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 5
A shadow crossed Cole's face, and the friend beside him immediately went quiet, not daring to continue.
From within the crowd, a sharp gasp suddenly broke out.
"Hey, look! The third-floor glass panels are lowering!"
Everyone turned their attention upward, and Cole followed their line of sight. The moment he recognized the figure at the poker table, his eyes tightened in shock.
Slowly, the towering glass walls around the third floor descended, while the entire platform shifted forward and hovered at the center of the hall.
At that table sat a woman in a striking red dress, and it was Evelyn.
For a brief second, Cole could only stare at her, his thoughts completely blank.
Noticing his reaction, Kendra pressed her lips together. "Cole, don't tell me Ms. Fowler is doing something this extreme just to provoke you?" she said.
Anger surged through him. Raising his voice, he called out, "Evelyn! You don't even understand dice, so get down here right now!"
Standing nearby, someone tried to calm him. "Forget about her, Cole. She's clearly just trying to get your attention."
"Let her embarrass herself. After she loses Shane's development rights for that project, let's see how she fixes it."
Tension showed in Cole's clenched hands as they trembled slightly. His gaze remained fixed on the two figures above, his thoughts clashing wildly.
Part of him wanted Evelyn to fail. Yet another part of him wanted to rush up there and question her about Shane. The mix of emotions left him struggling to steady himself.
From above, Leland glanced down at the crowd with a faint smile and brushed his chin. "One round to settle everything. What do you say?" he said.
A calm smile appeared on Evelyn's lips. "That works for me."
Before anyone could react, Leland had already grabbed the dice cup. Both hands moved swiftly as he shook it, his motions so quick they blurred together.
Excited murmurs and gasps spread through the hall.
"It's been ages since we've seen Mr. Barnett use that move! She's definitely going to lose!"
"Five years ago was the last time he lost at dice. Since then, no one has beaten him. She doesn't stand a chance!"
With a sharp sound, the dice cup struck the table. Leland then gestured toward Evelyn, signaling her turn.
Lowering her eyes, Evelyn focused on the cup before her. Then she tapped the table with a quick motion, sending the cup flying upward as it flipped over.
Before anyone could even react, her hand moved up and caught it midair. The cup spun across her palm several times, steady like a top.
With a smooth flick, she tossed it again. The cup turned upright before landing neatly back in place.
Silence spread across the hall in an instant, as everyone stood frozen by what they had just witnessed.
Shock spread among Cole's friends, and one of them blurted out, "When did Evelyn get this good?!"
"I've never even seen her touch dice before..."
Cole kept his eyes locked on Evelyn, unable to pull himself away.
Watching him stare so intently, Kendra felt a mix of jealousy and irritation. "I used to think Ms. Fowler was quiet and well-behaved. I never imagined she'd be this capable."
One of Cole's friends gave a mocking laugh. "That innocent act is just for show. Who knows what she's really like when no one's watching?"
While they spoke, Leland's dice were revealed on the platform above. At the same time, the result appeared on the large screen below.
The outcome showed four sixes and a five.
That result meant Evelyn would need five sixes in a single roll to win.
A wave of murmurs filled the hall as people shook their heads. "It's over for her. Getting five sixes isn't easy."
Leaning forward, Leland rested his chin on his clasped hands, confidence written all over his face. "What a waste. The Eastbay District project is huge, and you're about to lose it just like that."
Turning slightly, Evelyn glanced at Shane beside her. "Shane, would you say luck favors you?" she asked.
Shane lifted a brow with calm assurance. "Luck's always been on my side."
"Then I'll leave the reveal to you." She rested her cheek against her hand and gave him a playful wink. "Looks like everything depends on chance now."
Shane caught on right away. Without hesitation, he placed his hand over the dice cup.
Gasps rose from the crowd below.
"Has Mr. Bennett lost his mind? How can he trust her with something like this?!"
Leland turned toward Shane, a hint of surprise in his eyes. "So even the undefeated Mr. Bennett is ready to accept defeat today," he remarked.
Shane answered with a slight smile, "In my world, I don't lose. I only win."
The moment he stopped talking, Shane turned his wrist and raised the dice cup.
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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?