1604 Book(s) Related to i have one quadrillion dollars

“A masterpiece of thriller and mystery! The author did a magnificent job developing characters with a psychological side that is so well described that we feel inside their minds, follow their fears and cheer for their success. The plot is very intelligent and will keep you entertained throughout the book. Full of twists, this book will keep you awake until the turn of the last page.” --Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Once Gone) ONCE HUNTED is book #5 in the bestselling Riley Paige mystery series, which begins with the #1 bestseller ONCE GONE (Book #1)—a free download with over 600 five star reviews! A prison break from a maximum security prison. Frantic calls from the FBI. Special Agent Riley Paige’s worst nightmare has come true: a serial killer she put away years ago is loose. And his main target is her.Riley is used to being the one hunting, but for the first time, she finds herself—and her family—to be the ones being hunted. As the killer stalks her, he also begins a new rampage of kills, and Riley must stop him before it is too late—for the other victims, and for herself.But this is no ordinary killer. He is too smart, and their game of cat-and-mouse too twisted, and he somehow manages to elude her and always stay one step ahead. Desperate to stop him, Riley realizes there is only one way: she must delve back into the past, into this killer’s twisted mind, his old cases, and re-learn what drives him. The only way to stop him, she realizes, is to face the darkness she thought she had left behind.A dark psychological thriller with heart-pounding suspense, ONCE HUNTED is book #5 in a riveting new series—with a beloved new character—that will leave you turning pages late into the night. Book #6 in the Riley Paige series will be available soon.

Three years ago, my pairs skating partner and I had a beautiful wedding surrounded by friends and family—but we never actually got around to signing the legal papers.
Over those three years, he has stood me up at City Hall exactly twenty-eight times.
One time, he stole my cab while I was burning up with a fever, leaving me shivering on the curb because his new, pampered protégée had a stomachache from drinking too much champagne.
Another time, he blew off our anniversary to rush to her side for a minor sprain.
Every single time we were supposed to finally make our marriage official, his precious junior skater somehow had a devastating emergency.
After twenty-eight broken promises, I finally stopped waiting. I dropped our partnership, shredded our application, and boarded a one-way flight to Milan.
But the moment I completely vanished from his life, the man who couldn't spare an hour to marry me suddenly lost his mind—chasing me across the globe to a city he swore he’d never return to, begging on his knees outside my door for a twenty-ninth chance.

EXCERPT:

"Rayne stood looking at her reflection in the mirror. Her a pale green ballgown clung to her curves and left little to the imagination. Her jet-black curls are swept up and pinned to her head, leaving her neck exposed. Tonight was the night that most of the unmated wolves in all the North American packs would hopefully find their mates. She was sure all of them were just oozing with excitement.

She was not.

She didn’t want a mate. She didn’t need a mate...."

“...but the sudden scent of jasmine and vanilla hit her nose from somewhere close. That meant only one thing. Her mate was near..."


Rayne met her mate at the Moonlight Ball when she was eighteen, her mate that she never wanted to find, that she never wanted in her life. He showed up out of nowhere. His actions that night unknowingly set her free. She took the freedom he gave her, ran away, and never once looked back.

Now five years later he shows back up in her life after rejecting her five years ago, demanding that she take up her rightful place by his side. He walked away from her after calling her weak. No way was she going to just let him back into her life as if he belonged there. Rayne never wanted a mate, would he being here now change that? Her body and soul beg for him to claim her, yet her heart belongs to another.

Can her mate convince her to give him a chance? Will her lover convince her to stay with him? The Moon Goddess paired her with someone not of her choice, all Rayne has ever wanted was the chance to choose for herself. Who will win? Rayne or the fate that the moon set for her?

For mature readers 18+
Warning for abusive past trauma
Her Returned Mate is Book 1 in the Gathering Shadows Series. Book 2 His Redemption is also available for reading now on Anystories.

"Give birth to my child, then get out."

With those words, Sean’s kiss fell brutally, ripping Susan’s nightgown open.

His fingers pressed against her clitoris. Sean flipped her over, pinning her under him. His swollen, turgid member quickly found her secret path. He thrust in violently.

Susan broke into a cold sweat. Sean nipped her ear. "Does it feel good? Is this what you like? I’ll make you pregnant, but you can’t stay by my side—this position is reserved for Victoria."

——

Years ago, Susan saved Sean and earned the chance to marry him. But she was damaged in that accident and couldn't conceive. She took countless hormone injections, losing her figure and becoming ugly. Finally, she could get pregnant, only to catch Sean cheating with the young, hot Victoria.

"In that case," Susan said, "let’s divorce."

Susan was bloated and had been a housewife for three years with no skills. Yet, she chose to divorce, even though she couldn't take her own child with her...

Three years of marriage. Harper gave up her career, cut off her friends, and made herself invisible for Evan.
Then on her birthday, the blow came. Claire showed up pregnant: "Mrs. Morgan's spot will be mine eventually. What's the point of you holding onto it?"
Harper finally woke up. She filed for divorce without looking back.
The day she signed the papers, she smiled calmly at the reporters waiting outside: "The reason for the divorce? Mr. Morgan was simply never able to satisfy me. In that department."
The untouchable CEO became a punchline overnight.
Evan assumed she was getting back at him. He had no idea Harper was no longer the caged bird he remembered.
Her design talent shook the industry. His own business rivals fell for her.
By the time he realized the partner he had been desperately chasing was his ex-wife, it was already too late.
"Harper, can we start over?"
"Mr. Morgan, if something's wrong with you, go see a doctor. Do you need me to pay for the appointment?"

Adalina lives with her very protective older brother Zarakai and his four best friends, they helped raise her after their parents died. Now she is eighteen and she doesn't know how to turn her feelings off. After being rejected by Austin, she turned to Jace who loves her more than he should considering the age gap. Now Austin is back in town and Jace doesn't like sharing. Adalina wants Jace and Austin. Maybe even Tyler and Spencer too. Will the four men learn to share her, or will she end up heartbroken?

Emery’s undying love for her late mother drove her to do things only a desperate person could understand. To save her mother’s company, she agreed to marry a man twice her age. There’s no way she could escape the miserable truth, but on the day of the wedding, she married the wrong groom who turned out to be the wealthiest man in the country.
It’s like the Heavens gave her another chance and she won’t let the chance slip away. However, can she withstand the tension whenever her fake husband is near her? What if she falls for him? Will he catch her? Or she’d fall into a more complicated situation?


Every man's dream was to watch their bride walk down the aisle towards them, however, the beautiful dream turned into a nightmare when Terrence found a different woman under the veil. His bride ran away and he was forced to marry a stranger. To make everything more complicated, he just got appointed as the company President and he needs to maintain a good reputation.
Keeping his fake bride by his side is the only choice left to him. However, how can he deal with his self-control when the woman he mistakenly married is a total goddess of temptation?

Five years ago, Elena overheard the ambiguous whispers between her husband Arthur and his first love. In that split second, all her love for him crumbled to dust. She left the country with her pregnant belly, vowing never to have any connection with this man again.​
Five years later, Elena returns to her home country with her twins Liam and Luna—now a world-renowned top doctor. Unexpectedly, she finds herself entangled with Arthur once more. His eyes reddening with emotion, he grabs her abruptly and pleads, "Elena, I was truly wrong. This time, I will never let you get hurt again."

Five years in captivity. They said Nora would be free after five years of working for the mafia king but they lied. Now Nora is forced to work permanently for the dangerous mafia king, executing dangerous cons with Noah, her only ally and her most dangerous temptation. The one man who makes her feel human again. But in a world built on lies, trust can be deadlier than betrayal.

Betrayal has never struck so hard until that day I caught my fiancée and best friend cheating on me.

My world came crashing down beneath my feet, and I felt hopeless.

However, luck was on my side and I ended up having a one-night stand with a mysterious man.

Two months later, he showed up at my house with our marriage agreement and he turned out to be my ex-fiancée’s father.

Heartbroken and enraged with revenge, I acknowledged the marriage, desiring to make my ex-fiancée and my best friend pay for what they did to me.

Luckily, my ex-fiancée and best friend lives in the same house with us and revenge took a tremendous turn.

When they threw me overboard, they thought a man with a broken leg couldn't possibly come back alive. When the floodwaters engulfed the world, turning land into a graveyard, I found a forgotten submarine in the deep sea. From underwater, I built my empire step by step . Not by pity, not by luck. By the time the survivors of this sea finally realized what lay beneath the surface, I no longer needed to hide. They called me the Deep Sea Ghost. I didn't care what they called me. I knew only one thing—from this day forward, this sea was mine to rule.

In my last life, the heatwave collapse began with me turning an abandoned warehouse into a safe zone. I stocked it, fortified it, and brought my girlfriend inside. That same night, she slid the bolts open from within and let an armed crew storm the place. They threw me out to die.

I survived the heat, only to learn too late that it was just the warning. The real purge came next, when brutal cold hit overnight and froze me to death in the snow.

Then I opened my eyes and found myself back one month before disaster.

While everyone else rushed to buy water and fans, I was the only one who knew the heat was just the beginning. The deep freeze was what would really wipe people out.

This time, I explained nothing. I poured everything I had into diesel, insulation, winter stoves, generators, and turned that warehouse into a fortress built for the cold.

She came again, just like before. This time, I never let her through the door. So she ran straight to the armed gang and had them surround my warehouse for three full days.

She thought trapping me inside meant she’d already won.

What she didn’t know was that in just a few more days, the freeze would arrive.

And the people outside had no fuel, no winter gear, no way to stay warm.

They weren’t waiting for me to break.

They were waiting for their own deaths.

I was a herbalist, a healer who saved lives, but I was falsely accused of spreading plague and hanged on the gallows, awaiting the flames. Then I heard them—a swarm of rats emerging from the earth, gnawing through the noose and dragging me back to the world of the living. But this was not salvation, but the beginning of a curse. Plague swept across the land, the church peddled counterfeit medicines, and lords squeezed every last grain from the farmers. The rats looked at me and whispered to me — the end has come, and you will become the calamity.

He was reborn back to the day his wife Lydia was sacrificed to the demon.

The entire demon race was laughing at me, her useless husband who was about to be thrown into the cursed land, while she, dressed in a pure white robe, rose step by step on my bones and blood, becoming the most beloved saintess of the demons.

She thought I would rot in the ashes, but little did she know that I had swallowed a World Tree seed that had been dormant for ten thousand years in my death.

An enslaved old miner, a blind but gentle apothecary, a desperate mermaid leader... I led eighteen "defective products" chewed up by the abyss, riding the wildly growing tide of life, and forcefully smashed through the demon's royal city!

When the immortal demon king was drained dry by the World Tree and knelt on the ground begging for mercy like a wild dog, my noble wife smiled and raised the sharp obsidian.

"What are demons? This throne belongs only to me."

This is a story of extreme betrayal and violent redemption. When life permeates the demon realm, all the high and mighty evils will turn into dust at the bottom of the trees!

Caroline Mercer once believed kindness could be proven by sacrifice. She took in two orphaned children, gave them schools, doctors, tutors, rooms beside her daughter's nursery, and a path into the Mercer name.

Years later, those children returned as witnesses against her. Sloane Vale smiled for the cameras while calling Caroline a monster. Nolan Vale handed federal investigators a beautiful stack of forged evidence. Caroline's husband was broken, her company was seized, and her only daughter, Evelyn, died after being traded into a marriage meant to protect everyone else's reputation.

Then Caroline opened her eyes on the morning the Vale children first arrived at her door.

This time, she would feed them. She would house them. She would educate them. She would keep every receipt, every doctor's report, every legal notice.

But she would never again give strangers the keys to her child's future.

I’m the only person on Earth with a clinically proven antibody capable of neutralizing this rare deadly virus.
I caught the virus when I was six. Its mortality rate was staggeringly high, and everyone thought I’d never pull through. Against all odds, I recovered entirely on my own. By some strange twist of biology, my body made the world’s sole antibody that could fight this virus off.
Once I turned eighteen, I signed up to donate my serum as a volunteer.
For twenty years straight, rain or shine, I showed up to donate free of charge—107 separate donations in total. Each time, I pulled a gravely ill patient back from death’s brink.
I’m no saint living to save the whole world. Every last donation was done for my mother.
Back when I was six, my father’s infidelity drove my mother to take her own life. What happened was cruel beyond measure, completely unforgivable.
A fortune-teller once told me my mom’s lingering resentment ran far too deep. To free her trapped, wandering soul for good, a blood relative of hers had to finish exactly 108 acts of good deeds.
Twenty years in, only one deed remained. Just one more, and my mother’s spirit could finally rest in peace.
But when the hospital sent out an urgent emergency SOS this time around, I did something I’d never done in two decades.
I turned their request down flat.

After the apocalypse, I joined my girlfriend and her friends as a makeshift team. I cleared infected, scavenged supplies, and stood guard at night so they could sleep.

I thought we were all each other had.

Then, for a single dose of antibiotics, they handed me to the warlord who slaughtered my entire family.

When she said, “Just endure it—I’ll find a way to bring you back,” I didn’t even have the strength to be angry. She knew exactly what stood between me and that warlord, and what would happen once I was taken.

That’s when it hit me: to them, I was always just a tool.

If she chose to deliver me into my enemy’s hands, I’d settle the three-year-old debt right there.

When we met again, she demanded to speak to the warlord chief—hoping to trade for me once more. Because without me, they couldn’t even find food.

What she didn’t know was that by the third day after she traded me away—

the warlord had a new owner.

For my fiancée’s career, I was willing to be the ghost designer behind her for five years.

Until the day of the key bid, she stole the blueprint I had spent two sleepless years perfecting and signed it with the name of her useless first love.

The drawings are gone You can draw them again He needs this project to survive Be sensible she said, impatient when I confronted her

I did not argue My heart went cold I calmly left my engagement ring and my resignation letter and went to Europe

In just three months, without me, she became disgraced and buried in debt While I won Europe’s highest architectural gold award

I watched the once proud her soak in icy water for five hours just to earn a trace of my sympathy

I handed her a basic junior interview form with indifference Want to start over Report to the front desk Start with errands and work your way up

Dante Ashford is my stepbrother, and the one person I should never have fallen in love with.

When I was ten, my parents died saving his family. The Ashfords took me in. He was good to me back then. Somewhere along the way, I fell for him.

When I was eighteen, he nearly died in an ambush. I donated blood, then a kidney to save him. I was unconscious for three days. When I woke up, Vivian Ross sat by his bed—and he believed she was his savior.

After that, he pushed me away. Vivian became his fiancée.

In my past life, Vivian's crimes brought disaster to our family. Dante got on his knees and begged me to take her punishment. I refused. She died anyway. Then he pretended to love me, planned our wedding—and on that day, his assistant announced to everyone: "This wedding was a lesson to show Miss Elena Hayes what it feels like to be abandoned by the whole world."

I jumped from the church balcony.

When I opened my eyes, I was back at that moment—him on his knees, begging.

This time, I said yes.

Dante, from now on, we're done.

In my past life, my twin Phaedra and I were both married off to the Dragon Clan on the same day.
I was given to the eldest son Magnus, while she went to the second son Drakon.
A year later, Phaedra gave birth to a small white dragon with scales like fresh snow. Meanwhile, I delivered nine children—all of them deformed monsters, bearing not a trace of dragon lineage.
Dragon King Typhon, a tyrant obsessed with bloodline purity and beauty, immediately stripped his eldest son of the inheritance rights and decided to pass the throne to his second son, Drakon.
Consumed by rage and humiliation, my husband Magnus descended into madness.
He ordered my nine children dragged into the Shadow Abyss and thrown into boiling blood pools as sacrificial offerings. Then he bound me tightly to the frozen altar pillar.
As the crimson winds howled from the blood pool, he mercilessly cut open my chest and carved out my nine-tailed heart while I was still breathing. I drew my last breath drowning in endless despair and blood.
When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back in the Dragon Clan's towering hall—at the mate selection ceremony that had sealed our fates.
In my daze, Magnus walked straight past me. His eyes brimmed with disgust as he unhesitatingly reached for Phaedra's hand instead. The same woman who had birthed that perfect white dragon in my past life.
But the fool had no idea my children's deformities had nothing to do with me—they came from his own cursed, rotting bloodline.

"What if she finds out the baby she suffered so much to conceive is actually ours? Will she lose her mind?"

My stepsister giggled, snuggling into my husband’s embrace.

I stood outside the cracked door, completely frozen.

My husband was holding her tight, enthusiastically picking out names for the baby growing in my belly.

My own mother scoffed from the side. "Relax. That idiot will never figure out she’s carrying your baby."

A bone-deep chill shot down my spine.

For years, I had endured endless blood tests and painful injections, leaving my stomach bruised with needle marks—all just to give him a child.

Instead, they had bribed the doctors. Using IVF, they secretly turned me into a surrogate for my husband and my stepsister.

My husband was certain I was too soft-hearted. He knew that even if the plot was exposed, I could never bring myself to destroy an innocent life.

He was absolutely right.

But I could destroy myself.

In the dead of night, I walked out to the edge of the bridge, climbed over the freezing metal railing, and plummeted into the icy, pitch-black water below.

Two years later. An elite gala.

Under the dazzling spotlight, I stood completely reborn.

My ex-husband dropped his wine glass, letting it shatter against the floor as he collapsed softly to his knees, desperately clutching the hem of my gown.

I coldly pulled my dress from his trembling grasp.

"Excuse me, sir," I said, staring down at him. "You have the wrong person."

I was reborn.
In my past life, for the sake of my childhood sweetheart Chiara, I rushed into a sea of fire to save her lover, but I was disfigured by strong acid. In return, I was rejected and abandoned by her, and ultimately died tragically on the street.
Reborn before the narcotics factory explosion, I coldly turned away from Chiara's pleas for help: "If it's true love, go in and die with her."
This time, I'm not a sycophant anymore; I'm going to make all those who betrayed me pay a bloody price.

I was blown up by my business partner and fiancée working together, only to wake up in an apocalyptic game where only one person can survive. They drew S-rank abilities and mocked my "worthless" wealth card. But they forgot—in a world with physical rules, money can buy sky cities, EMP bombs, and orbital weapons. Now they're kneeling in ruins begging me to open the door, while I stand atop Avalon City at 30,000 meters, finger hovering over the detonation button.

I have a cursed gift—
I can hear the voices of antiques.
A blackened silver spoon screams.
A rusted pocket watch groans.
And at London’s most exclusive blind auction, when that so-called million-pound royal jewelry box encrusted with rubies and sapphires was rolled onto the stage, my mind went completely silent.
Those dozens of dazzling gemstones were all fake glass that could not speak.
Instead, from a brass compartment hidden in the very bottom of the box came an agonized roar:
“Get me out of here… now…”
I smiled.
Europe’s number-one appraiser?
Today I’d show him what it really meant to listen to all things.

"Kiss it for me, sister…"
I had no idea the milk I drank every night was handmade by my foster brother, Luciano.
After I turned down his confession yet again, I stared at the milk he’d brought me so eagerly and knocked it to the floor in disgust.
The boy who’d always been quiet and obedient suddenly snapped.
He pinned me flat to the ground, his face inches from mine, his breath brushing my ear:"I get it. You want to drink fresher milk, don’t you?"
I never imagined the boy I’d raised all these years could spiral this far out of control with his twisted feelings for me.
So the very next day, I put him behind bars with my own two hands, determined to put an end to this messed-up obsession for good.

Three months after being reunited with the Harrington family, I won £5 million in the lottery.

Then, they kicked me out of the house.

My father, my mother, and that imposter brother—three swindlers—fabricated an apocalyptic lie and used a so-called "heirloom" to steal my lottery ticket.

They didn't know that the end times really were coming.

Unbeknownst to them, the true power of that wristband was—item duplication.

Little did they know, I was the one who had truly been reborn from the apocalypse.

In my past life, they used me as bait, letting me be torn to pieces by the infected.

In this life, 5 million pounds? Go ahead and squander it.

I want to watch them struggle in despair and die in fear.

And I will have unlimited resources at my disposal, on this wasteland—

Betrayed and killed by the wolf king in my past life, I came back from hell. On the wedding day, I turned down his proposal without hesitation. I made a blood pact with his greatest enemy—the vampire king. Together, we avenged my child and family, and built a new future in the dark.

I was three months pregnant when I found out my husband had been cheating with the cousin I had kindly taken in.

My son said he wanted her to be his mom, then shoved me down the stairs and caused me to miscarry.

The day I lost the baby, my husband sat beside my bed. His voice was gentle, soft enough to lull someone to sleep.

“Relax,” he said. “You’ll forget all this pain.”

I closed my eyes and let him plant layer after layer of hypnotic commands in my ear.

“When you wake up, you’ll be an obedient wife.”

Now I watch them living happily ever after as a family of three.

They think I’m nothing but an empty shell.

They have no idea that I’ve already posted this plea for help online:

[HELP] My cousin is wearing my sexy nightgown to seduce my husband, I caught them cheating, and my son calls her “Mom.” But I just feel numb. What am I supposed to do?

I died on the operating table—my heart cut out, my unborn child destroyed, my identity stolen by the woman who replaced me.
Now I'm back. At the exact moment they're celebrating my replacement's victory, I step out of the shadows and into the light of my own funeral.
Tonight, I will not beg. I will not cry. I will not give them the satisfaction of watching me break.
Tonight, I become the nightmare they've been running from. For twenty years, they treated me like I was invisible. Let me show them what happens when you ignore the one person who could destroy everything you built.
I am Serena Astor.
The rightful heir.
And I will have my revenge.

In my past life, I was framed by my girlfriend and her unrequited lover, losing my job and being silenced! Reborn a week earlier, I've decided to retaliate! On the surface, I'm still the devoted boyfriend, but secretly, I've laid a trap. When the scumbag thought he'd succeeded, he found himself surrounded by the FBI; when the scheming woman thought she'd risen to power, she became a pariah. And I, not only did I successfully avenge myself, but I also built a multi-billion dollar business empire! In this life, I'll make everyone who betrayed me understand—if you mess with Marcus Sterling, you'll pay the price!

Four years ago, I left my boyfriend when he had nothing.

Now, he's a billionaire. And he's forcing me to marry him—just for revenge.

Every day it's a different girl. Now there's a pregnant influencer he flaunts in my face, destroying what's left of my dignity.

"Kneel and beg her, and I'll give you money." He holds another woman and smirks at me.

I don't cry. I don't scream. I just swallow the blood rising in my throat.

He doesn't know my brain tumor is terminal. I have thirty days left.

I've already signed the organ donation papers. I just want to die in peace.

I stopped loving him a long time ago.

I bought a handsome, aloof incubus from a clearance sale online to be my live-in maid.
For a week, he was perfect. Then he started fainting, his skin burning with a fever no amount of rest could fix. Panicked that I’d somehow overworked my best employee, I called the 24/7 Aphrodisiac (companyI bought him from) helpline.

Ma’am, our incubus models have a demonic lineage and you have got a high-output model. They have near-infinite stamina. They don't get 'feverish' from vacuuming. But... why did you have him doing 'housework'?"
"Because the house was dirty?"
The agent suddenly chuckled. "Ah, I see. Everyone has their own fantasies and kinks. Roleplay is very popular. But tell me, according to the log, when was the last time Xanthos received physical intimacy?"
"Huh?"
"Physical intimacy," the agent repeated. "Love, spoiling, skin-to-skin contact. If a male incubus doesn't get intimacy, his internal energy stagnates. They fall sick. Male models are much higher maintenance than females; they need constant affection to stay healthy."
My blood ran cold. "Affection? I bought him to mop the floors!"
"Ma'am," the agent's voice dropped. "You are on Aphrodisiac. We are the world's leading provider of supernatural escorts. Did you... did you not read the site description?"

Turns out, I hadn’t bought a demonic domestic servant.
I’d accidentally purchased a high-maintenance supernatural escort.
And apparently, if I didn’t start showing my “maid” some affection soon, he would die and I would be jailed for abusing my maid.

Four years ago, I got mauled by a rogue wolf saving my Beta husband Derek. The attack left me unable to carry pups.

He held me that night, covered in my blood, and swore through tears that kids never mattered to him anyway.

Four years later, he's sleeping with Paige, a she-wolf I took in out of kindness six months back.

"Every family needs an heir. You can't give me one, so Paige offered. Just accept it and keep being my mate."

Paige, eyes brimming with tears, insisted she only wanted to repay my kindness. The baby would call me mother. She'd never try to take my place.

I almost laughed. Since when does anyone repay a favor by climbing into bed with the man who took her in?

I refused. He brought my parents and my brother into it to force my hand.

I didn't waste another word on him. I severed the bond and moved my whole family out to Moonhaven Pack on the coast.

Turns out nobody leaves a single she-wolf alone, no matter where she goes. Thugs kept showing up outside my door, stirring up trouble.

Right when things get unbearable, a big guy shows up out of nowhere and beats the group of them into running for their lives.

He's tall, scars all over his arms. He looks me over for a long moment, then says, "I need a wife to look after my two kids. Marry me. I'll protect your whole family."

Three years ago, on their way to attend my graduation art exhibition, the cruise ship carrying my fiancé and my family caught fire.

Over the past three years, I downed sleeping pills countless times, desperately wanting to follow them into the afterlife. Every single time, my adopted sister, Serena, saved me, crying hysterically as she shoved her fingers down my throat to make me throw up.

"They are already gone! Harper, you can't keep living in the past. You have to live on for their sake!"

After fainting from yet another high fever and being rushed to the hospital, I was diagnosed with terminal leukemia.

The doctor said I had a month left, at most.

I refused their advice to find a bone marrow match. Clutching my family's belongings, I decided to go back to our old estate in the suburbs for one last look.

While I was walking in a daze, a little boy running wildly crashed hard into my legs.

A male voice that had haunted my dreams for years rang out from behind me. "Alistair, if you keep running off, what will you do if Mommy and Daddy don't want you anymore?"

In an instant, it felt like I had been plunged into freezing water. I froze in place.

When the bridal bouquet landed directly in my arms, the entire reception erupted.
All eyes shifted to Elias, the man I had loved for seven years.
"Propose! Put a ring on it!" the crowd chanted, pushing him toward me.
My heart raced. I thought my endless waiting was finally over.
Instead, Elias stepped up, smiled... and pulled the flowers right out of my hands.
He turned around and shoved them into the arms of his twenty-five-year-old assistant.
"Don't be greedy, Kalinda. Let Mia have the luck today," he chuckled, patting my hair like a pet. "We've got plenty of time. Next time, I promise."
I watched his assistant bury her face in the white peonies, shooting me a triumphant smirk.
I just smiled back.
There isn't going to be a "next time."
My wedding is coming. But he isn't the groom.

For six years, my mother Isolde believed I had committed an unforgivable sin. Under the guise of "reforming my character," she continuously injected me with neurotoxic antibiotics, confining me to a wheelchair to act as a crippled companion to my sister, Alondra.
My entire family silently condoned this punishment, favoring my sister who was merely faking her paralysis. I had long since surrendered all my dignity, numbly enduring every injustice.
On my nineteenth birthday, I humbly begged her to stop the injections for just one day. I didn't want to look pathetic in front of my childhood sweetheart, Joren.
Moments later, I uncovered the cruel truth on the balcony: my sister’s legs had healed long ago. Six years of agony had been nothing but a staged performance.
The long-accumulated drug toxicity suddenly erupted inside my body. I tumbled to the floor together with my wheelchair. Summoning the last ounce of my strength, I managed to reach a bottle of pills meant to alleviate the toxicity.
As my consciousness faded, a faint, hopeless wish lingered in my heart: I thought that if I just fell asleep, I might regain feeling in my legs when I woke up.
When I opened my eyes again, I realized with horror—I was already dead.

On our tenth anniversary, a doctor told me I had three months left.
I called Graham five times before he picked up. He was at a restaurant downtown, cutting the steak on his ex-girlfriend's plate, and he told me to stop acting like a paranoid wife.
So I never told him.
I folded the diagnosis into my coat pocket, went home, and rinsed the blood out of the sink before he walked in. Then I signed away the house, the cars, every share of the firm I helped him build. I left his ring on the coffee table, canceled the number I'd had for ten years, and checked into a hospice with nobody's name on my emergency contact line.
He thought I was throwing a tantrum. He thought I'd come crawling back the second the money ran out.
He didn't find the diagnosis until it was too late to matter.

For three years, the whole school thought I loved privileged golden boy Sebastian Grayson. I covered his mistakes, took his punishments, and single-handedly turned his rebellious self into a Harvard admit, enduring endless mockery for my one-sided devotion.
Yet every obedient act was never love — only a contract deal.
When we reunite at a Harvard banquet two years later, Sebastian craves a second chance.
But he is too late. I will never return.

To help his life-saving benefactor, he personally pressed a pregnant me on the operating table to draw bone marrow.
I cried and begged him, "James, I'm pregnant. It's your child. Don't do this to me..."
But he had a look of disgust in his eyes. "Elizabeth, you'd lie about something like that just to get out of helping Mandy?"
Until there was a river of blood in the operating room and that unformed child turned into a pool of bloody water, he finally panicked.
Later, when he knew that the person who saved him in the fire ten years ago was actually me, he held my ashes and knelt outside the operating room for a full three days.

My adopted sister, Cordelia, conspired with her biological mother to harvest my organs alive, yet she had the audacity to claim I paid thugs to rape her.
My biological parents didn't bother to ask for the truth. They cursed me, calling me a vicious bastard, and threatened to break my legs.
My fiancé, Caspian, coldly announced the cancellation of our engagement, declaring he would marry the very murderer who killed me.
I had been dead for exactly three days. No one cared. My body was rotting back in a moldy storage room.
Through it all, my soul was trapped in the manor, forced to witness this absurd farce.
But what they didn't expect was that when they finally learned of my death—
Everyone went completely insane.

Everyone says I'm the woman Jasper loves most.

But only I know that in his heart, I've always come second to Sadie.

Seven years ago, I shoved him out from under a collapsing rig and shattered my right ankle. I never skated competitively again.

He held me and swore that the day he won the Grand Slam, he'd marry me in front of the whole world.

I believed him. So I learned to be his support crew. I sharpened his blades, hand-sewed his costumes, dragged my bad leg around everywhere he went. I turned myself into the shadow that followed him.

Then Sadie came along. Young, healthy, able to do things I could never do again.

Tonight, Jasper wins the Grand Slam. The cameras circle him, the whole arena chanting for him to propose.

But he looks down at Sadie in his arms and smiles.

"Out of everyone, she's the one I want to thank most for this medal. I wouldn't have made it here without her."

That's the moment I stop wanting to stay.

For the third time, Kael fled before the wedding—this time to deliver medicine to the neighbor girl he grew up with.
As compensation, the pack elders offered me two chests of rare ore and the deed to an island.
Someone, still hopeful, called Kael on speakerphone.
His careless voice echoed through the hall:
“Why bother with compensation? Ella loves me so much; she’ll come around as soon as I go back and sweet-talk her a little.”
“Sophia’s health is what matters now. Once she recovers, I’ll just hold another ceremony for Ella.”
The elders tried to explain, but the surrounding werewolves were all waiting to see the show—waiting to see how much humiliation I would swallow.
Just like the first two times.
But I’d had enough. And I’d lost all interest in Kael.
I kicked over the chest of ore and let my gaze fall on Kael’s uncle.
Then, I smiled.
“I heard the old Alpha left a will: whoever can claim me… becomes the next Alpha.”

They thought that by forcing me to my death, they could devour everything.

My father jumped off a building, and I became a destitute young master whom everyone could bully. To pay off debts, I married into the Hawthorne family and became their sharpest knife.

After my father-in-law died suddenly, my wife immediately brought her childhood sweetheart into the house and forced me to divorce him.

My resistance resulted in a murder plotted by 928 × 213.

When I opened my eyes again, Chloe, who had been watching over me for three days and three nights, was beside me.

She said, "I'll take you away."

Three years later, I returned as a mysterious investor. The first thing I did was to buy the family's bankrupt old factory for 1.5 billion.

My ex-wife and I bumped into each other on the street; it was like seeing a ghost.

I smiled and stuck a 30 million yuan check on her forehead: "This is to repay the divorce fee you gave me back then. Keep the change."

The real revenge has only just begun.

My brother Miles blames me for our parents' deaths.
So he chose to adopt the deaf Vivian instead of keeping me.
Later, I met Sullivan.
He gave me a grand confession. He chose me, resolutely.
He also said I hired someone to assault Vivian—that I didn't deserve sympathy.
Five years after being cast out of my family, a dismembered female body was found inside a carnival mascot costume.
Miles, now a police officer, led the investigation. Sullivan, now a forensic pathologist, performed the autopsy.
They saw the bloodstained hearing aid and immediately called Vivian.
"I'm fine. I just saw the news—some big case. Should we tell Sis to be careful too? What if something happens to her?"
They refused, almost in unison.
"The moment she killed our parents, she stopped being my sister."
"She was jealous of you. She did too many terrible things. If she's dead, she had it coming."
My soul hovered in the air, watching them. I laughed until I cried.
But when they found out the victim was me—
Why did they both go mad?

My husband's foster sister, Delilah, gets poisoned and ends up paralyzed. My husband, Grayson, the Don of this whole crime family, doesn't even bother checking the security cameras. He just throws me, two months pregnant, into the cistern where they punish traitors.

"Tessa, hand over the antidote, or die."

I kneel in the freezing swamp water and beg him. I didn't poison her.

He answers with a kick to the stomach.

For three straight days, I suffer down there. Leeches tear into my skin. My baby turns into a pool of black blood and dissolves into the filthy water. By the end, my vocal cords tear to shreds, my body goes cold, and I stop breathing.

His men get on their knees and beg him to spare me. He just sneers.

"That woman's always been good at playing the victim. No food, no medicine. Let her keep soaking."

Three days later, he finally walks into the cistern, and it's only to give me an ultimatum.

"Crawl out and apologize to Delilah on your knees. Otherwise I'll strip you of your title and sell you off to a trafficking ring. You'll wish you were dead."

No one answers him.

He has no idea. I already am.

Every time my husband’s adopted sister, Avey, had a tennis match, he would force a dark green concoction down my throat. As soon as it kicked in, my entire body would turn weak and aching.
He claimed it was a folk remedy, and I believed him.
In half a year, I lost twenty pounds, half my hair fell out, and I lost our four-month-old baby.
Until the night I overheard them whispering behind a cracked door—they had sought out a witch and cast a dark curse.
My forced standstill was the price for her endless stamina. All her fatigue and sports injuries were being directly transferred to me.
Late that night, listening to them plot to drain the life out of me, I made a choice. On the very night Avey won her championship, I climbed into a deep hibernation pod. I traded thirty days of absolute physical stasis to ensure she could never stop.

"Valerie, you've been working yourself to death. I booked you a flight to Switzerland—take Leo, go relax for a while." My husband Cedric set an Hermès scarf down on the table. "Early gift for our tenth anniversary."
I was thrilled, twirling in front of the mirror with the scarf, admiring how it looked.
That's when my son came around the corner, iPad in hand. "Mommy, a message just popped up. Daddy said he wants to give Seraphina a real family."
My mind just... blanked out.
I opened the message myself, and there it was—a whole year of secrets I never even knew existed.
So he wants to make things right with his old flame? Fine.
Then I get to take back everything I ever gave him.

The man I marry will become the future leader of the company.
In my previous life, without a second thought, I chose to marry the eldest son
whom I had always liked.
But shortly after our wedding, he came stepsister,
and even took out his frustration of not getting her on me,
going so far as to poison and kill me.
This time around,
I chose his younger brother.
I'll see for myself
if he can spend his life with my sister without me standing in their way. me.
This time around,
I chose his younger brother.
I'll see for myself
if he can spend his life with my sister without me standing in their way.

I lay alone in a freezing hospital bed, gritting my teeth through the raw, burning pain of another round of skin-graft treatment. Every inch of me burned, as if fire ants were crawling beneath my skin.
And my fiancé, Alpha Mason, was in the room next door.
Serena, his childhood sweetheart, had a mild headache. Just a headache. Yet Mason sat at her bedside, blowing gently on spoonfuls of chicken soup before feeding them to her, as if she were the one who had almost died.
By the time I made it to her room and pushed the door open, I heard his voice before I saw him. Cold. Careless. Amused.
“Cora’s burn scars make me sick to look at,” he said to his Beta and a few high-ranking wolves gathered in Serena’s room. “She chose to run into that fire for me. Why am I supposed to spend the rest of my life paying for it? God, she’s so dramatic.”
I stood there, frozen.