Best Modern Novels

One night, I was a girl seeking vengeance in a velvet mask. He was the stranger who took me against a cold stone wall, his touch a silent, lethal promise. Now, he is Caspian Blackwood-the most feared architecture professor at Aethelgard. When my "perfect" boyfriend, Dominic Calloway, cheats on me and sabotages my degree, Caspian offers a lifeline with a razor-thin edge: Be his silent, nude model for thirty days. The rules are absolute. I must wear a silk mask and a weighted collar. I must never speak. I must hold the poses he demands until my muscles scream for mercy. In the lecture hall, he ignores me with arctic indifference. In the studio, his gaze is a physical weight, stripping me faster than his hands ever could. But as the charcoal scratches against the paper, I realize the "deal" isn't just for art. It's for the soul I accidentally gave him in the dark. Will the deal destroy his career, or consume me first?

Ayleen Ramirez sat in the sterile Hope Hill Fertility Clinic, her heart shattering as Dr. Finch delivered the crushing news: her third IVF cycle had failed. Eavesdropping outside a supply closet, she overheard her husband Don on the phone, laughing cruelly. "She's a defective incubator," he sneered to his mistress Alessandra. "I never used my sperm—just cheap bank donation. No trailer trash carries a Bradley heir." Betrayed, Ayleen confronted him, but her adoptive family ambushed her at home. Her parents and brother sided with Alessandra, now pregnant by Don, demanding Ayleen sign divorce papers to secure family investments. "You're an embarrassment," her mother snapped, threatening to cut her trust fund. Ayleen tossed back their heirloom necklace and walked out. She stormed the Bradley mansion, slapped divorce papers on Don, packed her bags amid his aunt's insults, and fled into the night. Drunk in a trendy bar, she stumbled into a powerful stranger—Burdette Guerrero—spilling whiskey on his crotch, then accidentally grabbed a napkin to his trousers. He shoved her away in rage. Worse, she mistook his penthouse suite for her hotel room, bursting in on his shower, smashing a mirror in panic. He pinned her to the wall, snarling accusations. How did this arrogant man know her name? Why demand she sign a mysterious contract at 9 a.m.? Devastated and clueless she's actually pregnant—with his stolen heir—Ayleen sobbed alone, the world crumbling. The next morning, she straightened her spine in the Grand Guerrero lobby, ready to face him and demand answers—no matter the cost.

Arlene was the illegitimate daughter of the wealthy Boone family, treated worse than a stray dog. To keep her meager scholarship, she had to swallow her pride and apologize to the frat boy who tormented her. But he didn't just want an apology. He forced her to drink twenty shots of liquor laced with pure capsaicin extract. "Drink us under the table, or take off your clothes and crawl out." Arlene drank until her stomach tore, vomiting blood and collapsing on the filthy club floor. When she dragged her half-dead body back to the Boone estate, her biological father and half-sister didn't care. Instead, her sister ground Arlene's SAT admission ticket into the dirt with her stiletto. "Throw her out. Dad doesn't want to look at her before Hardie's engagement." The guards threw her onto the gravel, leaving her bleeding and barefoot in the freezing night. Arlene sat shivering at a dark bus stop, her dignity completely stripped away. She never wanted a dime from the Boones, so why did they insist on crushing her only way out? And why did Dr. Hardie Boone, the untouchable head of the family, look at her with such a twisted, terrifying obsession? When Hardie's black Aston Martin pulled out of the shadows, he scooped her up, took her away, and locked her inside his penthouse. "You carry the Boone name. Whether you live or die is my decision." Trapped by the dangerous man who demanded total control over her life, Arlene finally realized that simply running away was no longer an option.

Bonnie Galvan woke up to the suffocating scent of lilies, staring at the mirror in the exact same seven-figure wedding dress she had worn seven years ago. In the doorway stood her so-called best friend Itzel and her secret lover Erwin, desperately urging her to elope. They warned her that her soon-to-be husband, the billionaire Arlington Townsend, was a crippled monster, and marrying him would ruin her life forever. In her previous life, she blindly believed their lies and ran away from the altar. Because of her public betrayal, the ruthless Townsend family completely bankrupted her father's company in retaliation. Erwin and Itzel swooped in as her saviors, only to steal whatever was left of her family's wealth and power. When she was finally stripped of her value, Erwin pushed her down an icy mountain slope during a brutal blizzard. With a shattered ankle, she could only watch as Itzel smirked and Erwin coldly walked away, leaving her to be buried alive under the freezing snow. As her lungs burned and her heart gave out in the agonizing cold, she was consumed by hatred. Why did the man who swore to protect her and the friend she trusted with her life plot so meticulously to destroy her? Opening her eyes again, Bonnie was back in the bridal suite, minutes before the ceremony. This time, she didn't run. She walked straight down the aisle, looked the terrifying Arlington Townsend in the eye, and firmly said her vows. "I do."

When is the worst time to tell someone he's going to be a father? Probably the day of the wedding... When he is getting married to someone else. Well, that is exactly what I did. But my hands were tied. Literally. Matvey Groza is a dangerous man. And nine months ago, he strolled into my shop looking for a custom suit. But when I accidentally walked in on him in the changing room, *I* was the one that ended up needing a new set of clothes. It was a one-time mistake. After that... good riddance. But the pregnancy test I took a month later had other plans. I kept it a secret from everyone. Or so I thought. But when Matvey's enemies learned that I was pregnant with his child, they kidnapped me and held me hostage. Until I broke free and ran as fast as I could. And I had no one else to turn to but the devil himself. What better time for me to enter the church... ... than as the pastor says, "Speak now or forever hold your peace"?

Azura Briggs was just a broke college student working freezing valet shifts to pay her adoptive mother's crushing medical debt. Her desperate life shattered the night a bulletproof Maybach violently cornered her in an alley, and a ruthless billionaire kidnapped her by mistake. After a harrowing escape, Azura was forced to take a humiliating "plus-one" gig at a high-end gala just to survive. But her date turned out to be the billionaire's arrogant nephew, who promptly abandoned her to the wolves. Cornered by a sleazy executive and his psychotic wife, Azura was publicly slapped, her dress torn, and left bleeding on the floor while hundreds of elites watched in disgust. Just as she prepared to fight to the death, the crowd violently parted. Hunter Mcintosh, the terrifying man who had kidnapped her days ago, dropped to his knees in the broken glass and wrapped his bespoke jacket around her trembling shoulders. Azura was completely paralyzed. Why was the monster who threatened her life now destroying billionaires just to protect her? But the illusion of safety didn't last. Trapped in his Maybach hours later, Hunter threw a draconian employment contract at her feet. "Sign it, and her care is covered. Forever." He knew exactly how to break her. He was offering to pay off her mother's debt, but only if she signed her life away to become his personal assistant. With no other way out, Azura picked up the heavy pen.

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.

"I know you're pregnant, Valentina. That's why you have to die tonight. Two lives for the price of one, efficiency was always my strong suit." On her third wedding anniversary, Valentina was gifted a shallow grave. Her husband, Kennedy, the man she adored, was never a billionaire. He was a fraud who drugged her, watched her drown in a poisoned bath, and ordered her burial so he could marry his mistress. He didn't know the gardener would hesitate. He didn't know she would crawl out of the mud, pregnant, broken, and alive. And he never imagined that ghosts would come back with teeth. Dragged from the storm by Ian Kingston, the Titan of industry, Valentina is saved by a man so powerful that Kennedy is nothing more than a disposable bookkeeper in his empire. To the world, Ian is a monster. To Valentina, he is survival. But Ian doesn't see a victim. He sees Misha, his vanished wife, the mother of his two children, the woman who disappeared without a trace. "You have 365 days to prove you aren't her, little bird. Until then, you will sleep in my bed, wear my name, and obey every rule I set." Trapped in a deadly case of mistaken identity, Valentina signs the contract. She becomes Misha Kingston, cold, ruthless, untouchable. Wrapped in emerald silk and Ian's dark protection, she walks back into the world that tried to bury her. The next time Kennedy sees his dead wife, she isn't in a coffin. She's in the arms of his boss. Wearing a queen's crown. Looking down at him from a throne of gold. But as Ian's control turns into obsession, Valentina faces an impossible truth. She is hiding a child conceived by her enemy... While being claimed by a king who refuses to let her go. He buried a wife. He's about to kneel before a Goddess.

Overnight, Ella lost her family, her home, and her entire life. Discarded by the foster system, she was left shivering in the freezing mud outside her ruined estate. That was when Javier Shepherd appeared. The terrifyingly cold, powerful billionaire pulled her from the dirt, threw her into a massive glass penthouse, handed her an unlimited black card, and vanished overseas, leaving her in the hands of a cruel caretaker. The caretaker treated Ella like garbage, feeding her cheap, processed meals while using the black card to buy designer bags. The toxic food triggered a severe allergic reaction. Ella collapsed in the dark hallway, her throat swelling shut, gasping for air while the caretaker locked the door and turned up the TV. She almost died on that cold hardwood floor. When Javier found out, he ruthlessly destroyed the caretaker and sent her to prison. He guarded Ella's hospital bed with terrifying intensity and even moved into her apartment to stop her panic attacks. Yet, when Ella finally broke down crying over her dead parents, his eyes turned to ice. "Losing emotional control over a juvenile past is an inefficient waste of energy." He sneered, treating her grief like a bad financial investment. Ella was completely bewildered. Why did this dangerous man protect her so fiercely, yet hate her past so deeply? It wasn't until his cousin visited the hospital that the cruel truth was revealed. Javier wasn't saving her out of kindness. He had been obsessed with Ella's mother—his family's adopted daughter who ran away years ago. To him, Ella wasn't a person to be loved. She was just a replacement asset, a ghost of the woman he never got over.

Cari Butler woke up in a damp, smelly dorm room, realizing she had transmigrated into the body of a disgraced fake daughter who had just been kicked out of a wealthy family. Before she could even process her reality, the real daughter's friends kicked her door open to mock her, flaunting a custom Tiffany necklace that supposedly cost a mere eighty cents. Cari thought they were crazy, until she saw the news: a top Manhattan mansion had just sold for a record-breaking $3,500. The entire world's currency value had shrunk by ten thousand times! This meant the original owner's bank balance of $854,000 gave Cari the purchasing power of eight and a half billion dollars. But a mysterious system froze her funds, forcing her to work demeaning gig jobs to unlock the money bit by bit. While working as a hotel server for twenty cents a day, she caught her ex-boyfriend kissing up to the real daughter, mocking Cari for being a desperate beggar. Even her snobby roommates laughed at her, claiming she couldn't afford a ten-cent iPhone. What truly angered Cari wasn't the humiliation, but receiving a five-cent transfer from her poor biological brother, who was starving himself just to keep her fed. Yet, the system strictly forbade her from giving her unlocked billions directly to her family. Looking at the restrictive system and the arrogant elites who thought they owned the city, Cari's eyes turned icy cold. "If I can't just hand them the cash," Cari sneered, pulling out her phone to outright buy the luxury hotel and fire everyone who wronged her. "Then I will just buy the entire world and place it at their feet."

On the morning of our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, I found a cream-colored document tucked inside my husband's suit pocket. It was a twenty-million-dollar asset transfer for his former receptionist, Carmen. But what made my blood run cold was the contingent beneficiary: Leo, my newborn son who the hospital claimed was kidnapped twenty-three years ago. When I confronted Devonte, he didn't even try to explain. He handed me a fake Cartier watch, canceled all my credit cards, and publicly called me delusional. The next day, he moved Carmen into our mansion and emptied all our joint accounts into offshore trusts. "If you don't sign these papers and walk away, I will have you committed," he threatened, his mother nodding in agreement. They had orchestrated the kidnapping of my baby, hiding him with the mistress while I spent half my life sedated and screaming in grief. Now, to keep his secret, Devonte was going to lock me in a psychiatric ward and bury me in debt. I didn't understand how the man I loved could be such a monster. Why did he steal my child? What else was hidden in that confidential adoption file? Pushed to the absolute brink, I refused to be his victim. When his goons came to my temporary apartment to drag me away, I turned to the rugged union electrician who had just fixed my lights. "If you need a husband to keep you out of a psych ward, I'll marry you," he said, offering himself as my legal shield. I took his hand. It was time to tear my husband's perfect life apart.

Six years ago, my adoptive family framed me for commercial espionage, stripped me of my identity, and threw me out. Now, I finally returned to the Solis estate as a commercial pilot to take back what was mine. But the first thing my adoptive mother did was threaten me with that forged evidence again. She demanded I take my sister Kiana's place in a marriage contract with a disabled man, simply because Kiana refused to marry him. When I refused, Kiana ambushed me at the airport with a mob of reporters. She cried for the cameras, publicly accusing me of causing our father's and brother's deaths. She painted me as a ruthless monster who bankrupted the company and ruined the family. The crowd instantly turned on me, screaming that I was a murderer and a gold-digger. Kiana wanted to completely destroy my reputation so I would have no choice but to submit to her arrangement. I looked at her fake tears, feeling a cold, absolute fury. How dare she use the tragic deaths of the only family members who actually loved me as a prop for her sick show? They had ruined my life once, and now they wanted to bury me alive. I didn't hesitate. I slapped her hard across the face right in front of the flashing cameras. "That was for my father and brother." Then, my real fiancé, a decorated Delta Force commander, rolled through the crowd in his wheelchair. He tossed a classified Pentagon file to the reporters, completely clearing my name and exposing Kiana's lies. I married him to start my revenge, but as I stepped into his heavily secured penthouse that night, I realized my powerful new husband had been preparing for me for a very long time.

In my past life, the Cerberus strain leaked, turning the world into a blood-soaked hell of rotting flesh and mutated monsters. I thought my boyfriend Declan and my best friend Hailee would have my back as we fled the quarantine zone. Instead, when the surging crowd of the infected cornered us, they didn't hesitate. They shoved me backward into the horde just to buy themselves three seconds to run. As I fell into the mud, I saw them fleeing without a single backward glance. "She's dead weight anyway!" Hailee screamed. "Just keep running, she'll distract them!" Declan yelled back. I was torn apart, feeling the agonizing tear of rotting teeth sinking into my neck and the hot spray of my own blood. Before the apocalypse, my greedy uncle had locked away my ten-million-dollar trust fund, leaving me with nothing but a fake boyfriend who only wanted me for my money. Until my last breath, I couldn't understand how the people I loved most could trade my life for a head start. Why did I blindly trust them? Why didn't I see through their perfectly choreographed lies? Opening my eyes again, the stench of decaying flesh vanished, replaced by the sterile smell of my college dorm room. Hailee and Declan were standing over my bed, faking tears of concern over my meningitis fever. I was back exactly seven days before the world ended, and my spatial vault ability had come back with me. This time, I'm extorting my uncle for every cent, hoarding the city's supplies, and leaving them all to rot.

Eight days after my c-section, my husband left me and our hungry, premature newborn alone. He rushed to his manipulative ex-girlfriend, Cassidy, who was faking another one of her "panic attacks," just as he always did. His obsession with "saving" her had already caused our son's premature birth. This time, it got him killed. In a jealous rage, Cassidy slammed her car into us, and my baby was gone. But when I woke up in the hospital, Kevin was protecting her, not me. He told me it was an accident, that her diagnosed mental illness made her not responsible. He even had our son cremated without my consent, erasing all the evidence. He begged me to forgive them, to let it all blow over so we could be a family again. I looked at the man who had destroyed my life and smiled. "I called the police, Kevin," I said, showing him my phone. "And that medical certificate you're holding? It's a fake."

Kathern was forced out of her sister's home by her abusive brother-in-law, who violently demanded she pay half the rent or get out. To protect her sister from his rage, Kathern agreed to a six-month paper marriage with a stranger—an old woman's grandson, Bronson—in exchange for a simple apartment. But her new husband treated her like a scheming gold digger from the very first second. He showed up to City Hall in a cheap suit, shoved a brutal prenup in her face, and dumped her in a completely empty, dust-filled apartment. "Just don't cause any trouble," he warned coldly, before leaving her alone. When Kathern politely texted him to ask if he was coming home for dinner, he immediately blocked her number. Kathern was furious and baffled. She didn't want a dime of his money, nor did she care about his boring middle-management job. She had only agreed to this marriage for a place to sleep, yet this arrogant man treated her like absolute garbage. Refusing to swallow the insult, Kathern immediately dialed his grandmother to expose his behavior. She was going to build her own independent life, completely unaware that her "cheap corporate loser" of a husband was actually the ruthless billionaire CEO of the Vaughan empire.

How far are you willing to go for your family's company? Eloise Jane Lopez is the one true child of the Lopezes, and due to her sick father's wish, she needs to marry a man she doesn't know to keep the company her parents manage in order. And the man she will marry is none other than Cosmo Dominguez, a multi-billionaire, whose supposed fiancée was Eloise's step-sister but got pregnant, leaving Eloise with no choice but to be the substitute bride. After the wedding, Cosmo laid out another agreement with Eloise, that the marriage would only be temporary, and that they would have to separate after two years. Can they uphold the signed agreement until the end, or can they stop the feelings forming between them?

She loved him until she lost herself. Now, behind locked doors and shattered glass, she must learn to breathe again. When she first met Lloyd, he was magnetic and intoxicating. The kind of man who turned every head when he entered a room, who spoke in promises sweet enough to taste. With him, she felt chosen, cherished, and safe. But safety was an illusion, and love became a weapon. And slowly, piece by piece, he dismantled her until nothing of the woman she once was remained. Now institutionalized after a breakdown, she begins to piece together the brutal truth of what really happened in the shadows of their love story. Memories sting like open wounds: the manipulation disguised as tenderness, the apologies that blurred into threats, the desperate hope that tomorrow he'd be the man she fell for again. Yet beneath the grief and the shame, a quiet rebellion stirs, a vow to reclaim her voice, her freedom, and her life. Because this is not just a story of how she fell apart. It is a story of how she rises. Haunting, raw, and achingly intimate, Boys like him peels back the glittering mask of a toxic love affair to reveal the kind of darkness that hides in plain sight, and the unbreakable strength it takes to escape it.

For three years, I hid my identity as a billionaire heiress to build a life with the man I loved. I gave up everything to support Ben's career, believing we were creating a future together from the ground up. The day before our engagement, I overheard him with his boss, Haylie. He called me a "stepping stone," a poor, simple girl he was using to climb the corporate ladder and get closer to her. He laughed about our "humble" life and mocked the silver ring on my finger, calling it a necessary prop. He was sleeping with her, taking credit for the multi-million dollar deal I secretly engineered, and saw my love as a naive distraction. The man I sacrificed my entire world for saw me as less than nothing. My love didn't just die; it turned into ice-cold rage. So I walked out of his life and straight into the arms of my family's biggest rival. He offered me a deal I couldn't refuse. "Marry me," Jaxson Banks said with a smirk. "And together, we'll burn their world to the ground."

"Error. The social security number associated with this user was registered as deceased five years ago. Account legally closed." Those words, glaring from a stolen hospital iPad, confirmed my darkest fear: my family had murdered me. I awoke in a sterile room after five years in a coma, my body weak but my mind sharp. My husband, Dante, the Syndicate Don, rushed in with fake grief. My parents, who'd raised me as a pawn, showed terror, avoiding my gaze. Armed guards outside confirmed I was a prisoner. Dante frantically silenced me when I asked about my son, Leo, offering a flimsy excuse. My hacker skills led me to my secret trust account, where I found myself officially declared dead. Rage replaced panic. I ripped out my IV, stumbled to the Director's office, and forced him to reveal my death certificate. It stated "Accidental drowning, brain death," signed by Dante and witnessed by my own parents. "So, I was murdered by my entire family," I declared, my voice a dead rasp. I used the forged document to blackmail Dante, demanding to be taken to Leo, my counterattack already forming. I slapped away my mother's manipulative hand, ready to reclaim my life and my son.

Ava ran away from her home and she mistook Ethan as Nathan , a powerful billionaire, as the spy her father sent to capture her. Determined to uncover the truth, she sets out to seduce him and extract the information she needs. But as time goes Ava finds herself torn between her mission and her growing attraction to the powerful billionaire. Will she succeed in her plan or not? Read to find out!!

For three years, I hid my identity as the sole heiress of a multi-billion dollar tech empire to live in a cramped apartment and support my boyfriend, Ben. But the day before our engagement, I stood outside a meeting room and overheard him talking to his wealthy boss, Haylie. "She's just a stepping stone," Ben laughed, his voice full of contempt. "A poor, ambitionless distraction while I work my way up to where I really belong." He mocked the cheap silver ring he gave me, calling it a necessary prop to keep a naive fool happy. He bragged about the multi-million dollar merger proposal he was presenting, planning to use it to secure his promotion and build a future with her. He had no idea that I had secretly negotiated that entire deal using my real connections just to give him his big break. I had sacrificed my family's comfort, my true identity, and my own career just to watch him rise. I poured my heart and soul into our humble beginnings, only to realize he saw my love as a pathetic joke and me as disposable trash. I calmly picked up a pen and voided the merger agreement, tearing my hard work into tiny pieces. I went home, slid the cheap ring off my finger, and dropped it into his mug of cold coffee. "Soon, you'll find out exactly who is nothing." Walking out the door, I pulled out my phone and texted my billionaire father. "I'm in. Announce the merger."

My ex-boyfriend of three years, Axel, married a perfect wealthy heiress. I attended his wedding, not to mourn our relationship, but because he had spent the last three years bleeding me dry. He left me with absolutely nothing but a final notice from the hospital for my dying brother's life support. Instead of feeling guilty, Axel cornered me in the church hallway, crushing my wrist. "I'll set you up with an apartment. You won't have to work another day in your life." He thought he could buy my silence with spare change, while leaving my seventeen-year-old brother, Julian, to die when his treatments were cut off the very next day. When I refused to be his dirty little secret, Axel used his power to utterly destroy my acting career. He had my talent agency terminate my contract under a fake morals clause, publicly humiliated me on set, and blacklisted me across the entire industry. I was shoved out into the freezing rain, left with a torn dress and absolutely no way to pay the five hundred thousand dollar medical bill. He actually believed he could step on my brother's dying body to build his own fake empire. He thought I was just a weak, pathetic victim who would eventually crawl back to him on my knees. But he forgot about the one monster he was absolutely terrified of: his legitimate, ruthless billionaire half-brother, Jace Bauer. Looking at the three positive pregnancy tests hidden in my drawer, I stepped right in front of Jace's armored Maybach. "Marry me, and I'll give you the heir you need to secure your empire."

She thought their love could survive anything. She was wrong. For five years, Amara Hayes was the perfect wife - loyal, gentle, and endlessly forgiving. She believed her husband, Ethan Blackwell, when he said his late nights were for business. She trusted him when he swore his heart was hers. Until the night she walked into his office and saw him making love to another woman. Humiliated, heartbroken, and betrayed, Amara left without a word - leaving behind her wedding ring, her identity, and the man who destroyed her faith in love. Three years later, she returns to New York as a powerful businesswoman with a new name and a cold smile. She's no longer the naive wife he controlled - she's his rival, his downfall, and his punishment. But Ethan isn't the same man either. He's haunted by the woman he lost and desperate for redemption. And when fate throws them together again, old flames reignite amid a storm of revenge, pain, and forbidden desire. He once broke her heart. Now, she'll make him wish he never did.

Elinor's frail daughter, Cece, died in a sterile hospital room while waiting for her father to take her to Disney World. But her billionaire husband, Derick, never showed up. At the exact moment Cece's heart monitor flatlined, the hospital TV broadcasted Derick affectionately holding the hand of his mistress and he has booked a clearance of the entire Disneyland to celebrate mistress's daughter's birthday!. When Elinor confronted Derick with their daughter's ashes, he sneered and accused her of hiding the child just to get his attention. Elinor's heart was torn to shreds. How could a father be so blind and ruthless? Did Kamryn use his power to steal the very kidney that belonged to Cece? Why did her innocent baby have to die for their sick affair? The suffocating grief inside Elinor finally crystallized into a sharp blade. She wiped the blood from her lips, canceled the simple divorce, and began her ruthless revenge.