Left At The Altar, She Became The Bride Of His Arch-Nemesis
Since returning to her family, Evelyn had never truly been accepted or treated as their own daughter.
On her wedding day, her parents chose her adopted sister over her, and the man she was supposed to marry abandoned her on the highway for his true love without even looking back once.
Heartbroken but resolute, she tore off her veil and stood before his rival. "I dare you to steal the bride."
Shane met her gaze. "Why wouldn't I?"
Their impulsive marriage shocked everyone. Her ex later begged, "Give me another chance."
Shane pulled her close, his voice cold. "Too late. She's my wife now."
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Chapter 1
"Cole... something's wrong with me. My chest hurts so bad. Can you take me to the hospital?"
Cole Bennett tightened his hold on his phone, and his tone turned distant. "I can't make it today. I already told Sam to head over. Just tell him what you need."
On the other end, Kendra Todd broke into tears, and her voice came out thin and shaky. "I know you're getting married today. So this is it for us, right? We won't talk anymore? I won't get to see you again?"
Evelyn Fowler sat beside Cole, and she caught every word through the call. Her fingers slowly curled into the fabric of her wedding dress.
She had seen this play out too many times.
Whenever Kendra called, she always found a way to pull him away using the same excuse. Would their wedding day turn out any different?
The quiet sobbing from the phone made Cole shift, and he tugged at his tie with unease. "That's not how it is. You've always mattered to me more than anyone else. That won't change."
"There's nothing left for me anymore." Kendra's voice came out broken and uneven. "I never wanted to fight Ms. Fowler over you, but now it feels like I'm losing you too... It hurts so much."
He opened his mouth to answer, but the line went dead before he could speak. Restlessness took over him at once. He lit up his phone screen, only to shut it off again moments later.
Evelyn watched him fidget, and the light in her eyes slowly faded.
Even if their engagement had only been arranged, he was still the one person who had ever treated her with any kindness after she returned to the Fowler family.
Even though she knew he still kept Kendra close, Evelyn couldn't bring herself to let go. The small bit of warmth he showed her was something she held onto, even when it hurt.
"Pull over. Right there!"
Cole's sharp voice cut through her thoughts and dragged her back.
With unease settling in her chest, Evelyn turned to him. "What's so urgent that it can't wait until after the ceremony?" she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.
Annoyance flickered across his face as Cole snapped back, "Evelyn, why are you making this difficult? Something came up at the company, and it needs me right now."
The lie hit her like a blade, and the frustration she had been holding back finally broke through. "You're going to Kendra again, aren't you? What did you tell me before? You said that would be the last time you helped her!"
At her words, Cole's hand resting on her shoulder went rigid, and he avoided her gaze. "Kendra's not doing well. Can't you try to understand that?"
Shock washed over Evelyn, and she stared at him as if she didn't recognize the man beside her. "You're really about to leave your own wedding for her, and you still expect me to be okay with it?"
Trying to smooth things over, Cole forced a light smile. "Don't be like this. I'll make it up to you later. I'll give you a wedding that's even bigger than this one, alright?"
Evelyn's chest went cold at his words. She looked straight at him, and her voice shook despite her effort to stay calm. "Everyone in Slomery is already there. How do you expect me to stand there by myself and face all of them?"
Irritation finally showed on Cole's face, and his tone dropped to something cold. "Why do you keep pushing this? Can't you think about someone else for once? Kendra has no one but me. To her, I'm everything. She's not in a stable state right now. If something happens to her, can you live with that?!"
For a moment, Evelyn couldn't move. His words hit hard, and the chill from them sank deep into her chest.
Without softening his gaze, Cole looked straight at her. "Step out of the car."
From the front seat, the driver hesitated and glanced back, worry clear in his eyes. "Mr. Bennett, we're on a highway. It's not safe to—"
Before he could finish, Cole cut him off with a sharp command. "Pull over. Now!"
The driver stiffened at the outburst, then quickly slowed the car and guided it to the roadside.
As the door unlocked, Cole's voice came again, distant and firm. "Get out."
Evelyn lifted her chin and faced him, her voice steady despite the tension in her chest. "If I walk away from this car today, then there's nothing left between us."
Her eyes stayed on him, on the man who once told her he would stand by her no matter what, while her fingers pressed tightly into her palms.
This was the final line she was willing to draw.
Cole didn't take her seriously and brushed it off as another emotional outburst. "Just wait for me. Once I've handled things with Kendra, I'll come back for you."
Silence hung between them for a second as Evelyn looked at him one last time. Then she turned away, gathered the fabric of her dress, and stepped out onto the side of the road.
That last look she gave him made something in Cole sink, and a strange unease crept in as if she was slipping out of his reach.
He quickly pushed the thought aside. There was no way that could happen.
He understood her situation better than anyone. The Fowler family never truly cared about her, and she had no one else she could depend on except him.
Besides, with how tightly the Fowler and the Bennett families were connected, there was no chance she could walk away from the marriage over something like this.
With that reasoning in mind, Cole spoke without hesitation. "Go."
Still in her wedding dress, Evelyn moved along the highway as cars sped past her, and the rushing wind sent her veil flying wildly behind her.
A trace of coldness settled across her face, and she reached up and tore the veil away in one sharp motion.
From a distance, a red Ferrari convertible came into view, and without pausing, she lifted her arm to stop it.
The car came to a sudden halt with a harsh screech, and its side brushed lightly against the edge of her dress.
Only then did Evelyn finally see the man sitting behind the wheel.
Shane Bennett, Cole's half-brother, looked her over, his sharp eyes taking in every detail, and a faint smirk curved his lips. "Evelyn, are you trying to throw your life away out here on your wedding day?"
Evelyn met his gaze, then leaned closer without hesitation. "Shane, will you marry me?"
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7.3
Seven years ago, my fiancé, Don Dante Moretti, sent me to prison to take the fall for my adopted sister, Chiara. He called it a gift-a way to protect me from a worse fate.
Today, he picked me up from prison only to abandon me at my family's estate. His reason? Chiara was having another one of her "episodes."
My parents then informed me I'd be staying in the third-floor storage room, so as not to disturb the fragile girl who stole my life.
They celebrated her "recovery" with a lavish dinner party, while I was treated like a ghost. When I refused to join, my mother hissed that I was ungrateful, and my father called me jealous.
They assumed I couldn't understand their venomous whispers. But prison was my university. I learned Spanish. I understood every word.
It was then I realized I wasn't just a sacrifice; I was disposable. The love I once felt for all of them had turned to ash.
That night, in the dusty storage room, I logged onto an encrypted channel I'd set up years ago. A single message was waiting: "The offer stands. Do you accept?" My hands, scarred and steady, typed back, "I accept."
7.6
To pay for her father's life support, Haleigh sold herself into a marriage with Fabian Blackburn, a ruthless billionaire in a deep coma.
But on her wedding day, she caught her boyfriend cheating with her stepsister, laughing about how they would steal the inheritance the second Fabian stopped breathing. Cornered and desperate, Haleigh secretly underwent IVF using her comatose husband's frozen sperm to secure the family trust.
Weeks later, a miracle happened. Fabian woke up.
But instead of gratitude, he treated her like trash. He threw annulment papers at her face, completely disgusted by the arranged marriage.
"If you try any dirty tricks to get pregnant, I will personally drag you to a clinic and have that bastard scraped out of you."
Terrified, Haleigh hid her positive pregnancy test and desperately tried to hack her way to enough cash to escape. But while using his computer, she accidentally opened a highly classified folder.
Inside was a medical file and a photo of a severely disabled girl who looked exactly like Fabian.
Before she could process it, Fabian walked in. Seeing the screen, his cold mask shattered into pure, unhinged madness. He lunged across the room, lifting her off the floor by her throat, completely ignoring her desperate gasps for air.
"Lock her in the basement," he roared to his guards. "No food. No water."
Curled on the freezing concrete, clutching her newly pregnant belly, Haleigh didn't understand what she had just seen that turned him into a murderous monster.
But she knew one thing: if she didn't escape this terrifying estate, both she and his unborn heir would die in the dark.
9.5
Xander Savage plays with footballs.
Freya Woods plays with hearts.
The other plays to win, one plays for fun.
Xander is the campus football champion, gentle, gorgeous, misunderstood. Everyone thinks he's a player, but he's actually the only good boy in school.
Freya is the campus play girl, bold, wild.
When fate throws them together, sparks fly...Neither knows their souls have met before...long ago, in another life, where they loved passionately and broke disastrously. But this time? They're destined to rewrite their ending...can they actually re write the stars?
LOVE ME LIKE A CHAMPION is a reincarnation campus romance about a boy who loves too deeply and a girl who's terrified to be loved.
9.5
Janet woke up gasping, the phantom fire of a deadly explosion still scorching her lungs. She had been reborn three years in the past, on the exact day her mother forced her into a marriage contract with Gaylord Bradford, a paralyzed and severely disfigured billionaire.
Before she could even process her second chance, her cousin Kandy kicked the bedroom door open, flaunting a massive diamond ring. Kandy, who had also been reborn, smugly announced she had stolen Janet's Wall Street golden boy fiancé, Jax Adler.
"You're going to marry that paralyzed monster," Kandy spat, gloating that she would build a billionaire dynasty with Jax while Janet wiped drool off a rotting corpse. Kandy expected Janet to have a complete mental collapse, completely unaware that Gaylord's own medical team was secretly injecting him with lethal neurotoxins to finish him off.
But Janet only felt a cold, clinical pity. Kandy's "prophetic" memories were a polluted lie. Jax was actually sterile and dying of irreversible kidney failure, while Gaylord wasn't a dying freak—he was a dormant god whose body was merely in a high-dimensional hibernation. Why would Janet mourn losing a doomed fraud?
Leaving her delusional cousin behind, Janet packed her bags and headed straight to Gaylord's maximum-security military cell. She physically tackled his corrupt doctor, drove three bio-electric silver needles into the crippled king's spine to awaken his deadened nerves, and looked him dead in his glacial blue eye.
"Sign the marriage contract," Janet whispered. "I will make you walk again, and we will take back everything."
9.0
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.
9.5
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?