Best Romance Novels

WARNING: FOR MATURE READERS ONLY!!! This erotica collection is raw, hot, intense, and packed with deliciously filthy fucktwists that will leave you breathless.  Each story is steamy, gripping, and driven by compelling plots that pull you deep into forbidden desire. You will find A strict 59-year-old professor bends his tempting student over his desk and growls that she's been a very bad girl. A college student wakes up sore and dripping in her biggest rival's bed, with no memory of how many times he fucked her senseless. Her hot stepdad has a secret camera aimed at her bed. When she catches him watching, she doesn't rage - she spreads her legs and gives him the show of his life. A seductive woman is the only weakness of a ruthless mafia king, and he finally claims her body as his own. She knows her sister is cheating, so she seduces her husband right in front of her - and her sister can't say a single word. Piper's rent is overdue. Instead of paying up, she drops to her knees for the landlord while her boyfriend watches. A spoiled, arrogant rich brat demands a private striptease. The dancer doesn't walk away - she dances for him until he completely loses control. An assistant's boyfriend has a huge cock, but "Daddy" knows exactly how to ruin her with his tongue. She chooses Daddy. Best friends make a wicked bet: seduce my dad. She takes the bet... and loses all control the moment he bends her over. Chloe has been secretly masturbating to her stepbrother's photos, moaning his name as she comes. She can't hide it much longer. A married gym coach can't stop staring at the sexy teacher. She goes all the way and lets him take her between her thighs. Her doctor tells her she needs rest... but she's determined to prove she's strong enough to be fucked senseless on his examination table. Every twisted fantasy and every scorching answer waits inside these pages. Flip the pages, spread your legs... and get ready to throb.

Autumn woke up with a brutal headache and a glowing red warning projected onto her retinas. She had been bound to a ruthless system as the "Elite Girlfriend" to Harrison Jennings, the wealthiest, most robotic student on campus. But her status was a death sentence: Cannon Fodder scheduled for deletion. To survive, she had to flawlessly execute a grueling daily schedule of academic perfection and emotional detachment. If she broke character, showed weakness, or failed her study quotas, the system electrocuted her mind. She was trapped in a digital nightmare, bullied by her roommate and forced to endure Harrison's suffocating scrutiny. He didn't date her; he optimized her like faulty software, even throwing $50,000 at her just to stop her from working a "dirty" part-time job because it violated his strict mysophobic parameters. Pushed to the brink of a breakdown, Autumn was exhausted and terrified. Why was she forced to appease a high-functioning sociopath who measured human connection in data points and efficiency metrics? Until one afternoon, desperate to scare off a creeping frat boy, she loudly faked a deranged, obsessive love for Harrison's flawless logic. She turned around to find Harrison standing right behind her. His usually dead, icy eyes were suddenly burning with a dark, suppressed intensity. "The statement you just made," he rasped, towering over her. "Does it hold legal validity?"

He wants to save her. She wants to hide. She's damaged. He's determined. Fate brought them together. Love binds them. Johnny Kavanagh is the definition of popular. He is an all-star rugby player with loads of friends, which means he should be enjoying the many perks of his life. But what people don't know is that he has been dealing with a painful injury that could halt the magnificent trajectory of his career. This means he has no time for distractions or mistakes. Especially not a girlfriend. Shannon Lynch has been bullied all her life. She is shy and would rather hide herself away to make it through school. But when she arrives at Tommen College for a fresh start, she meets the notorious Johnny Kavanagh on her first day in a not-so-romantic way. What follows is a complicated friendship that turns into undeniable chemistry. It seems that Shannon won't be able to hold onto the anonymous status she once hoped for. But maybe that's alright? Johnny won't give up on Shannon. No matter what it might cost them both.

I was dying in a cold hospital bed, listening to the monitor count down my final seconds. As a ghost, I watched my own funeral. My popular friends and wealthy family soon moved on, but one person stayed. Cas Riley. The invisible outcast from the back of my history class. He brought a white rose to my grave every single day, withering away until he collapsed on the frozen ground, dying of a broken heart for a girl who barely knew his name. Opening my eyes again, the hospital smell was gone. I was reborn back in my high school classroom. I immediately tracked him down, only to witness the brutal hell he was trapped in. He was humiliated by a cruel foreman for pennies, violently slapped by his uncle over his sick mother's medical money, and forced into bloody street fights. He was starving, covered in bruises, and completely alone. When I tried to buy him medicine and step into his life to protect him, he violently pushed me away in the pouring rain. "Stay out of my life! To protect you, I have to fight, and when I fight, I lose everything!" He wasn't rejecting me out of hate. He was terrified that his dark, violent reality would drag me down with him. Standing soaked in the rain, my resolve hardened like steel. Gentle kindness wasn't going to save him from this hell. To protect the boy who died for me, I had to become ruthless enough to tear down his entire rotten world and build him a new one.

Alaya woke up in the sterile hospital room to a devastating reality: her six-month-old baby was gone, lost in a horrific car crash. But as the memories crashed into her, she realized she had been reborn. She was back three years before her ultimate death, back to the moment she remembered lying bleeding on the asphalt while her husband, Hardy, shielded his mistress from the freezing rain. When Hardy finally showed up at the ward, he coldly dismissed the crash as a mere accident and immediately left to comfort his young lover. To make matters worse, Alaya secretly checked her medical files and found a terrifying detail: someone had intentionally slipped beta-blockers into her system, a lethal drug for her transplanted heart. And Hardy didn't care about her dead baby or her irreversible infertility. He only coldly confirmed with the doctor that her heart was still viable. A horrifying suspicion made Alaya's blood run cold. Why was her husband so obsessed with protecting her transplanted heart while treating her like garbage? And why was his perfectly healthy mistress secretly racking up massive bills at an advanced cardiac hospital? Realizing she was nothing but a vessel in a twisted, deadly game, Alaya didn't shed another tear. She packed her belongings, left her flawless diamond wedding ring on the cold marble table, and vanished from their penthouse. When Hardy finally tracked her down, she threw a thick stack of documents onto the table. "Sign the divorce papers," she said, her eyes completely dead.

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."

My husband of three years dragged me into the freezing autumn ocean because my stepsister claimed I bullied her. When she faked a sprained ankle in the shallow water, he immediately abandoned me in the roaring waves to save her, not knowing I was eight weeks pregnant. The icy undertow swept me away, causing a brutal miscarriage. Later in the hospital, my traumatized body started hemorrhaging, and I desperately needed a rare blood transfusion. My stepsister, who shared my blood type, held my life hostage. She forced my husband to sign our divorce papers before she would donate a single drop. By the time the blood reached me, my uterus was irreparably damaged. I permanently lost the right to ever be a mother. "The Anderson family can't have an infertile matriarch." My own parents said this as they falsified my medical records to protect her. And my husband, blinded by his misplaced loyalty, simply walked away, leaving me with a meager settlement. I lost my baby, my fertility, and my marriage all in one week. How could the people I trusted most be so completely heartless? But looking at the divorce papers, I didn't shed a single tear. I calmly signed my name and unsealed my Yale architecture degree. "I'm in. Send me the files for the Manhattan project." The weak, pathetic Mrs. Anderson died on that operating table. Crista Cherry is back, and it's time for them to pay.

Princess Nora Durkehn, a luna princess, was born with a rare treasure buried in her soul, that could save her entire world. But one act of mercy destroyed everything. At eighteen, Nora freed the boy she loved from her father's prison. That night, he led the Shadow Fang pack in an attack that killed her father, enslaved her people, and left her with nothing but ashes and rage. Now, years later in exile, Princess Nora carries the burden of the past tragedy that left her pack in ruins and her heart scarred, symbolized by the 'ashes of love'. But a mysterious threat emerges and Nora is forced back into her world with the determination to set things right. But her fate entangles again as she encounters Fredwinn, a dangerously charming Alpha from the very pack that destroyed her life (The Shadow Fang Pack). Fated had it that Fredwinn was her mate that could help save her enslaved people. But how can she trust him when everyone she's ever loved has betrayed her? As Nora discovers the true extent of her powers and uncovers hidden truths, she must decide: Can she trust a fated bond forged in blood and betrayal? Will her love destroy her again like it did before? But one thing was certain. Nora must rekindle the 'ashes of love' within her, embrace her true power, and lead her people, even if it means sacrificing her own happiness for the greater good. A tale of fated mates, forbidden love, and a princess rising from the ashes of despair.

Ellen had the worst day of her life on a bright Friday morning when the Blue Moon Pack attacked their pack on the basis of something she knew she was innocent of. A large number of people were killed, and those who survived were taken in as Omegas by the Blue Moon Pack. And in the Blue Moon Pack, her suffering began visibly and intensely. On one occasion, Alpha Damien of the Blue Moon Pack sensed that Ellen was his mate, but because she was an Omega, he rejected her instantly. The Alpha's Beta accused her of stealing, and an order was passed by the Alpha to bury her alive. While at the bridge of death, she vowed to deal with the Blue Moon Pack if she were ever given a chance at life again. After three years, she was reborn as Annabel, the only daughter of Alpha Felix of the Night Walker Pack. What will happen when she is then mated to the same Alpha who rejected her and who also gave the order to bury her alive, while she is also mated to Alpha Caine of Coinage Pack? Will she still seek revenge on Alpha Damien for his wickedness? Who will she choose: the cold-blooded Alpha Damien or the kind-hearted Alpha Caine?

Alia bought her four-million-dollar Manhattan townhouse in cash the day before she married Jerel. For three years, she worked eighty-hour weeks as a top architect to build their life, until an anonymous text shattered her reality. It was a high-definition photo of her husband kissing his junior partner, followed by an eight-week ultrasound. Alia didn't scream. She went home, only to find her mother-in-law throwing IVF brochures at her, screaming that she was a selfish, barren workaholic for not giving the family an heir. Jerel played the perfect, gentle husband, wrapping his arms around her and urging her to rest. But later that night, Alia caught them on a secret call with a lawyer. They were plotting to blindside her with a divorce, claiming his minor financial contributions entitled him to the property, aiming to kick her out with a measly fifty-thousand-dollar settlement. They wanted to steal her hard-earned home to raise his pregnant mistress's child. Alia's jaw tightened until her teeth ached. She had paid for every single inch of that estate. Did they really think her dedication to her career made her blind, weak, and easy to destroy? She didn't shed a single tear. Instead, she walked into the office of the city's most ruthless private equity billionaire and struck a dangerous deal to lock away all her assets in an irrevocable trust. Days later, when Jerel handed her the settlement with a fake, sympathetic smile, Alia poured cold black coffee directly over the ink. "Tell Tiffany she is never stepping foot inside my house," Alia said smoothly. "I'll see you in court."

Andrea was trapped in a suffocating marriage with billionaire Gregory Morse, forced to live as the pathetic substitute for his dead fiancée. When armed intruders broke into their estate in the dead of night, she called her husband in pure terror. "Stop playing these cheap, attention-seeking games," Gregory sneered with disgust, and hung up the phone. She barely escaped with her life, but the cruelty only escalated. At the family mansion, his dead fiancée's sister deliberately scalded Andrea's hand with boiling tea. Instead of defending his wife, Gregory publicly humiliated her, ordering her to clean up the mess while calling her a stray dog. That night, hiding in the dark wine cellar, Andrea overheard a chilling confession. Gregory admitted to his brother that he knew Andrea was completely innocent of the car crash that killed his fiancée. He knew she had been framed. Why did he marry her? Just to use her as a psychological punching bag to vent his twisted grief. He watched her suffer every single day, treating her like disposable trash, while violently threatening anyone who showed her an ounce of kindness. He thought she was just a useless, helpless shadow who would quietly endure his torment forever. He had no idea that behind her submissive facade, she was secretly Madame Lan, the apex predator of the global fashion world. And now, she was ready to burn his empire to the ground.

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.

Four years ago, I was drugged on a luxury yacht and ended up pregnant with twins. I raised them in secret, enduring my stepfamily's daily abuse, until the billionaire West family patriarch cornered us at the airport. He instantly recognized my son's face—an exact replica of his ruthless grandson, Bernardo West. My malicious stepmother and stepsister immediately leaked to the press that I was a delusional gold-digger using fake kids to trap a billionaire. They wanted the West family to destroy me to save their own social standing. Bernardo himself looked at me with pure disgust, demanding a DNA test. "If you ever lie to me, I will take the children, and I will make you wish you were never born." I didn't want his money. I was a victim of that night too, left with a crescent-shaped bite mark on my collarbone and zero memory of who set us up. Why did someone drug us? And how could I protect my babies from a corporate predator who could crush me with a snap of his fingers? But when the DNA test came back 99.9999% positive, I didn't cower. I showed him the scar he left on me, looked the most dangerous man in the country right in the eye, and made my demand. "If you want to claim your heirs, you have to marry me."

As Aurora lay dying of organ failure in the freezing ICU, she used her last ounce of strength to call her husband on their son's fifth birthday. Instead of his voice, she heard the pop of champagne and the sweet laugh of his mistress, Jessica. Conrad snatched the phone, impatiently ordering Aurora not to "ruin the mood" with her irrelevant calls. But what truly pushed her into cardiac arrest was her five-year-old son's excited voice ringing through the speakerphone. "I wish for Auntie Jessica to be my new mommy!" "As long as you like it, Daddy will give you anything," Conrad promised without a second of hesitation. Aurora gagged on her own blood and flatlined, the heart monitor erupting into a piercing red alarm. She had swallowed her pride and wasted five years playing the perfect, submissive housewife, only to be thrown away like garbage by the two people she loved most. She couldn't understand why her absolute devotion ended with her dying completely alone on a sterile mattress. But she didn't die. Snatched from the jaws of death by a mysterious billionaire from her past, she woke up in a luxury suite, fully healed. Looking at her pale, cold reflection in the window, the pathetic old Aurora died. She packed her battered suitcase, signed a brutal postnuptial agreement waiving every single cent of her husband's wealth, and dropped the divorce papers on the table. This time, she was leaving for good.

Arlene was bound to a hellish three-year contract marriage to save her family from total ruin. Just as the contract was about to expire, she received a terminal brain cancer diagnosis and found out she was six weeks pregnant. To protect the tiny life inside her, she refused all treatment, leaving her with only three months to live. When she tried to escape, her billionaire husband, Harrison, caught her. He dragged her back, brutally assaulted her, and forced her into the freezing cold to kneel at his father's grave. Even when she suffered a threatened miscarriage, bleeding and begging in agony, he showed no mercy. He simply left her alone in the dark and went straight to a hotel with his celebrity mistress. For three years, she had endured his relentless revenge and his public declaration that he would rather his bloodline die than have a child with her. She was nothing but a prisoner in a gilded cage, waiting for a death sentence he didn't even know about. But when Harrison shamelessly summoned her to act as the doting wife and clean up his cheating scandal, the old Arlene died. She didn't cry or beg. Instead, she blackmailed him and his mistress for millions in untraceable crypto. "I'm saving up for my coffin fund." Looking him dead in the eye, she calmly pocketed the extortion money, ready to play her final, ruthless game before her three-month clock ran out.

To save my brother's life, I married a dead billionaire. My new home was a freezing, high-tech mausoleum where I was ordered to hold a year-long vigil beside Byron Hyde's cryogenic pod. But I wasn't alone in the dark. Every night, a terrifying shadow smelling of whiskey and sandalwood pinned me to my narrow bed. It tore my clothes and brutally claimed my body, leaving me bruised and trembling until dawn. When I begged the housekeeper for help, showing her my torn skin, she just smiled cruelly. "It seems the master's spirit has accepted you." I thought I was being haunted by a vengeful ghost, until Byron's arrogant nephew broke into the tomb to assault me. His tampering triggered the life-support system, and the heavy lid of the pod hissed open. Byron Hyde sat up, his eyes lethal and his skin shockingly warm. He was alive. Looking at his broad shoulders, I caught the faint scent of whiskey and sandalwood. The horrific truth hit me like a physical blow. My nightly tormentor wasn't a ghost. It was my living, breathing husband. When I confronted him, his eyes were cold and clinical. "That was a necessary test. I had to know if my wife would break." A white-hot rage choked me, but I didn't scream or run. He slipped the priceless, heavy sapphire of the family matriarch onto my finger, offering me absolute power over the treacherous relatives who wanted us both dead. To fight a monster, you can't be a victim. I looked into his deep, dangerous eyes and accepted the ring. If this was a cage, allying with the keeper was the only way to find the key.

Seventeen-year-old Nina Storm has spent her life running from her tragic past, her dormant wolf, and the dreams of a mysterious man she can't escape. Raised by her protective father after her mother's death, she has never stayed in one place long enough to call it home. But everything changed when they return to their home, the Moonlight Pack. Nina discovers that her mate is Zane, the pack's Alpha... a bond that defies werewolf laws and the pack's expectations. Their undeniable attraction is dangerous, and their bond threatens to disrupt the fragile balance of power within the pack. When an attack on the pack shatters her world, Nina loses everything, including her life. But death isn't the end. Reborn, her dormant wolf awakens giving her a newfound strength and powers, Nina must navigate a world of betrayal, love, and vengeance as she unravels the truth about her family, her mate bond, and the danger threatening to destroy everything she holds dear.

Six years ago, Seraphina's billionaire husband slapped a fake infertility report onto the marble table. "Sign the divorce papers and get out," Julian commanded, looking at his wife of three years with pure, icy disgust. Kicked out into the freezing rain while heavily pregnant, her own family abandoned her like garbage thanks to her sister's vicious lies. She nearly died in a sterile operating room that night, giving birth to quadruplets, only for the grim-faced doctor to tell her two babies didn't survive. She spent six agonizing years rebuilding her shattered identity in London, raising her surviving genius twins. Meanwhile, her ex-husband paraded around New York with Livia, the very woman who orchestrated her ruin. But when a medical emergency forced Seraphina back to the city, her twins accidentally crossed paths with two identical children at JFK airport. Why did Julian's severely traumatized, mute daughter look exactly like her own little girl? And why did her genius son just hack into his father's private server, only to find her delivery records locked behind military-grade encryption? Staring at a faded ultrasound printout of four tiny shapes, a cold smile broke across Seraphina's face. Tomorrow night, the discarded wife they thought they broke was going to crash the Astor-Vance charity gala, and she was going to burn their empire to the ground.

Erin woke up in her luxurious Fifth Avenue penthouse, three days after returning from the cold, sterile psychiatric hospital where her husband had locked her away. On the night of their third anniversary, Crockett Winters came home smelling of his mistress's perfume, expecting his docile wife to serve him. Instead of playing the obedient fool, Erin calmly exposed the million-dollar diamonds he had just bought for his lover. Furious at her sudden defiance, Crockett tried to physically intimidate her, pinning her against a wall to reassert his dominance. When his aggression failed, he threw a brutal divorce agreement on the table. "Sign it, and you walk away with nothing. You can't survive without me, and you know it." He sneered, convinced the ironclad prenup would terrify her. He thought her rebellion was just a pathetic, jealous tantrum, a desperate play for his attention while he continued to pamper his mistress. He truly believed she was just a beautiful canary who would eventually crawl back to her gilded cage in tears. But Erin didn't cry, and she didn't sign the papers. Instead, she locked him out of the master suite and pulled out his unlimited Centurion card. In a single night, she calmly spent ninety million dollars of his money to buy up prime real estate and hidden assets, taking the first step to build an empire that would completely destroy him.

Blair's family dynasty crumbled overnight. Her father suffered a massive heart attack and was put on life support, requiring a hundred thousand dollars just to keep the machines running. When she desperately called her husband, Blackburn, his phone went straight to voicemail. Instead, she saw a trending video of him at Disney World, tenderly wrapping his coat around a nurse named Kala. To save her father, Blair pawned her wedding ring and handed Blackburn the divorce papers. But Blackburn just tore the papers to shreds. He pinned her down, mocking her bankrupt family, and threatened to send her brother to federal prison if she dared to leave. "You wanted to be a trophy. So sit on the shelf and be quiet." He even dragged her out of the hospital by force just because an old friend caught her when she fainted. He aggressively claimed she was his property, demanding her absolute obedience. Yet, the moment his mistress Kala called crying about a minor injury, his face turned pale with panic. He dropped everything and abandoned Blair in the empty penthouse without a second thought. Blair didn't cry. She just realized how ridiculous this execution block of a marriage was. The final string connecting them snapped. Blair calmly blocked his number, opened the digital divorce agreement, and signed her name, waiving her rights to every single penny. Leaving the pink diamond ring on the table, she walked out the door and never looked back.

Nova Greyveil was born to lead her pack, and to prove it, she beat every fighter her father threw at her, only to be told her future is a marriage deal she never agreed to. Marry the Alpha King. So she rejected him and disappeared. Disguised as "Ash Darvin", she sneaks into Vordrak Academy, a ruthless all-male training ground where alphas are built, broken, and buried. One slip means exposure. Exposure means death. She thought surviving Vordrak would be the hard part. Then she meets Caden Voss. Cold. Precise. Dangerous. The academy's strongest fighter and the only one who keeps looking at her like he can see straight through the mask she's wearing, and to top it off, he is her roommate. The longer she stays, the harder it gets to hide. Not just her identity, but what his presence is doing to her. Because in Vordrak, secrets don't stay hidden. And neither does desire.

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.

I was tracing the gold paint on my own tombstone when a hand tapped me on the shoulder. It was Clayton. The same man who, five years ago, had left me bleeding out in a ditch because he didn't want to be late for my sister's engagement party. "Die quietly, Ivy," he had said over the phone before hanging up. Now, standing over my grave, he dropped his cheap plastic flowers in shock. "Ivy? You're... we buried you." They hadn't buried me. They had buried an empty box to save face, mourning a "troubled" daughter they had actually discarded like broken trash the moment I became a liability. Clayton's shock quickly turned to that familiar, arrogant anger. He accused me of faking my death for attention. He told me I was sick for putting the family through such pain. He even reached out to grab my arm, intending to drag me back to my father to apologize. "You're coming with me," he spat. "You owe us an explanation." But he made a fatal mistake. He thought he was talking to Ivy Dillard, the soft girl who cried when she skinned her knees. He didn't notice the town car waiting at the curb, or the man stepping out of it. Before Clayton's fingers could graze my coat, a hand made of steel caught his wrist. Collin Richardson, the most feared Capo in Chicago, stepped between us. "Touch my wife again," Collin whispered, his voice promising violence. "And you lose the hand." I smiled at the terror draining the color from Clayton's face. I didn't come back from the dead to explain myself. I came back to bury them.

I placed the positive pregnancy test on the black marble island, expecting at least a flicker of emotion from my billionaire husband. Instead, his assistant dropped a thick divorce agreement right on top of it. "Laelia is back in New York," Alistair said, his eyes completely dead. "This two-year game is over. Get rid of it." He ordered his private security to book an abortion clinic for that very night. To protect my unborn child, I fled through a freezing maintenance shaft and threw myself off a snowy cliff into a rocky ravine. When I woke up battered and bruised in the hospital, I faked a miscarriage, hoping he would finally let me go. Instead of an ounce of pity, he choked me, called me a vile creature, and had his guards throw me out into a deadly Manhattan blizzard in nothing but a thin hospital gown. As the hypothermia set in, I remembered my father jumping off a Wall Street high-rise, driven to bankruptcy by the very man who just left me and his own blood to freeze to death. For two years, I had played the submissive stand-in wife, mapping out every vulnerability in his empire, but I never expected him to be this ruthless. Just as I was about to lose consciousness in the snow, a black Maybach skidded to a halt in front of me. Inside sat Silas Rhodes, Alistair's biggest corporate rival. I dragged my battered body up and offered him the ultimate weapon to burn my ex-husband's empire to the ground.