News Flash Ex-husband, I'm Alive!
"I know you're pregnant, Valentina. That's why you have to die tonight. Two lives for the price of one, efficiency was always my strong suit."
On her third wedding anniversary, Valentina was gifted a shallow grave.
Her husband, Kennedy, the man she adored, was never a billionaire. He was a fraud who drugged her, watched her drown in a poisoned bath, and ordered her burial so he could marry his mistress.
He didn't know the gardener would hesitate. He didn't know she would crawl out of the mud, pregnant, broken, and alive. And he never imagined that ghosts would come back with teeth.
Dragged from the storm by Ian Kingston, the Titan of industry, Valentina is saved by a man so powerful that Kennedy is nothing more than a disposable bookkeeper in his empire.
To the world, Ian is a monster.
To Valentina, he is survival.
But Ian doesn't see a victim.
He sees Misha, his vanished wife, the mother of his two children, the woman who disappeared without a trace.
"You have 365 days to prove you aren't her, little bird. Until then, you will sleep in my bed, wear my name, and obey every rule I set."
Trapped in a deadly case of mistaken identity, Valentina signs the contract.
She becomes Misha Kingston, cold, ruthless, untouchable. Wrapped in emerald silk and Ian's dark protection, she walks back into the world that tried to bury her.
The next time Kennedy sees his dead wife, she isn't in a coffin.
She's in the arms of his boss. Wearing a queen's crown. Looking down at him from a throne of gold.
But as Ian's control turns into obsession, Valentina faces an impossible truth.
She is hiding a child conceived by her enemy... While being claimed by a king who refuses to let her go.
He buried a wife.
He's about to kneel before a Goddess.
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Chapter 6
The bath was a masterpiece of marble and gold, but to Valentina, the steam felt like the humid breath of a predator.
As she scrubbed the graveyard grit and dried copper of her own blood from her skin, her hands hovered protectively, almost reflexively over the slight, firm swell of her lower abdomen.
Four months. She was carrying the seed of a murderer, and now she was trapped in the lair of a king.
If Ian Kingston, the man whose power felt like a physical weight in every room, realized his wife was carrying another man's blood, the 365-day contract wouldn't just be void. It would be her death warrant.
She dressed in the dress the maid had left, a liquid-silk garment in a deep, venomous emerald. It clung to her damp skin like a second, more expensive layer of armor.
She looked into the vanity mirror and suppressed a scream. Misha. With her dark hair slicked back and her amber eyes narrowed in survival, the resemblance was no longer a coincidence; it was a curse.
I am a ghost with a heartbeat, she whispered to the glass. And tonight, I start haunting.
She descended the grand mahogany staircase, her bare feet silent. Below, the sunken lounge was bathed in the amber glow of a fire that didn't reach the chill in her bones.
"The offshore accounts are settled, Mr. Kingston. The resort's acquisition is complete. I've liquidated the remaining assets as per your instructions."
Valentina's heart didn't just beat; it detonated. She knew that voice. It was the voice that had whispered poetry in college, the voice that had lied about his love for her, and the voice that had snarled as his thumbs crushed her windpipe.
She rounded the corner, her knuckles white as she gripped the cold stone of the archway.
There, perched on the edge of a velvet chair, was Kennedy.
But he wasn't the titan he'd pretended to be. He looked small, an ant in the presence of a god. He wore a cheap, off-the-rack suit and clutched a briefcase like a shield.
Opposite him sat Ian, draped in a black silk robe, swirling a glass of neat bourbon. Kennedy wasn't a CEO as he claimed. He was Ian's bookkeeper. A scavenger eating the crumbs of a real man's fortune.
Valentina stepped into the light of the massive crystal chandelier.
The rustle of her silk dress was a gunshot in the silence. Both men looked up.
Kennedy's face didn't just turn pale; it turned the color of a fresh corpse. His jaw dropped, his eyes bulging as if the floor had opened up to reveal the hell he'd tried to send her to.
He scrambled to his feet, his briefcase thudding to the rug, spilling papers like white feathers.
"Valentina?" he choked out, his voice a pathetic, terrified wheeze. "You're... you're... supposed to be..."
Ian's eyes, cold and sharp as surgical steel, narrowed. He stood up with the slow, lethal grace of a panther, his gaze flickering between his wife and the shaking man. The temperature in the room plummeted.
"You recognize her, Kennedy?" Ian's voice was a low, dangerous vibration.
Kennedy was paralyzed. He had seen the dirt hit her face. He had watched her sink into that poisoned tub. "She..." he stammered, his finger trembling as he pointed at her. "She looks... she's..."
Ian stepped toward Valentina, his presence a dark, overwhelming shadow. He wrapped a heavy arm around her waist, hauling her flush against his side.
The heat of him was intoxicating, sandalwood, smoke, and pure authority. Valentina didn't pull away. She leaned into him, using his massive frame as a shield against the monster she used to love. The monster who wanted to kill her.
"This is my wife, Misha Kingston," Ian announced, his voice laced with a possessive, territorial pride that cut through Kennedy's sanity. "Misha, this is Kennedy. My lead accountant. He handles the tedious details of my smaller holdings."
Accountant. The word was a slap. Every "business trip" Kennedy took, every "million-dollar deal" he bragged about, it was all Ian Kingston's laundry.
Kennedy was a fraud living on Ian's leftovers, and he had tried to kill her to protect his pathetic, stolen life.
"Wife?" Kennedy gasped, his knees literally knocking together. He looked like he was about to pass out. "But... she's... Misha?"
Valentina felt a surge of lethal, venomous adrenaline. She saw the sweat beading on Kennedy's brow.
He thought he was losing his mind. He thought she was a vengeful spirit who came to claim him.
She looked up at Ian, ignoring the 365-day contract, ignoring the danger. She saw a weapon, and she decided to pull the trigger. She may not be Misha, but she can use this to her advantage.
Before Ian could speak, Valentina reached up, her fingers sliding into the dark, thick hair at the nape of his neck. She pulled his head down and kissed him, a deep, searing, explosive kiss that tasted of bourbon and sudden, shocked hunger.
Ian stiffened for a fraction of a second, his brain catching up to the sudden heat, before he groaned low in his throat. His hands clamped onto her hips, pulling her so tight the emerald silk was the only thing between them.
He kissed her back with a ferocity that spoke of months of starved desire, his tongue claiming hers in front of the man who had tried to bury her.
Valentina broke the kiss, her lips swollen and her eyes burning with a dark, triumphant light. She turned her gaze to Kennedy, who was staring at them with a look of pure, unadulterated horror.
"Yes, wife," she purred, her voice dripping with a wicked, honeyed poison as she stepped toward him, the emerald silk shimmering like the scales of a serpent.
"Do you have a problem with that, Kennedy? Or do you always look like you've seen a ghost when a lady enters the room?"
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8.0
"Just watch... I'll take you away from that deceitful woman."
Yvette whispered softly, but the resolve in her heart was unshakable.
Her heart shattered as she witnessed the wedding of Aaron-the man she had loved for so long, the very same adoptive brother who once gave her a sense of home-to another woman.
It was no secret.
Aaron knew how she felt.
And yet, he still chose to marry someone else... as if Yvette's love had never meant a thing.
Just when she tried to accept that painful reality, she uncovered a truth far more devastating.
Belinda... was not as kind as she seemed.
The cunning hidden behind her gentle smile only made it harder for Yvette to let go-only strengthened her belief that the man she loved had fallen into the wrong hands.
The love she had once buried deep within her heart had now twisted into something far darker.
An obsession.
Yvette no longer wished to surrender.
She would take back what was meant to be hers... by any means necessary.
Even if it meant destroying their marriage.
8.7
Ada was eight months pregnant, sitting peacefully in her husband's Manhattan estate, looking at a baby nursery catalog.
Suddenly, her husband's mistress, Jacklyn, walked in, threw an ultrasound photo on the table, and locked the door.
Before Ada could process the betrayal, Jacklyn dragged her to the top of the marble staircase and threw herself backward just as Desmond walked through the front doors.
"She pushed me, Desmond! She tried to kill our baby!"
Desmond looked at Ada with absolute hatred.
He ignored Ada's breaking water and her agonizing screams for help, leaving her to miscarry on the freezing floor while he rushed Jacklyn to the hospital.
He sent Ada to a brutal federal prison for three years, where she was tortured and left with a body covered in horrific scars, mourning the baby she was told died at birth.
When Ada was finally released, Desmond destroyed her cousin's company to force her back to his estate as a lowly maid.
But when Ada saw Jacklyn's three-year-old son, her world stopped.
Right in the center of the little boy's palm was a faint crescent moon birthmark.
It was the exact same mark Ada had kissed on her own lifeless baby's tiny hand before the doctors took his body away.
How did her dead child become Jacklyn's little prince?
Looking at the woman who stole her life and the husband who threw her in hell, Ada clenched her scarred hands and swore she would tear their world apart to get her son back.
9.2
Arla was supposed to marry Clinton Freeman, the perfect fiancé who had promised to love her and protect her five-year-old son.
But instead, the cold steel of a dagger pierced her chest.
As she collapsed onto the freezing basement floor, she watched her adoptive sister Blair laugh.
"Look at her," Blair sneered, kicking her son's small, blue, lifeless body.
Clinton stood there, calmly wiping the bloody blade on a pristine handkerchief.
In her dying moments, the horrifying truth became clear. Her fiancé and her adoptive family had been plotting all along to steal her massive trust fund.
To break her, they had secretly tortured her child. Clinton had watched Blair pierce the little boy's arms with sewing needles, rewarding him with candy to keep him silent.
Arla's lungs burned with the taste of copper and ash.
She couldn't understand why the family she trusted could be so monstrous, or why they had to brutally murder an innocent child just for money.
The darkness swallowed her whole, drowning her in suffocating hatred and absolute despair.
Then, she gasped for air.
The concrete floor was gone, replaced by the silk sheets of a hotel penthouse suite.
Arla had been reborn to the exact night six years ago—the very day Blair first dragged her son into the dark attic.
This time, she picked up a solid silver letter opener, ready to burn them all to the ground.
7.3
While I was pregnant, my husband held a party downstairs for another woman's son.
Through a hidden mental link, I overheard my husband, Don Dante Rossi, tell his consigliere he was going to publicly reject me tomorrow. He planned to make his mistress, Serena, his new mate.
An act forbidden by ancient law while I carried his heir.
Later, Serena cornered me, her smile venomous. When Dante appeared, she shrieked, clawing her own arm and blaming me for the attack.
Dante didn't even look at me. He snarled a command that froze my body and stole my voice, ordering me from his sight as he cradled her.
He moved her and her son into our master suite. I was demoted to the guest room at the end of the hall.
Passing her open door, I saw him rocking her baby, humming the lullaby my own mother used to sing to me.
I heard him promise her, "Soon, my love. I'll sever the bond and give you the life you deserve."
The love I felt for him, the power I'd hidden for four years to protect his fragile ego, all turned to ice.
He thought I was a weak, powerless wife he could discard. He was about to find out that the woman he betrayed was Alessia De Luca, princess of the most powerful family on the continent.
And I was finally going home.
9.0
I spent a year scrubbing floors in my fiancé’s club, hiding my identity as the daughter of the Capo dei Capi.
I needed to know if Connor Bishop was a King worth merging empires with, or just a puppet.
The answer came walking in wearing a neon pink dress.
Jaden Juarez, a civilian he was infatuated with, didn't just treat me like a servant; she deliberately poured scalding espresso over my hand because I refused to be her valet.
The pain was blinding, my skin blistering instantly.
I video-called Connor, showing him the burn, expecting him to enforce the code of our world.
Instead, seeing his investors watching, he panicked.
He chose to sacrifice me to save face.
"Get on your knees," he roared through the speaker. "Beg her pardon. Show her the respect she deserves."
He wanted the daughter of the most dangerous man on the East Coast to kneel to his mistress.
He thought he was showing strength.
He didn't realize he was looking at a woman who could burn his entire world to ash with a single phone call.
I didn't cry. I didn't beg.
I simply hung up the phone and locked the kitchen doors.
Then, I dialed the one number everyone in the underworld feared.
"Dad," I said, my voice cold as steel. "Code Black. Bring the papers."
"And send the wolves."
8.6
Sinful Addiction
8.6
HOLY SHIT! My father's best friend had his face buried in between my legs.
I threw my head back against the headrest, fisting his hair in my palms but it only urged him to go faster.
His breath was warm against my clit and just when I thought I couldn't get enough, he hummed, the vibration sending intense waves of pleasure through me.
"Oh my God," this was so wrong yet my body betrayed me, leaning closer into his touch.
~~
Diane Ashford thought four years in Paris had killed the forbidden feelings she had for Damon Pierce. But returning to New York brings the past rushing back. Damon is her father's best friend, her protector, and the man who makes every part of her body ache for him.
Now working as his assistant, Diane must face desire, secrets, and family lies that could destroy them. Damon is powerful, possessive, and impossible to resist.
Can their forbidden love survive the truth or will it ruin them both?