The Divorced Gemologist Queen's Glorious Return
I was married to billionaire Alessandro Dorsey for four years. The only person in his cold, elite family who truly cared for me was his grandfather.
But when his grandfather suddenly passed away, my husband dragged me to the freshly dug grave and threw a newspaper in my face. The headline blamed me for his death.
Before I could process the grief, Alessandro forced me to my knees in front of dozens of flashing cameras.
"Admit your negligence, or you will never see the sun rise in this city again."
He threatened to destroy my own family if I didn't publicly apologize for a crime I didn't commit. Back at the estate, his mother falsely accused me of stealing a priceless family heirloom. I begged my husband to believe me, but he just looked at me with disgust, froze all my personal bank accounts, and handed me a divorce agreement. Sign it, forfeit everything, and erase my identity, or go to prison.
I was stripped of my dignity, my money, and the man I loved. I fled New York with nothing, only to discover I was pregnant with his triplets. For years, the injustice burned in my chest. How could the man who once meant safety throw me to the wolves without a second thought?
Five years later, I stepped back into the city with my three children. This time, I wasn't the broken woman he discarded, but a powerful gemologist ready to tear down his empire.
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Chapter 4
Daniel had arranged for them to stay in a spacious, sun-drenched penthouse apartment he owned in Greenwich Village. It was discreet, secure, and miles away from the Upper East Side world the Dorseys inhabited.
"No one will think to look for you here," he said, setting down the last of their bags. "It's off my brother's radar."
"Thank you, Daniel. For everything," Analia said, her gratitude sincere.
"I always knew you were innocent, Ana," he replied, his expression serious. "I'm just sorry I couldn't do more back then."
The children quickly claimed the space. Leo and Noah began a systematic exploration of every room, their hushed whispers a form of reconnaissance. Ella found a spot by the large picture window overlooking the city, took out a small sketchbook and a set of colored pencils, and began to draw.
Once they were settled, Analia began her work. Her revenge required resources, and for that, she needed to build a business. Her business.
She checked her watch. Her trip into the city had a dual purpose. First, to scout a retail location, and second, to meet with a reclusive but legendary gem cutter who kept an old workshop in SoHo. She'd brought the tools of her trade, hoping for a consultation.
She took Ella and the others to SoHo, the gallery district. The excuse was that the vibrant, artistic atmosphere there might provide her with good inspiration. The real reason was that Annalia was searching.
They wandered into a boutique gallery that was holding a small, exclusive auction of art and rare geological specimens. Most of the attendees were stuffy, self-proclaimed connoisseurs. Analia, in her simple jeans and sweater, was utterly invisible to them.
And that's exactly how she wanted it.
Her eyes scanned the room, bypassing the polished sculptures and vibrant paintings, until they landed on a lump of rock in a dusty corner. It was dark, unremarkable, about the size of a small melon. A simple tag next to it read: "Geological sample. No commercial value." The starting bid was a laughable fifty dollars.
When the auctioneer, with a bored sigh, presented the lot, the room was silent. No one moved.
"No interest? Very well, we'll-"
Analia raised her numbered paddle.
The auctioneer blinked, surprised. A low murmur rippled through the crowd.
A portly man with a monocle, who had introduced himself earlier as the renowned gemologist Barnaby Finch, chuckled audibly. "My dear lady," he said, his voice condescending, "that is a worthless piece of serpentinite from a depleted mine in Madagascar. You're throwing your money away."
Analia ignored him, her gaze fixed on the auctioneer.
With no other bidders, the gavel came down. "Sold, to the lady in the back, for fifty dollars."
After the auction, Finch and a small group of his admirers approached her, their curiosity mixed with amusement. "I must ask," Finch said, a smirk playing on his lips. "What could you possibly see in that... thing?"
Analia offered a small, enigmatic smile. She knelt down and spoke softly to her daughter. "Cover your ears, sweetie."
Ella obediently put her hands over her ears.
From her tote bag, Analia produced a small geologist's hammer and a powerful penlight. The crowd watched, bewildered, as she expertly turned the rock over in her hands, tapping it lightly, listening. She found what she was looking for-a faint stress line near the base.
With a single, precise crack of the hammer, a small piece of the rock's outer crust broke away.
Analia shone the penlight into the opening.
A gasp went through the small crowd. From within the dark, ugly stone, a soft, ethereal glow emanated. It was the color of a tropical sunset, a perfect, breathtaking blend of pink and orange.
Analia stood up, her voice calm and clear in the stunned silence.
"This is not worthless serpentinite," she announced. "It's a geode. And inside is a near-flawless Padparadscha sapphire. Judging by the size of the host rock, I'd estimate it's at least fifty carats."
The silence in the room became absolute. Padparadscha. The "lotus blossom" sapphire. One of the rarest, most valuable gems on earth. A fifty-carat specimen was the stuff of legends, worth millions.
Barnaby Finch's face turned a blotchy, horrified red. He had just publicly dismissed a king's ransom as trash. It was a career-ending mistake.
The other collectors and gemologists crowded forward, their faces a mixture of awe, disbelief, and profound regret.
Analia didn't bask in her victory. She simply took Ella's hand, which had slipped from her ears.
"Come on, baby," she said softly, her mission accomplished. "Let's go home."
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7.9
One night of deception.
A lifetime of consequences.
A bond that cannot be broken.
Nadia Williams is an Omega living in the shadows of the pack she once called home.
Since her father's death, she and her mother, Estelle, have been treated as outcasts by her ruthless uncle, Alpha Edwards. When her mother is framed for theft, Nadia is forced into a deal with the devil.
To save her mother's life, she must become a virgin substitute for her cousin, Danielle.
Her aunt, Katerina, offers a devil's bargain to set her mother free: Nadia must spend one night in the bed of the most powerful man in the country, the billionaire; Alpha Conrad Bradley.
The catch?
She must swap places with her spiteful cousin.
Conrad demands a virgin bride to secure his royal bloodline, and Danielle, Nadia's cruel cousin, has already forfeited her purity.
What begins as a desperate night of passion in the dark spirals into a web of hidden identities and betrayal.
Nadia survives the night and disappears, hoping to bury the shame of the encounter forever.
But fate has a different plan.
Desperate for a fresh start away from her uncle's shadow, Nadia secures a high-level position at Bradley Group of Industries.
As Alpha Conrad unknowingly hires Nadia at his company, an undeniable connection sparks between them.
Conrad is haunted by the scent of the woman from that night-a scent that doesn't match his fiancée, Danielle, but seems to cling to his new, brilliant employee.
As they work side-by-side, Nadia finds an unexpected and beautiful second chance at a life she thought was lost.
Yet, buried secrets threaten to destroy everything.
When the Alpha discovers the woman he truly bonded with, the fallout will be legendary.
9.0
Colette stepped out of the federal prison, finally breathing the air of freedom after two agonizing years.
But instead of a bus home, a black armored SUV blocked her path. Ferris Vance's men kidnapped her right at the gates. He forced her to sign a marriage certificate, threatening to completely destroy her father's legacy if she refused.
The nightmare had only just begun. She soon learned her father had been driven to suicide anyway. Dragged into the Vance estate, Colette was beaten bloody by the family of Ellie, the girl she supposedly wronged. Ferris paraded her in a pure white gown for the cameras, playing the fiercely devoted husband. But the second the lenses turned away, he forced her into a coarse maid's uniform, making her scrub the freezing marble floors on her hands and knees.
"Your life isn't even worth the dirt on my shoes."
Ferris whispered those words as he threw his muddy boots at her bruised face. She was nothing but a piece of bleeding bait, a prop meant to lure his missing lover out of hiding. She was tortured and humiliated for a crime she had absolutely nothing to do with. The sheer injustice of paying the price for another woman's disappearance tore her soul apart.
When he cornered her in the bathroom, the last thread of Colette's sanity snapped. She hurled a bucket of filthy water right into his face, broke out of his grip, and threw herself out a window into a freezing storm. This time, she chose to escape, even if it meant death.
7.4
I was a broke clinic doctor drowning in debt, so I took a confidential job to evaluate a billionaire heir's fertility.
I marched into the VIP ICU, pinned the struggling patient down, and injected a sedative. I finished the extraction and loudly declared to the family lawyer that the Holt heir was completely sterile.
But then, a chilling laugh echoed from the doorway.
The real heir, Jarrod Holt, the tyrant of Wall Street, stepped in. I had just sterilized his younger brother right in front of him.
Facing a decade in federal prison, I was completely at his mercy. To make things worse, my arrogant ex-boyfriend tried to publicly humiliate me, and my greedy uncle threatened to burn my dead mother's belongings for ransom. I was pushed to the absolute brink of ruin.
But instead of destroying me, Jarrod offered a terrifying lifeline. He bought out a Manhattan high-rise in five minutes just to ruin my ex, then handed me a marriage contract.
I was terrified and deeply confused. Why would this ruthless billionaire force a nobody into a fake marriage? He knew details about my past that no one should know. Did he discover my hidden identity as 'E', the underground surgeon the entire medical world was hunting for?
With my back against the wall, I signed the prenuptial agreement.
"I do," I whispered at City Hall.
He shoved his heavy, antique family ring onto my finger. It was supposed to be strictly business with absolutely no physical contact, but when his lips crashed violently onto mine, I knew I had just sold my soul to the devil.
8.4
Kathern was forced out of her sister's home by her abusive brother-in-law, who violently demanded she pay half the rent or get out.
To protect her sister from his rage, Kathern agreed to a six-month paper marriage with a stranger—an old woman's grandson, Bronson—in exchange for a simple apartment.
But her new husband treated her like a scheming gold digger from the very first second.
He showed up to City Hall in a cheap suit, shoved a brutal prenup in her face, and dumped her in a completely empty, dust-filled apartment.
"Just don't cause any trouble," he warned coldly, before leaving her alone.
When Kathern politely texted him to ask if he was coming home for dinner, he immediately blocked her number.
Kathern was furious and baffled. She didn't want a dime of his money, nor did she care about his boring middle-management job.
She had only agreed to this marriage for a place to sleep, yet this arrogant man treated her like absolute garbage.
Refusing to swallow the insult, Kathern immediately dialed his grandmother to expose his behavior.
She was going to build her own independent life, completely unaware that her "cheap corporate loser" of a husband was actually the ruthless billionaire CEO of the Vaughan empire.
9.5
Blaire's mother gave her a ruthless ultimatum: find a husband today, or never call her mother again.
Desperate to escape the suffocating control and disastrous blind dates, Blaire agreed to a fake marriage with a stranger she met through an old woman.
She thought she was marrying a dirt-poor salesman drowning in mortgage debt.
They lived in a rundown Queens apartment and split the living expenses fifty-fifty.
He drove a sputtering Toyota Camry, established extreme territorial rules, and treated her like a gold-digging biohazard.
When she accidentally tripped and spilled hot soup on him, he didn't help her up, instead accusing her of using pathetic tricks to seduce him.
Her own mother even crashed their apartment, ruthlessly mocking his pathetic financial state and calling him a total loser.
Blaire endured his coldness and extreme germaphobia, genuinely pitying him for his stressful, low-paying job.
She refunded his money and defended his dignity, refusing to take advantage of a struggling man.
But she couldn't understand why this supposedly broke guy possessed such a lethal, commanding aura, or why an incredibly expensive cashmere blanket mysteriously appeared on her when she was freezing on the couch.
Until her brother called with a shocking warning.
"Blaire, the name on your marriage certificate belongs to the notoriously secretive billionaire CEO of New York's top financial syndicate!"
Blaire laughed out loud, completely unaware that behind the bedroom door, her "broke" husband was frantically ordering his PR team to bury his true identity.
9.7
I secured the lifeline investment for my fiancé's company and went to his office to surprise him.
Instead, I caught Preston sleeping with his top actress—the woman he publicly claimed as his stepsister.
Through the cracked door, I heard him call me his "scarred, ugly bitch shield" to hide their sickening affair.
I didn't cry. I hacked the live broadcast of the Star Awards and played their sex tape to two thousand people.
But that night, drunk and reeling from the agonizing nerve pain in my facial scar, I stumbled into the wrong hotel penthouse.
I was pinned down by a drugged billionaire, Josephus Hodges.
The next morning, he left me a million-dollar check and a Plan B pill.
When he later tracked me down to offer a cold, calculated fake marriage just to absorb Preston's ruined empire, I threw the contract at his chest and told him to go to hell.
But when I got home and looked in the mirror, the chronic, burning torture in my scar was completely gone.
His touch during that terrifying night had somehow cured the agony that had ruined my life.
I had just declared war on the only man on earth who could heal me.
Just then, my ruined ex-fiancé called, begging me to save him with a PR press conference.
"I'll do it, but I control the venue."
I booked it at Josephus's heavily guarded hotel. I was going to slaughter my ex on live television, and force the apex predator to look at me again.