—he wouldn't spare me a single second more.

With my last breath, I dialed the funeral home. "I'm calling... for myself."

Flames consumed my body. My soul drifted toward the engagement banquet that should have been mine. When the killer's phone lit up, the name on the screen was Sophia...

When he destroyed my entire family, he never once thought of me.

So now, let me watch with my own eyes as this wedding becomes their funeral.

I was here because of missed periods and abnormal bleeding—a suspected threatened miscarriage.

When asked about our relationship, my boyfriend didn't even look at me.

"We're just classmates," he told the nurse.

He thought he was cutting ties with a worthless nobody so he could chase after a billionaire's daughter.

What he didn't know was... I was the heiress he was desperately looking for.

After my miscarriage, my psychiatrist husband offered to erase the painful memories to help me forget them.

During the three months I was dumped in a rehab facility, he took our daughter and his cousin on a European vacation.

Now that they're back, he assumes I’ll go right back to being that meticulous, perfect wife.

But I didn't.

He deliberately provokes me, thinking my coldness is just me playing hard to get.

He has no idea that the brainwashing procedure didn't just wash away my pain—it completely severed my love for him.

I was four months pregnant when the truck hit my car.
I woke up on a gurney outside the OR, bleeding, half-conscious, thinking my husband was saving my life. Then I heard him through the door.
"The baby's gone. Her right hand is finished—her career's over either way. Just take her kidney now and put it in Mia."
My mother agreed. My father told him to switch my architectural draft to Mia's name before Friday.
Mia. The sister they'd raised for twenty years while I was missing. The sister whose body was failing. The sister my husband had apparently been in love with the whole time I was married to him.
I was supposed to die on that table. I wasn't supposed to hear anything.
But my phone was in my coat pocket, and the voice memo app had never stopped recording.
And now I had a choice to make.

On the day of my prenatal checkup, I found out my husband, Caleb, was sleeping with his student.
That night, I spiked his Pinot Noir with poison. I watched him collapse, convulse, and take his agonizing last breath. Then, I dragged his body into the basement and sealed it inside an oak wine barrel.
For five years, I raised our daughter, Nora, on my own. I thought the secret would rot in the dark forever.
Until she told me: Daddy speaks to her from under the floorboards every night. His voice sounds muffled, like he’s talking through a thick blanket...

My neighbor Beck Morrow was the best high school point guard this state had seen in years.
The night before the state championship—three college scouts in the stands—he decided to stay home with his girlfriend instead. She wasn't feeling well.
I called his coach.
He played. He got the scholarship. He built a company worth eight figures before he turned thirty, and I spent five years writing every algorithm that company ran on.
He repaid me by throwing a ball at my head during a training session. Then his lawyers sent a letter explaining that I had no legal claim to any intellectual property developed under my employment contract, effective immediately, and that my position was being terminated.
Then I woke up. It was the first week of senior year again.

On our wedding night, James moaned my sister's name while inside me.

I shoved him off in fury. He looked down me with contempt.

"You're just a replacement for Raina. Don't expect too much."

Later, a fake surveillance video pinned Raina's death on me.

I couldn't prove my innocence. James had me thrown into prison.

For three whole years, I endured abuse behind bars.

The day James picked me up, he tore off my clothes and forced himself inside me.

Afterward, he tossed a document at me. "Sign it."

Turns out David—his and Raina's son—had leukemia.

He wanted me to bear a child—only to sacrifice it to save the one he had with Raina?

I couldn't accept it.

A cold smirk crossed his handsome face. "Refuse? Then your mother's medical funding ends now."

"Your only value lies in your womb. Learn to obey."

From then on, he came to my room nightly. There was no tenderness, only brutal taking.

Then fate played its cruelest joke.

I discovered a paternity test—it proved I was David's biological mother.

Which meant... David was my son? Mine and James's?

On the anniversary of my mother's death, Thomas promised he'd come pay his respects with me. I waited at the cemetery all day, only to see media reports of him vacationing with his first love.

Everyone assumed Thomas had a secret child with her. That they were about to get married.

And me? His actual wife?

I went home, left the divorce papers on the table, and burned our marriage certificate.

Evelyn Vale plans weddings, memorials, and private family ceremonies for people who care too much about how grief looks on camera. She knows lighting, timing, guest flow, and the hidden machinery behind a perfect public moment.

Then one night, while sitting beside the husband who kisses her goodnight, she sees a livestream event scheduled for tomorrow: her own memorial service.

The cover uses her mourning portrait. Grant, her husband, is posed as the devastated widower. Serena, her half sister, stands beside him like a woman already rehearsing the role of replacement wife.

At first Evelyn wants it to be a mistake. Then the invoices appear. The funeral campaign is paid for. The backend record existed. Someone with internal clearance created it, deleted it, and expected Evelyn to die before the broadcast.

Julian Cross, a former livestream safety investigator disgraced by an old death case, is the first person who treats Evelyn's fear as evidence. Together they follow the countdown through funeral contracts, planted comments, medical manipulation, board pressure, platform corruption, and a hidden operator using public grief as a business model.

But Evelyn is not waiting to be rescued. She knows how to build an event. She knows where witnesses should stand, when a microphone should stay open, and how a lie collapses when the room sees the right proof at the right time.

Grant scheduled the funeral.

Evelyn hosts it better.

"I'm looking for a wife," he said. "And I believe you may be suitable."
"You're not in love with me."
"No."
"You don't intend to be."
"No."
"Then why would I agree to this?"
"Because I'm not offering romance. I'm offering security."
She married him knowing one thing clearly: love was never part of the agreement.
Their marriage was built on terms, not promises.
A shared home. A shared bed. A public image to maintain.
Nothing more.
He was distant, controlled, and never cruel, but never warm either.
To him, she was a wife in name, a solution to a problem, a role that needed to be filled.
What neither of them expected was how silence could become dangerous.
How intimacy without love could still leave marks.
How wanting someone could come long before admitting it.
As the line between obligation and desire begins to blur, she must decide how long she can stay where she isn't truly chosen and he must face the truth he never planned for.
Because sometimes, the most dangerous thing isn't loving someone too much…
It's realizing you never meant to love them at all.

Lydia has been abused by her foster parents, but the wolves of the pack are deceived by the hypocritical pair, believing that Lydia is a bad girl who does not know how to repay her kindness.
Just when Lydia was about to be given to the pack elders by her foster mother, she found out that Elvis, the next Alpha of the pack, was actually her mate.But unfortunately, Elvis disliked and rejected her to be his mate.
Desperate Lydia jumped off the cliff, but was saved by her own mother, the Alpha of Glory Pack, and the other party wanted her to become the wolf pack's heir....... At this time, Elvis, who rejected her, also came looking for her and wanted to take her away. How would Lydia choose?

“I’ll give you anything, Elsa—money, a car, a house, jewelry—just agree to the transplant. Ria really needs it.” I couldn’t believe his audacity. Was this really my husband, trying to bargain my body to save his fiancée?
“Sorry, I’m pregnant. I can’t donate a kidney,” I said, my voice shaky but determined. Anger boiled inside me, but I knew he was powerful. The pretend marriage was over, and his true colors were revealed. Afraid of what he might do to me, I didn’t yell or fight him. I just wanted to escape this nightmare, to break free from this cage I was trapped in.
But his reaction was even more chilling. He looked at me with no emotion.
“We’ll have an abortion.” His words hit me like a bomb. I couldn’t believe how coldly he spoke about ending his own child’s life.

“Be careful with that, Emma," my boss at the high-end courier service warned, handing me the velvet-lined case. "That bottle is worth more than your life. It’s for the penthouse gala at the Sterling Heights. If it breaks, don't bother coming back.”

I clutched the case to my chest like it was a newborn child.

The soles of my shoes were so thin I could feel every jagged pebble on the pavement. My feet ached, a dull, throbbing reminder of the sixteen-hour shifts I’d been pulling for the last three months.

But every time I felt like collapsing, I thought of Liam. He met with an accident five years ago and could not work.

So, I became the bread-earner in our family.

Today was our wedding anniversary. And this last expensive delivery could earn me a decent gift for him.

"The host is on the terrace," a waiter whispered as I reached the penthouse, eyeing my worn-out sneakers with disdain. "Hurry up. He doesn't like to be kept waiting.”

I walked toward the terrace, my heart hammering. I just wanted to drop this off, get my signature, and run to Liam. I pushed through the crowd, dodging silk gowns and tailored tuxedos.

Then, I stopped.

The man standing at the edge of the terrace looked familiar.

He was wearing a bespoke midnight-blue tuxedo that cost more than our three years of rent. His hair was slicked back, his posture commanding and regal. He was way too rich to cross paths with me in my entire life.

But, my heart skipped a beat as he turned back to look at his friends.

It was Liam. My Liam. With other woman, offering the world to her.