Best Romance Novels

Eileen woke up in a trashed hotel room, her head pounding with the pathetic memories of a despised Hollywood actress. Outside the window, paparazzi were already screaming about her manufactured cheating scandal, but the real nightmare was waiting at her door. Her paralyzed, billionaire husband, Carlisle Vinson, looked at her with pure disgust while his butler shoved a divorce settlement at her chest. "Mr. Vinson is offering a severance package of fifty million dollars, provided you sign immediately and vacate the premises." The original owner had left her an absolute mess. Her trusted assistant had sold her room number to the press to frame her, and a playboy had scammed her out of her entire two million dollar life savings. If she signed those papers and lost the Vinson family's protection, the breach of contract fees and her enemies in the industry would swallow her alive in days. Eileen felt a cold fury override the original owner's lingering panic. Why should she take the fall and be thrown out on the streets while the parasites who set her up lived out their wealthy fantasies? She had died once, and she wasn't about to waste her second chance playing the victim. Eileen slammed the heavy divorce folder shut right against the butler's chest. "I'm not signing," she said with a terrifying, absolute calm. She stepped behind her husband's wheelchair, ready to shield him from the cameras, secretly cure his dead legs, and make everyone who betrayed her bleed.

Debora went to prison to protect the man she loved, only to end up a paroled convict living under the roof of her abusive foster parents. When they found her positive pregnancy test from a one-night stand, they threatened to kick her out and send her straight back to a cell. Just as they were about to report her, the stranger from that dark hotel room suddenly appeared. He paid her foster parents one million dollars to marry her and take her away. Debora thought she was finally safe. But the moment they were alone, he looked at her with pure, venomous hatred. He didn't want a wife; he wanted a prisoner. He believed Debora was the ruthless murderer who had destroyed his life in a car crash, and he planned to make her suffocate in her own despair. He didn't know she was just a scapegoat. To survive and protect her baby, Debora found a job at a bridal shop, only to run into the real culprit—the man who actually drove the car and framed her. He was now happily engaged to a wealthy heiress. They deliberately ruined a priceless wedding gown and blamed it on her. "Kneel on this floor and apologize, or I'm calling the police to revoke your parole!" Why did she have to rot in hell for his sins, while the man she married wanted to destroy her? Just as her trembling knees were about to touch the cold marble floor, the heavy glass doors were violently shoved open. Her billionaire husband strode in like a force of nature, his eyes locked onto the wealthy couple with a terrifying, destructive rage.

My billionaire husband, Cooper, was thirty minutes late to my father's funeral. When the heavy cathedral doors finally opened, he wasn't there to comfort me. He was tightly shielding his mistress, Celeste, under his umbrella, treating her like a fragile lily while I stood alone in my black mourning dress. The whispers in the pews were deafening, but they were nothing compared to the truth I soon uncovered. Cooper hadn't just humiliated me—he had secretly taken my father's life-saving spot in a medical clinical trial and given it to Celeste's family. My father died gasping for air because of him. Days later, while I was shivering in the ER with a 103-degree fever, I saw Cooper sneaking into the VIP maternity ward. He was holding Celeste, his face glowing with the ecstatic joy of a man about to become a father. For three years, I swallowed my pride to be his perfect, obedient wife, only to let his elite friends openly mock me to my face. "You were just keeping the seat warm until the real queen came back." He let my father die, hid all our marital assets in offshore trusts, and made me take birth control every single morning, claiming he wasn't ready for kids. I didn't scream, and I didn't let him see me break. Instead, I hired Manhattan's most ruthless divorce lawyer, smiled sweetly as I handed Cooper his coat at home, and began secretly gathering the evidence to burn his entire empire to the ground.

On their seventh wedding anniversary, Kiley's billionaire husband, Aden, slid a thick stack of papers across the restaurant table. It was a petition for divorce. He was leaving her for his college sweetheart. Thanks to a ruthless prenup, Kiley was being thrown out with absolutely nothing. That very night, their young son Jules was rushed to the ER, bleeding profusely. The doctor's diagnosis was a death sentence: acute leukemia. When Kiley frantically called Aden for help, he dismissed the emergency as a simple nosebleed. "I'm not paying for this. Deal with it," Aden sneered, the sound of his mistress giggling in the background. To force Kiley to sign the divorce papers, Aden froze all her credit cards and canceled their son's health insurance. He refused to pay a single cent for the chemotherapy. Even Kiley's adoptive parents sided with the wealthy Aden, calling her a burden and telling her to stop fighting him. Driven to the brink of despair, with a dying child and no money, Kiley didn't understand how a father could be so monstrous to his own flesh and blood. Until a news article on a friend's phone caught her eye. It featured a fallen 9/11 firefighter hero from the ultra-wealthy Whitfield family. The man in the photo looked exactly like Jules, down to the very bone structure. Kiley's mind raced back to the fertility clinic and the anonymous sperm donor. Could this dead billionaire hero be her son's biological father? Looking at her sleeping, fragile boy, Kiley wiped her tears and crushed the divorce papers in her hand. She was going to find the Whitfield family, save her son, and make Aden lose everything he held dear.

My father raised seven brilliant orphans to be my potential husbands. For years, I only had eyes for one of them, the cold and distant Damien Paul, believing his distance was a wall I just had to break through. That belief shattered last night when I found him in the garden, kissing his foster sister, Eve—the fragile girl my family took in at his request, the one I had treated like my own sister. But the true horror came when I overheard the other six Fellows talking in the library. They weren't competing for me. They were working together, orchestrating "accidents" and mocking my "stupid, blind" devotion to keep me away from Damien. Their loyalty wasn't to me, the heiress who held their futures in her hands. It was to Eve. I wasn't a woman to be won. I was a foolish burden to be managed. The seven men I grew up with, the men who owed my family everything, were a cult, and she was their queen. This morning, I walked into my father's study to make a decision that would burn their world to the ground. He smiled, asking if I'd finally won Damien over. "No, Dad," I said, my voice firm. "I'm marrying Hunter Beach."

Aria Nightshade spent her entire life waiting for one thing: the moment her fated mate would claim her, making her Luna. But on the night of her bonding ceremony, Liam Draven rejects her in front of the entire pack-publicly, brutally, without hesitation. He chooses another woman. Leaves her shattered. Humiliated beyond repair, Aria prepares to disappear into whatever's left of her dignity. Then the Alpha King intervenes. Kael Draven-feared, untouchable, a man who answers to no one-steps between them and claims her himself. Not out of mercy. Not out of love. For reasons he refuses to explain, he binds her to him with magic older than the packs themselves, then hauls her to his fortress and locks her in a tower. Aria should be terrified. Instead, she's angry. Defiant. And increasingly aware that the man holding her captive isn't quite what he seems. Kael is cold, calculated, and obsessed with understanding what she is-a wolf who shouldn't have survived a bond rupture, who shouldn't be standing, who shouldn't exist. As he slowly reveals the truth about her past and her bloodline, Aria discovers that her rejection was never about her worth. It was about her power. The kind of power that could reshape the entire werewolf hierarchy. But Liam can't accept his loss. Kael's protection becomes possession. And Aria's slow transformation from broken girl to something far more dangerous forces her to choose: remain the victim they all rejected, or rise as the Luna that will make them all bow. Even if it means destroying everything-and everyone-she once cared about.

After four years of marriage, my wealthy husband Brad handed me a $50,000 severance check outside the Manhattan Family Court. He linked arms with his mistress, Jenna, who flaunted the diamond ring that used to be mine. "Just take it, Hayley. Take the money and get out of our lives," he sneered, looking at me with absolute disgust. I tore the check into pieces, but my nightmare was just beginning. To access my grandfather's trust fund, I had exactly seventy-two hours to get legally married, so I desperately proposed a one-year contract marriage to a poor insurance salesman I met in a dive bar. When Brad found out, he and his arrogant family cornered me at their estate. Brad mocked my new husband for being a penniless, money-grubbing parasite, while my former mother-in-law slapped me hard across the face, knocking me to the ground. "You are trash, just like your mother," she spat, watching my knee bleed onto the sharp gravel. Jenna gleefully kicked my phone away, shattering the screen and cutting off my only lifeline. Lying there in the dirt, I stared at the broken glass in absolute despair. I didn't understand why four years of quiet devotion had earned me nothing but cruel betrayal and endless humiliation from the people I once called family. Just as I thought I had completely lost, a black Lincoln Navigator slammed to a halt at the gates. My "penniless" new husband stepped out, radiating a terrifying, righteous fury that made the entire Patton family freeze in horror.

I woke up with a splitting headache in a trashed penthouse, surrounded by empty liquor bottles and discarded Hermes boxes. A quick glance at the morning newspaper confirmed my worst nightmare: I had transmigrated into the novel 'The CEO's Tender Vow'. Worse, I was the villain's vain, useless wife, right at the exact moment his tech empire completely collapsed. The original owner of this body had just attempted suicide because her husband went bankrupt. When my cold, exhausted husband, Alek Holden, walked through the door, he threw a divorce agreement and a bank card with a pitifully low balance onto the kitchen counter. He coldly warned me that his creditors would be at the door any minute. Meanwhile, my toxic ex-boyfriend was already waiting downstairs, publicly mocking Alek's downfall and offering to make me his mistress. In the original plot, taking that money and running with the ex led to a miserable, tragic death. I stared at the thick stack of divorce papers. I knew Alek was the ruthless villain who would eventually claw his way back to power and brutally destroy everyone who abandoned him. There was no way I was going to play the role of the shallow, doomed ex-wife and wait to be crushed. I looked Alek right in the eyes, grabbed the agreement, and ripped it right down the middle until it was nothing but useless shreds. "The marriage vows said for richer or for poorer. I am staying to help you rebuild."

When I discovered my husband's safe combination was my stepsister's birthday, my world tilted. Inside, I found the blueprint for how he planned to erase me. He would claim my unborn child for his true love. The postnup was cold and calculated: billions in assets, all designated for Kaleigh. Not a penny for me, his wife of ten years. He tore up the divorce papers I offered, threatening to use his power to take my baby. Kaleigh showed up at my door, taunting me, calling me a "convenient placeholder." She wanted to raise my child as her own. I realized I wasn't just a wife. I was a surrogate. A fertile womb he married because his true love was barren. Our entire marriage was a grotesque lie designed to produce an heir for them. Then, an anonymous email landed in my inbox. It contained a recording of my husband calling me his "incubator." That's when I knew I couldn't just leave. I had to die.

Arden woke up hoping last night's intimacy meant her crumbling four-year marriage was finally healing. Instead, Federico tossed a thick divorce agreement onto the bed. He coldly accused her of thinking about his brother and announced his perfect ex-girlfriend, Brooklyn, was returning. To force her signature, the trust fund keeping Arden's mother alive on life support was suddenly frozen. Federico then kicked Arden out of the master suite, banishing her to a windowless, musty maid's room. When Brooklyn later faked a car crash to play the victim, Federico didn't hesitate to blame Arden. He kicked down her door, hauled her up by the collar while she was burning with a severe fever, and threw photos at her face. The sharp edges sliced her cheek, leaving a trail of blood. "If you ever touch a single hair on Brooklyn's head again, I will personally bankrupt your family." Arden stared at the man she had loved since she was fourteen. He actually believed she was a jealous, calculating murderer. The sheer, bottomless malice in his eyes shattered the last pathetic ember of hope she had left. Wiping the blood from her cheek, Arden swallowed a handful of fever pills dry. Love was dead, and she was done begging. She put on her sharpest black suit, painted her lips a bold red, and marched straight into his company's executive boardroom to take back her life.

I went to a private clinic for a routine physical, only to find out I was pregnant. It was impossible. I took my birth control every single day. But when the doctor tested my pills, they turned out to be high-purity vitamin placebos. My billionaire husband, Denton, had been systematically replacing my medication. Yet, on our anniversary, he brought my sister Beverly home, demanding a divorce so he could marry her. When I refused to sign a settlement that left me with nothing, he froze my accounts and blacklisted me across New York. My own father disowned me. When an old friend offered me a job just so I could afford prenatal care, Denton launched a ruthless financial attack to bankrupt his firm. Then, Beverly got into a car crash. Denton's bodyguards dragged me off the street and forced me into a hospital trauma room. Beverly was hemorrhaging, and I was the only blood match. I cried and begged Denton to stop, desperately trying to protect my fragile pregnancy without exposing my baby to the monster who controlled my life. "Please, my body can't handle this. Don't do this to me!" But he just looked at me with pure disgust and ordered his men to strap me to the chair, forcing the needle into my vein while threatening to kill me if his mistress died. As I dragged my bleeding, cramping body out of the hospital into the freezing snow, my last shred of hope died. I touched my stomach and made a vow: I would disappear, and I would make them all pay.

For seven years, I was the architect of my fiancé's criminal empire and the strategist behind his every move. I was Dante Gallo’s unofficial Consigliere, his partner in everything but name. Tomorrow, I was finally supposed to marry him and take my place as the queen to his throne. But on the eve of our wedding, a single text message sent by mistake detonated my life. It was a photo from Dante, showing a platinum wedding band on his hand. The message read: “Married this morning. She’s safe now.” My gaze fell to the engagement ring on my own finger. It was the identical band, just smaller. The engraved initials ‘D.I.’ didn’t stand for Dante and I. They stood for Dante and Isabella—his childhood sweetheart. My entire relationship was a lie; I was just a shield to protect his one true love. He dismissed my discovery as a "tantrum." Then, his new bride began taunting me, sending a picture of them tangled in bedsheets with the caption: "Loser." They expected me to break. They thought I would shatter. They were about to find out just how wrong they were. I forwarded the picture to Isabella’s fiancé, a man far more dangerous than Dante. "Your fiancée is in Suite 8808 at the Grand Hyatt," I told him. "I'll meet you downstairs. We're going to crash their party."

Everly spent four years playing the perfect, accommodating wife to Carson Moss, swallowing every grievance just to secure medical treatments for their sick daughter. But at a high-society banquet she exhausted herself organizing, Carson's pregnant mistress crashed the party. The woman shoved an ultrasound of Carson's "real heir" directly into Everly's frail grandfather's face. The shock triggered a massive heart attack. Carson refused to use his private helicopter to save the dying old man, choosing to protect his mistress and his company's IPO instead. Her grandfather died on the hospital table. Instead of remorse, her mother-in-law demanded Everly publicly cover up the murder. "You will do exactly as I say, or I will freeze every single cent of the medical trust fund paying for your crippled daughter's treatments." When a battered Everly returned to the estate, she discovered her three-year-old daughter covered in dark bruises and pinch marks. Her in-laws were deliberately torturing her disabled child. Everly couldn't comprehend how a family could be so utterly heartless. Her only family was murdered, her child was abused, and her husband threw a five-million-dollar check at her face as hush money. They thought she would just break and quietly disappear. But when a terrifyingly powerful billionaire unexpectedly blocked Carson's security team from locking her up, Everly finally saw her window. She grabbed her sleeping daughter and ran out into the freezing storm, making a blood-bound vow to make the entire Moss family bleed.

In Evelyn Whitmore's heart, Annelise Whitmore had never been the imposter who stole her life. She had always been the sister who pulled her out of hell. Annelise had taught her how to carry herself, had stood up for her when no one else would. When Evelyn's husband, Nathan Langford went bankrupt and their life fell apart, Annelise was the one who stepped in without hesitation, helping them through it all. It wasn't until the day Nathan got hurt that everything shattered. Evelyn saw it with her own eyes. He had Annelise pinned against the wall, his voice breaking. "You said your sister was pitiful and made me marry her, but what about me? Annie, let's be together again, okay?" Tears streamed down Annelise's face. "I can't. I already took her place. I can't take her marriage too." Outside the door, Evelyn trembled all over. So her husband and her sister had been in love all along. She signed the divorce papers and chose to let them be together. But Nathan chased her across miles, grabbing her hand and begging her to come back.

Cora Foster was a brilliant archaeologist, but a jagged burn scar across her face made the world treat her like a contagious monster. During an elite excavation of a Gilded Age crypt, touching an ancient artifact triggered a terrifying memory. She remembered being Seraphina Beaumont, a socialite brutally buried alive by her vain, cruel sister, Isolde. When the team pried open the crypt's pristine mahogany casket, they cheered, believing the mummified corpse inside was Seraphina. But Cora recognized the onyx hairpin and the angular jawline. It was Isolde. The sister who had stolen her life, mocked her agony, and left her to suffocate in the dark. Her colleagues scoffed at her forensic proof, dismissing her as a scarred, delusional liability. Worse, the ruthless billionaire funding the expedition, Julian Montgomery, was the spitting image of Alistair—the man Seraphina had deeply loved. Why was Julian staring at her ruined face with such intense, inexplicable recognition? And why did Isolde take Seraphina's most precious silver ring to the grave? Driven by a century of agonizing grief, Cora secretly pried the tarnished ring from the mummy's stiff, dead fingers and dropped it into her pocket. "What are you looking at, Foster?" Julian's deep voice vibrated inches from her ear, his cold, predatory eyes locked directly onto her half-open pocket.

My marriage ended at a charity gala I organized. One moment, I was the pregnant, happy wife of tech mogul Gabe Sullivan; the next, a reporter' s phone screen announced to the world that he and his childhood sweetheart, Harper, were expecting a child. Across the room, I saw them together, his hand resting on her stomach. This wasn't just an affair; it was a public declaration that erased me and our unborn baby. To protect his company's billion-dollar IPO, Gabe, his mother, and even my own adoptive parents conspired against me. They moved Harper into our home, into my bed, treating her like royalty while I became a prisoner. They painted me as unstable, a threat to the family's image. They accused me of cheating and claimed my child wasn't his. The final command was unthinkable: terminate my pregnancy. They locked me in a room and scheduled the procedure, promising to drag me there if I refused. But they made a mistake. They gave me back my phone to keep me quiet. Feigning surrender, I made one last, desperate call to a number I had kept hidden for years-a number belonging to my biological father, Antony Dean, the head of a family so powerful, they could make my husband's world burn.

BLURB: Hazel was the pack's unwanted omega, no worth, no wolf, no family, no hope.When the Alpha's son publicly rejects her as his mate, she flees from the pack at night, but the moon goddess isn't done with her yet. She wakes up to find herself in the castle of the wolf king, who happens to be her second chance mate. Arden, the Alpha king, is cold, suspicious, and broken by past betrayals. He refuses to trust her, denies his affection towards her, but the bond burns between them, undeniably. As war gathers and enemies close in, and secrets from the past open up, Hazel must prove she's more than a worthless rejected omega, she's the Luna who will change everything. And now a broken wolf king must decide: will he let his past destroy their future or will he risk everything to love the woman the moon goddess chose for him?

I woke up gasping from a nightmare of flames devouring Chandler Finch's estate, my body wrapped in burning curtains as I died alone. But my eyes opened to silk sheets in his penthouse master bedroom. He was alive beside me, his cedarwood scent real. This was my second chance—I'd been reborn. His phone buzzed: Eugenia Stewart's "emergency." Her security detail reported her refusing meals, unstable. Chandler bolted without a glance, rushing to her side. I signed the brutal cohabitation contract binding me to him, but Temperance had planted birth control pills in the trash—a trap to frame me. Chandler found them, exploded in jealous rage, crushing the pills to dust. "No child unless it's mine," he growled, possessive fire in his eyes. Brett, Eugenia's lapdog, stormed in later, accusing me of manipulation. I fired back: Chandler demanded my womb for his heir. Brett paled, fled to tattle. Then the storm hit—power outage, locked on the terrace in pouring rain, freezing as Eugenia faked an asthma attack on Chandler's line, stealing his focus again. I hung up, huddled with a stray puppy, nearly dying from hypothermia. He'd never believed me before—Eugenia's lies always won, dooming me to isolation and fire. Why did her every whimper trump my screams? How could he be so blind? This time, reborn weeks before the inferno, I wouldn't beg. I'd play his game, shatter Eugenia's web, and make Chandler mine—before the flames returned.

My mother was dying and desperately needed a half-million-dollar deposit for an experimental heart surgery by tomorrow. I swallowed my pride and begged my wealthy husband, Garrick, to save her life. Instead of helping, he laughed coldly and threw a thick stack of divorce papers right in my face. "A hen that can't lay eggs gets slaughtered," he sneered, ruthlessly poking my flat stomach. He revealed that his secretary, my supposed friend Lacey, was already pregnant with his heir. To him, our three years of marriage was just a business transaction, and now that my family was bankrupt, I was nothing but damaged goods. He flicked a humiliating five-thousand-dollar check at me as his final act of charity, then locked me out of our townhouse into the freezing, pouring rain. I had spent years enduring agonizing hormone treatments for a fertility issue that wasn't even my fault, only to be discarded like trash when I needed him the most. Was my dignity, my absolute devotion, and my mother's life really worth nothing to him? Driven by pure, reckless desperation, I threw myself directly into the path of a moving Rolls-Royce Phantom on Fifth Avenue. It belonged to Holden Tillman, the ruthless patriarch of the Tillman empire—and the uncle Garrick lived in absolute terror of. I thought I was walking into my death, but instead, I became his fiancée, ready to make Garrick and Lacey pay for every tear I shed.

I am the last surviving daughter of a murdered Mafia Don, kept as a captive trophy by Julian Moretti. To break my spirit, he systematically drugged my meals, turning me into a ghost in his gilded cage. But the true nightmare began when he brought his childhood sweetheart, Linette, to live under the same roof. When she pushed me into the estate's frozen lake and fell in with me, Julian didn't hesitate. He dove into the freezing black water, looked right into my desperate eyes, and turned his back to save her. He left me to drown. I survived the icy abyss, only to face a crueler fate. To cover up his betrayal and secure his power, Julian announced our immediate wedding, planning to parade me before the Mafia Commission as his conquered property. When I swallowed poison to escape the ultimate desecration of my family's name, he simply revived me. He pumped my veins full of paralyzing sedatives, dressed my limp body like a porcelain doll, and dragged me onto his private jet to New York. "They will see that even a proud, wounded lioness can only whimper at my feet." My father and brother had used their own bodies as shields so I could live. How could I let my family's honor be trampled by the very monster who orchestrated their massacre? As the plane descended into New York, the despair in my veins forged into cold steel. If Julian wanted a Marino bride, I would give him exactly what that meant. I would survive this forced marriage, and I would personally slit his throat at the altar.

For three years, I played the perfect, invisible contract wife to Angel Wilcox. But last night, after being drugged at a club, he lost control and brutally took my innocence in a freezing bathtub. The next morning, instead of an apology, he threw a million-dollar settlement at me and slapped the divorce papers on the table. His first love, Hillary, had returned from Paris, and he needed to clear the way for her. He called what he did to me a mere inconvenience. When I refused to sign the papers—because my brother would be killed by loan sharks without the Wilcox name to protect him—Angel lost his temper. In the lobby, right in front of a mocking Hillary, he violently shoved me. My head slammed against a massive marble pillar with a sickening thud. "Don't play games with me! Sign the damn papers!" He roared, trying to force the pen into my hand while I lay crumpled on the cold floor. My body was burning with a severe infection from his assault, my wrists were bruised, and my heart was shattered. How could the man I secretly loved for three years treat me like disposable garbage the second she came back? I looked at his furious eyes, then slowly raised my trembling hands to cover my right ear. The same ear that was severely injured in a car crash he caused three years ago. "My ear is ringing. I can't hear you." If he wanted to be ruthless, I would use his deepest guilt to trap him in this marriage forever.

My Alpha mate abandoned me three years ago, leaving me as a disgraced Omega to raise our two children in a freezing, ruined hovel. To keep them from starving, I was forced into a humiliating deal with a rogue wolf named Jax, who stole our pack rations and demanded my young son as payment. The entire pack shunned me, my mother-in-law treated me like dirt, and my children lived in constant fear. When I finally awakened my ancient Luna bloodline to fight off Jax and feed my kids, Ryker suddenly returned. But he didn't come to save us. He blasted our door off its hinges, his eyes burning with a murderous rage. He ignored our starving reality and accused me of selling our bloodline to the rogue. "Where is the rogue? Who did you trade my bloodline to?!" I had endured beatings, starvation, and utter humiliation just to keep his children breathing. I had bled to protect our family. Yet, the moment he returned, he believed the lies of our tormentor and looked at me with the intent to kill. Why was I the villain in the story of my own survival? As his powerful inner wolf suddenly whined in submission for the magical food I had cooked, his Alpha command faltered into deep confusion. He ordered me not to leave his sight until I explained everything. But looking at the mate who had abandoned us, my mind was crystal clear. The real question wasn't whether I would leave, but whether he was still worthy of letting me stay.

To save my family from ruin, I remarried my billionaire ex-husband, Jaxon Lowe. He held my late mother' s locket hostage, forcing me back into a gilded cage where I endured his cold contempt and his very public affair. I played the part of the silent, obedient wife he demanded, building a wall of ice around my heart just to survive. But my obedience didn't protect me. He abandoned me in a torrential downpour to rescue his mistress, Ivory. Then, he broke his one promise. He let Ivory have my mother's locket pulled from auction, the very reason for my sacrifice, simply because she found it "unlucky." That final betrayal led me straight into the hands of his business rival, where I was tortured and left for dead. But I survived. Four months later, Jaxon found me. He stood before me, tears streaming down his face, holding the now-repaired locket and begging for forgiveness. I took back what was mine. "I want a divorce," I said, my voice calm and final. "And I never want to see you again."

I stared at the two red lines on the pregnancy test, hoping this tiny heartbeat would finally save my cold, three-year marriage to Kayson Logan. But when he returned from his long business trip, he brought the sweet scent of another woman's perfume, a brutal assault, and a divorce agreement. The financial settlement was entirely under the name of his first love, Alyce Murray. He tossed a box of Plan B onto the table, staring at me with absolute disgust. "Take it. If you try to get pregnant behind my back, you will walk away with nothing, and you will never see that child." The next day, I saw him at the maternity clinic, carefully guarding a pregnant Alyce as if she were made of glass. His family mocked me for being a barren, pathetic loser, cheering as I was kicked out of the house. He didn't hate children. He just hated the idea of having one with me. My three years of devotion were nothing but a joke. He even ordered his men to hunt down the legendary underground surgeon—my hidden alter ego—just to save Alyce's complicated pregnancy. Why should I risk my life to save the woman who destroyed my marriage? I spat out the pill he forced me to take and signed the divorce papers without a second thought. I smashed the multi-million-dollar diamond ring he gave me right at his sister's feet. "Keep the garbage bought by a man who sleeps with other women." Then, I walked away, ready to embrace my true identity and protect my baby alone.