Finley Steele

I opened the door to my penthouse, only to see my stepsister's limited-edition Louboutins discarded on the foyer rug. Walking into the master bedroom, I caught my fiancé and my stepsister tangled naked in my bed. When I went back to the family estate to settle the score, my father didn't even care. Instead, he and my stepmother demanded I take my stepsister's place to save the family's reputation. "You will marry the seventy-year-old billionaire next month. We can't ruin your sister's life," my father ordered. Looking at their hypocritical faces, the last shred of my family affection died completely. They really thought I would just accept being their sacrificial pawn while they stole my mother's legacy. So, I pinned them down with a blackmail video of the affair, extorted my father for my shares, and walked out into the freezing night. To numb the betrayal, I went to an underground club, slept with a terrifyingly powerful stranger, and left a red lipstick note on his forehead. "Your technique sucks. Keep the change." Then, I vanished abroad without a trace. Five years later, I returned to New York with my three children, ready to take back everything that was mine. But I didn't expect that the "cheap gigolo" from that night was actually Kendall James, the most ruthless corporate titan in the city. And he had just spotted my five-year-old son—his exact miniature replica—standing right beside me.

I was the Luna of Silver Lake, yet I spent my mornings cooking eggs for my Alpha mate while his mistress, Keyla, sat in my rightful seat. I endured the humiliation for the sake of the bond, until the day my mother found Keyla poisoning the pack's water supply. To hide her crime, Keyla murdered my mother in cold blood. I screamed for justice, begging Garrison to open his eyes. But he didn't look at the evidence. He looked at the merger Keyla’s father offered. "She's hysterical," he told the guards, stepping over my mother's body to protect his mistress. To seal their alliance, he dragged me to the Great Hall and publicly rejected me, severing our soul-bond to sell me off to a sadistic Alpha for mining rights. He expected me to beg. He expected the weak, bloodline-cursed Omega to crumble. Instead, I accepted the rejection with a smile. That night, I drank a potion to erase my scent and threw myself into the storm, faking my death. Garrison thinks I’m a corpse at the bottom of a cliff, and rumors say he’s finally drowning in regret. He has no idea that the pain didn't kill me. It triggered the ancient, legendary blood of the White Wolf. Now, standing on the ridge with a Rogue mercenary army, I’m no longer the wife who cooks breakfast. I’m the monster at his gates, and I won't stop until his entire world is ash.

On my wedding day, my fiancé of ten years left me at the altar for another woman. He sent a simple text: "Haylee needs me." Hours later, that same woman ran me over with her car, causing me to lose our baby. But when I woke up in the hospital, my fiancé stood over me with a chilling demand. "Drop the charges against Haylee," he said, his voice cold. "She's too sensitive for prison. You're strong, Kira. You can handle this." To ensure my compliance, he threatened to release a humiliating video of my mother, who was suffering from dementia. I gave in, only to learn that Haylee had already tormented my mother with cruel whispers, driving her to suicide. The betrayal was absolute. He had not only destroyed my body and our child but had also orchestrated my mother's death to protect his new love. He thought he had broken me, leaving me with nothing. But as I lay shattered in that hospital bed, an email arrived from his biggest competitor. They offered me a new identity, a new life, and the power to make him pay for everything. They wanted me to fake my own death.

After ten years of devotion to my mate, Alpha Locke, today was supposed to be my coronation as Luna of the Silver Moon pack. A celebration of my unwavering loyalty. But just before the ceremony, I overheard him talking to his Beta. He called me a "barren field" and sneered that he was replacing me with his pregnant mistress, Debbie. He even made a bet that I would come crawling back within three days. In front of the entire pack, he announced Debbie as the new Luna, holding up a fake doctor's note as proof of my failure. When I tried to walk away, I was accused of attacking her. Locke's Alpha Command slammed into me, forcing me to my knees. "She has attacked your future Luna," he declared, his eyes filled with contempt. His final order was for the whips. Laced with silver, they tore my back open before his warriors threw me out like trash, leaving me to die in the forest. I blacked out from the pain and poison, only to wake up a prisoner once more. Staring down at me was the terrifying Alpha of our rival pack, Ron Moss. He looked at my tattered clothes and bleeding wounds, and his voice was a cold, questioning murmur as he repeated the words that had haunted me for years. "A useless she-wolf?"

My mate, Alpha Kaelen, was supposed to be my everything. But in his eyes, I was just a placeholder for the other woman in his life, Lyra. When Lyra claimed she was attacked by Rogues and pregnant with a bastard pup, Kaelen made his choice. He commanded me to tell the pack elders that I was the one who had been defiled. He commanded me to claim Lyra's child as my own. Then, when I discovered I was pregnant with our own pup, he gave me his final command: go to the Healer and get rid of it. Our child, he said, would cause Lyra too much stress. He gave her sweet comfort through their private mind-link while ordering me to kill our baby. I was a tool for his convenience. She was a treasure to be protected. But when his mother locked me in a silver-lined cell, leaving me to miscarry our pup in a pool of my own blood, the last of my love turned to ash. As I lay there, broken and empty, I gathered the last of my strength and let out a howl I hadn't used since I was a child. It was a sacred call for my family—the royal family of the Whitefang Clan—to come and collect their princess.

"I want the foreign correspondent position in the S-Region." My voice was steady, cutting through the quiet. It was a death wish, my editor said. But I needed out. My husband, Mark Johnson, had become a stranger. His world revolved around Sarah Hayes, the widow of his fallen partner. I cooked his favorite meal, waited for hours, only for him to say, "Sarah was feeling down. I took her to that Italian place she likes." My life with Mark was a slow, painful erosion. One night, I clutched my stomach, a sharp pain seizing me. "Something's wrong," I choked out, "Mark, help me." He sighed, exasperated. "Can't this wait? Sarah is upset." I left the apartment and drove myself to the hospital. "You're about seven weeks pregnant," the doctor said, adding that the pregnancy was unstable and risky. My mind reeled back to my previous miscarriage, two years ago, when Mark had been too busy. I looked at Mark, sitting cozily with Sarah on our couch, a portrait of domestic bliss. "The doctor said it was just a stomach bug," I lied, unable to bear their false concern. He then asked me to help Sarah cook dinner. I looked at my hands, raw from cleaning and work, and hurled a plate against the wall. "No," I said, "I will not." Sarah offered me an expensive hand cream Mark had bought her. A hot, sharp anger flared. This was my life; this was my home. I would not be buried.

The "Brewery of the Year" award felt like a cold stone in my hand, heavy with the unspoken weight of my wife, Jenny's, silence. She was the General Manager, the face on stage, thanking everyone but me, the head brewer, the one who actually crafted the award-winning beer. I was used to being invisible, just "Ethan Clark, the technician," a replaceable employee in her eyes, despite being the silent 65% owner of the brewery I started with my college roommate. At the party, a sales rep asked when Jenny and I would start a "brewing dynasty," and she laughed a sharp, dismissive laugh. "I'm not putting my career on hold to have a baby for any man. It's not worth it." Her words hung in the air, a public declaration that numbed me. Back home, I found a package from a fertility clinic addressed to her. My heart pounded as I opened it. Inside, a detailed IVF statement confirmed she was one month pregnant. Then, my blood ran cold: the donor was listed as "Wesley Todd." Wes, her "gay best friend," the man with the pitying, contemptuous gaze. The pieces slammed into place. She stormed in an hour later with Wes, scoffing at my divorce demand. "It's not about the joke, Jenny," I said, voice flat. She brazenly explained her twisted plan: "Wes's family is very conservative... I agreed to be a surrogate for him. We did IVF. We're going to have a modern family together." The audacity, the gaslighting, the sheer arrogance of their betrayal left me with a wave of pure disgust. "The divorce is final," I told them. "And I'm selling the house. You have twenty-four hours." The next morning, they tried to fire me from my own brewery, strutting in with fake authority. That' s when my CEO, Matthew, finally revealed the truth to a stunned Jenny: "He was never just an employee, Jenny. He's the boss. He's always been the boss." Why did she, the woman who claimed "visionary leadership," never bother to check who truly owned the company she flaunted? And what dark secrets about her and Wes were about to spill out?

The crystal chandeliers of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts glittered, reflecting what should have been the most perfect night of my life. My fiancée, Gabby Chadwick, stood on that gala stage, not hand-in-hand with me, but clasped firmly with Tony Johns, the very quarterback my family had plucked from obscurity. "My heart belongs to Tony," her amplified voice echoed, shattering the stunned silence and every last piece of my dignity. "Ryan and I are over." In that flash of a camera, I, Ryan Fowler, son of an oil tycoon, became a public spectacle, the jilted fiancé, left standing alone in a sea of whispers and pity. My parents, pillars of Houston society, saw not a heartbroken son, but a "publicly castrated" embarrassment, a "laughingstock." "That boy is dead," my mother declared, her eyes hard as diamonds, as my father exiled me to the brutal oil rigs, demanding I learn to build my own power. They thought they had broken me. But as I tasted the ash of their disappointment, a different kind of fire ignited within me. I swore then and there, the words a silent vow: I will come back, and I will dismantle everything the Chadwicks have ever built. I will make her regret the day she ever knew my name.

Emily Carter, a young woman battling a chronic illness while struggling in poverty, yearned for recognition from her wealthy CEO father, David Harrison. The night he received a major philanthropy award, she hoped to bridge their estrangement by presenting her research for a community health clinic, a tangible demonstration of her capabilities. Instead, she was publicly humiliated by her stepsister Brittany and met with cold, outright rejection from David. His cruel words echoed: "I'm done supporting you and your mother's legacy of shame." Unbeknownst to David, his wife Victoria and Brittany had systematically drained Emily's trust fund, sabotaged her reputation, and ensured her desperate pleas-even for her sick dog, Scout-were dismissed. Despite winning a full Johns Hopkins scholarship, every attempt Emily made to prove her worth was met with suspicion and further manipulation, leaving her isolated and ultimately, mourning the loss of her beloved companion. How could a man celebrated for developing life-saving drugs remain utterly blind to his own daughter's silent suffering and aspirations? Why did he continuously believe the insidious lies orchestrated by his new family, seeing Emily only as a burden, a "nuisance"? The crushing pain of his persistent rejection felt like a fresh wound on an age-old scar. Dying in a hospice on her 18th birthday, Emily sent a final, heartbreaking voice message to her father, asking only for him to say her name. His anonymous, impersonal text reply was the last devastating blow, sealing her tragic fate and unknowingly igniting a catastrophic unraveling of his carefully constructed reality.

For three years, librarian Sarah Miller has lived with a broken heart and a literal failing one, mourning her smokejumper husband Ethan, presumed lost in a massive wildfire. Then, a shocking phone call reveals Ethan is alive, but he has amnesia, calls himself Ash, and is building a new life with an entirely different woman who is pregnant with his child. Sarah travels across the country to confront him, only to find him utterly unrecognizable, showering a new love, Olivia, with the tenderness he once reserved for Sarah, even gifting her the silver locket that symbolized their eternal bond. The man she vowed "till death do us part" looks through her as if she's a stranger, the pain of his forgetfulness clashing with the unbearable sight of their most sacred token adorning another woman. Despite her own dwindling days and a heart shattered anew, Sarah chooses to hide her true identity, posing as his long-lost sister "Grace" in a desperate, selfless act to preserve his newfound happiness, even if it means dying in silence, forever erased from his memory.

For ten years, Liam was my world, tucked away in the grand halls of New England life as my secret love. He was the rough kid my sister Eleanor brought home, now a success in our family' s foundation, and to me, he was everything. Then a single Instagram post detonated my carefully constructed reality. Liam, radiant, with Chloe-his high school sweetheart-and a caption that twisted my gut: "Some things are worth waiting for." The air left my lungs as a decade of shared whispers dissolved into a public declaration for another woman. He dismissed it as a "drunken dare," then a "work crisis." But Chloe' s Instagram screamed their reunion, turning his blatant lies into a sickening mockery. Then, at a charity gala, he pulled her into a deep, consuming kiss-right in front of me. He abandoned me moments later when she feigned injury. How could someone who vowed such deep, secret love so casually erase our ten years, choosing instead a brutal public charade of betrayal and humiliation? The man I thought I knew was a stranger, and the vast emptiness where my love used to be threatened to consume me. With nothing left but shattered pride, I walked away that night and made a drastic decision. I would marry Ethan Prescott, not for love, but to reclaim my life. But even as I stood at the altar, ready to rebuild, I knew Liam wouldn't let me go without one last, desperate attempt to reclaim what he'd already destroyed.

My life in Austin was comfortable, idyllic even.   My parents owned a successful chain of organic cafes, and I was five months pregnant, planning a future with Kevin, the man I thought was different.   Then, sitting in our apartment, his mom Karen watched like a hawk as Kevin slid a  "Domestic Partnership Agreement"  across the coffee table.   Its terms were chilling: I'd waive all rights to his property, any large financial gifts from my wealthy parents would become "joint assets" solely managed by him, and marriage was indefinitely deferred.   My stomach twisted.   What I thought was a loving partnership revealed itself as a calculated heist.   Karen, who cooed about baby names last week, now had eyes small and calculating, her voice flatly stating it was "to protect Kevin."   They conveniently forgot my parents paid for our entire lives.   They saw me as a naive rich girl, easily separated from her family's money.   It wasn't smart; it was a brazen attempt at extortion.   How could he, and his mother, be so utterly devoid of decency, treating me like a walking ATM?   But under the shock, a cold clarity formed.   The devastation transformed into a fierce resolve.   I wouldn't just walk away; I would make them pay.   Feigning agreement, I proposed signing their predatory document after my parents' generous baby shower gift.   Then, I called my lawyer best friend, Chloe.   "You are not going to believe what these parasites just tried to pull," I told her, knowing exactly what came next: it was time for a plan, and for them to burn.

I had a car accident. Good news, I was reborn. Bad news, I was reborn as a speaker. I cried and howled day and night in sadness. Finally, I mourned for a month to accept reality. I started my life as a speaker. As a speaker with normal needs, I sang and danced every night. But... I thought the owner of this house was deaf, but it turns out he was just pretending. Later, he actually confessed his feelings to me. Hungry? Do you have a strong taste? This world has finally turned upside down.

To help her husband build his business empire, Veyra worked two jobs, skipped meals, and sacrificed everything she had. When her mother desperately needed life-saving treatment, she couldn't even scrape together the money. Then, on a New Year's Eve flight, fate seated her beside her husband's mistress. That's when she discovered the cruel truth. Her husband had secretly amassed millions long ago. The wedding ring that belonged to Veyra now glittered on another woman's finger. The $500,000 that could have saved her mother's life had been spent instead on luxury gifts and pocket money for his lover. She lost her baby. She lost her mother. And finally, she lost every illusion about the man she'd loved for years. After leaving the airport, Veyra walked into a bar, kissed the most dangerous-looking stranger she could find, and spent one reckless night in his arms. By sunrise, she disappeared without leaving so much as her name. She thought it was nothing more than a farewell to her broken past. She was wrong. The stranger was Dorian-the most powerful, mysterious billionaire in the business world. Meanwhile, her cheating husband finally realized what he had thrown away. He begged on his knees, signed a postnuptial agreement worth billions, and swore he would give up everything if she would come back. But just as Veyra began plotting to reclaim everything that had been stolen from her, a mysterious car accident brought Dorian back into her life. Only then did she learn the truth. He wasn't a stranger at all. He was her ex-husband's older stepbrother. Now two powerful men are fighting for the same woman-one consumed by regret, the other determined to make her his. Sorry, cheating ex... I choose your brother.

One lab error. Two betrayals. And a billionaire who doesn't believe in accidents. Emily Vance thought she was carrying a miracle. After her fiancé, Julian, ended up in a coma following a horrific car crash, she underwent IVF to keep his legacy alive. It was supposed to be her anchor. Instead, a clinical mix-up reveals that the child in her womb isn't Julian's at all. It belongs to Alistair Wolfe, a man whose name is synonymous with ruthless power and a heart made of ice. The nightmare doesn't stop at the doctor's office. When Julian finally wakes up, he doesn't call for Emily. He calls for her stepsister, Chloe, revealing a secret affair that turns Emily's years of loyalty into a joke. Backed into a corner by a family ready to sell her to a predatory debt collector to save their failing business, Emily is left with a devastating choice. Her doctors warn her that this is her last chance at motherhood. To keep her baby and escape her family's reach, she has to make a deal with the wolf at the door. Alistair Wolfe wants his heir. Emily wants protection. No love. No strings. Just a temporary union until the child is born. But as Emily moves into Alistair's world, she quickly learns that playing the wife of a man like Alistair is a high-stakes game where the heart is the first thing you lose.

Amelia sat alone at the City Marriage Bureau, watching the clock tick down to closing time. Fifteen minutes before the doors shut, a phone call shattered her last flicker of hope. Her fiancé, Kayson, wasn't coming. He had abandoned their wedding registration because Kamila-her stepsister-had twisted her ankle. It was his ninth broken promise. When Amelia returned home, there was no comfort. Her biological mother sneered at her humiliation, shielding the stepsister while ordering Amelia to apologize to Kayson. "Who would she marry without Kayson?" her mother mocked. "Let's see how long she survives out there without his money." Meanwhile, Kayson arrogantly dismissed her absence. Finding out she had vanished, he just laughed it off with his assistant. "It's just a tantrum to force my hand," Kayson smirked. "She still can't live without me." After nine years of absolute devotion, she was nothing but a convenient placeholder to the man she loved, and a worthless joke to her own family. The suffocating weight of their betrayal finally snapped something inside her. She packed a single suitcase, threw away nine years of anniversary gifts, and permanently blocked Kayson's number. Standing in the freezing wind, she pulled out her phone and dialed the private number of Kayson's biggest, most ruthless rival. "Mr. Thornton, what you said seven months ago... does the offer to marry me still stand?" Ten minutes later, a sleek black Maybach pulled up to the curb.

To revenge herself on her unfaithful fiancé Kevin, Isidora hides her striking beauty behind a plain disguise, and targets his uncle - the most formidable man Kevin fears. After one reckless night, Isidora leaves cash as payment and says lightly, "You were good last night." She tries to leave quietly, but is pulled into his arms. "You think you can walk away after this?" he says, his tone low and possessive. Cedrick is a feared, untouchable titan on Wall Street - elegant, aloof, and completely uninterested in women. Not even the most beautiful socialites in the city can catch his eye. When gossip spreads that he was seen pressing a woman against a wall and kissing her fiercely, no one believes it. When the rumors name Isidora, the crowd scoffs. He rejects even the most beautiful women, so why would he notice a plain girl like her? All doubt disappears when they see the dignified Cedrick drop to one knee to help Isidora with her shoe, pleading softly for just one kiss. When Kevin finally sees Isidora's true beauty and begs for forgiveness. But Cedrick kicks him out at once, slams a marriage certificate on the table, and says sharply. "Call her Aunt."

For seven years, Rose Bennett was Ryan Knight's secret wife. While all of New York believed Samantha Hikk would become Mrs. Knight, Rose silently endured a cold marriage to a man who never loved her. Until one night, Samantha is rushed into Rose's emergency room pregnant. and Ryan is the one protecting her. That is the night Rose stops loving him. What Ryan never knew was that Rose had already given birth to his daughter years ago after he rejected both mother and child without hesitation. So Rose walks away-with only two suitcases, a hidden daughter, and the shattered remains of seven years. But the woman Ryan abandoned is no ordinary wife. Rose is the hidden genius behind Aetheris Medical AI, the revolutionary system about to change the entire medical world. As Rose rises to the top, becoming untouchable, powerful, and impossible to replace, Ryan finally realizes the devastating truth- He didn't lose a woman who loved him. He lost the only woman he would ever love. And by then, even their daughter no longer calls him father.

They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, mine didn't. I came back with a marriage certificate bearing a stranger's name, a ring worth more than my parents' love ever was, and a son whose father I've never seen, never known, never remembered. I went to Vegas for a racing competition. I won. I celebrated. And somewhere between the victory and the sunrise, my life changed forever. For six years, I've lived with the consequences of one reckless night. I built an empire. I raised my son. And I searched for the man who changed my life without even knowing it. Then fate laughed in my face. My sister married my ex-fiancé-the man I was promised to since childhood. The man I was supposed to become Mrs. Windsor for. The man who now wears my family name... and looks far too much like my child. Every time I'm near him, the past presses closer. Every glance feels like a question I'm terrified to ask. I shouldn't notice him. I shouldn't feel anything. He is my sister's husband. But some secrets refuse to stay buried. Because the truth about Vegas isn't just in the ring on my finger or the child in my arms. It's standing right in front of me. And when it finally comes out, it won't just destroy a marriage, it will burn an empire to the ground.

My four-year-old daughter was dying of leukemia, waiting desperately for a bone marrow transplant. I begged my billionaire husband to just call the registry or visit her, but he claimed he was too busy with board meetings to care. Until the hospital informed me that my daughter's life-saving bone marrow had been suddenly reallocated to another patient. When I walked down the VIP hallway, I found my husband. He wasn't at a board meeting. He was gently peeling an apple, playing the loving father to his widowed mistress's daughter. When my pale, sick daughter called out for him, he instinctively stepped back in disgust. I later discovered the mistress had bribed the hospital to swap the registry numbers, stealing my daughter's marrow for her own child. When I demanded a divorce, my husband laughed in my face. "You haven't worked a day in four years. You're a purchased asset. You don't get to walk away." He threatened to freeze my accounts, assuming I would be starving on the streets and begging to come back. His family and the mistress publicly mocked my background, waiting for me to be utterly humiliated. They thought I was just a useless, penniless housewife who relied entirely on his last name to survive. They didn't know I never needed a single cent of his money. I packed my bags, took my daughter, and made a single phone call. Three days later, at his family's elite banquet, my husband waited to see me beg. Instead, the most powerful corporate magnate in North America walked right past him, bowed to me at a perfect ninety-degree angle, and spoke. "Welcome back to the throne, Madam."

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."

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.

Maddison Huston loses everything in one night; her job, her home, her reputation, and the man she loved. Branded a seductress and cast aside at her ex-lover's wedding, she is left broken, homeless, and humiliated. One drunken night leads to a dangerous encounter with a stranger whose touch she can't forget, only to discover he is Aldric Hawthorne, the ruthless CEO who holds her fate in his hands. ************************************************** "That's how you show appreciation?" he asked quietly. "To someone who saved you from danger? Protected you because you were careless enough to drink yourself unconscious in a bar?" I blinked in confusion. "Protected. me?" "Yes. And you dare accuse me of taking advantage of you? Seriously, Miss Huston?" He stopped in front of me and trailed his eyes from my legs up to my face. I felt cornered, stupid and confused. "No, I remember everything." I tried to keep my voice steady but my shaking breaths betrayed me. "You kissed me, you touched me, you even." I trailed on my last words because I couldn't bring myself to say it. His eyes glinted with something I couldn't read. "You don't seem to have recovered from the alcohol," he said with a smirk on his face, stepping closer while I backed away until my back hit the wall. His arm braced beside my head, and my breath caught as he leaned in, heat radiating from his body like fire contained in a man. "You must be so delusional to have imagined me having sex with you," he murmured, his lips brushing so close to my ear my knees weakened. My breath stuttered. "I didn't imagine-" He lifted my chin to look at him, his mouth hovered on my lips and his hot breaths hitting my face; My heart was beating so fast at the closeness and the look in his eyes, like he was going to devour me. Then his voice dropped into a dark whisper behind my ear. "I don't fuck virgins." My stomach flipped as his breath grazed my neck. How did he know?