2322 Book(s) Related to Falling Slowly… For Her Rival’s Son

Wearing a plain black velvet dress and zero jewelry, I sat quietly in the back row of the Royal Charity, completely invisible among London’s glittering elite.
My only goal tonight? Winning an 1890 Victorian pink diamond for my engagement ring. My family in the Scottish Highlands had just arranged my marriage to Phil Graham, London’s hottest real estate heir.
"Starting at £8,000," the auctioneer announced. I raised my paddle.
Instantly, a flashy woman behind me sneered and raised hers. "Are they letting just anyone into charity galas now?" she loudly mocked to her friends. "Dressed like a department store clerk, and she thinks she can bid on antique jewelry?"
I ignored her, calmly raising my paddle again: "£15,000."
Furious, the woman stood up, her voice echoing across the silent ballroom. "£20,000! I suggest you back off, poor girl. My brother is Phil Graham, CEO of Graham Real Estate. This necklace is mine."
I slowly looked up at her. "Graham Real Estate? What a coincidence. ”
I calmly pulled out my phone and dialed my so-called fiancé right in front of her.
“Phil?” I said lightly. “It seems your little pet sister is trying to hijack my engagement diamond. How exactly do you want to explain this to me? Should we cancel the wedding?”

I got off work two hours early, hoping to surprise my boyfriend whom I had just bailed out for $30,000.
I pushed the bedroom door open. The surprise was on me—my stepsister Chloe was straddling Dorian. The same man who, just three days ago, sat crying on the police station floor swearing "I only have you," now slowly lit a cigarette and asked if I wanted to join them.
I thought that was the worst moment of my life.
I was wrong.
When the hand that had just been caressing Chloe gripped my throat and hoisted me into the air, I finally saw the truth. Dorian Vane, the guy who humiliated me at our high school prom ten years ago, hadn't changed at all.

On the night my grandmother died, my husband Kael came home trailing blood.
His leather motorcycle jacket was soaked dark red, yet he flashed a savage grin: "I wiped the floor with those bastards tonight!"
For three years, he had treated our home as nothing more than a pit stop between reckless street races.
I’d finally had enough. "After the funeral, we're getting a divorce."
Before the words fully left my mouth, my phone rang. It was his riding partner, Lunn, his voice choking with sobs: "Sera... Kael drove off the cliff tonight. They only recovered bloody pieces of his helmet!"
But the "dead man" was standing right in front of me...

For five years, I had turned Preston Tanner from a broke kid who could barely afford tuition into one of Silicon Valley's hottest young founders.
I thought we would do exactly what we had promised back in that garage—take our AI healthcare startup public, ring the opening bell together, and get married.
Until today.
At the product launch that would determine whether we landed our Series A, Preston stood before the press and credited the core algorithm patent I had spent seventy-two sleepless hours developing to a girl who couldn't even write Python.
"Sloane, you're already my fiancée," he said. "Willow needs this patent to strengthen her green-card application."
Staring at his utterly self-righteous face, I felt sick.
I didn't know when it had happened, but somewhere along the way, he had rotted from the inside out.
And if he was rotten, it was time to throw him away.

Ten years ago, my parents worked for the Bellamys. He was their driver. She ran the house.

Then came the crash. I watched them shove Nash Bellamy out of the wreck, and it killed them both.

That's where the claustrophobia came from.

He knew. He knew all of it.

Then at homecoming, I showed up in a dress that matched Camilla's. She was the girl he'd always wanted. So he shoved me into the abandoned supply closet backstage.

The lock turned. On the other side of the door, he and Camilla were laughing like it was nothing.

"I'm pretty sure she's claustrophobic."

"Two hours in there. She'll learn."

I clawed at my own hands until they bled, couldn't get any air, and ended up wetting myself in a closet a dog wouldn't sleep in.

When the door finally opened, he pinched his nose and laughed and said I was disgusting.

I pushed myself up the wall, inch by inch, and looked at the face I'd been looking at for ten years. And I didn't want to cry anymore. Not even a little.

"Nash. I'm done chasing you."

Since I was ten, he told me to call him brother. But brothers don't look at you like that.
My life had only Daniel Wilson in it. He was my guardian, my savior, my world.
"Call me brother," he said, but he forbade me from dating anyone else. He kept me in his manor like a bird in a gilded cage. He promised that when I turned twenty-one, the title of "sister" would change to "wife."
I waited. I obeyed. I loved him with a devotion that bordered on obsession.
But on my twenty-first birthday, he brought her home.
"Julie, meet Lena. She's... special to me."
He introduced his childhood crush to me, his "sister," while holding her hand. The way he looked at her was soft, gentle—the way he used to look at me before she arrived.
"You're just a foster sister," he reminded me coldly when I cried. "Don't cross the line."
The line? He blurred the lines for twelve years! He made me dependent on him, made me believe we were destined, only to discard me when the "real" owner of his heart returned.
Fine. If I'm just a sister, then I'll leave.
But why is he chasing me now, begging me to come back, saying he can't sleep without me in the house?
"I'm not your sister anymore, Daniel. And I'm certainly not your wife."

My chosen mate used his Beta authority to give the entire moonbloom compound to his fated mate's daughter.
The healer had said to split it—half for each child. Both would live. He overrode her. Gave the full dose to Rosalie Blackwell.
He wanted a full recovery. Just not for ours.
Three days later, my daughter Wren's organs shut down. She died on her birthday, still asking why Daddy wasn't there. The dress I'd made her—white with little silver wolves along the hem—she never got to put it on.
That same day, his fated's daughter walked out of the healing hall completely cured. He even threw a feast for the whole pack.
I collapsed at the border of Thornecrest territory. The healers told me it was cancer. Late-stage. Nothing left to treat.
Now I sat alone in our empty house with Wren's unworn birthday dress across my lap and drafted the dissolution papers.

Five years of a marriage forced by family convenience end in the cruelest way possible: with a request for divorce on the same day they would celebrate their anniversary. Lilian, devastated by Ethan's rejection—the man she learned to love despite the circumstances—sees her life fall apart. In her darkest hour, when the pain seems unbearable, Lilian is saved by Daniel Spector, a longtime friend and silent confidant who has always loved her. At the hospital, news changes everything: Lilian is two months pregnant. But there is another woman, Joana Mercadante — rich, famous, and supposedly also expecting Ethan's child. With her heart broken and her soul on fire, Lilian decides to leave. She flees to France and, far from the eyes of the world, gives birth to her son and builds an empire. Five years later, she returns as a powerful woman, determined to face her demons... and she finds Ethan again. He never stopped looking for her, never forgot the love he destroyed with his own hands. Now he must fight not only for forgiveness, but for a second chance—with her and with the son he never knew. But will regret be enough to rebuild a love that was betrayed? Especially when Daniel, Ethan's new rival, is ready to build the life Lilian always dreamed of... and is already the father in her son's heart?

For three years, Carol Bright was Edward Dawson's secretary and stepsister by day, and his secret lover by night. To him, she was just a game—disposable, forgettable, never meant to be loved.

When Edward announces his engagement to someone else, he expects drama. Instead, Carol disappears from his life without a word.

Now, she's no longer his. She's the heiress of the powerful Bright family—admired, untouchable, and far beyond his reach.

Then he sees her with another man. She slips behind closed doors. The lights go out—and she never returns.

That's when Edward realizes he's made the biggest mistake of his life.

The woman he once thought he owned is now the one he can never have again.

Five years ago, Rebecca Percy gave up everything to marry into the powerful Spencer Family.

She spent five years as a devoted wife and mother, only for her husband to sacrifice her to a financial tycoon for a business contract, leaving her to be abused and broken. Her heart turned to ash.

"Rebecca, you are nothing but a breeding machine. Without the Spencer Family, you are nobody! You want a divorce? Fine. But don't you dare regret it!"

But outside the Civil Affairs Bureau, the ex-husband who had just threatened her watched in shock.

He saw her holding the divorce certificate, embraced by another man, and felt a burning jealousy—and a sudden, hollow emptiness in his heart.

Rebecca swore that from now on, she would focus only on her career, not love.

Yet, she found herself pinned on a vanity table by the young Master Whitaker.

As he relentlessly claimed her, he demanded:

"So, Rebecca... you think I'm just a fuck buddy, is that it?"

Sienna Alexander's mate didn't just betray her. He stood there and let it happen.
On her coronation night, Lucas broke their bond and claimed her stepsister in front of the entire pack, too proud to see what his own mother-in-law was doing behind him.
While the crowd was still cheering, Morrigan carved Sienna's power out of her body, vein by vein, and planted it inside her own daughter's womb like something she'd been owed for years.
Then they left the body behind. Nobody checks if a corpse is still breathing. They should have.
Half-dead in the woods, Sienna feels her wolf clawing to break free, and every instinct in her screams to let it happen. But the Moon Goddess's law is older than her pain: an omega who shifts before her power settles doesn't survive it. Shifting means dying.
She shifts anyway.
A rival Alpha finds her collapsed at the tree line before the goddess can collect what she's owed. His name is Damien, and he has no idea he just pulled the Millennium Wolf out of the dirt.
Call the dead, owe the dead.
Lucas and Morrigan are about to learn what that means.

My three-year-old daughter Elsie called her father Dorian while I lay dying on the floor beside our bed.
"Daddy, the bad magic hurt Mommy. Please come home."
"If she wants to die, let her." He called us liars, then went back to cut the birthday cake for Selene—his foster sister and first love.
What he did not know was that the curse that killed me that night had been meant for him.
Now I can only watch. My little girl tucks coats around my body to keep me warm. Her father walks past our bedroom door again and again, certain I'm just sulking, because the woman he chose told him so.
By the time Dorian finally opens that door, there is nothing left to save.
He will learn the truth. He will beg.

The woman Evan Cole had never gotten over hit me with her car.

She called him, and he rushed to the hospital. When he saw me, he hesitated for a moment.

He stayed with her while I had my tests. Afterward, he asked, “How much did you have to pay?”

“A hundred and ten.”

A notification appeared on my phone a moment later.

Husband sent you $150.

I stared at the screen. We'd kept our marriage secret for three years, and even when I miscarried, he hadn't come to see me in the hospital. He'd hired someone to look after me and left a message.

I'm away on business for a week. Get some rest. Ask the aide if you need anything.

This was the first time he'd ever stayed with me for a medical appointment.

A nurse came over. “Your chart says you're married. Have your husband help you at home. With that leg, getting around is going to be difficult.”

I came back to myself and turned off my screen.

“That would be a little awkward. We're getting divorced.”

They put the calm ones on graveyard. I'm calmer than calm - I can't read a face to save my life, but give me a voice and I'll tell you what you ate for dinner and what you're lying about.

3:07 a.m. A woman calls. A struggle. The line dies.

By sunrise there's no body, no report, and the call I logged has wiped itself clean - like it never rang. The whole city is asleep on it.

But I've never trusted the system. I keep my own copy of every call.

He erased her. I kept the tape. Now he just has to find out the night guy nobody looks at has been listening the whole time.

"I'm six weeks pregnant with Asher's baby," my husband's mistress texted me, attaching a photo of a torn condom wrapper on my husband’s desk.
"If he really loved you, what am I?"
I just called a secret number.
"Are you sure you want to activate the Ghost Protocol?" my brother asked over the encrypted line.
"Once done, your identity is erased. You will cease to exist."
"Do it," I replied coldly.
My billionaire husband thinks he can keep his perfect marriage and his wild mistress.
He has no idea that his gentle, low-profile wife is actually the most dangerous princess of the New York Mafia.
I gave him a 15-day countdown.
On the final day, he opened his "anniversary gift"—only to find his cheating evidence and a house completely emptied of my existence.
He tore the city apart looking for me, going insane.
But how do you find a woman who never legally existed?

My husband Eric couldn't speak after a car accident three years ago. Three years of silence. Not one word.

To pay for his rehab, I worked four jobs at once—worked until I was coughing up blood, until I collapsed. Winter nights, Leo and I huddled under one threadbare blanket. When my son spiked a fever and I had no money for medicine, I stayed up all night pressing wet rags to his burning forehead.

Eric? His only communication was cold texts, ordering me around. When Leo reached for a hug, he'd push him away like our son didn't exist.

I endured it all. Because deep down, I believed the accident was my fault.

Until that night.

I was hauling equipment at Selena's concert—Selena, the pop star everyone knew—when a mystery guest in a mask stepped on stage. They sang together, voices blending like they'd done this a thousand times.

That voice. That lightning-shaped scar on his elbow.

My "mute" husband of three years.

I followed him backstage. Through the door, I heard Selena's laugh: "Congrats, Eric. Your mute act is almost over—you won the bet."

Three years of sacrifice.

All of it just a game. A bet with his first love.

In a modern city of flights, glass hotels, and surveillance footage, Nora—an artist still recovering from surgery—watches her marriage rot behind polished excuses. As she traces her husband’s affair through airport selfies, joint-account charges, voice recordings, and a staged fall on the stairs, humiliation hardens into precision. Cold, sharp, and deeply satisfying, this is a divorce reckoning lit by rain, evidence files, airport confrontations, and the moment a woman stops begging to be chosen.

My mate, Alpha Grant, ran a pack in western Washington. A witch had cursed his wolf the day he was born, and he could never pick out a she-wolf's scent well enough to know his true mate.
He spent five years hunting for her. Every dead end wore him down a little more, until he finally quit.
That was the moment he chose me.
On our bonding night, he told me the real reason.
"Mara," he said quietly, "I didn't have a choice. If the pack found out their Alpha couldn't even find his true mate, they'd see me as a joke. So I picked you. You're my chosen mate, but I swear no one will ever take your title. You're my Luna. Even if I find my true mate someday... nothing will change that."
Then he looked away and added, "I'm cursed, but I still have to look for her. I have to search every corner of the pack."

The biggest mistake of my life was falling in love with my childhood best friend, Cole Blackwood.

I grew up with Cole. He was my childhood best friend. When my mom died in a car accident in high school, his mother Lillian, my mom's best friend, saw that my stepmother didn't like me and took me in. She arranged our engagement. Cole protected me from bullies in high school. I fell for him. We secretly married at eighteen.

Shortly after the wedding, he was kidnapped. That's when everything fell apart. I threw myself off a cliff to draw the kidnappers away and save him. I was in a coma for three months. But when I came back to him, weak and broken, he thought some woman named Sophia Vanderbilt had saved him instead. He started hating me for "abandoning him" and grew cold. I tried to explain. He only believed what Sophia told him. My words meant nothing. 

Cole wanted to divorce me, but his parents refused to allow it. I refused too. Sophia drugged him to get pregnant and trap him into marriage, but he stumbled into the wrong room. He slept with me instead. I got pregnant. She faked videos to make him think they'd been together. She forged evidence that I'd cheated. He wouldn't listen to a word I said. 

Then we were both kidnapped and held hostage on a rooftop. Cole chose to save Sophia. I fell. I lost the baby. After Sophia was rescued, she went to the hospital for a checkup. They found leukemia. She needed a bone marrow transplant. I was the only match, but after everything, my body was too weak. Cole used the "debt" I owed his family to force me to donate. 

I refused. Sophia "died." Cole locked me in a psychiatric hospital and tortured me until I died. 

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day he demanded my bone marrow. This time, looking at his desperate eyes, I said yes and decided to divorce him and leave him for good.

When they shoved me into the flames, I fought through the blinding pain to call my brother, Ethan Bennett. Fire licked at my skin, twisting my vision, but the call finally went through.

"What is it now?" He sounded distracted, like he was checking off a guest list.

"Ethan, please, help—" My voice was shattered, choked by the searing heat.

"Can't you just give it a rest for one single day?" he snapped, cutting me off. "Selina and I are getting married this weekend. If you pull another stunt, I swear I'll—"

The call died right as the flames swallowed me whole.

Agony consumed every nerve before my eyes closed for good, his unfinished threat still echoing in my ears.

But the good news is, Ethan... you don't have to swear anymore. Because I was dead.

My college roommate was a professional loyalty tester.
Every boyfriend I ever had, she “tested.” Every single one failed. She sent me the photos to prove it.
“Good thing you have me, right?”
So I cut her off, moved across the country, and got engaged to a man I thought she could never touch.
On my wedding day, she showed up as my makeup artist.
That night, she climbed into my husband’s bed.
A year later, he stood at the foot of my hospital bed and watched me bleed out, because I’d dared to send her to prison.
Then I woke up. Back in that makeup chair. Back on the morning of my wedding.
This time, I know exactly what she’ll do.
And this time, I’m the one keeping the receipts.

When the Manhattan morgue finally managed to reach my husband, Victor Hawthorne, he was in the penthouse suite, fucking another woman.
"Mr. Hawthorne, this is the city morgue. We need you to come down and identify your wife's remains."
"Identify what?" he snapped, his thrusts not missing a beat.
"Burn her," he ordered. "Don't bother me with her pathetic ploys."
He tossed the phone onto the nightstand, his focus entirely on the woman beneath him.
Then my body was pushed into the incinerator.
When I was nothing but ashes, the funeral home called him again.
Selena pouted, trailing a nail down his chest.
"Is Cecilia acting up again?"
"I'll go end this farce," Victor sneered, getting out of bed.

At my mother's funeral, I stopped outside the lounge.

Through the door, I heard Julian—my fiancé—delivering a cold warning to my father:

"You can stop obsessing over Harper, Richard. She's with me now. Don't bother her anymore."

My father immediately tried to use me to suppress him. "Don't forget you're marrying Sloane next week! If she finds out you're screwing the orphan her mother took in..."

Julian cut him off. "She'll never know. Just like she'll never know her mother didn't actually die of depression. She killed herself because she caught you two together."

Father's counterattack threw me straight into hell:

"What right do you have to judge me?! When Sloane was frantic, calling you for help, what were you doing? If you hadn't been rolling around in a hotel bed with Harper, if you hadn't lied to Sloane that you were 'on your way,' her mother would never have died!"

A violent ringing filled my ears.

I slammed the door open, stormed in, and slapped Julian across the face with every ounce of strength I had left.

The man I was supposed to marry in seven days merely turned his head. It took him exactly one second to suppress his shock.

"Since you heard everything, good. Better to accept reality now, so you don't break down later."

"For the sake of the Vance family heir you're carrying, the wedding next week proceeds as planned."

"But I have responsibilities to Harper, too. That tie won't be severed."

The day I woke from the coma, the man I'd loved for seven years handed me to someone else.
I could have exposed him with one sentence. I didn't.
Dorian and I had been together since college. His best friend Silas had never once pretended to like me.
But that day, Dorian stood at my bedside, pointed at Silas, and said, "He's your boyfriend."
And nobody in that room thought there was anything wrong with that.
I believed him. At least, I made it look that way.
That night, I moved into Silas's villa — and then I heard the phone call.

"You have two months to live." The doctor's death sentence was still ringing in my ears when I found the receipt in his pocket.

[Four Seasons Hotel. Romance Suite. Check-in: 3:00 PM.]

3:00 PM. The exact moment I was begging the doctor for painkillers, Alexander was in a hotel bed with another woman.

I looked at him, sleeping soundly beside me. I had loved this man for five years, sold everything to help him succeed. Now, in the final countdown of my life, he gave me the most fatal blow.

"I'm exhausted from meetings," he had lied, smelling of Santal 33 and another woman's sex.

I clenched the receipt until my nails dug into my flesh. I wouldn't tell him about the cancer.

I would use whatever time I had left to make him regret ever being born.

I spent five years loving Beckett Calloway.
When his ex-girlfriend died saving his life, I held him through every nightmare. When he said he "wasn't ready" for marriage, I waited. When he whispered "soon," I believed him.
Then her sister showed up. Crying about some terminal illness. Begging him to take care of her.
He let her move onto our private island—the one he promised would only ever belong to us.
He introduced her at the gala where he was supposed to announce our engagement.
He got her pregnant.
And when I told him she was lying about everything, he looked at me like I was the monster.
Then came our wedding rehearsal. She walked down the aisle in my dress. He slid his ring onto her finger. The chapel caught fire. I collapsed, bleeding.
He scooped her up and ran. Didn't even glance back.
So I burned my vows, deleted every trace of myself, and vanished.
This time, I wasn't coming back.

On a full moon, every wolf has to be inside a registered shelter before moonrise. That's pack law.
So when my husband's leave finally lined up with a moon, I spent six months and eighty thousand dollars booking his whole family into a top-tier sanctuary on Silverspine Ridge. Then his first love decided she wanted to come.
Instead of telling her no, he gave her my registered bed — and sent me a queue number for the state shelter, a thirty-six-hour line for a bunk in an open ward full of rogues. I looked at his parents, his sister, waiting for one of them to object. Every single one of them took his side.
So fine. I drove the other way, and spent the next three full moons enjoying myself — alone. That's when the whole family started to panic...

My mate died throwing himself between me and a band of rogues.
He left me a twelve-million-dollar debt and a son who wasn't even one yet.
For him, I turned away every wolf who came knocking. I never went looking for a second chance mate. I worked until my body gave out, paying off a dead man's debts one dollar at a time.
Then, on the anniversary of his death, I walked into the wrong hotel suite.
My dead mate was alive. And he was in bed with my stepsister.
They were laughing about the stupid little Omega still crying over his grave, and about the son I'd carried, who was never mine at all.
I didn't scream. I didn't cry.
I eased the door shut, walked into my meeting, and started planning their real funeral.

The Alpha of Blood Moon Pack needed an heir his chosen mate couldn't give him. So he found me — a rogue Omega with a destroyed pack and a little brother who needed protection — and offered a deal: carry his child, hand it over, walk away.
He never touched me. A physician, a syringe, a sterile room. When it was done, he said: "Thank you for your cooperation."
His mate Serena moved into the main house the week my pregnancy was confirmed. She picked the nursery colors. She chose the baby's name. She told the pack I was just "a relative visiting."
Then I overheard them planning to erase my scent from my baby within forty-eight hours of birth — so it would never know I existed.
I left that night. Six months pregnant, alone, into the snow.

My husband, Marco, in his bid for the position of Don, was forced to marry the young widow of the previous Don, Claudia.
Every night, after returning from Claudia’s place, he would hold me and swear, "You’re the only woman I love, Elena. Claudia has the connections I need. Once I have real power and secure my position, I’ll make you my wife in name and in public."
But as I waited for him to rise to power, what started as a political act turned into nights where he simply never came home.
Then, on Christmas, I was dragged to their engagement party—where I was beaten in front of everyone.
Our six-year-old daughter, Sophia, knelt on the floor, crying and begging him, "Godfather, please, let my mommy go..."
But Marco stayed silent.
"It’s okay," I whispered, picking up my wounded daughter. "Mommy’s going to take you somewhere that truly belongs to us."
What Marco never knew was this: I never cared about being the Donna of this small city.
I am the only heir of the Rossi family—the most powerful Mafia family in all of Sicily.

Nora Vale was never supposed to be seen.

For three years, she rebuilt hockey captain Callum Pierce after the injury that nearly ended his career. She tracked his tremors, rewrote his recovery protocol, and carried the private marriage his family refused to make public.

Then he won the championship.

Under the arena lights, Callum lifted the cup and thanked Sloane Mercer, the beautiful sports host the cameras already loved. Backstage, Nora watched her own medical system appear under Sloane's name.

That night, Nora left with the evidence and the child Callum never knew existed.

Three years later, Nora is no longer hiding in the tunnel. She is the chief medical consultant for the rival team, the one woman the league needs when old concussion records begin to surface. Callum wants answers. His father wants control. Sloane wants the public story to stay clean.

Nora wants her name back.

But the fight is no longer only about a stolen system. It is about a son whose medical records could shift a franchise, a trust that could break the Pierce family, and a championship myth built on the woman they erased.

Callum thanked the wrong woman on the night he won.

Now the whole league is about to learn who made him a champion.

He married me because I look like her.
For three years, I played the role. I cooked his meals. I warmed his bed. I smiled when he forgot my birthday. I stayed quiet when he left in the middle of the night to hold her hand.
I told myself it was enough. I told myself I didn't need his love.
Then I got pregnant.
He said he hated children. So I didn't tell him. I was going to keep it. Our baby. The only thing that was truly mine.
But my body had other plans.
When I called him from the hospital floor, bleeding out, begging for help—he didn't come. He said I was lying. He was too busy with her.
That night, I lost everything.
The baby. The hope. The lie I'd been living.
Now he's calling me. Again and again.
But the substitute wife? She's not picking up.

For three years, Ivy Green was Gabriel Black’s quiet omega wife.

She loved him, healed him, and built a home around a man who never truly saw her.

To Gabriel, their marriage was convenient. Controlled. Temporary.

Then his fated mate returned.

After one final night of passion, Gabriel asked Ivy for a divorce and thanked her for the past three years—as if her love had been nothing more than a service completed.

Heartbroken, Ivy left Silver Moon Pack and returned to her struggling hometown, only to find her family drowning in debt, her father gravely injured, and their winery stolen by a scheming relative.

For the first time in years, Ivy stopped living as an Alpha’s wife.

She started living as herself.

But Gabriel soon discovers that letting Ivy go was not freedom. It was the beginning of his ruin.

She no longer answers his messages.
She no longer waits for him.
She no longer belongs to him.

And piece by piece, Gabriel begins to uncover everything he never knew:

The pain she hid.
The sacrifices she made.
The family she protected.
The love he took for granted.

Now the woman he discarded is rebuilding her life without him.

And the Alpha who thought he chose fate may have lost the only mate his heart ever truly wanted.

“Go find one of those perfect little she-wolves lined up to mate you. Play your Alpha card on them. I’m sure they’ll beg to be marked..maybe they’ll even let you f—”

“Seliene!” he snapped, his voice a roar as he grabbed my wrist.

“Stop touching me!” I shoved at his chest, voice rising despite the sting in my throat. “Stop acting like you care when all you've ever done is hate me!”

Tears pricked my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. “There are plenty of men who would take me to bed without second-guessing it. Maybe I should let them. Maybe I should—”

His hand tangled in my hair so fast I gasped, and the next thing I knew, my back was against the wall.

Ronan’s eyes were glowing now—not just anger, but something else. Something deeper. His wolf was there, right under the surface, growling low and dangerous.

“Oh?” I taunted, my body betraying me with a subtle tremble of arousal. “What is this? You don’t want me, but no one else should touch me either?”

His growl deepened, vibrating between us, and then his mouth crashed down on mine.

I moaned before I could stop myself, and that only seemed to provoke him further. He pressed harder, his body pinning mine, every inch of him demanding, claiming.

He groaned into my mouth, his thigh sliding between mine and pressing upward. I gasped, my head hitting the wall as pleasure sparked through me.

“Don’t want to touch you?” he growled against my lips. “I want you with every damn breath.”


Seliene, a fierce half-breed hiding heartbreak behind a defiant tongue, and Ronan, the brooding Alpha who once rejected her, ignite in a moment of raw passion and buried longing. Bound by a mate bond they both try to resist, their chemistry is undeniable, dangerous, explosive, and edged with the pain of a love neither dares to admit.

I kept a list. Ninety-eight times my husband chose another woman over me.

Missed birthdays, ruined anniversaries, broken promises—all for his "patient" Sophia, who seemed to have a medical emergency every time we had plans.

"It's just my job, Emma," he would say. "You understand."

Ryan thought he could have his cake and eat it too. He was wrong.

After an incident, I was determined to leave him, and before I left, I gave him an unforgettable "gift."

The day I found out I was carrying twins, my husband offered me $13.5 million for a divorce.

After two and a half years on a $500 monthly allowance, I had one urgent question:

Where did I sign?

Ethan and his girlfriend thought I was hiding my heartbreak.

I was hiding an ultrasound picture—and trying to leave before he changed his mind.

A childhood engagement, two decades in the making. I crossed an ocean for the sole purpose of marrying the heir to the Russell family.

But they led me to an abandoned construction site—where a blood-soaked man was swinging a steel pipe, fighting off ten attackers at once. This, they told me, was "my fiancé."

Bankrupt. Drowning in debt. Scraping by in underground fighting pits. They said he was living like a dog.

Meanwhile, the real heir had his arm around another woman, sneering at me from across the room. "Some gold-digging country girl thinks she deserves me? Find a nobody with the same last name—that's the best she'll ever get."

They made us into a joke—the washed-up loser paired with the clueless village hick.

What they didn't know was that I held several championship belts.

What they also didn't know was that this little "con" of theirs had already begun to unravel the moment I set foot in this city.

He said, "I don't know you. Mind your own business."

Too bad. I'd already made it mine.

This marriage? I was locking it down.

Everyone in this city knows that the king of the underworld, my husband Vincent, is crazy about me.

Three years ago, when that bullet tore through my abdomen, it took away my chance of ever being a mother. He held my blood-soaked body and swore to God he'd make the shooter's entire family pay. A month later, that family was wiped off the map in this city. No one dares speak their name anymore.

He sat by my hospital bed, holding my hand. "I don't need kids. I only need you."

I believed him.

Until six months ago, when his brother died in an accident, leaving behind his wife Serena. The family pressure came like a tidal wave. An heir. A bloodline. That's all they cared about. And that woman became everyone's golden ticket to keeping the Caruso name alive.

That's when my husband stopped coming home at night. Every night, I hear them through the wall. Sounds that used to be mine.

But today, the doctor told me my body is healing. The chances are slim, but there's hope.

I clutch the medical report and rush home, imagining Vincent's face when he sees the results. Maybe everything can go back to how it was. Maybe he'll realize he doesn't need her.

Until I stand outside our mansion and hear laughter pouring out.

"Serena's pregnant! Can you believe it? The family finally has an heir!"

"Finally. The family's saved."

Ten years loving Liam Rockefeller cost me everything.

He said the football team jumped him—so I charged in and took the punches. He sobbed that his stepbrother would destroy him at Yale—so I ripped up my acceptance letter. He held me at midnight whispering "I'm so lucky to have you"—and I thought that meant forever.

Three months later, I heard him laughing in the locker room—laughing about me.

"Iris is like a fucking puppy, so easy to fool. Now that the Yale spot's open, Emily can go with me."

The bullying was staged. The tears were fake. Those intimate embraces—just tools to control me while he fucked his side piece.

He thought I'd still stand in front of him even with a broken nose. He thought I'd never wise up.

I wised up.

In his stepbrother Sebastian's bed.

I’m Scarlett, the last true revival tattoo artist, capable of defying death with my cursed ink—for a brutal price. I lost everything saving my fiancé Hunter in my past life, only to be betrayed and killed by him .

Reborn when Hunter dies again, I refuse to sacrifice myself for my murderers. In an unthinkable twist, the powerless fraud Wendy resurrects Hunter, winning universal praise while I’m branded cold. Only I know the truth: he is not alive. He is a decaying, cursed corpse. I gamble everything for revenge and resurrect the only man who once saved me.

But tampering with death twice stirs a fatal, unspoken curse.

Six days after Alexander lost all contact, I navigated my way alone to the Nightfall Gala to find him.

The guard's expression twisted into something peculiar when he heard my purpose.

"You're saying you are looking for your mate, Prince Alexander? And what is your name?"

"I am Cecilia."

The guard let out a harsh, mocking snort. "Stop causing a scene! A blind beggar trying to pull a scam? Don't think you can just impersonate her just because you know the name of the Prince's mate."

"Everyone knows the Prince just gifted Cecilia the millennia-old Abyssal Night Crystal to celebrate her pregnancy! What the hell are you?"

Just then, the giant LED screen cut to the Gala's live broadcast.

"Allow me to formally introduce my partner, Cecilia. Furthermore, she is expecting. Our family is about to welcome a new heir." It was Alexander's voice.

"Thank you all. This is the greatest gift Alexander and I could ever receive."

The moment that sweet, timid voice echoed through the hall, a string violently snapped in my brain. A sharp ringing pierced my eardrums.

—It was the voice of my twin sister, Elena.

On our wedding day, Declan sent me out to Long Island. We'd been together seven years.

He said he'd left his grandmother's lucky cufflinks at the family house.

But when my car died in the storm, I opened my bridesmaid's Instagram live.

Declan was sliding my custom diamond ring onto Phoebe's finger—my adopted sister, the one with the bad heart.

My own parents were crying in the front row. My bridesmaids were cheering.

They'd turned my wedding into a dying wish ceremony for Phoebe.

Hours later, alone in the ER, I called forty-seven times.

No one picked up.

Not until after I lost the baby and disappeared from Manhattan.

That's when Declan finally came apart.

I caught my husband sleeping with my sister, so I burned it all down.
The fire burned fierce, swallowing that abandoned cabin in the woods, along with my shattered marriage.
With the stench of gasoline still lingering on my fingertips, I thought I had finally buried the man who betrayed me.
Until the next morning, when he walked through the front door without a single scratch.
My mind reeled.
If he was still alive... then who the hell did I burn to a crisp last night?

Five years. That's what I gave Vaelor, Crown Prince of the Dark Elves.
I was already dressed for the betrothal ceremony when I caught his voice through the gap in the council hall door.
"You're really going through with it? The human?"
"Of course. The Alliance has kept a blade at our throats for years. Their leader's apprentice, given to us in marriage—that puts it away."
"But if she suspects—"
"She won't."
"And Lyseth—"
"Lyseth is who matters. The human is manageable."
I didn't make it out of the courtyard. A blade came from the darkness before I could summon a defense.
When I woke up, I remembered everything. Aldric. Isara. The Alliance. Five years of roads, every step.
Just not his face.
Aldric's messenger stone was on the nightstand. Short, direct: Return to the Alliance. Political marriage. Orc Royal House.
I wrote back: Seven days.

For two years I was Easton's secret girlfriend. I paid his tuition. I took a beating from the guys who came for him. I gave up my MIT interview so he could chase what he wanted.
Then I heard him behind a half-open door, kissing my best friend.
"Last life she clung to me like a lunatic. This life I'm not making that mistake again."
Last life. They'd both been reborn—come back with every memory of a life I don't even remember living—and somewhere in it, they'd decided I was the desperate girl who ruined everything.
Fine.
I went back to my desk, pulled the MIT acceptance I'd been about to turn down, and signed it.
Easton, I'll let you have her.
He spent two lifetimes sure he was the smart one. He's about to find out which of us was holding back.

During the day, I was his brightest student,
and at night, his most compatible bed partner.
I thought he had genuine feelings for me,
but it turned out I was just a tool for him to satisfy his desires because he couldn't bring himself to touch his fiancée.
He made me understand my place,
telling me not to delude myself into him down with a child,
saying that we were just satisfying each other's needs.
I grabbed my suitcase and turned to leave,
clinging to my fragile dignity,
leaving behind my shattered heart and bitter tears.

Three days before my wedding, I found a spreadsheet on my fiancé’s laptop.
It was called Operation Prank Nora.
Five years of my life, itemized and checked off. The fake terminal diagnosis. The fellowship I gave away. The condo I signed over to my best friend.
And one new row, still blinking: Fake wedding.
My fiancé. My best friend. My stepbrother. The doctor who told me I was dying. They’d built a group chat around my tears and a running bet on when I’d figure it out.
They thought I’d cry. They thought I’d hand Ethan to Maddie with my blessing, like a good dying girl.
Instead, I made one phone call to my wedding planner.
On Saturday, two hundred guests are going to see a slideshow.
I won’t be there to watch.

The five of us wanted to go to a concert.

I used four devices, with every ticketing app I could find open, and managed to get five tickets.

But on the day of the show, when I met everyone outside the arena, my best friend had brought another girl.

“This is Lily, my coworker. She's been a Luke Morgan fan for twenty years!” Jenna said. “When she heard we had five tickets, she asked if we could spare one.”

Caleb, one of my childhood friends, shrugged. “Nora thinks concerts are too loud anyway. She can give up hers.”

Owen, my other childhood friend, handed me a bottle of water.

“You've been wanting to try that candy shop on the north side, right? The one with the caramel apples? Now you have time.”

Jenna looked at me. “But Nora worked really hard to get these tickets. Maybe we should figure something else out?”

Caleb and Owen immediately objected.

“The show's about to start. What else can we do?”

“Your coworker's already here. We can't make her come all this way for nothing.”

My boyfriend had already ordered me a ride.

“Getting tickets is just tapping your phone a few times,” Ethan said. “What's so hard about that? Your car's booked. I put in the candy shop as the destination.”

Jenna's coworker couldn't be allowed to waste a trip. Apparently, I could.

I'd gotten five concert tickets, and somehow there was no seat left for me.

I watched the five of them laugh and head off to buy light-up headbands and glow sticks.

I wasn't being treated like a girlfriend, a best friend, or even a friend. I was the person they could do without.

I wasn't going to the concert.

It was time to leave the rest of their lives, too.

"What...are ...you doing Mr. Professor?" She asked stuttering.

"I know what I'm doing Ms. Khanna," He smirked to her. He took hold of her hands and placed them above her head.

"Leave me," She said and struggled from his tight grip but alas no use. He stood there like a rock.

"I won't leave you. What will you do Miss?" He queried.

"I will complain to principal," She emphasised. With that he came close to her and crashed his lips with her.

She was shocked for a moment. She stood like a statue in that place and shivered from his touch which affected her so much.

"What will you do Ms. Khanna?" He prompted and went from there with a smirk playing on his lips.

"I hate you professor," She screamed making his smirk grew wider.


Naina Kapoor. A beautiful, cute, intelligent, ambitious and lovely person. She loves her
parents and her sister Meera. She wants to become successful in her career but one decision of her parents changes her life completely. Arranged marriage, selected by her parents and he is her sister's brother-in-law. Let's see what happens to her life.

Shourya Khanna. A handsome, intelligent, caring and arrogant person. He loves his family so much. He is the CEO of Khanna Industries. He has a brother who loves him so much and his sister-in-law who treats him like her own brother. She wants him to get married to her sister. She thinks he is perfect for her.

Will Shourya support her dreams or not?

"So, are you ready?" Lucia asked with a bright smile, her tone almost too cheerful.
"You remember everything, right? Isaac's favorite meal, Elias's schedule—"
"Yes, Maria, I remember everything," she cut in, rolling her eyes. "I stayed up all night memorizing and practicing it all."
The final toast was coming. After that, Lucia would take her place in the car…and Maria would disappear.
He runs a hand through his hair, the weight of it all pressing on his shoulders.
"You think I married you out of pity? You think I hate your silence? No. I hate that your silence keeps me locked out. That I love you… and you'll never hear it."
To the world, Maria is the perfect silent wife—beautiful, obedient, and deaf.
But behind closed doors, she hears everything, including the love her cold billionaire husband swears he'll never confess.
When she secretly trades places with her troubled twin, a web of lies, danger, and forbidden truths unravels.
He thinks he's lost the only woman he's ever loved.
She may never make it back to him alive.
A marriage built on silence.
A love louder than words.
And a secret that could destroy them both.