A Sacrifice Hidden For Three Years
Three years ago, I walked away from Donovan Gordon as he lay on his deathbed. Now, he's back, striding into the luxury hotel where I work, richer and more powerful than I could have ever imagined.
He didn't just ignore me. He spent the night making my life a living hell, forcing me to change the sheets on the bed he now shared with his new girlfriend.
He called me a traitor, a gold-digger who abandoned him for his rival.
He had no idea the only reason he was standing there, alive and breathing, was because my kidney was inside his body.
But that sacrifice had cost me everything. My remaining kidney was failing, and I didn't come back for forgiveness. I came back for one last look at the man I saved, because my doctors weren't sure I'd survive my next surgery.
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Chapter 4
Hazel Sparks' POV:
Three years later, that day still feels like a fresh wound.
I walked into my small apartment after my night shift, the city lights blurred outside my window.
My body ached with the familiar weariness that had been my constant companion since the surgery.
I kicked off my shoes, eager to climb into bed and escape the echoes of Donovan's cruel words.
But sleep was a luxury I couldn't afford.
My phone buzzed, vibrating against the nightstand. It was my manager.
His voice was tight and urgent. "Hazel, you need to come back. Now. There's a situation with Mr. Gordon. A serious one."
My sleep-addled brain jolted awake.
A knot of dread formed in my stomach. What now?
I dressed quickly, my hands trembling as I buttoned my uniform.
Every fiber of my being screamed at me to run, to hide-but duty, and a morbid curiosity, pulled me back to The Sterling.
Jessica cut him off, her voice rising in pitch. "Missing? It's stolen! My three-million-dollar diamond earrings-Donovan gave them to me for my birthday. They're gone!"
She glared at me, her eyes narrowed. "And you were the last person in our room besides the cleaning lady-who's already been thoroughly questioned. She certainly wasn't playing maid in the middle of the night."
Jessica stood up. "Take off your clothes. We need to search you."
My breath caught in my throat.
I instinctively looked to Donovan.
He sat there, his face like stone, his eyes cold and unyielding-offering no defense, no flicker of doubt.
He believed her. He was allowing this to happen.
The realization was a devastating blow, a fresh wound reopening old scars.
I'd changed his sheets right in front of him-how could he possibly think I'd stolen anything?
Yet there he sat, watching silently as I was humiliated.
"Hazel, please," my manager whispered, his voice bordering on pleading. "Just cooperate. We can handle this discreetly."
I clutched my small handbag tightly to my chest, my knuckles white with tension.
I lifted my head, meeting Jessica's gaze. "No," I said, my voice firm despite the tremor in my hands. "I won't submit to a degrading search. If you think I stole something, call the police. Let them handle it legally."
Jessica scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Please. Donovan doesn't have time for your petty legal games! We want our earrings back, and we want them now. And don't pretend you weren't acting suspicious last night-sneaking in and out of the room, looking all flustered. You practically had 'thief' written on your face!"
Before I could respond, she lunged forward, her hand reaching for my bag. "Give that to me!"
I pulled back instinctively, clutching the bag tighter. "No! Get your hands off me!" My voice rose, raw with anger and humiliation.
But she was stronger, fueled by self-righteous fury.
With a powerful yank, she tore the bag from my grasp.
The zipper screeched open as she upended it, scattering my meager belongings across the polished floor.
My worn wallet, a few coins, a compact mirror, and a small, iridescent crystal moon charm clattered onto the expensive rug.
My eyes fixed on the charm.
It was a cheap trinket I'd bought years ago at a seaside tourist shop.
It shattered on impact, a delicate, tinkling sound that echoed in the sudden silence of the room.
A wave of sharp, unexpected pain washed over me.
I knew it was foolish, but that little crystal moon held a piece of my past-a memory of happier times.
Donovan's gaze, which had been distant and cold, suddenly sharpened.
For a fleeting moment, his eyes fixed on the broken crystal.
A flicker of something-crack in his icy composure-crossed his face.
He swallowed hard, his throat working, and when he spoke, his voice was low and strained. "Jessica, that's enough."
He stood up, towering over her. "We'll buy you new earrings. Better ones. Now, go back to the suite."
He turned to my manager with a sharp nod. "And you-make sure Ms. Cabrera is comfortable. I'll handle everything else."
His dismissal was final and absolute.
The door clicked shut, leaving just the two of us in the cold, silent room.
The air was thick with unspoken words, with the ghosts of our shared past.
A tremor ran through me as we stood facing each other-separated by the wreckage of my spilled belongings, by the shattered pieces of my precious little moon.
The silence was deafening, suffocating.
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8.9
Aliana braved a heavy storm, carrying a warm stew for her fiancé, Ivan, just as she always put his needs before her own. This ingrained habit, a survival mechanism from a cold childhood, was about to shatter into a million pieces. Tonight, everything she believed was a lie.
The iron gates of Ivan's private villa flashed red, denying her entry, and a guard mumbled lies. Ignoring him, she pushed past, a strange orchid perfume leading her to Ivan's car, where a tube of crimson lipstick lay on the passenger seat. Through a window, she saw him with another woman and a small child, an image that felt like jagged glass twisting in her heart.
Then his words cut through the storm, cold and cruel:
"Aliana is just a placeholder."
He was marrying her for her multi-billion-dollar patent, a secret deal made with her own parents, who had sold her for a kickback to buy this very house. Her family, her love, her future-all were a calculated lie.
Her inner wolf, usually fierce, fell terrifyingly silent, replaced by a chilling resolve. The burning acid in her throat wasn't just bile; it was the taste of her shattered devotion.
She didn't want his apologies or his guilt. She wanted his ruin, and as Ivan walked in with a fake smile the next morning, Aliana was ready to deliver it.
8.2
During a snow-mountain expedition, an avalanche buried me alive. By the time they dug me out, the cold had already drained every last trace of warmth and life from my body.
Julian Crowe dug through the snow with his bare hands for ten straight hours. His fingers were torn and bleeding by the time he finally pulled me out. Then he chartered a private jet and rushed me to the most elite private hospital for emergency treatment.
Inside the thermal recovery chamber, a faint thread of consciousness returned to me. Through the haze, I heard Julian arguing with the doctor.
"Weren't we supposed to amputate just to save her life? Why are you draining all of her hematopoietic stem cells too? Mr. Crowe, you're personally destroying her last chance of survival!"
Julian's voice, usually so controlled, carried a chilling cruelty.
"Letting her live safely and comfortably until today is already the greatest mercy I've ever shown her. The only woman who will grow old with me is Serena Vale. And the only thing that can save Serena is her life. She owes Serena that much, and now it's time to repay it."
So the promise to live and die together had only been my own foolish fantasy.
Julian had married me, Stella Hart, for one reason only. To turn me into a walking blood bank for his precious mistress.
If that was the truth, then I would give them exactly what they wanted.
9.4
My husband of three years, Arthur Vanderbilt, came home smelling of his mistress's perfume and threw divorce papers on our marble kitchen island.
He demanded I sign away all rights to our assets for a five-million-dollar "severance," calling me a leech his family picked up from the suburbs to solve a temporary PR crisis.
When I refused and demanded my four percent equity in the Vanderbilt Group, he and his mistress, Serena, launched a vicious smear campaign. They planted false stories on Wall Street forums, accusing me of laundering money for an Eastern European crime syndicate.
They tried to force my hand with a check for five hundred million, which I tore up and threw in his face. To them, I was just a trophy wife they could easily discard.
They had no idea that the "leech" they so despised was the anonymous investor who had secretly bailed out their entire company three years ago, saving them from bankruptcy.
Their final move was to hire an actress to publicly accuse me of fraud in the lobby of the most powerful law firm in Manhattan. They didn't realize I was there to retain the firm's most ruthless lawyer. After security threw them out, I looked my replacement in the eye and made her a promise.
"Prepare for an FBI probe into perjury and corporate defamation."
7.7
Whispered secrets. Shared bodies. No regrets.
Some secrets are too hot to keep quiet. Naughty Confessions pulls back the curtain on the private fantasies we only dare to admit in the dark. This compilation is a raw, unfiltered journey through the moments where "too much" is never enough-a collection guaranteed to leave you soaked with heat or hard as a rock from the very first chapter.
Every page is a deliberate provocation, designed to push your pulse to the limit and keep you on the edge of total release.
9.7
Charity woke up in a hellish, acid-rain-soaked slum, trapped inside a bloated body covered in festering, toxic sores. She was the exiled Grand Princess of the Empire.
But the real nightmare wasn't her ruined body. It was the fact that the original owner had used her royal authority to force genetic marriage contracts onto four top-tier, powerful men.
Now, she was bound to them, and they absolutely loathed her.
Hjalmar, chained to a bed in her filthy room, smiled like a feral beast and promised to rip her head off the second his chains snapped.
Braden, a ruthless military officer, saved her from a mutated rat only to look at her with pure disgust.
"If you want to die, go die somewhere else. Don't dirty my patrol sector."
Even the locals mocked her fallen status, and a wealthy heiress publicly framed her for stealing a hundred-thousand-coin energy core just to see her rot in a dark cell.
She was universally despised, physically repulsive, and a lethal biological toxin gave her exactly 59 days left to live. How was she supposed to survive this absolute hell when her starting affection with her partners was at negative 100?
Then, a mechanical voice echoed in her skull, activating a survival system. To purge the poison, she had to harvest emotional energy by making these four men fall for her. Charity accepted the mandate, unlocked a top-tier culinary skill, and grabbed a rusted meat cleaver to start her counterattack.
7.2
Ade had sacrificed the life she loved, the things she liked doing to please James. But it was never enough for him. Somehow, the one woman he just couldn't get, was the price, she was the gem.
And so once the opportunity presented itself, Ade became a past chapter of his life. A reject.
Betrayed and scorned, Ade is on a quest to reclaim her life back and face off adversaries.
But now what is she to do with the two men in front of her. One of them her ex James who can't seem to forget her and keeps stepping in her way, and the other, a billionaire who wants her at all costs.