CG Hope

"She is hurt but won't show it. She is screaming but silent. She is in pain but still smiling. 'She' is Juliet." Juliet was a happy person, the nicest girl in her town. But, now she is broken. She acts like everything is okay when nothing is. When Juliet finds love, she thinks it'll fix her but it makes her do something she'd never thought of doing. "And in the end, we're just humans, drunk on the idea that love, only love could heal our brokenness." F. Scott Fitzgerald

They say forgive those who hurt you. But then again, revenge is a dish best served cold. Sixteen years ago, Arya's father was murdered in cold blood by a member of the royal family of Izteca kingdom. Now with a new identity, she is back for revenge having teamed up with the late King's illegitimate son who had been banished from the kingdom. On her first day at the palace, she is physically assaulted by a masked man and this makes her wonder if the royals know more about her than they are letting on. Soon mysterious events occur which show that there is someone else who also wants to destroy the royal family. What happens when they cross paths? Will she be able to make those who destroyed her life pay or will the fight destroy her?

Eighteen days after giving up on Brendan Maynard, Jayde Rosario cut off her waist-length hair and called her father, announcing her decision to move to California and attend UC Berkeley. Her father, surprised, asked about the sudden change, reminding her how she' d always insisted on staying with Brendan. Jayde forced a laugh, revealing the painful truth: Brendan was getting married, and she, his stepsister, could no longer cling to him. That night, she tried to tell Brendan about her college acceptance, but his fiancée, Chloie Ellis, interrupted with a bubbly call, and Brendan' s tender words to Chloie twisted a knife in Jayde' s heart. She remembered how his tenderness used to be hers alone, how he had protected her, and how she had poured out her heart to him in a diary and a love letter, only for him to explode, tearing the letter and yelling, "I'm your brother!" He had stormed out, leaving her to painstakingly tape the shredded pieces back together. Her love, however, didn't die, not even when he brought Chloie home and told her to call her "sister-in-law." Now, she understood. She had to put that fire out herself. She had to dig Brendan out of her heart.

My husband, Cleve, built a world-class research center for me. He was my knight in shining armor, the man who saved me after my family went bankrupt. But when my brother died tragically under my care, my husband didn't comfort me. Instead, he began grooming a replacement-a young protégé named Ivanna, funding her transformation until she became a younger, softer version of me. He gave her my jewelry and the keys to our private lake house. He publicly undermined my life's work at the center he built, calling my proven methods "old paradigms." He told our friends I was unstable, that my grief was making me "aggressive." The final blow came when he stumbled into my room, drunk and desperate. He tried to kiss me, to reclaim me, but the name he whispered was hers. "Ivanna." When she appeared in the doorway, he didn't hesitate. He took her side, looked at me with cold disgust, and threw me out of my own home. Lying in a hotel room, sick with a fever born from a long walk in the cold rain, I finally understood. My life had been a lie. He hadn't just replaced me; he had tried to erase me. But my escape wasn't just about survival. It was about the evidence I found before I left-a receipt showing that the drug that killed my brother was paid for by Ivanna, using Cleve's corporate credit card. I didn't just run away. I left him to discover he'd been protecting a murderer.

My husband, Bennett, and I were New York's golden couple. But our perfect marriage was a lie, childless because of a rare genetic condition he claimed would kill any woman who carried his baby. When his dying father demanded an heir, Bennett proposed a solution: a surrogate. The woman he chose, Aria, was a younger, more vibrant version of me. Suddenly, Bennett was always busy, supporting her through "difficult IVF cycles." He missed my birthday. He forgot our anniversary. I tried to believe him, until I overheard him at a party. He confessed to his friends that his love for me was a "deep connection," but with Aria, it was "fire" and "exhilarating." He was planning a secret wedding with her in Lake Como, at the same villa he'd promised me for our anniversary. He was giving her a wedding, a family, a life—all the things he denied me, using a lie about a deadly genetic condition as his excuse. The betrayal was so complete it felt like a physical shock. When he came home that night, lying about a business trip, I smiled and played the part of the loving wife. He didn't know I'd heard everything. He didn't know that while he was planning his new life, I was already planning my escape. And he certainly didn't know I had just made a call to a service that specialized in one thing: making people disappear.

I was about to marry Holden Dalton, the heir to a real estate empire. For three years, the world watched our fairy-tale romance: the poor art student who won the heart of a prince. But on the eve of our wedding, I discovered the truth. Our entire relationship was a lie—a cruel, three-year-long "social experiment" he orchestrated to humiliate me for the amusement of his childhood sweetheart, Estella. The truth came out after a car accident revealed I was three months pregnant. Heartbroken, I walked into a clinic alone and left our baby behind on a cold operating table. But my pain was just part of their entertainment. They staged a fake kidnapping, and Holden chose to "save" Estella without hesitation, leaving me to be pushed off a cliff onto an airbag as his friends laughed. At a charity gala for an arts center I had poured my soul into, he publicly gave all the credit to Estella, branding me a fraud. The resulting scandal caused my mentor to die from a heart attack. Then, they sent a "condolence" cake to his funeral. In cheerful icing, it read: "Sorry for your loss! Another victim of the prank!" It was signed by both of them. That was when the last piece of my heart turned to stone. I walked away from the grave, pulled out my phone, and made a call. "Gael," I choked out, "I lost the bet. I'm ready to leave."

I gave up everything for him. My spot at the world' s most prestigious art conservation guild, five grueling years working three dead-end jobs – all to pay off the $50,000 "debt" from my boyfriend Liam' s "failed startup." Tonight, I held the final cash payment, ready for our new beginning. But when I arrived at the exclusive VIP lounge to meet his "loan shark," my world imploded. Liam wasn' t the struggling entrepreneur I knew. He was in a tailored suit, laughing with a socialite, Chloe. And his "loan shark"? Just an employee bowing to him. Then I heard his voice, cold and smooth: "Another fifty K from the little workhorse. She actually did it." My sweat, my exhaustion, my sacrificed dreams-all a cruel joke. They had used me. And then, the sickening climax: his plan for "phase two," a fake $100,000 "debt" to "keep her busy, keep her grateful." The delicate touch of my hands, capable of restoring centuries-old masterpieces, now calloused and trembling with a rage so profound it stole my breath. How could the man I loved orchestrate such a monstrous deception? How could he watch me suffer for years and feel nothing but contempt? My entire life felt like a meticulously constructed lie. But from the ashes of betrayal, a new fire ignited. That $50,000 wasn't for him. It was mine. A desperate call to my old mentor offered a lifeline: a job across the ocean. I wouldn't cower. I was taking my life back, reclaiming my destiny, and I would face him one last time before soaring free.

I was Aliana Donovan, a resident physician, finally reunited with the wealthy family I' d been lost from as a child. I had loving parents and a handsome, successful fiancé. I was safe. I was loved. It was a perfect, fragile lie. The lie shattered on a Tuesday when I discovered my fiancé, Ivan, wasn't at a board meeting but at a sprawling mansion with Kiera Reese, the woman I was told had a mental breakdown five years ago after trying to frame me. She wasn' t disgraced; she was radiant, holding a little boy, Leo, who giggled in Ivan' s arms. I overheard their conversation: Leo was their son, and I was merely a "placeholder," a means to an end until Ivan no longer needed my family's connections. My parents, the Donovans, were in on it, funding Kiera' s lavish life and their secret family. My entire reality-the loving parents, the devoted fiancé, the security I thought I' d found-was a carefully constructed stage, and I was the fool playing the lead role. The casual lie Ivan texted me, "Just got out of the meeting. So exhausting. I miss you. See you at home," while he stood beside his real family, was the final blow. They thought I was pathetic. They thought I was a fool. They were about to find out just how wrong they were.

My name is Ava Green, and I have a secret. Anything I touch with intense emotion turns to solid gold, a strange Midas Touch responsive not to greed, but to love, fear, and passion. Mark Sterling, my brilliant and ambitious husband, was the recipient of my deepest love, and our penthouse glowed with five hundred shimmering testimonies to our shared intimacy. Then the five-hundredth transformation happened, a golden lace tear on a pillowcase, signifying I could make one powerful wish. Mark begged me to wish for his ultimate ambition: to be the CEO of Innovate Global, hailed as a visionary. My heart broke for him, seeing his vulnerability, and I closed my eyes, making the wish for the man I loved. The next night, the world changed. Mark became CEO, a savior to the media, but at his first press conference, he announced his engagement to Dr. Emily Hayes, his "childhood friend." He destroyed me. When he came home, surrounded by our golden memories, he revealed his cruel plan: Emily was his path to power, and I, merely "convenient," was to remain his wife, in name only, lest my prominent family's shares suffer. He needed my family' s influence-and my power-but I was just a piece on his board. I was trapped, my love, my magic, my soul, all sacrificed for his kingdom. Then, a text from Leo Vance, my childhood friend and a cybersecurity genius, offered a glimmer of hope: "The library. Midnight. Don't be followed." He revealed Mark' s orchestrations, how he' d ruined a man' s life, and then, a passage from my family's archives: a forbidden technique, a reverse Midas Touch, fueled by profound pain, where malicious wishes come true. "He thinks he broke you, Ava," Leo said. "Let him think that. We can use this." And so, my plan began, sharper and clearer than any gold.

My father raised seven brilliant orphans to be my potential husbands. For years, I only had eyes for one of them, the cold and distant Damien Paul, believing his distance was a wall I just had to break through. That belief shattered last night when I found him in the garden, kissing his foster sister, Eve—the fragile girl my family took in at his request, the one I had treated like my own sister. But the true horror came when I overheard the other six Fellows talking in the library. They weren't competing for me. They were working together, orchestrating "accidents" and mocking my "stupid, blind" devotion to keep me away from Damien. Their loyalty wasn't to me, the heiress who held their futures in her hands. It was to Eve. I wasn't a woman to be won. I was a foolish burden to be managed. The seven men I grew up with, the men who owed my family everything, were a cult, and she was their queen. This morning, I walked into my father's study to make a decision that would burn their world to the ground. He smiled, asking if I'd finally won Damien over. "No, Dad," I said, my voice firm. "I'm marrying Hunter Beach."

My husband, Andreas, a brilliant architect, handed me a small bottle on our fifth wedding anniversary. He said they were custom vitamins for my health. But a doctor' s appointment revealed a horrifying truth: they were potent birth control pills, making conception impossible. My world shattered when the doctor, a colleague of Andreas, revealed he had another wife, Annabelle, and they' d just had a baby boy. Then, I overheard Andreas telling his best friend, Mark, that he loved me but couldn' t abandon Annabelle, his childhood friend, who was now the mother of his heir. He chillingly stated, "She gets me. And that's enough. I'll make sure she never has a child. Annabelle will have my heir. Jewel will have my love. It's the only way." My five-year marriage was a lie. I was the other woman, slowly being erased. The thought was humiliating, absurd. I stumbled out of the hospital, my mind reeling. I knew Andreas was possessive and wouldn' t let me go willingly. I needed help. My fingers, shaking, scrolled to a name I hadn' t called in ten years: Cassidy Farrell, my high school flame. "That offer... to help me disappear... is it still good?" I whispered.

My life as Gabrielle Fuller, Nashville' s sweetheart known for songs of love and forgiveness, seemed picture-perfect. My husband, Caleb Scott, the city' s "Kingmaker" producer, publicly repented for his first affair, solidifying our image as the golden couple who weathered any storm. I'd even secured our future with a brutal post-nup years ago, a secret safety net if his "mistakes" ever escalated. Then, one rainy Tuesday, searching for tax documents, I stumbled upon a hidden folder on Caleb' s computer. "Archives," password-protected. I typed the date of his first affair, and it opened to reveal hundreds of video files. My breath hitched. Caleb. And Molly. Not just pictures, but damning videos from last week. I watched as Molly, pregnant, sat on his lap, mocking me. "Gabrielle is easy," Caleb sneered, "She wants to believe in fairy tales. As long as I play the prince, she'll never look behind the curtain." My world imploded. The carefully curated image of our perfect marriage, the love story that fueled my career, was a meticulously crafted lie. My husband, the man who' d promised forever, was a master manipulator, not just cheating but planning to steal my future, my dream of a family, by faking my infertility and adopting the child his mistress was carrying. The pain was a physical blow, yet through the shock, a cold, hard clarity emerged. I wasn't going to collapse. I was going to fight back. And I knew exactly how to make him pay.