The Superstar's Obsession: My Unwanted Husband

I found out my husband of three years had cheated on me and his mistress is the one who told me-because he didn't have the balls to do it himself. I move out and get a new apartment, a job as a bartender, and try to move on with a broken heart. I wonder where it all went wrong, if I hadn't been enough for him, if I'd been stupid for marrying him in the first place. I'm at work one night when he walks inside-the most beautiful man I've ever seen. He sits at the bar and a forest fire burns between us. I was depressed the moment before he entered, but the second I look at his blue eyes, I forget the dumpster fire that my life has become. I invite him back to my place and it's the most passionate night of my life. I expect to never see him again. I just want him as an anti-depressant-but he wants me all to himself. I just got my heart ripped out of my chest so I want something easy and no-strings-attached, but he wants all the strings because he's hooked. I don't get much of a say in the matter, and that's not surprising when I learn why-because he's the Butcher. The crime lord of all crime lords, the boss that overshadows all of Paris, that makes everyone abide by his rules-or pay. And now I'm his.

I was eight months pregnant, waiting on the sofa for my billionaire husband to come home. But when the heavy oak doors opened, Cayden threw a fake DNA test on the glass table, showing a zero percent probability of paternity. He accused me of carrying another man's bastard. I cried and begged, swearing I was framed by his childhood friend, Carmella. He didn't listen. Instead, he ordered his massive bodyguards to pin me down while a private doctor forced an abortion pill down my throat. "The Merritt family does not raise bastards. Get rid of it." He forced me to sign divorce papers and ordered his men to throw me out into the freezing storm. Before I was dragged away, I desperately told him the truth: I was the anonymous donor who gave him a kidney to save his life three years ago. He just sneered, saying Carmella had the surgical scar to prove she was the donor, and kicked me out to die. Lying in the freezing rain, vomiting up the half-dissolved poison to save my baby, I didn't understand how the man I loved could be so completely blind. How could he let that woman steal my kidney, my marriage, and murder his own flesh and blood? Five years later, I returned to New York not as his pathetic discarded wife, but as a top-tier medical fixer for the global elite. And my genius five-year-old son has already infiltrated his mansion, ready to tear his empire apart from the inside.

For three years, I played the perfect, submissive housewife to billionaire Julian Harrison. But right after an intimate night together, he coldly threw a divorce agreement onto the bed. "Scarlett landed an hour ago. I need my single status restored to welcome her back." That same night, I ended up in the emergency room and discovered I was pregnant with twins. When Julian found out, he didn't show a shred of joy. Instead, he stormed into my hospital room, threw a blank check directly at my face, and ordered me to get rid of them. He accused me of using the babies as a sick game to trap his assets. Then, his ruthless lawyer kicked me out of our penthouse, confiscating the jewelry he gifted me and tossing my worn-out notebook onto the floor like garbage. Standing in the freezing rain, my heart completely died. I had swallowed my pride, managed his life, and cooked his meals to his exact standards for three years, only to be thrown away the second his first love returned. But he didn't know that the notebook his lawyer discarded contained the secret formulas of Aura Beauty, a billion-dollar empire I built in the shadows. I tore his check into pieces, blocked his number, and left in a Maybach sent by my associate. Logging into my global CEO database, I looked at his company's fragile stock chart with a predatory smile. The docile Mrs. Harrison died in the rain. It was time to crush his empire.

I was trapped in a greasy diner by my own mother. She was forcing me to marry my abusive cousin because he had paid her twenty thousand dollars. To escape, I used a contract marriage app and begged a complete stranger to marry me at City Hall that very day. Ethan drove a cheap Ford and wore a plain suit. I thought he was just an ordinary guy needing a fake wife. When my mother found out, she brought thugs to destroy my flower shop—my only home and livelihood. To protect Ethan from her endless extortion, I shielded him and screamed that he was bankrupt and drowning in credit card debt. My mother fled in disgust, and Ethan took me into his apartment for the night. But out of trauma and habit, I locked my bedroom door, muttering that he must be old and desperate. He stormed out into the freezing night, leaving me terrified that I had ruined my only lifeline. I didn't understand why he was so furiously offended, completely unaware that my "broke" husband was actually the most ruthless billionaire in New York, and I had just trampled his massive ego. The next morning, his face was a mask of ice as he dragged me back to City Hall to annul the marriage and get rid of me. "Annulment. Now," he demanded. But the clerk just popped her gum and slid a pink paper across the counter. "State law changed. Mandatory thirty-day cooling-off period."

Cadence, a modern botanist, woke up to a glaring sun and massive, alien purple leaves blocking the sky. She was stranded in a terrifying, primal world. Before she could process the metallic smell of blood in the air, a white tiger the size of an SUV crushed a giant boar's neck right in front of her. The beast locked its piercing blue eyes on her hiding spot. But instead of tearing her throat out, a blinding flash of silver light erupted, and the monster transformed into a towering, heavily scarred naked man. He was Harlan, a shifter who immediately claimed her as his mate under tribal law. Dragged back to his primitive village, Cadence faced a brutal reality. Unbonded females were targets, and she was expected to take multiple mates just to survive. The tribal women mocked her fragile frame, calling her useless. To make matters worse, her foreign scent attracted a rogue serpent-shifter who violently ambushed her in the river. The icy shock of the serpent's attack plunged Cadence into a deadly, burning fever. The tribe's Shaman tried his healing magic, only to shake his head and abandon her. "She lacks primal fortitude. She will rely entirely on her own weak vitality. I can do nothing." As Harlan held her shivering body in despair, Cadence felt a deep sense of desperate injustice. Was she really going to die in a filthy stone hut in an unknown universe, killed by a simple cold? No. She remembered her grandfather's strict survival lessons. Forcing her heavy eyes open, she grabbed her terrified tiger mate's hand. She didn't need their failing magic; she had science. "I need specific plants to live. I need white willow bark. And a spicy, ginger-like root." She rasped, preparing to show this savage world the true power of a modern survivor.

Giana woke up drugged and burning with fever in a luxurious hotel suite. Standing before her was Cornel Stark, the most ruthless billionaire in New York. Memories of her past life stabbed into her brain. In that life, her adoptive family and her fiancé Gary had stolen her inheritance and left her to die a brutal, agonizing death. She also remembered how fighting Cornel only made him more violent. So this time, she didn't scream. She endured his brutal punishment, escaped the moment he let his guard down, and swallowed a Plan B pill on the freezing streets. Returning to her adoptive family's mansion, she faced the people who had destroyed her. Her fiancé and her stepsister put on masks of fake concern, secretly mocking her. Instead of throwing a useless tantrum like before, Giana deliberately threw herself down the steep wooden stairs. She smashed her head against the marble floor, using her own blood to shatter their plans and win back her mother's trust. She thought she had finally taken control. She was ready to crush the people who had betrayed her and live for herself. But she didn't understand why the billionaire she had just escaped was suddenly turning her life upside down. When she woke up in the hospital, her room wasn't filled with her family's fake tears, but an ocean of blood-red roses. The heavy door swung open, and Cornel Stark walked in, his gray eyes locking onto her with a dark, predatory hunger. "Remember this feeling, Giana. Every breath you take belongs to me now."