2314 Book(s) Related to i am not ok with this graphic novel

She gets into the wrong car and spills all her deepest secrets to the wrong person. By the time she realizes her mistake, it's already too late.


For ten years, Lucy Knowles has been hopelessly in love with her best friend, Owen Brooks.
She's stood by him through everything. She's been his shoulder to cry on every time his cheating girlfriend shattered his heart.
Seven times in a row, Lucy thought he'd finally see her now that his girlfriend was out of the picture. Instead, he took her back with open arms every single time.
When Owen ditches her for the last game of the season, Lucy reaches her breaking point.
Angry and heartbroken, she climbs into the wrong car.
Unfortunately, it belongs to Tyler Holt—the one guy she can't stand and Owen's biggest rival.
A sudden thunderstorm forces them to spend the night together off campus, and Lucy discovers there's a completely different side to Tyler than the arrogant jerk she thought she knew.
Then Tyler makes her an offer.
"I can help you kill two birds with one stone," he says.
"Hurt them both by ruining their upcoming engagement party."
Excitement rushes through her. Watching Owen and his girlfriend get a taste of their own medicine has always been tempting.
But Tyler Holt never does anything unless there's something in it for him.
And Lucy can't stop wondering what a guy like Tyler could possibly want from a naïve nerd who hates him.

In my first life, Alpha Damon Hawthorne rescued me, made me his mate, and poisoned me.
When I woke in the forest, I remembered enough to change one thing: this time, I would get my friend Selene to safety, let him find her, and leave.
He chose her. I asked for my freedom.
Then he broke my betrothal to another man and told me I had always been his.

I've always been a little slower than everyone else.

Ethan Walker used to promise he'd wait for me. We'd been best friends since we were four.

Then Madison Reed came along, and he stopped keeping that promise.

At dinner, they'd leave before I finished eating. At the beach, they disappeared while I was still struggling to swim back to shore.

I kept making excuses for him.

Until the night I arrived late to a party and heard one of his friends ask, "Where's Alice? Thought she was coming with you."

Ethan let out an annoyed sigh.

"She's probably still getting ready. You know how slow she is."

"Why didn't you wait?"

"Because it's exhausting. Everything takes twice as long with her around. I'm not spending my whole life waiting for her."

I stood outside the door, unable to move.

I'd spent years trying to catch up to him.

I never realized he'd been counting the minutes until he could leave me behind.

Ethan and Madison had been planning to attend UCLA together for months. They'd already made it clear that they expected me to go with them, too.

He assumed I'd follow, just like always.

But I quietly accepted my offer from the University of Washington instead.

Ethan was right about one thing.

He shouldn't have to spend his life waiting for me.

So this time, I chose Seattle.

And I gave him a future without me.

Three days after I died, the morgue called my husband Sebastian to collect my ashes.
He was kissing another woman when he hit speaker, his voice cold and dismissive: "She's dead? Cremate her. Don't call me again."
And just like that, my body was wheeled into the cremation chamber.
When he finally showed up to collect my remains, he smashed the urn on the floor and ground every fragment of my ashes into the tile with his shoe.
"Playing dead? What a pathetic stunt," he sneered. "Tell her the anniversary of my mother's death is coming up. She'd better show up at the cemetery on her knees, or even if she really is dead, I'll scatter her ashes in the sewer myself."
But he didn't know—I truly was dead.
My soul was bound to him, forced to drift at his side as he planned a lavish wedding with his adopted sister Claire—his mother's true killer.
By the time he discovered the truth and exposed Claire at the altar, I had already vanished.
He lost his mind, racing to the ocean to search for my ashes.
Never knowing that the remains he'd crushed like garbage under his shoe—the "fake ashes" he'd dismissed as part of my act—
Were all that was left of me.

For three years, I deliberately suppressed my grades to rank under my boyfriend William, paving his way to our promised Cambridge exchange. I overheard him and my best friend Maddie confess they framed me for plagiarism in my past life, driving me to jump off the 38th floor, yet they still carried on an affair. They lied and ignored my pain afterward. Heartbroken, I secretly applied to Cambridge alone. The twist? My years of hiding my brilliance were never selfless sacrifice. I collected all their dirty secrets. I’m going to Cambridge not to flee, but to ruin every dream they cling to.

I longed for family affection and true love all my life. I tried my best to get along with my stepbrother Karen, and wholeheartedly loved his friend Nolan. However, my sincerity was trampled into the mud. They conspired to hurt me, spread indecent content to ruin my life, and even broke the last relic left by my grandmother. I suffered countless humiliations and injuries, then chose to leave without saying goodbye. Years later, the two men were trapped in endless regret, but I had already walked out of the shadow of the past. Trust is gone, and so is my tenderness for them.

My younger sister was tortured to the brink of death by the young heir of a newly minted mafia family.
 
His older sister stood on her high horse and threw a check at me.
 
"Take this half a million, grab your half-dead sister, and get the hell out of New York."
 
I tore the check into shreds and screamed at her, "In your dreams! I want him dead!"
 
She let out a contemptuous scoff.
 
"Around here, my family is the law! Half a million is enough for bottom-feeders like you to scrape by for three lifetimes. If it's not enough, consider it money for a nice cemetery plot. How about I throw in another two million?"
 
As she spoke, she raised her hand, flaunting it. "Otherwise... take a good look at this signet ring. Who exactly do you think you're talking to?"
 
My eyes locked onto the ring on her finger. The ancient crest engraved on the gold was all too familiar—it was the custom wedding gift I had commissioned for my mafia boss husband ten years ago.
 
Instantly, my glare turned absolutely lethal.
 
"I said, I want your brother's life."

I divorced the same man nine times.
The first eight times, I was the one sobbing, begging him not to go.
The ninth time, I was the one who slid the papers across the table.
He signed them, then told me we'd remarry once she left.
I said okay.
What he didn't know was that my flight was already booked.
This time, I was leaving for good.

My adopted sister, Adriana, hit and injured Hadley Brooks—the prized mistress of Hartwell’s mafia boss, Dario Salvatore—and fled the scene.
Don Salvatore gave us exactly three days. And so, my husband and my parents all turned their eyes to me: Go take the fall for her. You always know how to fix things.
I agreed.
What they didn't know was that on that very same day, my doctor had given me my own deadline: I had, at most, three days left to live.

"Priest, I'm requesting to transfer my registry to the Forbidden Lands. And I need the materials to forge a Moonshadow Puppet. In three days, it will stand in my place at the mating altar."

I spoke into the communication rune in my palm.

From the other end, the Moon Priest's voice spiked with warning. "Aria, do you have any idea what you're saying? The Forbidden Lands is an abyss of no return! It's ruled by the Lycans. You don't even have a wolf spirit—walking in there is a death sentence!"

"My decision is final."

After a long beat, his heavy, suppressed sigh echoed through. "Using a puppet substitute is an act of absolute blasphemy against the Moon Goddess... You've waited for Kaelen for so many years. Why walk away now?"

"Because a puppet will never betray a sacred vow."

The mafia boss chose me as his decoy—a body double for the woman he loves.

Eight years. Three bullets, one car crash, one explosion. The doctor said ten more minutes and I would've died on that operating table when they took my kidney. I gave him a son. He let me play "the boss's wife" in public.

Until he cleared every obstacle for her and decided to marry her.

Her wedding photos replaced mine in the master bedroom. He has her initials tattooed on his arm. When I questioned him, he had his men slap me at a charity gala, forced me to admit "I'm just a stand-in." When I touched her, he took away my custody, declared she was "the true lady of this house."

The punishments got worse. When he threatened to cancel my mother's insurance, I finally learned to shut up.

He pulls me close, whispers in my ear: "She gave up everything for me. Not like you—you were born to take bullets for me."

"Deal with it. She's not replacing you. This is her house now."

Even my son took her side.

"Stop being dramatic! Natalie actually loves us! You're nothing!"

But their pure, innocent Natalie? She unplugged my mother's ventilator while I was locked in the basement. Let his enemies slip poison into my drink during the last job.

When Grayson found me, all he said was: "She's pregnant and emotional. Go rearrange the flowers at the wedding venue."

I wipe the black blood from my lips. Look at him quietly.

"I'm dying."

At twenty-nine, Dominic Brooks owns this city's underworld.

This year, I'm pregnant again. Finally.

But on our daughter's death anniversary, he doesn't show. Five hours. Nothing.

I find him at our casino with some girl draped all over him. The same girl I pulled out of a trafficking ring two years ago.

She's laughing loud enough for everyone to hear. "His wife won't stop crying about that dead kid. God, he's so over it."

He kisses her. Right in front of me.

Three days later, he tears up our daughter's grave. His mistress wants a swimming pool.

The shovel comes down. My unborn baby goes with it.

Years ago, Dominic taught me the rules of our world. How we handle traitors.

Time for a reminder.

My family ignored my calls while I was dying in our basement. They thought I was trying to ruin my younger sister's graduation.
That night, my brother finally came looking for me. My sister wanted the cookies I used to bake for her.
I was right beside him when he demanded that I come home.
He couldn't hear me. My body was still downstairs.

The last time Adrian and I fought about Sophie Bennett, we didn't realize our daughter was standing right outside the door.
 
"Don't forget how Ellie got here in the first place. If you hadn't trapped me with a pregnancy, there wouldn't have been a wedding. So yes, goddamn it—I wish Sophie's boy was mine."
 
After that night, Ellie stopped asking for Adrian. She invited George to her preschool field day. She gave the Father's Day present she'd made to our bodyguard.
 
Then, one day, a business associate teased me about when I was going to give Ellie a younger sibling.
 
Ellie scrambled out of her playroom. "Mom, you should have it with Uncle Victor! I want a baby brother that belongs to you and Uncle Victor!."
 
The sharp crash of shattering porcelain echoed from the upstairs landing. Adrian stood there, pale, staring at the cake he'd dropped.
 
"I broke Ellie's cake," he said. "I'll go get another piece."
 
He turned and fled down the hallway, disappearing before either of us could say a word.

The man on the other side of the frosted glass paid a hundred million dollars for my amnesia serum. I warned him there was no antidote. He laughed.
“If I can buy the poison,” he said, “I can buy the cure.”
He didn’t recognize my voice. Why would he? In five years of marriage, Rhett Calloway never once asked what I did before I became his wife.
Days later, he divorced me and pressed that same vial into my palm.
His savior is dying, and he wants to give her the wedding of her dreams—with no first wife in the way. So he made me a promise: drink it, forget him for three days, then take the antidote and come home. We’d remarry like nothing ever happened.
I created that serum. I know exactly what it does. It doesn’t steal your memories all at once; it eats them slowly, until the person you love most is simply gone.
I swallowed every drop.
After that, I won’t remember his name.
But he’ll never forget mine.

I was dead, and the whole world was celebrating for my sister.

For twenty-two years, I had been the hardest-working but most invisible daughter in the Sterling family, forever living in the shadow of my gymnastics prodigy sister.

Running a high fever, I begged my family to take me to the hospital, only to hear: "Don't you DARE ruin Bella's award ceremony!"

When I was tricked into the abandoned equipment room and used my last breath to call my boyfriend while lying in a pool of blood, all I heard was: "Grace, quit the drama! Bella's accepting her award on stage!"

On stage, thunderous applause erupted as Bella lifted the "Young Gymnast of the Year" trophy.

And I drew my final breath.

When they returned home triumphant, thinking I had run away in a tantrum, they had no idea I was already dead right under their noses.

I was reborn on the day my baby was murdered, and the first thing I did was send my son away from the Hale estate. When I returned to the party, a black stroller was floating in the pool. Everyone thought the dead child was mine. They told me I could have another baby while they protected the ten-year-old girl who had pushed the stroller in. Then my father arrived with my living son in his arms, and the child dragged from the trash compactor turned out to be the killer’s own baby brother.

I can see a loyalty score over everyone's head.

When it falls below sixty percent, that person leaves.

The day my father cheated, his score fell from sixty-nine to twenty-three.

The day my sister ran away from home, hers fell to seven.

So when I grew up and started dating, I always left in time.

Then I met Beckett Hale.

His score for me was always one hundred percent. I believed I had finally found something real.

Then, on our daughter's third birthday, he didn't come.

When he walked in that night, the number over his head had dropped from one hundred to eighty-seven.

I understood that it was time to start planning to leave again.

For the tenth time, James Smith left me behind because of a call from his female student.
But it was as if I had become a different person—I no longer doubted that there was something ambiguous between James and his student.
Even on our wedding anniversary, when he abandoned me in the remote mountains for Sophia's sake, I bore no resentment.
Eventually, James began to sense something.
"Emily, you seem different," he said.
I shook my head with a smile.
Because I had simply made a different choice from the one in my past life.

I gave Arthur a thousand years. A thousand years to secure his throne as God-King.

And on the day of our engagement ceremony, he announced he was marrying someone else.

In my past life, I bled myself dry for him.

He told me Lilith needed Seraphim blood to live. I believed him. He bound me to the Divine Punishment Pillar and carved open my chest, one cut at a time.

He massacred my entire clan, calling it "treason."

I only learned the truth as I was dying. That pitiful "saint" was a demon from the Abyss all along.

Now that I'm reborn, watching him sit on that throne makes my skin crawl.

I destroy our engagement in front of everyone and take the entire Seraphim clan with me.

This time, I'm only here to watch him destroy himself.

They called me a hellcat. A she-wolf tyrant. The Luna who made her Alpha husband obey.
I held him together when his father died. Built his dying pack into a powerhouse while he flirted with she-wolves.
Then he brought home his "fated mate."
Everyone waited for me to explode.
Instead, I smiled. "I'll help you prepare the ceremony."
That's when my wolf—dormant for years—began to wake.

What happens when Kyrah Bailey falls in love with the son of a tycoon, Blake Dawson and later finds out that he has strings attached with his neighbor Sabrina Johnson? Will Kyrah be able to dig out Blake's past? Will she forgive Blake or not? Torn between her boyfriend, Blake and her best friend, Scott Stone, her world crumbles down as she tries to fight for her lover forgetting about her friends and family. Will she realize her mistakes and who will she end up falling for?

Amara Cole has always believed in doing the right thing. A scholarship student at the city’s most elite high school, she’s learned to keep her head down, protect her family, and avoid trouble at all costs. But the one person she’s been warned to stay away from — Adrian Vale, the principal’s golden son — is about to turn her carefully ordered world upside down.
Adrian was supposed to be the enemy: charming, untouchable, and the reason her brother’s future was shattered. Yet, every time he’s near, her heart betrays her. And when a school project forces them together, secrets begin to unravel — secrets that could destroy both their lives if anyone finds out...
In a city where every mistake is magnified, Amara must navigate first love, jealousy, and the painful choices that come with it. Can she protect her heart without losing herself? Or will falling for the one she’s not supposed to love become the only way to truly live?

Maddison Huston loses everything in one night; her job, her home, her reputation, and the man she loved. Branded a seductress and cast aside at her ex-lover’s wedding, she is left broken, homeless, and humiliated.
One drunken night leads to a dangerous encounter with a stranger whose touch she can’t forget, only to discover he is Aldric Hawthorne, the ruthless CEO who holds her fate in his hands.


“That’s how you show appreciation?” he asked quietly. “To someone who saved you from danger? Protected you because you were careless enough to drink yourself unconscious in a bar?”
I blinked in confusion. “Protected… me?”
“Yes. And you dare accuse me of taking advantage of you? Seriously, Miss Huston?” He stopped in front of me and trailed his eyes from my legs up to my face.
I felt cornered, stupid and confused.
“No, I remember everything.” I tried to keep my voice steady but my shaking breaths betrayed me. “You kissed me, you touched me, you even…” I trailed on my last words because I couldn’t bring myself to say it.
His eyes glinted with something I couldn’t read.
“You don’t seem to have recovered from the alcohol,” he said with a smirk on his face, stepping closer while I backed away until my back hit the wall.
His arm braced beside my head, and my breath caught as he leaned in, heat radiating from his body like fire contained in a man.
“You must be so delusional to have imagined me having sex with you,” he murmured, his lips brushing so close to my ear my knees weakened.
My breath stuttered. “I didn’t imagine—”
He lifted my chin to look at him, his mouth hovered on my lips and his hot breaths hitting my face;
My heart was beating so fast at the closeness and the look in his eyes, like he was going to devour me.
Then his voice dropped into a dark whisper behind my ear.
“I don’t fuck virgins.”
My stomach flipped as his breath grazed my neck.
How did he know?

After escaping a brutal forced mating ritual in the mountains, I arrive in Manhattan alone, broken, and desperate—with nothing but the clothes on my back and a painful mark that allows my ruthless former Alpha to track me anywhere.

Everything changes when I'm rescued by mysterious Rhydian Vaughn during a deadly encounter with human predators.

But my savior makes me an unexpected offer: become his temporary mate and help him escape a centuries-old arrangement with a powerful Luna bloodline his family expects him to claim.

What I don't know is that Rhydian Vaughn is far more than he appears.

He is the hidden Alpha King.

The most powerful wolf in existence.

Yet instead of seeing me as a weak, wolfless outcast, he treats me like something precious. He looks at my silver hair—the curse that made my old pack despise me—as if it's the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

But why would a man who has everything choose a broken girl like me? Someone born without a wolf, who spent her entire life being told she was worthless?

I've never believed in the Moon Goddess or fated mates—not after everything I've suffered.

But what if the Alpha King's mysterious devotion means I'm actually his destined mate?

After three years of marriage, the first thing my husband did upon waking from his vegetative state was to humiliate me for my stepsister. I once thought that my three years of devoted care would earn me a shred of his affection, only to discover that he had always loved the woman who stole everything from me including my identity. For her sake, he forced me to leave with nothing and had me blacklisted throughout the city.

But what they didn't know was that the woman they discarded like a piece of trash would shed her apron and become a legendary racer who struck fear into the hearts of the entire racing world. When my husband's archrival extended an olive branch to me, this game of revenge began—who will ultimately be the winner?

Gabrielle Wheeler is a plus-sized nerd from a struggling pack and feels trapped by her life.

Wanting to rebel, she drinks too much at a party and drives home drunk.

On an empty road near the pack borders, she hits a lone motorcyclist.

Panicked, she rushes him to the hospital, but the doctor tells her he has a severe spinal injury and might never walk again.

Afraid of jail or exile, Gabrielle leaves him there and runs away.

When Gabrielle returns home, she discovers her mother is marrying Ronan Blackthorn, the richest and most powerful Alpha in the country.

All their debts are wiped clean, and Gabrielle must leave her old life behind to attend the prestigious Raven Wood University, a mixed human-werewolf school.

At the Blackthorn estate, Gabrielle meets her new stepbrother, Kalvin Blackthorn, the same boy she hit on her birthday.

The pack discovers she was responsible for the accident. Her mother pleads for her, but Gabrielle is punished: she must take care of Kalvin for one year until he is fit for surgery.

That same night, the full moon rises.

Gabrielle discovers that Kalvin is her fated mate. Kalvin almost rejects her, furious over his injury, but he comes up with a dark and wicked idea.

He will use the mate bond to punish Gabrielle for what she did to him.

Gabrielle’s life is turned upside down, trapped with the boy she almost ruined and forced to live under his control while learning the power of their bond.

I was reborn, and so was my husband. But he chose his true love as his wife...

Serena Hale thought she had finally built a quiet life for herself—one where her past, her family’s mistakes, and her father’s debts wouldn’t define her. But when her father’s financial troubles drag her into a marriage contract with Adrian Vale, a cold and devastatingly handsome billionaire heir, her fragile world shatters.
To the outside world, they are a perfect couple: glamorous, untouchable, and united. In reality, Serena and Adrian are strangers bound by obligation, their relationship defined by rules, tension, and restraint. He is ruthless, emotionally distant, and used to controlling everyone around him. She is quiet, observant, and fiercely protective of the small autonomy she has left. Every interaction is a battle between control and resistance, pride and vulnerability, fear and desire.
As they navigate public appearances, family scrutiny, and the constraints of their forced union, unexpected emotions begin to stir. Their hostility slowly transforms into understanding, and resentment gives way to longing—but every step toward connection is fraught with danger. Secrets from both their pasts threaten to unravel the fragile trust forming between them, and Serena soon realizes that love in this arrangement comes at a high cost.
When betrayal and scandal push them to the breaking point, Serena must decide whether to fight for the life she wants or surrender to the man who has slowly captured her heart. And Adrian must confront the truth: love cannot be forced, earned, or bought—it must be chosen.
Bound to a Man I Never Chose is a slow-burn billionaire romance about trust, power, emotional resilience, and the courage it takes to claim your own life, even when every choice feels impossible.

Is it a sin to love? If secret love is a sin I am willing to accept whatever is at stake.

I'm Marina Daughn Welch, who will pretend to be the wife of my twin's fiancé.

"Walk with me," he said.
Not a question. A decision.
"I don't think that's a good idea," I replied.
"Why not?"
"Because I don't belong in your world."
Ava Morgan has one rule: never mix emotions with ambition. Focused and independent, she has no interest in powerful men or complicated relationships.
So when a billionaire approaches her at a high-profile event, she does the one thing no one expects.
She rejects him.
Days later, she walks into her new job and finds out her new boss is the same man.
Ethan Blackwood is powerful, ruthless, and not used to hearing no. But instead of revenge, he becomes determined to break through Ava's walls.
As secrets unravel and attraction grows, Ava is forced to question everything she believes.
What happens when the man you rejected becomes the one person you can't escape?

“You only have to carry our baby.”

Evelyn Carter never imagined that her mother’s staggering medical bills would force her into a secret arrangement she could never tell anyone about.

Desperate to save her mother, Evelyn signs a confidential surrogacy contract with the wife of one of New York’s most powerful billionaires. Her only job is to give the Whitmore family an heir.

But there is one problem she never expected—

The baby’s father is her billionaire boss, Alexander Whitmore.

And Alexander has no idea who she really is.

By day, he is an untouchable business king. By night, Evelyn is summoned to his private apartment under the terms of their secret arrangement.

She keeps telling herself it’s nothing more than a transaction.

Until an unexpected encounter at the hospital makes Alexander notice her for the first time.

He becomes fascinated by the woman who always seems desperate to avoid him.

Why does she look at him like she’s hiding something?

And when Evelyn finally discovers she is pregnant with his baby, Alexander begins to realize—

The mysterious woman carrying his child may have already become the woman he can’t let go.

Warning!!! Rated. 18+
{She was my tool for revenge, but I ended up falling for her}
"I'M sorry, but I beg of you don't sell me out like the others please, remember I'm your family right?" she cried.
"How many times am I gonna tell you that you are not in any way related to me Gianna? I found you in the orphanage and took pity on you, the fact that I nursed you up till this moment does not make you my family. I only took good care of you because I know one day you gonna bring me so much money and that day is today so go get ready. You have already been bought my dear Gianna", she nulled with a wicked grin on her face.
Seventeen and still bubbling, already blessed with all womanly features endowed in the right places, Gianna was adopted by an Aunt Christa, when she clocked two.
Aunt Christa was a restaurant owner, more like a delivery slut restaurant, and in there, Gianna served her diligently and faithfully.
Then, the time came when she needed to fulfill that which had been on her mind for like fifteen years, and what was that? To sell her off, to make up money to cover up expenses spent,... and to make more money.
Guess who bought her?? Greg Starr, a 24 year old young entrepreneur, and a Mafia King under cover, very ruthless and heartless.
She was bought to be his tool for revenge, purchased to get back at Clemson, the brother she never knew she had, and his enemy from the past.
And then what happens his female folks?Cassandra Mayor and Beverly Kingstown? Are they all going to just fold their arms and watch this little fragile beauty take their man away?
The worst of it all, she got pregnant for him; got pregnant for a beast in human form.
Was he happy when he got to hear the news? Did he agree to keep the baby? What about her? Was she happy to keep the baby of a ruthless Mafia King?

I once believed that if I was obedient enough, my birth family would finally love me. Instead, they gave everything to Anna, the fake heiress—my competition spot, my reputation, even my kidney.
Then I opened my eyes and returned to the year it all began.
This time, I won’t beg. I won’t yield. My achievements, my dignity, and my life belong to me.
When everyone called me vicious, Damian Sterling draped his jacket over my shoulders and asked in a low voice, “Am I an outsider?”
I leaned into him and smiled. “Of course not.”
But soon I discovered he was being slowly poisoned—and the culprit might be someone closest to him. Worse, the truth behind my death in my previous life may be darker than I ever imagined…

Dear readers, I'm sorry — due to personal reasons, I can no longer keep updating. Thank you for understanding.

I woke up on the operating table—minutes away from having my kidney harvested for the girl who ruined my life. Last time, I died alone, infected, while my family celebrated her “recovery.” Not this time.
I refused the surgery, exposed their lies, and walked out. Now, they call me crazy, ungrateful, a disgrace. But I see them for what they are: parasites who drained my talent, my money, and nearly my life.
I’m done begging for love that was never mine. Instead, I’m selling my music, acing exams, and building my own future—without them. Let them coddle their precious adopted princess. I have a second chance, and I’m not wasting it on people who’d bury me for their convenience.
This time, I choose me. Watch me burn brighter than their golden girl ever could.

<>



Vanessa thought rock bottom was signing divorce papers with Derek Holland, a man with the emotional depth of a teaspoon. Turns out, rock bottom had a basement, and Ryker Holland was waiting for her down there with a smirk and a plan.

Ryker, Derek's older half-brother (aka the family's dirty little secret), shows up offering Vanessa a deal: help her make her ex-husband, Derek Holland, jealous enough to come crawling back. In exchange, he secures his position as CEO.

But Ryker isn't doing this out of kindness. He is petty and cruel. He would do anything to trample all over Derek, and now he has the perfect weapon. Vanessa, freshly dumped and just desperate enough to play along. And if she happens to enjoy making her ex suffer too? Well, that's just a bonus.

As Vanessa sinks deeper into Ryker's twisted world of fake romance, secrecy and family dysfunction, things start getting real. Because fake love? It's a lot easier to control than real feelings. And Ryker has no idea what to do when the game stops being a game.

Is Vanessa walking into a trap or building one of her own? Either way, the Holland brothers are going down. One's going to break, and the other's going to enjoy every second of it.

_Disclaimer:

This story contains morally complex and flawed characters, who often operate with hidden motives and questionable ethics. Themes explored include emotional manipulation, gaslighting, power imbalance, dual identities, and blurred lines between love, control, and obsession. Certain scenes may be intense or unsettling. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

Emily Fields never meant to become a killer.

She was twenty-two when she stabbed a man eleven times behind the bar where she worked. She remembered the first strike. She never remembered the other ten.

Seven months later, the victim suddenly withdrew the charges without explanation.

With nowhere to go and only forty-one dollars to her name, Emily accepts an offer that sounds too good to refuse: become the live-in maid and companion of a wealthy widow at an isolated estate.

The job is simple.

Take care of the old woman.

But the Holloway estate is full of things that don't make sense.

Emily starts waking in parts of the house she has been forbidden to enter, with no memory of how she got there. She finds old photographs that leave her with a strange sense that she has seen them before. The widow watches her with an unsettling familiarity, as though Emily's arrival has been expected for much longer than she realizes.

Then there are the widow's three sons.

Max likes to watch her.

Will can't stop touching her.

And Finn avoids her so completely that Emily begins to wonder what he is afraid will happen if he gets too close.

Emily has spent most of her life believing her story began when she was found and taken into care. No family she could remember. No real answers about where she came from.

But someone inside the Holloway estate seems to know.

And as Emily begins digging into the family's secrets, she realizes everyone around her has been hiding something... including herself.

Because the greatest mystery isn't simply what happened before she ended up in the orphanage.

It's why she can't remember any of it.

She planned to give her virginity to her boyfriend.
Instead, she gave it to his best friend.
In the darkness, one mistake changes everything.
Now bound by a secret they swore to bury, Veda and Winslow must pretend nothing happened…
But some nights refuse to be forgotten.
And some feelings? Impossible to ignore.

When Nathan Hayes set the divorce settlement in front of me, he placed another file beside it.
A man's photograph lay on top.
Thirty-four. Single. A steady career, a home of his own, no complicated family obligations.
It was more thorough than a dating profile.
Nathan sat across from me, as calm as if we were making dinner plans.
“Evan Brooks is heading back to Charlotte next week. He's interested in getting to know you. His rehab center is hiring, too. You used to work in speech therapy. You could have a job and a place to settle down.”
I left the file untouched and picked up the divorce papers.

At my wedding, I stood up to tell my groom how much I loved him.
I didn't even get through the first line.
He grabbed the cake beside him and smashed it into my face.
My ex-boyfriend stood up in the audience, clapping. "Cut! That's a wrap!"
Then he grinned at me. "Hazel, you actually bought it?"

When we moved to the estate on the hill, all the bedrooms had already been assigned.
My parents had the primary suite.
My brother, Adrian, had the east wing.
The south suite, with its view of the Hudson—the nicest room in the house—was marked Grace's Room.
There was no room with my name on it.
In the hall, a worker was fastening brass plaques to the bedroom doors.
Not one of them read Claire.
Ten years earlier, Grace's father had been my dad's underboss. He had gone into a burning warehouse to rescue Adrian from the Bellinis. He hadn't come out.
Standing over his coffin, Dad had declared that Grace would be his daughter from then on.
What the Don said was law in our family. Somehow, though, I was always the one expected to cover the cost of that promise.
I asked Mom where I would sleep.
“You're going off to grad school soon, aren't you?” she said, as if it were obvious. “What would you need a bedroom for?”
Then she turned back to the pink curtains she was choosing with Grace.
Adrian knelt on the floor, lifting different fabric swatches for them to see.
Nathan, my boyfriend of three years, was putting up Grace's paintings. He insisted on hanging each one himself; apparently the movers couldn't be trusted with them.
Sitting on a packing box, I finally got it.
Nobody had overlooked me by accident.
They thought Grace should have the room, the family, even the boyfriend I had believed was mine.
I brought up the agreement on my phone.
A federal research site in the Nevada desert. Classified work.
A five-year commitment, with no outside contact.
I added my signature.
Ten days from now, I would be out of their lives. And I wouldn't be coming back.

In my past life, under the guise of "testing" my boyfriends, my so-called best friend systematically stole my haute couture, hijacked my identity as a wealthy heiress, and seduced every man I ever dated.

It culminated in the ultimate betrayal: she conspired with my fiancé to drug me, broadcast my private photos at my own wedding, and shove me off a rooftop.

She took absolutely everything from me—even murdering my parents by tampering with their gas line to stage a tragic accident.

But fate gave me a second chance.

My eyes snap open. I’m sitting right back in the VIP suite of that lavish restaurant.

My fiancé has just slid the spiked glass of whiskey right toward my hand.

I silently stare at the swirling ice cubes. Instead of picking it up, I raise my hand and casually sweep the heavy glass to the floor.

Crash.

In this life, I am done playing defense.

Since she is so utterly obsessed with stealing my men, I’ll gladly build a magnificent stage for her performance. I'm going to let her claw her way up, let her believe she has finally reached the absolute peak of high society...

Only to personally watch her plunge into the abyss.

I spent ten years turning a thug into a top boxer, but he and my wife kicked me out of the game, mocking me for "not understanding business and being outdated."

I didn't argue, and turned around to pick up a homeless man who had fought in underground boxing matches on the roadside.

A year later, the homeless man's apprentice knocked out the defending champion with one punch and won the gold belt; while that ingrate who betrayed me was beaten into a cripple in the underground boxing ring.

The geniuses you all think they are are nothing more than half-finished products under my tutelage!

All nobles mocked me for rejecting the talented common mage and picking a brutal gladiator with no magic as my escort. They called him a filthy hound unworthy of serving an Oberlin lady. But only I remember—this scarred man died twice for me in my past life. Reborn before my family’s ruin, I swear bloody vengeance on Cedric and Liliana, who poisoned my father and stripped my skin. I endure searing magic backlash, fight bloody death matches, and burn all traitors alive. The shadow they sneer at will become the indestructible shield of my reign.

I planned to give up on life.
Then I heard a cat yelling at a dog.
"Stop being so stubborn, meow! You will die!"
Wait, I can hear them?
Naturally, I bought the dog.
I spent my life savings—twenty dollars—to save a Golden Retriever who apparently curses in dog language.
We just make sense together: a broken human eating crushed instant ramen, and a broken dog deciding to protect her anyway.
I thought my sudden ability to understand their constant, hilarious bickering was just fate tossing me a bone.
But what I was completely unaware of was that this wasn't a glitch in the universe.
It was a supernatural kind of love.
And these two beautiful, damaged little animals hadn't just saved me from the edge... they were about to change my entire life...

I'm the forgotten eldest son of the Cross family.
My parents see me as a walking blood bag for my brother Colin, while my wife views me as a sinner destined to spend my life atoning for my mistakes.
When Audrey pressured me to donate a kidney, I agreed.
Not only did I agree, but I also liquidated all my assets and transferred them to my lab.
They thought I was foolish, that I was still begging for their love.
In reality, I was just tying up loose ends.
The night before the surgery, I coughed up a pool of blood.
Audrey laughed coldly over the phone: "Stop the act, Evan. You just want to dodge responsibility. You'll go to any lengths for attention."
The surgery was a "success."
Colin got the kidney he'd always dreamed of.
And I died in the recovery room.
My soul floated in the air as I watched Audrey push open the hospital door, wearing a smile that dripped with pity, ready to put on a show of "redemption."
"Evan, I know you've been wronged. Let's start over..."
The only response to her was the white sheet covering my lifeless body.

In my previous life, the Vance Corporation stuffed me into an iron barrel and sank me alive to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

The agonizing pain of suffocation still lingered in my bones, yet I suddenly jolted awake in my own bedroom.

The digital clock on the nightstand flashed red: 11:55 PM.

Exactly five minutes remained before the Corporation's elite cleaners would break down the door to silence me.

What is five minutes enough for?

Enough to hide my feverish younger brother in the closet and kill any thought my parents had of calling the police;

Enough to use waste motor oil, broken glass, and a modified industrial nail gun to transform this apartment into a meat grinder tailor-made for assassins.

When the lock clicked softly from a master key and a red laser sight pierced the darkened living room... these battle-hardened professional cleaners thought tonight would be an easy hunt.

But little did they know, the one who had crawled back from the abyssal hell was a grim reaper who had mastered every art of slaughter.

Tonight is just collecting the interest. Before dawn breaks, I will turn the entire Vance Corporation to ashes.

My twin sister, Genevieve, caught the eye of a mafia don, Kael Rourke, at a charity gala.
Kael declared on the spot that she would be his wife, the donna of Rourke family.
But she was already deeply in love with her boyfriend.
When a ambush left the Kael in a deep coma, his cartel demanded their bride immediately. 
They believed a wedding would stabilize their empire and, by some old tradition, wake Kael up.
Genevieve refused to marry a dead man walking.
So, she knocked me out—her identical twin sister—and sent me to the Rourke estate in her place. 

Then, she eloped overseas with her boyfriend, vanishing without a trace.
I was forced to marry Kael. Miraculously, on our wedding night, he woke up. He quickly took back his empire, his power greater than ever. 
Since I was forced into this marriage against my will, I resented him and never gave him a smile. 
And he only saw me as a substitute for Genevieve.
When he was happy, he spoiled me. When he was angry, he was cruel.

Ten years later, Genevieve suddenly returned.
She ran to Kael, crying that I had pushed her into a lake to steal her place as his wife.
She claimed the drowning caused her to lose her memory, making her miss out on ten years with him.
Furious, Kael ordered his men to lock me in the dark basement of his compound.
Taking advantage of a visit, Genevieve tightly wrapped a iron chain around my neck.
"I'm sorry, dear sister. If you don't die, my lies will be exposed one day!"
I was strangled to death cruelly.

When I open my eyes again, I am back to the day the Rourke men came to collect the bride.
I step forward willingly. "Genevieve, go with your boyfriend. I will marry Kael Rourke in your place!"
In this life, I must be the mafia don's true obsession!

My husband bought a necklace for the woman who killed my mother.

When I saw my foster sister Rebecca Rebecca wearing that emerald necklace with Aaron at the party, I knew history would repeat itself. Seven years ago, my mother lost everything the same way—her husband, her dignity, and finally her life.

I wouldn't follow in her footsteps.

So after slapping Rebecca across the face, I told everyone I was divorcing him and walked out with my suitcase.

Rebecca thought she'd won again. Aaron thought I was just being hysterical.

Neither of them saw it coming—

This time, I'd make them pay.

I died on the operating table. Down the hall, my husband was waiting for news that the woman he'd loved before me had received my kidney.
He'd made that day happen. He'd forced me to end my six-month pregnancy, then give what was left of me to a woman who was supposedly dying.
Just before I stopped breathing, he was holding her hand in another room, telling her, "It's over. We can finally be together."
He never found out the surgery was a lie. She was never sick. I never woke up.
Yet the moment he truly learned I was dead, the man who swore he didn't love me clung to my ashes and completely fell apart.