Pike

The table was set for our fifth wedding anniversary, with his favorite meal and a carefully wrapped gift, but my phone buzzed with a text that erased it all: "Something came up at work. Can\'t make it." Just that. No apology, no explanation. A familiar hollowness spread through me, deepened by the sight of his briefcase, unlatched by the door, a thick manila envelope peeking out. What I found inside shattered everything: pre-signed divorce papers, dated three months ago, detailing a "dissolution of marriage." My husband, Mark, had been planning to discard me. The betrayal hit me with a physical force, a wave of nausea. Five years of my life, put on hold for him, for our home, only to be thrown away like yesterday' s news. Then it all clicked – the distance, the late nights, the sudden reappearance of Emily, his "first love." She wasn' t just back in town; she was back in his life. I remembered the company dinner, the way he' d ignored me, the way Emily had purred, "Some things are just meant to be, aren\'t they?" He hadn' t just neglected me; he had actively replaced me. I had been a fool, lying to myself, pretending not to see the obvious cracks in our marriage. The humiliation, sharp and painful, burned through me. He wanted out? Fine. He could have it. But he wouldn' t be the one to end this on his terms. I stood up, walked to his briefcase, and meticulously placed the divorce papers exactly as I' d found them. Then, I went upstairs, to the room we' d shared for five years, and began to pack. He wouldn' t be the one to discard me. I was leaving him.

Three years ago, I was Ava, an AI research star on the cusp of changing the world, deeply in love with my fiancé, Mark, my partner in every sense. Then, a rival company framed me for corporate espionage, and the man I loved, my legal advisor, stood in court and testified against me, his calm words sealing my fate. Released from prison, I found Mark a Silicon Valley titan, his empire built on my stolen research, the very work he now claimed as his own, his sister Clara whispering venom to ensure my continued subservience. He declared he' d take care of me, only to trap me in a luxurious apartment, subtly sabotaging every attempt I made at independence, crushing my professional and personal life. Why would the man who loved me do this? Why would he actively destroy me, then pretend to be my savior? His actions were a twisted perversion of love, a calculated move to break my spirit and control my ambition, reducing me to a shell of who I once was. Just as despair threatened to consume me, a surprising offer from Liam, Mark's fiercest rival, ignited a flicker of hope, forcing me to decide: crumble under Mark's crushing control, or rise from the ashes to fight for my stolen identity and reclaim my future.

I woke up to find that I had lost five years of my memory. I was told that I had been married to Caspian, the ruthless Godfather of the New York Mafia, for five years. I had harbored a crush on him for a long time, so marrying him should have been good news. But the terrible truth was, he didn't seem to love me. After losing my five years of memory, he felt like nothing more than a stranger to me. "Break the blood oath, Caspian," I said. "We're getting a divorce." Yet later, he would pace outside my door late at night, refusing to leave: "Darling, just look at me one more time, please?"

For three years, I was Dante Moretti's secret. I was the Underboss's property, the cure for a violent curse that plagued him. He promised that if he wasn't married by his twenty-fifth birthday, I would be his bride. But on the eve of that birthday, he ended our arrangement. He brought home another woman, Sienna, and introduced me as "the help." Sienna, with feigned innocence, knocked a precious memento from my hand, shattering it. When I confronted her, Dante slapped me twice in public, the humiliation searing my soul. Later, I discovered Sienna had framed me for kidnapping her, a lie Dante readily believed. To force a confession, he had my mother tied in a sack and thrown into the freezing lake to drown. He left her there to die. That was the moment the girl who loved him died, too. I saved my mother, and we fled the country, seeking refuge with my childhood friend, Julian. I thought I had escaped. But then Dante appeared in Australia, begging for forgiveness. I rejected him, choosing a future with Julian. I thought it was over. Until a car, driven by a vengeful Sienna, barreled towards us. The last thing I saw was Dante throwing himself in front of me, taking the full impact.

My daughter, Emily, lay brutally assaulted in a hospital bed, clinging to life. But the real nightmare began when my wife, Jessica, cold and unfeeling, told me the police found Emily' s blood on my jacket. The Assistant District Attorney I married betrayed me instantly, letting the police drag me away while she watched. She froze my assets, publicly shamed me, and twisted our shared love for Emily' s art into proof of my depravity. Driving home, a dashcam recording exposed her chilling plot with her ex-lover, Ethan: they orchestrated Emily' s attack to frame me, seize my brewery, and coldly deemed Emily's suffering a "small price." Even worse, I learned Jessica had been feeding him information for years, believing his lies that I had wronged her, making her a willing participant in the scheme to destroy me. How could the woman I loved, Emily's mother, be such a monster? The betrayal was a physical blow, choking me, drowning me in a profound sense of injustice and utter powerlessness. But after Ethan and Jessica left me for dead, a hospital call pierced the darkness: Emily was awake. And she had named her attacker.

On our tenth mating anniversary, I stood outside my Alpha husband's office with his favorite coffee, only to be hit by the cloying scent of rotting peaches—a female in heat. Through the mind-link, I heard him promise his mistress he'd deal with the "boring formalities" regarding me tonight. I walked in to find him plotting with his pregnant assistant, Jami. Instead of apologizing, Dustin sneered at me. "She gave me in three months what you couldn't give me in ten years. A strong lineage." He conveniently forgot that I was the one who built his empire, designed his impenetrable wards, and funded his lifestyle by selling my own family heirlooms. When I confronted him about the betrayal, he didn't just dismiss me; he shoved me. I crashed into a silver nightstand. For a normal wolf, silver is an irritant. For me, a descendant of the White Wolf bloodline, it is acid. As my flesh sizzled and blood poured down my face, blinding me, Dustin didn't even flinch. He stepped over my convulsing body—his wife of a decade—to ask his mistress if she was stressed. Lying on the floor, watching him comfort the woman wearing my mother's stolen ring, the bond finally died. He thought I was a broken, barren Luna who would accept his scraps just to keep her title. He was wrong. I didn't call the police. I called a specialist extraction team. "I am the architect of this pack's security and financial systems," I told the crew. "Decommission everything." I wasn't just leaving. I was taking my empire with me.

I lost my leg saving my husband, Kingsley. My ballet career was over, but my dying mother had secured a perfect heart transplant for my sister, Julia. We had hope. Then Kingsley gave her heart away. He and his mistress traded it for a business deal. Julia died. When I confronted him at the hospital, he shoved me against a wall. The fall didn't just shatter my world; it caused me to miscarry the baby I never knew I was carrying. In a single night, he took my sister and my child. As I lay bleeding on the floor, I looked at the man I once sacrificed everything for and made a promise. "You will regret this for the rest of your life." I divorced him and disappeared. A year and a half later, he found me, a broken man begging for forgiveness. I looked him in the eye and gave him my final answer. "There are no second chances for murder."

The doctors gave me three years to live. I used every last bit of my strength to marry Cedric Moon, the man I loved. On our wedding night, he abandoned me for another woman. He brought her into our home, forcing me to serve her. He made me apologize for crimes I didn't commit. His family despised me, but they adored her. Then came the staged kidnapping. To save her, Cedric traded me—his pregnant wife—to the man holding a knife. As the blade pressed against my throat, I heard my husband's voice yell at the police. "Shoot!"

Nathan Cross, the infamous underworld boss, married Jane Rivers on the day her family's wealth collapsed. He had harbored a secret love for her for a decade. After their marriage, he treated her like royalty. Jane believed she had found the right man, until their fifth year together. She discovered she was pregnant, but Nathan, who had always cherished her, demanded she terminate the pregnancy. She overheard him speaking with a friend and learned that Nathan had betrayed her with another woman, and for the woman, he forced Jane to get rid of their child. Worse, she learned he had engineered her family's downfall, driving her parents to their deaths. Out of no choice, Jane contacted Nathan's sworn enemy abroad and faked her death to escape. After she was gone, Nathan wept, pleading for her return. But it was too late. The pain he inflicted would be repaid a hundredfold.

The moment I told Jake Reynolds we were over, he didn't believe me. He just laughed like I was joking. We had been together for five years, living in his penthouse with my mom. I never thought our life would change. It all started when his ex-girlfriend, Brittany Davis, showed up. He asked me to cook for them, but I couldn't. My mom was in the hospital, fighting terminal cancer, and I was with her. That was my first mistake. Three days later, my mom's health insurance, which was under Jake's company plan and kept her pain manageable, was canceled. I begged him, called him repeatedly, left desperate voicemails, but he blocked my number. He never answered. Two weeks later, my mom died; she spent her last days in agony because she couldn't get her medication. The day after her funeral, I saw a picture of Jake and Brittany on a yacht in the Caribbean, arm-in-arm, smiling. The caption read, "An escape with my one and only." I went to his penthouse, the place I once called home, to tell him it was over. He sneered, "I was just teaching you a lesson. You can't just say no to me." I told him simply, "You killed my mother." He knew exactly what he was doing when he cut her off. He did it because I wouldn' t cook a meal for his ex-girlfriend. A life for a dinner. This made no sense. I returned to his penthouse to retrieve my mother' s last painting. Jake and Brittany were there. When I asked for the painting, he told me to get Brittany a glass of water. Then, she deliberately ruined my five years of artwork, my sketchbook. He then took my mother' s sunflower painting, the one she painted with shaking hands, and snapped it over his knee. The crack of the wood echoed like a gunshot. He threw the pieces at my feet. But in that moment, something shifted. I started to laugh, realizing he had nothing left to take from me.

The crystal chandeliers glittered over the ballroom, a cold parody of joy as I stood in the shadows, a forgotten daughter at my father' s company anniversary. Then, the announcement shattered my carefully constructed composure: my stepsister, Clara, was engaged to Julian Croft, the only man who had ever shown me kindness in this suffocating life. His averted gaze, her cruel, triumphant smile directly at me-it was a public execution of my last fragile hope, a final, devastating blow after years of being blamed, dismissed, and having my mother' s legacy sold off for a symbolic dollar. How could the man I loved stand by while she destroyed me, just like my father had ignored my mother' s pain and my own cries for years? What twisted game was this, where their happiness was built on my ruin? Cut off and cast out, a mysterious stranger offered me a terrifying choice: remain a victim, or begin a war for justice, for my mother' s honor, and for myself.

I was pregnant, happily married to Julian Vance, a successful tech mogul. I believed we had the picturesque life, our future unfolding perfectly before us. Then, the words hit me like a physical blow, broadcast live from our building lobby. Julian, my loving husband, announced on TV that Liv Cartwright's child was his, shamefully implying our unborn baby was the byproduct of a violent robbery. My world shattered. Julian callously dismissed my heartbreak, choosing to sacrifice me and our child for Liv' s supposed vulnerability. Liv moved into our penthouse, systematically turning my existence into a living hell, her manipulations and humiliations an unending torment. He blindly believed every one of her lies, even when she physically assaulted me and then twisted the narrative, leaving me injured and abandoned. Drowning in an abyss of disgrace, I secretly ended my pregnancy. How could he be so utterly blind? How could the man I loved betray me so profoundly, abandoning our sacred bond for a calculating, deceitful woman? The searing injustice festered, transforming my grief into a cold, burning rage. But I wouldn't allow myself to be a silent casualty. He thought he could escape the wreckage he created? I would ensure he paid for every single lie, starting with an unforgettable delivery at his precious Liv' s lavish baby shower. It was time for him to face the truth.

Eleanor Hayes, my godmother, sat across from me in her familiar study, presenting glossy portfolios for my future. "It's time you thought seriously about settling down," she said, gentle yet firm. My heart slammed against my ribs, a desperate drum. This conversation. This room. I knew it. A cold dread, sharp as a winter blade, pierced through me, an echo from a life already lived. Isabelle Vance. Her beautiful, cruel face flashed, bringing with it the suffocating memories of my first existence. "You were never good enough for me, Ethan," she' d hissed, her eyes like ice, a final cut. That bitter, public divorce, her humiliating betrayal with Julian Croft. Then, the shouting, the chaotic confrontation, and her spoiled child' s reckless prank. The fall. Darkness. A chilling plunge into an ornamental lake, drowning amidst the detached laughter of society. My own death, undeniably real, my last breath choked with bitter regret and public ridicule. Now, I was back. Years earlier. At this exact, pivotal moment that began my first life' s spiral into ruin. I could feel the ghost of that past betrayal, the hollowness of a future wasted, screaming at me. I had been a fool, desperate for acceptance from the wrong woman. But this time, a second chance pulsed with terrifying clarity. This time, I would defy expectations. This time, I would choose my own destiny, no matter how unconventional.

My 5-year-old son, Leo, watched helplessly as I slowly withered away from endless bone marrow donations. My wife, Victoria, dismissed my agonizing decline, blinded by her childhood flame Julian Vance's manufactured illness and charisma. Leo frantically pleaded for help, but Victoria, consumed by Julian, ignored his desperate cries, even after he reported me coughing up blood. Instead, she pushed him violently, leaving him injured and alone amidst Julian's cruel laughter. After my death, Leo tried to fulfill my last wish, only for Julian to mockingly destroy my favorite donuts and viciously slash my son’s lip, forcing him to call him "Father." My spirit, helpless, watched as Leo collapsed, unconscious and bleeding, onto my lifeless body, utterly abandoned. How could a mother be so utterly deaf to her child's pleas, so complicit in such monstrous cruelty? The injustice was a burning void, a father's agony witnessing his son's betrayal. Found near death, Leo was rushed to the hospital, where Julian later crept in to silence him with a pillow. But a spectral surge of pure, desperate paternal rage—my rage—slammed Julian away, alerting security and shattering the monstrous facade. The truth about his fake illness and vengeful plot would finally unravel, setting the stage for a dramatic reckoning and Leo’s long fight for justice and redemption.

As I lay on the floor of our manor, bleeding out from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, I used my last ounce of strength to call my husband, Cole. I begged him for help, my vision blurring. But the only thing I heard was the clinking of champagne glasses and his mistress's giggle in the background. "Stop the drama, June," Cole snapped, his voice cold. "We're about to go on stage. Don't call again." He hung up, leaving me to die alone on the Persian rug while he accepted an award with another woman on his arm. I woke up in the hospital days later. My baby was gone. They had removed my fallopian tube. Cole finally arrived, smelling of expensive scotch and his mistress's perfume. He didn't hug me. He didn't cry. Instead, he leaned over my hospital bed, pressing his knee into the mattress until my fresh stitches tore open and bled. "You embarrassed me by calling an ambulance," he hissed. "My mistress, Alycia, says you're faking it. Clean yourself up." He left me bleeding again to go announce a $10 million donation to Alycia's "groundbreaking" medical research. I stared at the TV screen, numb. The research Alycia was taking credit for? It was mine. I wrote that patent years ago under a pseudonym. They thought I was just a poor, orphan housewife who needed Cole's money to survive. They had no idea I was actually a billionaire scientist hiding my identity. I pulled the IV needle out of my arm. A drop of blood fell onto the divorce papers I had been hiding. I didn't wipe it off. I signed my name right over it. Then I walked into the bank, reactivated my dormant account with $128 million, and bought the penthouse directly overlooking Cole's house. The mourning widow is dead. The avenger is born.

I was once the heiress to the Solomon empire, but after it crumbled, I became the "charity case" ward of the wealthy Hyde family. For years, I lived in their shadows, clinging to the promise that Anson Hyde would always be my protector. That promise shattered when Anson walked into the ballroom with Claudine Chapman on his arm. Claudine was the girl who had spent years making my life a living hell, and now Anson was announcing their engagement to the world. The humiliation was instant. Guests sneered at my cheap dress, and a waiter intentionally sloshed champagne over me, knowing I was a nobody. Anson didn't even look my way; he was too busy whispering possessively to his new fiancée. I was a ghost in my own home, watching my protector celebrate with my tormentor. The betrayal burned. I realized I wasn't a ward; I was a pawn Anson had kept on a shelf until he found a better trade. I had no money, no allies, and a legal trust fund that Anson controlled with a flick of his wrist. Fleeing to the library, I stumbled into Dallas Koch-a titan of industry and my best friend's father. He was a wall of cold, absolute power that even the Hydes feared. "Marry me," I blurted out, desperate to find a shield Anson couldn't climb. Dallas didn't laugh. He pulled out a marriage agreement and a heavy fountain pen. "Sign," he commanded, his voice a low rumble. "But if you walk out that door with me, you never go back." I signed my name, trading my life for the only man dangerous enough to keep me safe.

I woke up on silk sheets that smelled of expensive cedar and cold sandalwood, a world away from my cramped apartment in Brooklyn. Beside me lay Ezra Gardner-my boss, the billionaire CEO of Gardner Holdings, and the man who could end my career with a snap of his fingers. He didn't offer an apology for the night before; instead, he looked at me with terrifying clarity and proposed a cold, calculated business arrangement. "Marriage. It stabilizes the board and solves the PR crisis before it begins." He dressed me in archival Chanel and sent me home in his Maybach, but my life was already falling apart. My boyfriend, Irving, claimed he had passed out early, yet his location data placed him at my best friend's apartment until three in the morning. When I tried to run, I realized Ezra was already ten steps ahead, tracking my movements and uncovering the secret I'd spent twenty years hiding: my connection to the powerful Senator Grimes. I was trapped between a CEO who treated me like a line item on a quarterly report and a boyfriend who had been using me while sleeping with my closest friend. I felt like a pawn in a game I didn't understand, wondering why a man like Ezra would walk up forty flights of stairs on a broken leg just to make sure I was safe. "Showtime, Mrs. Gardner." Standing on the red carpet in a gown that cost more than my life, I watched my cheating ex-boyfriend's face turn pale as Ezra claimed me in front of the world. I wasn't just an assistant anymore; I was a weapon, and it was time to burn their world down.

Vesper's marriage to Julian Sterling was a gilded cage. One morning, she woke naked beside Damon Sterling, Julian's terrifying brother, then found a text: Julian's mistress was pregnant. Her world shattered, but the real nightmare had just begun. Julian's abuse escalated, gaslighting Vesper, funding his secret life. Damon, a germaphobic billionaire, became her unsettling anchor amidst his chaos. As "Iris," Vesper exposed Julian's mistress, Serena Sharp, sparking brutal war: poisoned drinks, a broken leg, and the horrifying truth-Julian murdered her parents, trapping Vesper in marriage. The man she married was a killer. Broken and betrayed, Vesper was caught between monstrous brothers, burning with injustice. Refusing victimhood, Vesper reclaimed her identity. Fueled by vengeance, she allied with Damon, who vowed to burn his empire for her. Julian faced justice, but matriarch Eleanor's counterattack forced Vesper's choice as a hitman aimed for her.

The sterile white of the operating room blurred, then sharpened, as Skye Sterling felt the cold clawing its way up her body. The heart monitor flatlined, a steady, high-pitched whine announcing her end. Her uterus had been removed, a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding, but the blood wouldn't clot. It just kept flowing, warm and sticky, pooling beneath her. Through heavy eyes, she saw a trembling nurse holding a phone on speaker. "Mr. Kensington," the nurse's voice cracked, "your wife... she's critical." A pause, then a sweet, poisonous giggle. Seraphina Miller. "Liam is in the shower," Seraphina's voice purred. "Stop calling, Skye. It's pathetic. Faking a medical emergency on our anniversary? Even for you, that's low." Then, Liam's bored voice: "If she dies, call the funeral home. I have a meeting in the morning." Click. The line went dead. A second later, so did Skye. The darkness that followed was absolute, suffocating, a black ocean crushing her lungs. She screamed into the void, a silent, agonizing wail of regret for loving a man who saw her as a nuisance, for dying without ever truly living. Until she died, she didn't understand. Why was her life so tragically wasted? Why did her husband, the man she loved, abandon her so cruelly? The injustice of it all burned hotter than the fever in her body. Then, the air rushed back in. Skye gasped, her body convulsing violently on the mattress. Her eyes flew open, wide and terrified, staring blindly into the darkness. Her trembling hand reached for her phone. May 12th. Five years ago. She was back.

I was the orphaned "parasite" of the Tyler family, taken in only to be abused for fifteen years after my parents died in a tragic car crash. To finally escape their control, I sold my first time to my ruthless billionaire boss, Ellsworth Mosley, for one million dollars. I thought it was a clean transaction. But the next morning, covered in severe bruises he left on me, I was handed a brutal contract with a fifty-million-dollar penalty. He didn't just buy my silence; he bought me. My nightmare only worsened when my adoptive family found out about my connection to the billionaire. Instead of disgust, they invited me to a hypocritical family dinner. "Talk to Mosley, convince him to invest in our failing business," my adoptive father demanded shamelessly. His son, who had tormented me for years, even grabbed my hand. "Do this, and we can be officially engaged. You'll finally be a real Tyler." They wanted me to whore myself out to save the family that had treated me like a stray dog. I shattered my wine glass, cursed them to go bankrupt, and walked out into the rain. As I reached the door, my phone vibrated with a terrifying summons from Ellsworth. But it was the panicked whisper behind me that froze my blood. "She knows about the brakes on her parents' car. If anyone finds out what we did, we'll go to prison." They murdered my parents. I gripped my phone, accepting the devil's call. Since I was already bound to a monster, I would use his power to drag them all to hell.

Aurora woke up to the sterile chill of her king-sized bed in Sterling Thorne's penthouse. Today was the day her husband would finally throw her out like garbage. Sterling walked in, tossed divorce papers at her, and demanded her signature, eager to announce his "eligible bachelor" status to the world. In her past life, the sight of those papers had broken her, leaving her begging for a second chance. Sterling's sneering voice, calling her a "trailer park girl" undeserving of his name, had once cut deeper than any blade. He had always used her humble beginnings to keep her small, to make her grateful for the crumbs of his attention. She had lived a gilded cage, believing she was nothing without him, until her life flatlined in a hospital bed, watching him give a press conference about his "grief." But this time, she felt no sting, no tears. Only a cold, clear understanding of the mediocre man who stood on a pedestal she had painstakingly built with her own genius. Aurora signed the papers, her name a declaration of independence. She grabbed her old, phoenix-stickered laptop, ready to walk out. Sterling Thorne was about to find out exactly how expensive "free" could be.

Trigger/Content Warning: This story contains mature themes and explicit content intended for adult audiences(18+). Reader discretion is advised. It includes elements such as BDSM dynamics, explicit sexual content, toxic family relationships, occasional violence and strong language. This is not a fluffy romance. It is intense, raw and messy, and explores the darker side of desire. ***** "Take off your dress, Meadow." "Why?" "Because your ex is watching," he said, leaning back into his seat. "And I want him to see what he lost." ••••*••••*••••* Meadow Russell was supposed to get married to the love of her life in Vegas. Instead, she walked in on her twin sister riding her fiance. One drink at the bar turned to ten. One drunken mistake turned into reality. And one stranger's offer turned into a contract that she signed with shaking hands and a diamond ring. Alaric Ashford is the devil in a tailored Tom Ford suit. Billionaire CEO, brutal, possessive. A man born into an empire of blood and steel. He also suffers from a neurological condition-he can't feel. Not objects, not pain, not even human touch. Until Meadow touches him, and he feels everything. And now he owns her. On paper and in his bed. She wants him to ruin her. Take what no one else could have. He wants control, obedience... revenge. But what starts as a transaction slowly turns into something Meadow never saw coming. Obsession, secrets that were never meant to surface, and a pain from the past that threatens to break everything. Alaric doesn't share what's his. Not his company. Not his wife. And definitely not his vengeance.

I stood in the pouring rain at my father-in-law's funeral, the heels of my black pumps sinking into the mud. I was Mrs. Vargas, the wife of New York's most powerful billionaire, yet I was standing at the edge of the crowd like a forgotten statue. Ten feet away, under the dry shelter of the family tent, my husband Hayes held another woman against his chest. It wasn't me he was whispering comfort to; it was Felicity, his late brother's widow and childhood sweetheart. The humiliation didn't end at the cemetery. Hayes moved Felicity and her son into our home, relegating me to the guest wing while she took over the primary suites. He watched silently as her son smashed the only photograph of my deceased parents, then demanded I apologize for "scaring" the boy with my reaction. When Felicity's negligence ruined a twelve-million-dollar family heirloom, Hayes had the audacity to ask me to use my own savings to buy her a "consolation" engagement ring. He treated me like a parasite, never realizing I was a brilliant scientist with a hidden fortune and three patents to my name. I realized then that our three-year marriage was a hollow farce. Hayes had never even touched me, claiming he wanted to "remain pure" for his memory of Felicity. I was nothing more than a business merger, a smudge on the lens of the perfect family portrait he was building with another man's widow. The breaking point came during a lethal blizzard. Hayes promised to accompany me to my family's mandatory gala-a tradition where my absence meant a death sentence. But at the last second, he stood me up to stay home and tend to Felicity's stubbed toe. Left alone to face the wrath of the Santos Matriarch, I was forced to kneel in the freezing snow as punishment until my lungs began to fail and my vision blurred. Just as the darkness started to take me, a black Maybach smashed through the iron gates. My exiled brother, the man the world calls "The Wolf," stepped out of the storm to reclaim what Hayes had discarded. Hayes thought I was a helpless doll who couldn't survive a day without his trust fund, but he's about to find out what happens when you let a Santos daughter freeze.

Her sister is marrying her ex. So she brings her best friend as her fake fiancé. What could possibly go wrong? Savannah Hart thought she was over Dean Archer-until her sister, Chloe announces she's marrying him. The same man Savannah never stopped loving. The man who left her heartbroken... and now belongs to her sister. A weeklong wedding in New Hope. One mansion full of guests. And a very bitter maid of honor. To survive it, Savannah brings a date-her charming, clean-cut best friend, Roman Blackwood. The one man who's always had her back. He owes her a favor, and pretending to be her fiancé? Easy. Until fake kisses start to feel real. Now Savannah's torn between keeping up the act... or risking everything for the one man she was never supposed to fall for.