4330 Book(s) Related to he was her king and she was his queen

It was graduation photo day at Silvermoon Academy, and everyone was streaming toward the main square.
I fumbled my way to Kyle's side, and someone started laughing immediately.
"Look, our future Alpha and his little Omega, together again!"
"They've been inseparable since they were kids — just bond already!"
I'd heard these jokes a thousand times.
But every time, my heart still skipped a beat.
Kyle didn't respond.
Then the photographer raised his camera, and the pack around us chanted in unison. That was when I heard him mutter, low and flat,
"Annoying. Can't she just stay away from me?"
As a werewolf born with weak eyesight, I'd long since learned to read everything around me with my ears.
So there was no way I'd misheard.
After the shoot, I stood there for a long moment before I finally left.
As I passed the academy's notice board, I reached out and tore down the application form.
The one for the advanced academy Kyle and I had agreed to attend together.
I crumpled it in my palm and threw it in the trash.

Chloe Hudson gave up everything—including her health—for a man who never loved her. Married to Hank Collins only in name, she's endured a year of cold rejection while he lavished his love on another: her own half-sister, Irene. Just when Chloe decides to walk away, a twist of fate changes everything—she's pregnant. But instead of joy, her news is met with cruelty. Hank demands she abort the child, claiming only the woman he loves deserves his baby.
Heartbroken but not broken, Chloe chooses to fight—for her child, her dignity, and a future beyond betrayal. As secrets unravel and loyalties are tested, a familiar figure from her past steps in: Ryan Cooper, a man who once loved her and never stopped.
Will Chloe finally find the love she deserves? Or will her past drag her down before she can rise?

I found the lie on a Tuesday.
Five thousand dollars. Every month. Going to a woman with my husband's last name.
When Flynn came home and saw me sitting on the office floor surrounded by bank statements, he didn't even try to deny it. He just stood there and told me he couldn't explain.
Three years of marriage and all I got was "I can't".
So I left.
Three months later I met Dominic. Flynn's biggest business rival. Charming, warm, patient in all the ways Flynn never was. He made me laugh for the first time in months. He made me feel like myself again.
He felt like the right choice.
Except he wasn't.
Now I'm pregnant, furious, and standing in the middle of two men who both claim they love me.
They're both asking me to trust them.
But they both already broke that trust.

Twenty-two-year-old Nalira Voss is the best name-weaver in Zephyria, but she hates the Festival of Names. While the city celebrates, she works alone in her workshop, fixing broken names for people who never say thank you. Names are just tools, not miracles.
Then a stranger walks through her door with no name, no past, and no proof he even exists.
His name is Kairos, or at least, that is what she calls him. He is the erased heir of the Aether Consortium, Zephyria’s most ruthless family. They stole his name and scattered it across dimensional temples. Without it, he is slowly disappearing from the world.
"I don't need saving," he tells her.
"Good," she says, reaching for her magic thread. "Because I don't save people. I just fix names."
As Nalira hunts down his stolen name, she starts falling for the boy the world forgot. Then she learns the truth: speaking his name will erase her identity forever.
Now she faces an impossible choice: save him and lose herself, or walk away and lose him forever.
Some names are worth dying for. But is love worth erasing everything you are?

Their relationship was a mistake from the start. She loves him, but he loves another. When they tied the knot, they had to untie it because before she could say "I do," their marriage was doomed. Will they be able to heal after all the hurt or is it the end for their love?

They gave him 24 hours to hand over the girl.
He gave them 30 seconds to regret .

Jack Cole was supposed to be nobody—just another quiet college student.
No records. No past. No trace he ever existed.

But when a powerful family tries to take his cousin as part of a dirty deal…
and a billionaire heiress becomes the target of a professional kill team…

Something buried comes back.

The campus?
Just his cover.

The truth?
He’s a weapon trained for war—
the kind governments deny, and enemies never see coming.

Now the richest family in the city wants him dead.
A private army is moving in.
And a global biotech empire is pulling strings from the shadows.

They think they’re hunting him.

They’re wrong.

Jack isn’t running.
He’s choosing who dies first.

My husband used my cottage to cheat on me. Fine. I found out, I drove three hours, and I walked into my own house to find his mistress wearing my dead grandmother's sweater.
She told me to leave.
He showed up, kissed her in front of me, then grabbed my arm and shoved me into the door frame.
That's when I had the asthma attack. He's known about my asthma for five years.
My inhaler rolled across the porch floor. His mistress picked it up, held it out, and told me to sign a statement saying I'd caused all of this. Then she'd give it back.
He looked at me on the ground and said: She's performing.
I'm sitting on the floor of my own grandmother's house, gasping, and my husband is telling the neighbors I'm acting.
Nobody thought to ask whose family manages every property on this coastline.

Three years in a loveless marriage with Leo Cox, Mona thought she could win his heart with her unwavering devotion, but Leo showed no love or concern towards her. Eventually she got tired, filed for divorce and left after founding out Leo was cheating on her— but she was already pregnant for him.

Leo assumed Mona was merely playing hard to get-after all, he bet she'd be back, begging for reconciliation. But no one saw it coming; after the divorce, Mona transformed into a confident woman and Leo is stunned by her transformation.

Now, Leo is drowning in regret, desperately chasing after Mona-but by this time, it was already too late.

He started contemplating every day, wondering if breaking a leg or going bankrupt would be enough to capture her attention.

On the third anniversary of our bond, I pushed open the private room door, my heart full of hope—only to see Chisel on one knee, leaning in to kiss Sylvia. In that instant, every thread of love and trust inside me snapped.
“What are you doing?” My voice trembled; tears blurred my vision.
Chisel looked up at me, eyes full of irritation. “Enough, Leah. Stop putting on that wounded look. We were just playing a game. I lost, that’s all. Why are you angry?”
I could no longer bear the betrayal. After losing our pup, something inside me died completely. I decided to break the mate bond, to end this painful, scarred union once and for all.
Even as Chisel kept apologizing, swearing he would change, I no longer believed him. My voice went cold:
“Even if I forgive you, our pup never will.”
I left the home that had once been full of love and hope, flying toward a new world that would be mine alone.

Sienna Cole has the perfect life.

She is the girl everyone watches and nobody really knows and she has worked very hard to keep it that way.

Until Jax Reeves walks into Westfield High, He doesn't talk much neither does he even try to impress anyone. And he looks at Sienna like he can see every single thing she is hiding behind her perfect smile.

She is not interested. She says so loudly. Multiple times. To anyone who will listen.

So when her best friend Chloe asks permission to pursue him, Sienna says yes without blinking.

It is the worst decision she has ever made.

Because the moment she watches Jax look at Chloe the way Sienna secretly wanted him to look at her, something inside her snaps clean in half. Now she is lying to her boyfriend, sabotaging her best friend's relationship, and slowly falling apart in front of the only six people in the world she truly loves.

The question is will Sienna finally tell the truth before she loses everything?

Three months ago, I broke up with Julian, my boyfriend of eight years.

But Julian refused to accept it. He thought I was just throwing a tantrum.

For three months, he carried on with the new intern at his office while he waited for me to come back and apologize.

Meanwhile, I'd already accepted someone else's proposal. I'd even booked the wedding venue.

When we ran into each other at a college reunion and everyone asked when the wedding was, he gave his usual excuse: "We haven't decided yet."

At almost the exact same moment, I said, "The last Saturday in September."

Furious, he dragged me into a corner. "Are you trying to force me to propose? I told you to wait!"

I pulled my hand free. "You wait all you want. I'm getting married."

He thought I was bluffing to back him into a corner.

He didn't realize the breakup was real.

He didn't know I'd found out about the young intern he'd been hiding long ago.

And he had no idea that the man I was marrying wasn't him.

Isadora Bellini spent her entire life living in the shadow of her twin sister, Giulia—but nothing hurt more than the moment their childhood best friend and her fated mate, Capo Lorenzo, chose Giulia over her. Shattered and humiliated, Isadora disappeared from the Luna Nera Clan, carving out a quiet life among humans. Eight years later, she’s dragged back to the one place she promised never to return—for Giulia’s funeral. What begins as a painful farewell quickly spirals into a storm of secrets, guilt, and dangerously unresolved emotions.
Lorenzo isn’t the same confident Capo who once broke her heart—he’s grieving, broken, and searching for answers. But so is Isadora. As truths begin to unravel—about Giulia’s betrayal, Lorenzo’s rejection, and a past that refuses to stay buried—Isadora finds herself caught between the scars of yesterday and the pull of a bond she tried to erase.
In a world where fate is sealed by blood and moonlight, and love can be the sharpest weapon of all… will Isadora risk everything to uncover the truth, or let her pain write the ending for her?
When love feels like betrayal, how do you trust what your heart still wants?

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."

Born between two kingdoms at war, Astrid Stone’s life has been marked by pain and misfortune, condemned to live as a slave within her own palace.
She is the princess no one wants, the shadow of a lineage that despises her.
When the new wolf king, Lysander Rowan, forces her to marry him to avenge his father, both are trapped in a union forged by hatred… and consumed by a desire neither can deny.
As their love grows and her true nature awakens, Astrid must choose between loyalty to her past or a forbidden love that threatens to destroy them both.
In a world where blood dictates destiny, can love defy the moon?

The night my sister, Quinn, got her registered nurse license was supposed to be Jude's big moment—down on one knee, proposing.
Instead, Garrett showed up. The same animal who assaulted Quinn in the redwood forest six years ago and drove our mother to her death in the ocean.
Her future mother-in-law took back the ring on the spot, and her fiancé trailed after her like a kicked puppy.
The entire town of Hawkins went from pity to disgust when they looked at us.
Seven days later, the deputy sheriff stood in my kitchen, staring at the twenty-second batch of bubbling meat sauce...

I was the proudest kept woman in Chicago, and Adrian Sterling, the most powerful heir in the city, treated me like a queen.
Then a broke college girl with a sob story walked into his life.
He brought her to his grandfather's birthday dinner and ordered me to apologize to her in front of everyone.
I took off the nine-figure pink diamond he'd given me and handed it to her.
He froze my cards. He took the venue for my jewelry show and gave it to her charity auction.
When she broke the only thing my mother ever left me, he told me to get on my knees and beg her forgiveness.
That night, I left with my passport and the pieces of my mother's pendant.
Five years later, at a gala in Paris, his champagne glass hit the floor the moment I walked in.
He pushed through a room full of billionaires and grabbed my wrist.
"Evelyn. Come home with me."
I looked down at his hand.

Five years ago, Nia Morgan was supposed to die. She had seen something — something the billionaires at Westwood Global couldn’t afford to let her live with. Her own future father-in-law ordered the hit. Her fiancé never came looking.
But the thing about dead girls? Some of them don’t stay buried.
Now, she’s back. New face. New name. New mission. As Elise Ward, she slips quietly into the same empire that tried to erase her. Her heart’s not here for revenge — it’s here for the truth. But if revenge comes with it? She won’t say no.
The problem? Damien Westwood. The man who once held her heart — and unknowingly watched her die.
He’s darker now. Harder. Colder. And when he starts to dig into her past, it’s not just her cover that’s at risk… it’s everything.
Because the deeper she goes, the more bodies start to surface. And someone else knows she’s alive.
Someone who kills just to keep the past buried...

Elena Wakefield has spent three years trapped in a one-sided relationship with Emmanuel Mitchell—a man who loves her sister, but uses her body. After countless heartbreaks and three forced abortions, she's pregnant again… and desperate to keep the baby. But when Emmanuel demands she get rid of it—for Lilith's sake—Elena realizes she's never truly mattered.
What begins as quiet endurance spirals into betrayal, manipulation, and bloodshed. Lilith, the perfect daughter and Emmanuel's beloved, returns not just to reclaim her place—but to destroy Elena piece by piece.
When Elena loses everything—her child, her dignity, her future—there's nothing left to fear. And when they come for her kidney to save Lilith, she finally says no.
This time, Elena won't beg.
She won't kneel.
She'll make them bleed.

Isabella Bennett lives in the shadow of a sister she could never compete with—until that sister, Nora, vanishes and Isabella is blamed for her death. Forced into a loveless marriage with Nora's grieving fiancé, Desmond Marson, Isabella endures a life of cold indifference and quiet suffering. To him, she's just a reflection of the woman he lost. To her family, she's a murderer. But when Nora suddenly returns alive, Isabella's nightmare takes a darker turn. Instead of clearing her name, Nora accuses her again—and everyone believes it. With love twisted into cruelty and truth buried beneath lies, Isabella must decide: will she stay silent and fall, or rise to uncover the secrets that destroyed her life? In a world where no one believes the villain, can the villain finally rewrite the story?

My boyfriend, Jasper Lennox, swore he'd make Tallulah Rowley pay for humiliating me.
His plan: build her up, then tear her down. Give her my VP title, a sports car, a condo—so the fall would hurt more. "Be patient, babe. It's all part of the game."
So I was patient. Even when Tallulah whispered that my five-year-old sister, Marnie, was secretly my illegitimate kid, and Jasper stopped asking about Marnie's heart.
Then Marnie needed surgery. Jasper promised me the money. I waited at the hospital from dawn till dark, and it never came. When I finally called him, Tallulah answered.
"An advance? So you can grab the cash and skip town? Find a better sob story."
Marnie died waiting.
That night, Jasper called. "Push the surgery back two more days. Then Tallulah loses everything, and we'll throw a huge wedding. Marnie can be our flower girl!"
He doesn't know she's gone.
In two days, I will be too.

For five years, Clara Bennett has been Eugene Collins's legal wife—but never his partner, never his love. Branded a homewrecker and treated as a pawn in a family power play, she's endured silence, coldness, and humiliation. When Eugene forces her into an egg retrieval procedure—without anesthesia—to produce a child he doesn't even want, Clara reaches her breaking point.
His cruelty is unrelenting. His mistress mocks her. And even in front of her, he flaunts betrayal like a badge of pride. But when Clara's broken heart brings her to the edge—literally—a single moment stands between life and death.
This isn't just a story about a loveless marriage.
It's about a woman who gave everything, lost everything, and must now decide: stay shattered for the man who destroyed her, or rise—for herself and the life growing inside her.
In the ruins of heartbreak, Clara may find the strength to fight back.

Eilidh MacLeod thought she had escaped. Seven years after walking away from a cold marriage and a ruthless man, she has built a life of quiet stability with her son, Finlay.
But ghosts don’t stay buried forever. When Ruaridh MacKinnon—her powerful ex-husband—suddenly steps back into her world, her worst nightmare comes true. As the new owner of her company, he is now in control of her professional fate. And if he looks too closely, he may uncover the one secret she swore to protect.

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

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

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

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

I said no.

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

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

He believed her.

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

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

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

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

Love wasn't free in our family. It was literal currency.
My sister, Stella Belle, and I both had a Kinship Savings Jar. 
It held the love and care we received from our families, which could be traded for anything in the Life Exchange Shop.

When I was six, I bought my mom’s life back from cancer by selling away the pain of her carrying me for nine months.
When I was thirteen, I bought my brother a brand-new leg by trading away every memory of dad’s care and upbringing.
Now, at nineteen, my dad was in a terrible car crash. His body was shattered.
Our family came to the Life Exchange Shop once again. 
 
I nudged my younger sister, Stella, forward.
But mom grabbed her and yanked me to the front instead.
"You've never done anything for this family, yet we gave you so much love and care!"
"Now it's your turn to pay back what we gave you, and you're refusing?" She snapped. 
"Besides, everything in that jar came from us anyway. You're grown now. It's only right that you empty it to repay your parents!"
 
I was shoved against the counter.
Beside me, a girl who couldn't pull anything from her jar suddenly explodes like a firework. 
But Mom, I thought in terror, my jar is empty too......

When Trevor Sullivan had nothing, I gave up billions to follow him to Silicon Valley. Everyone said I was crazy in love with him, until his first love came back to the States right after he made it big.

Seven years of playing the perfect wife and mother, and then I hear him coaching our five-year-old daughter: "Ruby, you can't tell Mommy about my fake wedding with Amber. Not a word, okay?"

"But Daddy, Mommy's gonna be sad..."

"If you tell Mommy, Daddy won't love you anymore. Got it?"

My daughter trembles, nodding frantically.

I stand outside the door, my heart turning to ash.

For the woman he never got over, he doesn't just betray our marriage. He makes our five-year-old lie for him.

Everyone expects me to cry, to beg, to fall apart.

Instead, I dial the number I blocked seven years ago: "Dad, can the family jet still come get me?"

Trevor Sullivan has no idea. I was never some gold digger who needed him to survive. I was the one with everything who made myself small for his sake.

After three years together, Adrian had never truly remembered my name.
But I never expected him to open a ring box at his family’s dinner, propose to me in front of everyone—and call another woman’s name.
Everyone assumed Serena was his fiancée, while I was nothing more than a secret he kept in the shadows.
He asked me to play along and promised he would explain everything later. He gave her my promotion, my ring, and my dignity, then told me he would make it up to me next month.
Until I decided to leave New York and fly to London alone.
This time, I would no longer wait for him to remember who I was.

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.

Presley Duval had a nickname for me all through high school. Two-Twenty.
Because at sixteen I weighed 220 pounds.
Thirteen years later she rented out a private beach in Cabo for our class reunion. One rule. Every woman had to show up in a bikini.
She made a point of sending me one.
By the time I got there her phone was already up on a tripod, live. 370,000 people watching.
"She's actually gonna show?" someone asked.
"Why wouldn't she?" Presley smiled into the camera. "I had the hotel set aside an extra-large changing tent just for her. Wouldn't want her scaring the other guests when she takes her clothes off."
Everyone around her cracked up.
"I got her a gift, too."
She lifted a pink bag off her chair and pulled out a neon pink bikini. It took two people, one on each end, just to hold it stretched out.
"3XL. I called the company. That's the biggest they make. If it still snaps, that's not on me."
A row of phones went up.
"Don't laugh." She hung the bikini over the back of the chair. "Two-Twenty's had it rough. If I hadn't stayed on her about her weight back then, who knows if she'd even be able to walk through that door today."
"Oh, and I invited someone from Meridian." She lifted her chin. "So certain people can see what a real body looks like. Instead of copying models online and embarrassing themselves."
What she didn't know was that the big shot she kept name-dropping worked for me.
I walked down the boardwalk and stopped right in front of her.
"Where's the tent?"

Selene thought Silverpine Academy would be a new beginning. A prestigious school for elite shifters seemed like the perfect place to bury her haunted past and strange visions. But from the moment she arrives, destiny refuses to stay quiet.
During a combat class, Selene is seized by a waking vision from Astrid—the ancient wolf goddess—and collapses in front of her classmates. When Elias, the intuitive and charming council member, helps her up, their touch releases a surge of magic that stuns everyone. Suddenly, the academy is buzzing with rumors, and Selene is no longer invisible—especially not to Elias or Soren, the cold, brooding Lycan heir whose wolf refuses to ignore her.

What if the life you're living was never yours?
Eloise Ashton has spent twenty-five years believing she's the unwanted daughter of a ruthless billionaire. She's been used, manipulated, and treated as a pawn in her father's empire—until the day she walks into the office of Zev Castor, the cold and terrifying CEO of Aether Global.
Zev is everything she should fear: calculating, dangerous, and hiding secrets behind every calculated glance. But when he offers her a job, Eloise doesn't realize she's stepping into a web that's been twenty-two years in the making. Zev didn't hire her by accident. He's been waiting for her—because Eloise isn't just Harold Ashton's daughter.
She's the heir to an empire stolen from her murdered parents. And Zev? He's the son of the man who died alongside them, a boy who grew up on a single promise: revenge.
What begins as a cold game of manipulation—spying, seduction, and impossible choices—slowly unravels into something neither of them expected. As Eloise uncovers the truth about who she really is, she discovers the man she was sent to destroy may be the only one who can save her.
Was any of it real? Or was she always just a part of his plan?

I've been secretly married to him for five years, but he's never treated me as his wife. Our six-year-old daughter has never called him Dad in public.

One drunken night, I got pregnant. He gave me a marriage contract that came with one condition: secrecy.

I thought time would change everything. I stood by him through the company's darkest days. When I was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer, he didn't come. When our daughter was born, he was in a meeting. Every moment that mattered, he wasn't there.

Then that clumsy intern showed up.

From that point on, he gave her all his attention and patience. He broke his own rules for her again and again. That's when I finally understood: when someone doesn't love you, they just don't.

So I took my daughter and disappeared from his world completely.

But why did that calm, controlled man lose his mind?

My husband locked me in a suitcase to punish me for frightening his childhood sweetheart. He said I could come out when I apologized. By the time his assistant warned him about the smell, our baby and I were already dead. But Adrian still expected me to crawl out and beg for forgiveness—and I was trapped beside him, watching.

My husband, Zachary, chose to save his sister-in-law right in front of the kidnappers.

The kidnapper pressed the gun to my temple and asked, "Choose your wife or your sister-in-law?"

Zachary didn't hesitate. "Let Valerie go," he said.

He actually chose to save his sister-in-law! In that moment, even the baby in my belly seemed to stop kicking.

Later, they locked me in the basement. Drugs to delay labor were pumped into my veins over and over. Zachary wanted to save the "firstborn son" status for his sister-in-law's child.

When warm blood finally soaked through my skirt, I dialed the number I knew by heart with shaking hands.

"Zachary," I whispered into the phone, "our child... can't wait any longer."

On our seventh anniversary, my fiancé left me standing outside the courthouse so he could drive another woman to the hospital. It was the ninety-ninth time he'd called off our wedding for her.
That night, he booked the restaurant where we'd had our first date. He wore the tie I'd given him. For a few minutes, I let myself believe he finally understood.
Then he asked me to eat faster. She wanted dessert.
So I stopped counting. I signed my transfer papers, packed up seven years, and boarded my flight without looking back.
By the time he realized I wasn't bluffing, I was already gone. Now he's the one left waiting, and all the roses in the world won't bring me back.

This year, out of nowhere, my mate Dominic told me to take two months off and go to Ashvale with our son, Finn. Eight years, and he'd never once given me a single day off.
I thought he'd finally noticed how tired I was.
Then Maren found a letter in his study. It was from his Beta, laying out the whole plan. Move his old flame Camille and her daughter into the main house. Hold a mating ceremony the moment I was gone.
I don't know how long I stood there holding that letter before I could think straight again.
If my mate wanted to bring her home and pick up where they left off, that was his business.
I packed our son's things for Ashvale.
I just wasn't planning on coming back.

My sister ran away the night before her wedding, so I had to take her place and marry Damian Kovac, the city's most feared don.
I figured he'd throw me in the harbor out of pure rage. Instead, the man wouldn't even touch me.
A month in, still sleeping in the guest room.
I wasn't my sister's level of charming, but I wasn't hard to look at either. And this man couldn't spare me a single glance?
The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I grabbed the divorce papers I'd already drawn up and stormed toward his study.
Right as I raised my hand to knock, I caught his childhood friend's voice through the door.
"You moved heaven and earth to get the woman you've been hung up on, and now you're icing her out? Didn't think I'd live to see the day."
My hand froze.
The woman he'd been hung up on? Me?

Six months into our marriage, Adrian still wouldn’t touch me.
Every time I reached for him, he pulled away at the last moment. I thought he didn’t love me. I thought he’d only married me because my sister had run away to Paris.
So I drafted our divorce papers.
But just as I was preparing to leave, I discovered his secret. He had stolen my lingerie, tattooed my name on his body, and turned to the internet for advice under an anonymous account:
“I’ve loved her for years. How do I make her see it?”

A seventeen years old Sera Calix was never meant to set a foot in Virelade Academy, the country's most prestigious elite all boys school. But a paperwork error gave her a chance to escape a life of serving the masters and she'll do anything to hold onto it. Even if it means disguising herself as a boy!.

The plan was to keep her head down, graduate and disappear but the problem was Kael Ashbourne, her new roommate, her worst nightmare and on top of that he's the son of the president, the same man where her mom works for.

As secrets build, Sera struggles to survive a world that was built to shut her out. But the biggest danger wasn't being caught but it's the way Kael looks at her like he already knows she's lying.

She's living a lie...
And only one person can expose her... Kael Ashbourne!

The idea came from Cora.
She ran into the kitchen while I was making dinner, wrapped both arms around my waist, and looked up at me.
"Mommy, can we go to Grandma Ellen's? Just us two? Just us girls?"
"Why?" I asked.
She thought about it, very serious. "Because every time I wake up and you're not home, I miss you. Even when Daddy's there, it's different." A pause. "Grandma Ellen probably misses you just as much as I do."
Reid was leaning in the doorway. He smiled at me—that easy, certain smile—and said, "She's not wrong. You've been running on empty for months. Take the trip. I've got everything covered."
The flights were booked before I finished washing the dishes.
I should have noticed how fast that was.
The call I made the night before we flew home changed everything. I thought I'd hung up.
I hadn't.

⚠MATURE READERS ONLY
I hated him with every fibre of my being. I wanted to take a steak knife and carve his smug, handsome face off. But what I hated most — what made me want to scream into the pillows — was that my body still remembered him.
And God help me, I was so fucking angry that I wanted him to walk through that door right now, just so I could tear him apart with my bare hands.
❖ ❖ ❖
I ran from the monster who sold me to the highest bidder. I didn’t know I was running straight into the arms of another.
For eight months, I buried my past in the quiet suburbs, pretending to be an ordinary innocent, untouched woman. I believed I had escaped the blood-soaked empire I was born into. Then Kaelith Vespero, the ruthless Don of the Vespero Syndicate and my father's deadliest enemy, who saw me as a bargaining chip, dragged me back into the underworld.
I realized my freedom was just a borrowed illusion.
But wars don't always go according to plan.
⚠IMPORTANT — PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU BEGIN ⚠
Before you begin this story, there are a few things I want you to know about what you are about to read. This is a dark romance, and some of the themes and situations in this book may not be for everyone. Please read with an open mind and at your own discretion.
I. This is a dark mafia romance recommended for readers 18 and older. If dark romance is not your cup of tea, please do not force yourself to read it. You have been warned.
II. Expect slow-burn sexual tension throughout the story. The romance is meant to build gradually, so patience will definitely be required.
III. The story contains strong language and carries a gritty, intense, and unapologetic atmosphere.
IV. Reader discretion is advised. This story explores kidnapping, captivity, coercion, family betrayal, emotional abuse, and other difficult situations. If any of these themes are a hard limit for you, please protect your peace and skip this one. There is absolutely no shame in knowing what you can and cannot handle.
One last thing before you continue: I am always open to constructive criticism, however, personal attacks, hateful comments, insults toward me or other readers, and disrespectful comments will not be tolerated.
So, if you're ready for everything waiting inside these pages...
Buckle up.
You've been warned.

Jaxson Rourke, head of the Rourke family, had one unbreakable rule: at 9:00 PM every night, he stopped taking calls.

Even in the early days of our relationship, his 9 PM blackout was absolute.

I only broke that rule once. Followed by a rival crew late one night, I called him in a panic.

His voice was ice-cold. "Handle it yourself, Soraya. You know my hours."

I spent the entire night alone at the police station.

I didn't walk through our front door until the next morning, and he didn't ask me a single question about it.

Now, staring at his laptop, the truth finally hit me.

I had accidentally opened his synced call logs.

From 9:00 PM to 9:00 AM. Twelve straight hours on an active phone call. Every single night for the last five years.

The number belonged to Maren Shay—the fragile girl sheltered by his mother.

The sheer exhaustion of trying to be the perfect mafia bride finally crushed me.

I sat there until the numbness in my legs matched the hollow ache in my chest.

Then, with a few clicks, I canceled our courthouse wedding appointment.

To protect my childhood sweetheart from the "bullies," I gave up my Yale recommendation and rejected the offer from Institut Le Rosey. I even promised to transfer with him to an ordinary local public school.
But the day before I was supposed to submit my transfer application, I overheard him in the locker room.
His friend laughed,"You faked being bullied all this time just to trick her into leaving?"
Duke’s voice was sickeningly cold. "She’s always looking down on me with her Old Money arrogance. Having her constantly breathing down my neck is suffocating. Now she's stuck here, and Jennifer and I can finally breathe."
I stood outside the door for a long time. Then, without a word, I turned away.
I pulled out my phone and called my father. "Tell the board in Switzerland I'm accepting the Le Rosey offer."
Duke forgot one crucial thing: Without my protection, he was nothing but an unacknowledged bastard. We were always worlds apart.
He thought I would beg him to come back.
He thought wrong.
When Duke finally managed to crawl his way into a high society gala, desperately trying to secure a crumb of investment.
When the doors opened, he froze.
Because the ruthless, untouchable billionaire CEO, Elias Neville—Duke’s legitimate older brother—was walking down the grand staircase.
And his hand was resting possessively on my waist.
Elias looked down at Duke, his voice dripping with deadly calm. "Duke. Where are your manners? Say hello to your future sister-in-law."

I was married to Vera for three years.

In those three years, every time we fought, I was the one who backed down first. She got used to being indulged, and she got used to using the silent treatment to make me fold.

Then a blizzard grounded my flight. I didn’t make it back for her birthday. She filed for divorce out of spite and left the country.

Three years ended without dignity.

A year after the divorce, Vera returned with a new jewelry brand and a high-profile comeback. Everyone assumed I was still waiting for her—she assumed it too.

At dinners, she hinted at reconciliation, using our old story to build hype for her brand. The circle started whispering that I’d end up back by her side.

I corrected it, again and again. She ignored every word.

What she didn’t know was that I already had someone new—and we were preparing to get engaged.

When she saw the engagement planning booklet, she convinced herself it was my signal to take her back.

I explained. She insisted.

Until the day of the engagement, when she stormed into the venue…

On my first day as an intern, everyone decides Avery Hart must be the chairman's daughter.

She has his last name, expensive clothes, and no interest in correcting them.

By lunchtime, people are already treating her like she owns the place.

I came here to earn a job, not argue about someone's family tree.

Then our supervisor hands Avery the team lead role and she orders me to redo a mountain of old files and bring her coffee.

When I refuse, he takes her side.

Why is he so determined to keep her happy?

But I am the chairman’s daughter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now both families want me.

But all I want… is to leave alive.

He was powerful.
He was terrifying.
He was huge.
He had the whole world under his feet, the whole world within his grasp—but to him, she was his world, she meant everything.
He was feared by all, but it only mattered that she was scared of him.
He was worshipped by billions, yet he worshipped the very ground she walked on.
His calloused hands were capable of ripping people apart, yet they only held her with tenderness and possessiveness.
His claws ripped out throats, yet they only extended towards her to play with her curls.
"For there will be one born from chaos, forged from the ruins and the ashes of the ages. He will be the chosen one, the one to host the darkness. He will be engraved with the lines of the goddesses' touch and the fates will bow to him. But he will be the one to bring forth the carnage, that will end the world's that began under his feet. His light, her darkness. Every darkness needs a light but his will be lost in the times. Betrothed to the darkness, one with it. The cycle will go on till the darkness finds the light, to be one eclipse. For at the end, blood will flow."

I was falsely accused of killing my sister. My husband personally sent me to prison. Three years later, he picked me up, and that very night he stripped off my clothes and fucked me brutally.

He said, "The child your sister and I had together has a heart condition. You have to give birth to a baby to save him. This is what you owe your sister!"

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?”

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."