Evvie Foreman

I woke up in a bed of cold marble and silk, lying next to Armond Emerson—the billionaire CEO who treats people like disposable assets. Five years ago, I escaped his world with a secret that could destroy me; now, a single night of desperation had put me right back in his crosshairs. My nightmare was only beginning. My ex-boyfriend, Lucas, had me followed to the penthouse and was now using my family as target practice to force me back under his thumb. Within twenty-four hours, my gallery was seized, my bank accounts were frozen, and my brother was left bleeding on a warehouse floor with his painting hands crushed. Lucas’s threat was clear: "Kneel and beg, or I’ll make sure your little bastard in Queens has an accident." That "bastard" was Leo, my four-year-old son. He was the secret heir to the Emerson empire, and Armond had no idea he existed. To protect him, I sold my soul. I walked into Armond’s office and offered a deal: I’d be his fake fiancée to stabilize his board of directors if he destroyed Lucas. He agreed, but his touch was a brand and his suspicion was a knife. He started digging into the five-year gap in my resume, hiring investigators to peel back the layers of my time in Switzerland. I thought I could play the part of the harmless socialite until the danger passed. I thought I could keep my son hidden in the shadows of a crumbling Queens apartment while I played house with a monster. But after a brutal attack in a parking garage, I collapsed in Armond's arms, my consciousness fading as I whispered the one name I should have kept buried. As I lay sedated in his penthouse, my phone buzzed on the nightstand. Armond answered it. "Mommy? Are you okay? Uncle Nate said the bad man hurt you." The silence that followed was the sound of my world ending. Armond stared at the caller ID, looking at the face of the son I had stolen from him, and finally realized exactly what I had been running from.

It was our eighth wedding anniversary, and nine hundred and ninety-nine imported orchids, courtesy of my husband Ethan, filled the ER breakroom, a suffocating monument to his wealth and our utterly hollow marriage. My name is Sarah, an ER doctor, and just a month ago, I lost our baby – our second child – alone, terrified in the hospital. That night, Ethan was at a "critical work dinner" with his assistant, Chloe, claiming he couldn't leave my side. His grand gesture of impersonal flowers was a chilling reminder of how little he truly cared, or how little he bothered to know me anymore. When I finally called, his voice was impatient; he dismissed my desperate plea to talk, sighing about my work stress before hanging up. Later, at our cold, modern penthouse, he offered an expensive diamond necklace, likely chosen by Chloe, ignoring my quiet but firm demand for a divorce. He scoffed, calling me "dramatic," bragging about the "best" orchids. Worse, his family, led by his domineering mother Eleanor and always-present Chloe, began using our son, Leo, as leverage, subtly painting me as emotionally unstable. Why was the man who once gave me a single, dollar-pink carnation, a symbol of genuine, selfless love, now so utterly incapable of seeing me at all? How could he respond to the agonizing loss of our child with a callous remark about me being "stretched thin with my career?" His profound indifference, coupled with his family' s insidious manipulation, transformed my deep grief into a cold, unwavering fury. After years of swallowing my anger and enduring their polished cruelty, I finally reached my breaking point at their opulent Connecticut estate. I was done being ignored, done being dismissed. It was time to shatter their perfect, miserable charade and reclaim every piece of my life.

I was sealing our wedding invitations with crimson wax when I heard my fiancé through the slightly ajar study door. Ethan wasn't reciting the poetry he’d written for me over the last seven years. He was outlining the logistics of his betrayal. "If I fake amnesia after the 'accident' tonight, I can delay the wedding without the family stopping the merger," Ethan laughed, ice clinking in his glass. "And Ava? The Canary?" his friend asked. "Ava is property. You maintain property; you don't have fun with it. While she plays nurse, I get a medical exemption to sleep with Chloe." My world shattered. I fled into the rainy night, blinded by tears, until headlights turned my world upside down. I woke up in the wreckage, my arm shattered, tasting blood. Ethan arrived moments later. But he didn't run to me. He stepped right over my bleeding body to comfort Chloe, who had a minor scratch on her forehead. "I've got you, baby," he cooed to his mistress, looking at me with nothing but cold annoyance. "Don't worry about her. She's tough." He left me in the street. By the next morning, the narrative was set: The tragic Don had lost his memory of his fiancée, but miraculously remembered his 'true love,' Chloe. He evicted me from our penthouse while I was still in surgery. He thought he had won. He thought the Canary would just die in the cold. He forgot one thing. I knew where he hid the bodies—literally. I walked into his staged public proposal, slammed my ring on the table, and left a note under it. *I remember everything. And so do you.* Then I boarded a plane with his secret incriminating journal in my bag. The empire was about to burn.

For three years, my husband Carter Hancock had erectile dysfunction. Or so he told me. I was the one who pulled him from a fiery car crash, and this marriage was his promise to cherish the hands that saved him. But tonight, I overheard him with my sister-in-law, Jodie. He confessed his condition was a lie to avoid touching me, and that he' d always loved her. Our marriage was just a sham to appease his grandfather. The betrayals kept coming. He claimed she was the one who saved him. He abandoned me during a landslide to rescue her. When I woke up in the hospital with broken ribs, he asked me to donate skin from my leg to fix a scratch on her face. He wanted to mutilate my body for the woman who stole my life, the woman carrying his secret child. My love was a burden, my sacrifice a joke they laughed about behind closed doors. Then I found the final, soul-crushing truth: our marriage certificate was a fake. I was never his wife, just a placeholder. That night, I picked up my phone and called the one person he' d warned me away from. "Alex," I whispered, my voice breaking. "I need to leave. Can you meet me in Europe?"

My son was dead. The official report called it a suicide, a drug overdose. But I knew it was a lie. I was a Crime Scene Investigator, and I had processed his body myself. The evidence screamed murder. I appealed, seven times, each time presenting irrefutable proof. Each time, District Attorney Bentley Shannon slammed the door in my face, dismissing my grief as delusion. The system I had served for twenty years was protecting a killer. So, I took the law into my own hands. I kidnapped the District Attorney's daughter, Dallas Shannon, and broadcast my demands to the world. For every chance he wasted, I would use a forensic tool on her, permanently disfiguring her. The world watched, horrified, as I stapled her arm, then cauterized it, drawing thin red lines on her skin with a scalpel. My former mentor, Dr. Hooper, and my son's girlfriend, Alexandra, were brought in to convince me, to paint my son as depressed, to present a fabricated suicide note. For a moment, I wavered, the pain of being a "bad mother" crushing me. But then I saw it—a hidden message in his "suicide note," a secret code from his favorite childhood book. He wasn't giving up; he was crying for help. They had twisted his plea into a lie. My grief burned away, replaced by an unbreakable resolve. "I do not accept this note," I declared, pressing the cauterizing pen to Dallas's leg as the FBI swarmed in.

My daughter's relentless tantrums finally broke me. It was for a week-long soccer tournament in Orlando, Florida, a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" according to her "cool" new coach, Sabrina. Exhausted, I agreed, believing my husband, Matt, couldn't come due to a massive work project. But one night in our hotel room, I woke to an empty bed. My heart pounded as I tiptoed to the balcony, where Maddy was whispering into her expensive new smartwatch – a gift from Sabrina. "Daddy," she murmured, "is Coach Sabrina feeling better now? You need to make sure all her stuff is out of our house before Mom gets home!" The world stopped. His "critical work project" was a lie. He was at our home. With her. Shaking, I checked Sabrina's Instagram. Her 'close friends' story opened to a picture of her in my bed, a man' s arm, identified by Matt's anniversary watch, wrapped around her. And right there, on my nightstand, a framed photo of me. It clicked. She wasn't just having an affair; she had paraded it in my home, documenting her conquest for me to find. The ultimate insult. Then, the true horror: Maddy. My sweet, innocent daughter. The tantrums, the desperate need for this trip – it was all a setup. My own child, a tiny accomplice in her father's monstrous betrayal. They needed me out of the house. The realization that my entire life had been a carefully orchestrated lie, using my own daughter as a pawn, curdled my blood. I didn't cry. I didn't scream. A chilling calm settled over me. There would be no second chances. There would be no return home. My lawyer would be in touch.

For five years, my best friend Elyse and I hid our elite identities, pouring our hearts and our immense resources into building my boyfriend Ethan and his brother Wesley' s media empire. Then, just as success was within reach, Ethan's voice, devoid of all warmth, flatly demanded my entire life savings, mirroring the cold betrayal he and his new socialite partner, Sabrina, launched against us. The final blow came when Wesley cruelly sold our beloved dog, Buddy, to a research lab for mere cash, an act of sheer barbarity that forced Elyse to stage her own death to escape their clutches and activate her family' s power. How could these men, whom we believed in and loved, dismiss us as simple baristas, exploit our hidden connections, and then destroy everything we held dear, even celebrating our presumed tragedy for their gain? But as they boasted of their triumphs and prepared to conquer Washington D.C., little did they know the "barista" they thought they'd destroyed was merely shedding her disguise, a powerful Heiress now returning to her home turf, ready to unleash a vengeance they could never comprehend.

I woke up in my own bed, familiar yet foreign. Everything that had shattered my first life flooded back. Years of Mark, my husband, shrinking me, and Tiffany, his high-school flame, twisting the knife. I remembered my miscarriage, the doctors' pronouncement: "You can't have more children." Then, our adopted son, Leo. My beautiful boy. But the crushing truth: he wasn't just "ours." He was theirs. They orchestrated it all, letting me pour my broken heart into raising their child, smirking behind my back as their free nanny, their convenient fool. That ultimate, horrifying betrayal had quite literally killed me. It wasn't just an affair; it was the audacious theft of my motherhood, the calculated destruction of my identity. How could they do it, believing I' d never uncover their lie? The injustice burned, an icy inferno. But now, I was back. It was the evening before Mark would tell me Tiffany was moving in, a moment that once broke me. This time, no tears, no desperate pleas. Only cold, silent calculation. And they were completely unprepared for the storm I was about to unleash.

My husband Mark called, his voice a whip crack in my ear, furious that I was in Napa enjoying wine instead of fretting over his mistress, Jessie. For seven years, his world revolved around Jessie' s endless dramas, her "fragile" state always prioritized over my needs, my feelings, or even the memory of my late father. I quietly drafted dissolution papers, shifting the names from generic "Jane Doe" to "Sarah Miller vs. Mark Thompson," a silent vow of freedom. He dismissed my pain, gaslighted my reality, and funneled our marital assets into Jessie' s lavish lifestyle, casually buying her a $15,000 designer bag when I couldn't get a few hundred for a work suit. The ultimate betrayal came during a scuba trip off La Jolla: he shoved me, his wife, directly into a shark's path to save Jessie, then abandoned me, celebrating with her on the boat while I gasped for air, bleeding. How could anyone be so utterly blind, so consumed by another's manufactured crisis, that they would sacrifice their own spouse and then, beaming, personally file divorce papers thinking they were for their mistress? He proudly signed away his future, thinking he was liberating Jessie, not realizing he was cementing my escape and sealing his own downfall. The game was on, and watching his oblivious delight, I knew I would win.

I woke in a hospital bed, my head throbbing, a void where seven years of my life should be. Doctors explained it was retrograde amnesia, specifically targeting emotional connections. My best friend, Liam, looked devastated when I asked, "Cassie? Who's Cassie?" Apparently, she was everything to me for seven long years, a love so deep it was almost painful. Yet, when I finally encountered this forgotten love, Cassie Vanderbilt, she was shockingly cold. She showed no concern for my accident, only annoyance, casting me aside for her ex-fiancé, Damian Pierce. Her dismissive eyes and cutting words instantly confirmed her indifference, echoing the tales of unrequited devotion from a private blog I found. She publicly validated Damian over me, humiliated me at a party, and even threw coffee in my face. When a fire erupted, she inexplicably chose to save Damian, leaving me to the flames. And later, when Damian brazenly stole my revolutionary tech project, AuraConnect, she stood by him, publicly discrediting me. Each fresh injury, inflicted by a woman I no longer remembered, compounded my confusion and pain. How could I have so desperately loved someone utterly devoid of compassion, even for a victim of severe memory loss? The weight of her constant betrayals, for a past I couldn't access, was a sickening burden. This constant cycle of humiliation left me bewildered, questioning the very essence of my forgotten self. I knew then: this forgotten past was toxic, and I would consciously choose to leave it behind. I fled Boston for Austin, embracing a clean slate and finding genuine happiness with Maya. But just as I started to build a new life, the darkness of my past, in the form of Damian and Cassie's schemes, roared back. They came for me, forcing a final, brutal confrontation that tore open old wounds and revealed a truth far more agonizing than I could have imagined.

On my way to the hospital to pick up medicine, I unexpectedly saw my disgusting neighbor maliciously pushing and squeezing a little girl! The little girl was on the verge of tears, her eyes pleading for help. I immediately stood up and switched places with her. Seeing this, the disgusting neighbor directly shoved the video he was playing in front of me, revealing a disgusting yellow-toothed smirk and saying, "Oh, you came just in time. Then you can watch action movies with me instead of her." I immediately struck back with a heavy blow, and then slowly laughed and said, "Old man, now it's your turn to star in it. How does that feel?"

Being second best is practically in my DNA. My sister got the love, the attention, the spotlight. And now, even her damn fiancé. Technically, Rhys Granger was my fiancé now-billionaire, devastatingly hot, and a walking Wall Street wet dream. My parents shoved me into the engagement after Catherine disappeared, and honestly? I didn't mind. I'd crushed on Rhys for years. This was my chance, right? My turn to be the chosen one? Wrong. One night, he slapped me. Over a mug. A stupid, chipped, ugly mug my sister gave him years ago. That's when it hit me-he didn't love me. He didn't even see me. I was just a warm-bodied placeholder for the woman he actually wanted. And apparently, I wasn't even worth as much as a glorified coffee cup. So I slapped him right back, dumped his ass, and prepared for disaster-my parents losing their minds, Rhys throwing a billionaire tantrum, his terrifying family plotting my untimely demise. Obviously, I needed alcohol. A lot of alcohol. Enter him. Tall, dangerous, unfairly hot. The kind of man who makes you want to sin just by existing. I'd met him only once before, and that night, he just happened to be at the same bar as my drunk, self-pitying self. So I did the only logical thing: I dragged him into a hotel room and ripped off his clothes. It was reckless. It was stupid. It was completely ill-advised. But it was also: Best. Sex. Of. My. Life. And, as it turned out, the best decision I'd ever made. Because my one-night stand isn't just some random guy. He's richer than Rhys, more powerful than my entire family, and definitely more dangerous than I should be playing with. And now, he's not letting me go.

She spent ten years chasing after the right brother, only to fall for the wrong one in one weekend. ~~~ Sloane Mercer has been hopelessly in love with her best friend, Finn Hartley, since college. For ten long years, she's stood by him, stitching him back together every time Delilah Crestfield-his toxic on-and-off girlfriend-shattered his heart. But when Delilah gets engaged to another man, Sloane thinks this might finally be her chance to have Finn for herself. She couldn't be more wrong. Heartbroken and desperate, Finn decides to crash Delilah's wedding and fight for her one last time. And he wants Sloane by his side. Reluctantly, Sloane follows him to Asheville, hoping that being close to Finn will somehow make him see her the way she's always seen him. Everything changes when she meets Knox Hartley, Finn's older brother-a man who couldn't be more different from Finn. He's dangerously magnetic. Knox sees right through Sloane and makes it his mission to pull her into his world. What starts as a game-a twisted bet between them-soon turns into something deeper. Sloane is trapped between two brothers: one who's always broken her heart and another who seems hell-bent on claiming it... no matter the cost. CONTENT WARNING: This story is strongly 18+. It delves into dark romance themes such as obsession and lust with morally complex characters. While this is a love story, reader discretion is advised.  

The rain in Detroit was slick with grime when my family finally came to fetch me. They didn't want a reunion; they wanted a sacrificial lamb to marry into the Kaufman empire to save their failing business. I thought I was just being sold off, but the limo ride ended under a dark overpass where six hired thugs were waiting with chains. My own sister had ordered them to "break my spirit" so I’d be a shaking, pathetic mess by the time I reached the altar. They called me "Detroit trash" and sprayed air freshener when I sat on their leather seats. My stepmother wanted a video of me begging for my life, and my father was ready to trade me like a used car to a man everyone called a "vegetable." They expected a submissive country girl, unaware that I was a high-level "cleaner" who could snap a radius bone before they could even scream. When I finally reached the Kaufman estate, I found my fiancé, Barron, slumped in a wheelchair, drooling and silent. But as soon as the doors closed, the "invalid" grabbed my wrist with a grip of iron and whispered a command that changed everything. I didn't understand why my own blood was so desperate to see me destroyed. What had I ever done to deserve a hit squad and a forced marriage to a man they thought was a corpse? But Barron isn't a vegetable, and I'm not a victim. We just touched down at the Moon family gala in a matte-black helicopter, and as the doors slide open, the "broken" bride is about to show them exactly what happens when you throw away the wrong daughter. "If we're going to crash a party," Barron whispered, his eyes burning with lethal clarity, "we should make an entrance."

Camille Lewis was the forgotten daughter, the unloved wife, the woman discarded like yesterday's news. Betrayed by her husband, cast aside by her own family, and left for dead by the sister who stole everything, she vanished without a trace. But the weak, naive Camille died the night her car was forced off that bridge. A year later, she returns as Camille Kane, richer, colder, and more powerful than anyone could have imagined. Armed with wealth, intelligence, and a hunger for vengeance, she is no longer the woman they once trampled on. She is the storm that will tear their world apart. Her ex-husband begs for forgiveness. Her sister's perfect life crumbles. Her parents regret the daughter they cast aside. But Camille didn't come back for apologies, she came back to watch them burn. But as her enemies fall at her feet, one question remains: when the revenge is over, what's left? A mysterious trillionaire Alexander Pierce steps into her path, offering something she thought she lost forever, a future. But can a woman built on ashes learn to love again? She rose from the fire to destroy those who betrayed her. Now, she must decide if she'll rule alone... or let someone melt the ice in her heart.

She hides behind ugly suits and fake names. He's done trusting women. When they meet in a masked sex club, neither realizes they've been fighting each other across boardroom tables for eighteen months. At Taylor Industries, she's Joy Smith-the frumpy CFO who drowns her curves in shapeless polyester and wearing a wig. At home, she's the forgotten wife of a cheating lawyer who hasn't touched her in so long she's starting to wonder if she's broken. When she finds hot pink lace panties stuffed in her couch cushions...definitely not hers, it's not heartbreak she feels. It's freedom. Grayson Taylor doesn't do relationships anymore. Not after walking in on his actress fiancée with another woman. Now he channels everything into hostile takeovers and board meetings, especially the ones where his overcautious CFO fights him on every goddamn acquisition. Joy Smith is brilliant, infuriating, and funny when he pushes all her buttons. But Honey is tired of being invisible. Tired of never having felt real pleasure. So, when her best friend gives her the details of The Velvet Room-Manhattan's most exclusive masked club-she promises herself just one night. One night to find out if her husband's right, if she really is frigid, or if she's just never been touched by the right hands. She doesn't expect the masked stranger who claims her the second she walks in. Doesn't expect the chemistry that ignites between them, the way he makes her body sing, or the orgasms that leave her shaking. Doesn't expect him to hand her an email address with one command: "Only me. No one else touches you."

I was at my own engagement party at the Sterling estate when the world started tilting. Victoria Sterling, my future mother-in-law, smiled coldly as she watched me struggle with a cup of tea that had been drugged to ruin me. Before I could find my fiancé, Ryan, a waiter dragged me into the forbidden West Wing and locked me in a room with Julian Sterling, the family’s "fallen titan" who had been confined to a wheelchair for years. The door burst open to a frenzy of camera flashes and theatrical screams. Victoria framed me as a seductress caught in the act, and Ryan didn't even try to listen to my pleas, calling me "cheap leftovers" before walking away with his pregnant mistress. When I turned to my own family for help, my father signed a document severing our relationship for a five-million-dollar payout from Julian. They traded me like a commodity without a second thought. I didn't understand why my own parents were so eager to sell me, or how Ryan could look at me with such disgust after promising me forever. I was a sacrifice, a pawn used to protect the family's offshore accounts, and I couldn't fathom how every person I loved had a price tag for my destruction. With nowhere left to go, I married Julian in a bleak ceremony at City Hall. He slid a heavy diamond onto my finger and whispered, "We have a war to start." That night, inside his secret penthouse, I watched the paralyzed man stand up from his wheelchair and activate a screen filled with the Sterling family's darkest secrets. The execution had officially begun.

I was sitting in the Presidential Suite of The Pierre, wearing a Vera Wang gown worth more than most people earn in a decade. It was supposed to be the wedding of the century, the final move to merge two of Manhattan's most powerful empires. Then my phone buzzed. It was an Instagram Story from my fiancé, Jameson. He was at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris with a caption that read: "Fuck the chains. Chasing freedom." He hadn't just gotten cold feet; he had abandoned me at the altar to run across the world. My father didn't come in to comfort me. He burst through the door roaring about a lost acquisition deal, telling me the Holland Group would strip our family for parts if the ceremony didn't happen by noon. My stepmother wailed about us becoming the laughingstock of the Upper East Side. The Holland PR director even suggested I fake a "panic attack" to make myself look weak and sympathetic to save their stock price. Then Jameson’s sleazy cousin, Pierce, walked in with a lopsided grin, offering to "step in" and marry me just to get his hands on my assets. I looked at them and realized I wasn't a daughter or a bride to anyone in that room. I was a failed asset, a bouncing check, a girl whose own father told her to go to Paris and "beg" the man who had just publicly humiliated her. The girl who wanted to be loved died in that mirror. I realized that if I was going to be sold to save a merger, I was going to sell myself to the one who actually controlled the money. I marched past my parents and walked straight into the VIP holding room. I looked the most powerful man in the room—Jameson’s cold, ruthless uncle, Fletcher Holland—dead in the eye and threw the iPad on the table. "Jameson is gone," I said, my voice as hard as stone. "Marry me instead."

"I will marry you. Wait for me!" Mabel woke up. She had that dream again. In her dream, a man said he would marry her. Just a dream. Five years ago, she was set up by her stepsister and became pregnant out of wedlock. She lost everything, including her baby. Five years later, she was forced to marry her stepsister's fiance, Jayden, who was sick and going to pass away. Having no choice, Mabel decided to marry Jayden, not expecting that Jayden was the man...

I received a pornographic video. "Do you like this?" The man speaking in the video is my husband, Mark, whom I haven't seen for several months. He is naked, his shirt and pants scattered on the ground, thrusting forcefully on a woman whose face I can't see, her plump and round breasts bouncing vigorously. I can clearly hear the slapping sounds in the video, mixed with lustful moans and grunts. "Yes, yes, fuck me hard, baby," the woman screams ecstatically in response. "You naughty girl!" Mark stands up and flips her over, slapping her buttocks as he speaks. "Stick your ass up!" The woman giggles, turns around, sways her buttocks, and kneels on the bed. I feel like someone has poured a bucket of ice water on my head. It's bad enough that my husband is having an affair, but what's worse is that the other woman is my own sister, Bella. ************************************************************************************************************************ "I want to get a divorce, Mark," I repeated myself in case he didn't hear me the first time-even though I knew he'd heard me clearly. He stared at me with a frown before answering coldly, "It's not up to you! I'm very busy, don't waste my time with such boring topics, or try to attract my attention!" The last thing I was going to do was argue or bicker with him. "I will have the lawyer send you the divorce agreement," was all I said, as calmly as I could muster. He didn't even say another word after that and just went through the door he'd been standing in front of, slamming it harshly behind him. My eyes lingered on the knob of the door a bit absentmindedly before I pulled the wedding ring off my finger and placed it on the table. I grabbed my suitcase, which I'd already had my things packed in and headed out of the house.

I just got my billionaire husband to sign our divorce papers. He thinks it's another business document. Our marriage was a business transaction. I was his secretary by day, his invisible wife by night. He got a CEO title and a rebellion against his mother; I got the money to save mine. The only rule? Don't fall in love. I broke it. He didn't. So I'm cashing out. Thirty days from now, I'm gone. But now he's noticing me. Touching me. Claiming me. The same man who flaunts his mistresses is suddenly burning down a nightclub because another man insulted me. He says he'll never let me go. But he has no idea I'm already halfway out the door. How far will a billionaire go to keep a wife he never wanted until she tried to leave?