A Second Chance With Mr. Blackwood

In the roaring flames of the abandoned warehouse, my skin blistered and peeled. Through the crackling fire, my sister Elara's malicious voice echoed. She told me my husband, Damien, was dead, and it was all my fault. For years, I had treated Damien like a monster. I fought him, threw tantrums, and desperately tried to escape our marriage, all because I blindly followed Elara's advice. "Remember, the harder you fight, the more disgusted he'll get." She texted me things like that, telling me to smash vases over his head and run away, claiming she was protecting me. In reality, she was poisoning my mind, stealing my valedictorian spot at university, and plotting to crawl into my billionaire husband's bed. My foolish rebellion cost me everything, ultimately leading to Damien's tragic death and my own fiery end. As the massive explosion tore my consciousness to shreds, I finally understood who truly loved me and who the real monster was. I died suffocating on my own agonizing regret, wishing I could tear Elara apart. Then, a rush of freezing air punched into my lungs. I opened my eyes to the crisp scent of cedar and mint. I was back seven years ago, on the very night our marriage was supposed to go to hell. This time, looking at Damien's flawless, unscarred face, I didn't push him away. I wrapped my arms around his neck and made a silent vow: I would make every single person who ever hurt him bleed.

Chapters

Chapter 3

Giovanna stood in the massive walk-in closet. She bypassed the flashy, revealing clothes she used to wear to annoy Damien. She pulled out a tailored, burgundy Ivy League-style dress. The high collar perfectly hid the marks on her neck.

When she walked out, Damien was waiting by the bedroom door. He wore a dark, bespoke suit that cost more than most people's houses. His eyes swept over her, still calculating, still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Giovanna didn't hesitate. She walked up to him and slid her hand through the crook of his arm.

They walked down the sweeping marble staircase together.

The maids dusting the foyer stopped moving. They stared, their mouths slightly open, shocked to see the master of the house and his volatile wife walking arm-in-arm without screaming at each other.

They entered the long dining room. Damien pulled out a chair for her at the mahogany table before taking his seat at the head.

A maid placed a steaming cup of black coffee in front of Giovanna. Damien had always ordered it for her, thinking she liked it.

Giovanna pushed the coffee away. She reach for the glass of warm, sweet milk meant for her oatmeal. She lifted the glass and playfully clinked it against Damien's coffee mug.

Before Damien could process the change, a low, sharp beep sounded from the earpiece of the head of security standing by the door.

The security chief stepped forward. "Boss. Elara Vang is at the front gate."

The air in the room dropped ten degrees. Damien's face turned to stone. "Deny entry."

Giovanna knew Elara would come. She reached across the table and placed her hand over Damien's clenched fist.

"D," she said softly, her thumb rubbing over his white knuckles. "Let her in. I have some things I need to say to my dear sister."

Damien stared at her hand on his. He looked up, his dark eyes searching hers. He hated it, but he gave a sharp nod to the security chief.

Three minutes later, the dining room doors burst open.

Elara rushed in. She wore a pristine white designer skirt suit. Her eyes were already rimmed with red, her face the perfect picture of frantic worry.

She completely ignored Damien. She ran straight toward Giovanna, reaching out to grab her hands.

"Gio!" Elara cried out, her voice trembling with fake tears. "Are you okay? Did he force you again last night?"

The silence in the dining room became suffocating. The killing intent rolling off Damien's body was a physical weight in the air.

Elara waited for the explosion. She waited for Giovanna to scream, to throw her milk at Damien, to demand to leave.

Giovanna didn't move. She picked up a linen napkin, elegantly dabbed the corner of her mouth, and slowly stood up.

She sidestepped Elara's reaching hands. She looked at her sister the way one looks at a rotting piece of meat on the sidewalk.

Elara's hands fell to her sides. A cold spike of panic hit her stomach. This wasn't the script.

Giovanna took a step forward, closing the distance.

Without a single change in her expression, Giovanna raised her right hand and slapped Elara across the face.

The crack of skin against skin echoed off the high ceiling like a gunshot. The force of the blow threw Elara off balance. She crashed hard onto the polished wood floor.

The maids gasped. Even Damien's eyes widened a fraction of an inch.

Elara held her rapidly swelling cheek. She stared up at Giovanna, genuine shock replacing the fake tears. "Are you crazy?! I'm trying to help you!"

Giovanna looked down at her. A cruel, mocking smile touched her lips.

"Help me?" Giovanna's voice was crystal clear, making sure every person in the room heard her. "Or help me piss off my husband?"

She turned her head. She looked right at Damien. Her smile softened into something incredibly warm.

"Listen closely, Elara," Giovanna said, her eyes never leaving Damien's. "He is my beloved husband. I will not tolerate you disrespecting him in our home."

Damien's chest hitched. The dark, violent storm in his eyes vanished, replaced by a burning, obsessive heat. The words 'beloved husband' wrapped around his heart and squeezed tight.

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Born into luxury, Hermione Watson-Pierce has always felt like merely a pawn in her parents' ruthless game of power. She learned to suppress her emotions, earning herself the title of the "Ice Queen." Just then, Aiden Mendes bursts into her life-a charming playboy known for his reckless reputation. Aiden chooses to cope with his inner turmoil through a lavish lifestyle, using his charisma and striking looks to keep others at bay. A looming threat forces them to face a contracted marriage or risk losing their inheritance. When they first meet, Aiden is struck by an unexpected attraction, as if it were love at first sight. Yet, his notorious reputation precedes him, and Hermione makes no effort to hide her disdain. As their contractual marriage evolves into a battle of wills, Aiden must work to melt Hermione's icy heart, proving that he is more than what meets the eye. But can he persuade her to rise above her prejudices and bravely pursue love?

Billionaire Modern Romance

9.3

Bound To The Disabled Apocalyptic Tycoon

9.3

Jessie's biological parents brought her back from a Rust Belt wasteland just to force her into marrying a paralyzed heir to save their bankrupt empire. Three years later, when the global doomsday apocalypse hit, her own family shoved her into a swarm of infected corpses. As she was being torn apart by mutated hounds, she was stunned by what she saw. Her fake sister, Harley, was clutching the antique silver necklace she had stolen from Jessie—an heirloom that secretly contained a magical spatial dimension. When the infected swarmed them, her biological mother didn't even look back. "Jessie is just white trash, she is perfectly suited to buy us time to run!" Harley used Jessie's stolen necklace to live in absolute safety and luxury, while Jessie's windpipe was ripped out in the rotting wasteland. Until she died, Jessie didn't understand. She was their true flesh and blood. Why did her parents hate her so much? Why was she sacrificed so easily while the fake daughter got everything? Opening her eyes again, the blinding glare of a crystal chandelier stabbed into her retinas. She was back in the Manhattan penthouse on the exact day they sold her off. This time, Jessie calmly signed the marriage contract, demanded a one hundred million dollar buyout, and walked out to prepare for the apocalypse.

Billionaire Modern Romance

7.8

Branded By The Devil's Cruel Kiss

7.8

Elie Joyce’s entire life was controlled by Ebert Ewing, a ruthless billionaire who held her sick grandmother's survival and her family's freedom in his hands. But on a freezing, stormy night, he forced her into a scandalous scrap of red silk and handed her over to a notorious, disgusting predator. "You aren't an escort. You're just a free gift." Ebert mocked her, using her as a disposable bargaining chip to secure a corporate funding round. When the predator humiliated her, forced high-proof vodka down her throat, and violently pinned her to the floor, Ebert simply watched with dead eyes. And when Ebert finally intervened to brutally beat the man, it wasn't out of mercy. "She is my property. Even if she is trash that I threw away, a filthy pig like you doesn't get to touch her." Afterward, he dragged her battered, barefoot body into his car, only to kick her out into the torrential rain, leaving her on the dark streets to die. Standing in the storm, shivering and bleeding from broken glass, the last shred of Elie's hope shattered. She had sacrificed her dignity and soul, enduring his violent bites and cruel control, just to keep her family alive. Why did she have to suffer this endless, twisted humiliation for a psychopath who only saw her as trash? But she didn't break. Tearing a strip of his expensive shirt to bandage her bleeding foot, Elie gripped her broken stiletto like a knife. With her eyes turning cold and calculating, she limped out of the shadows. She was going to survive, and Ebert Ewing would soon realize she was no longer his obedient prey.

Adventure Billionaire Modern

9.2

Divorcing The Ruthless Billionaire Husband

9.2

Averie spent hours preparing a perfect third-anniversary dinner for her billionaire husband, Jarett Sharp. Instead of celebrating, she received an anonymous photo of him intimately holding another woman. When Jarett finally arrived, he didn't even look guilty. "Candida. It's okay. Don't be scared. I'm on my way." He simply took a call from his mistress, shoved Averie aside, and walked right back out the door. That same night, Averie's father suffered a massive heart attack. The hospital demanded a half-million-dollar deposit before they would operate. But when Averie frantically tried to use the emergency medical trust card Jarett had given her, it was declined. Jarett had deliberately frozen her access to the funds just hours earlier. While she begged his assistant on the phone, Jarett refused to be disturbed, busy wrapping his expensive coat around his mistress in the hospital garden. Averie collapsed in the hallway, realizing the man she loved was deliberately letting her father die. In the end, a childhood friend stepped in to pay the bill and save her father's life, while her billionaire husband later pinned her to their bed, throwing a check at her and reminding her he had bought her for three million dollars. Averie didn't shed a single tear. She slowly ripped his check into pieces, left her massive diamond ring on the dresser, and walked out into the cold New York night with nothing but her old suitcase. She pulled out her phone and dialed her old ballet professor. She wasn't just going to leave Jarett Sharp. She was going to destroy him.

Billionaire Modern Romance

7.2

Immune To The Billionaire's Toxic Regret

7.2

Elmore Thomas rushed into the emergency room, clutching his feverish seven-year-old son, Buddy, tightly to his chest. When the privacy curtain was pulled back, the air in Elmore's lungs vanished. The attending physician standing under the harsh lights was his wife, Kendal—the woman everyone believed had burned to death eight years ago. But there was no tearful reunion. Kendal looked at him, and her eyes froze into impenetrable ice. She treated him like a biohazard, strictly referring to him as the family member. Worse, she didn't recognize Buddy. She comforted their crying son with the same gentle warmth she used to reserve for Elmore, completely unaware she was soothing the baby she thought had died. Days later, Elmore watched from the shadows as she picked up another boy outside a prep school, her left hand flashing a massive diamond engagement ring. When his butler accidentally recognized her, Kendal shielded her new stepson with pure disgust in her eyes. "Tell that psychopath to sign the divorce papers immediately. I have a new family now." The words 'new family' echoed in Elmore's skull, tearing him apart. For eight years, he had lived in a hell of guilt and madness, raising their son in the shadow of her ghost. How could she just erase their past? How could she give her tender smiles to a stranger and look at him with absolute revulsion? Standing in a luxury ballroom, Elmore squeezed his hand until his crystal champagne flute shattered, thick blood dripping onto the rug. The murderous obsession in his dark eyes returned as he called his lawyer. "Freeze her divorce application. Use every dirty trick in the book. She isn't leaving."

Billionaire Modern Romance

9.7

One Dollar For Pity: The Surgeon Returns

9.7

For three years, I played the role of a devoted, naive wife to billionaire Conrad Whitney. I hid my true identity and foolishly believed in our fairy tale. Then he handed me a harsh divorce agreement, ordering me to sign and walk away with absolutely nothing. He was leaving me to marry Cindy, the fragile woman he claimed had saved him from a fire. He expected me to cry and beg. Instead, he watched coldly as Cindy and her family illegally transferred my father's trust fund. When I confronted them at the hospital, Conrad shielded her, calling me a greedy, toxic viper. He mocked me, completely blind to the fact that Cindy was a fraud. He truly believed I was just a pathetic, useless housewife who would be utterly destroyed without his money and status. I looked at the man I had actually dragged out of that burning debris with my own soot-covered hands. My trauma, my sacrifices, and my love had all been reduced to a joke by his sheer arrogance and a few fake tears from a manipulative liar. I didn't shed a single tear. I calmly signed the papers, drugged his wine, and left a crumpled one-dollar bill on his unconscious chest with a sticky note mocking his terrible service. Then, I picked up my encrypted phone. It was time for the world's top surgeon, Dr. Hades, to return, and for Conrad to finally see the god he had just thrown away.

Billionaire Modern Romance

A Second Chance With Mr. Blackwood

Chapter 3

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