Bound By Contract, Tied By Faith
Ivy Hart didn't just lose love, she was destroyed by it.
Publicly betrayed by the man she thought she'd marry, her heartbreak becomes a spectacle she can't escape. Humiliated, angry, and done believing in forever, Ivy swears she'll never be that vulnerable again.
Then Damian Blackwood steps in.
Ruthless. Possessive. A man who doesn't ask, he takes.
His offer is simple, his tone is not:
Marry me.
A contract. Strict rules. No love. No questions.
But Ivy quickly learns one thing. Damian doesn't share.
Not his power.
Not his control.
And definitely not what he considers his.
What was supposed to be a cold, calculated arrangement turns suffocatingly intense. The way he watches her. The way he touches her. The way his voice drops when he says, "You're mine, Ivy."
It's not part of the contract.
And neither is the jealousy that burns in his eyes when her past comes crawling back, begging for a second chance.
Because Damian doesn't believe in love...
But he believes in possession.
And once he's claimed something, he never lets it go.
As secrets unravel and the truth behind their marriage begins to surface, Ivy realizes she didn't just sign a contract.
She signed herself over to a man who would destroy anyone who tries to take her away... even if that means destroying her too.
When the contract ends, one question remains:
Will Ivy walk away with her heart intact...
or will Damian make sure she never leaves at all?
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Chapter 2
I couldn't breathe.
My chest felt tight, like something heavy was sitting on it. My eyes stayed fixed on them, Lucas and Serena like if I blinked, maybe everything would change. Maybe this wasn't real.
But it was.
"How... how could you do this to me?" My voice came out weak, shaking. "After everything... after two years... how long has this been going on?"
Lucas finally moved. He pulled away from her, adjusting his trousers like nothing serious had just happened. Like I didn't just walk in and catch him destroying everything we built.
"It's... it's nothing," he said. His voice was calm.
Too calm. "Don't take it personal. It was just... fun."
For a second, I just stared at him.
Then I laughed. A dry, broken sound that didn't even feel like it came from me.
"Fun?" I repeated slowly. "This is fun to you?"
My hands were shaking now. I could feel it in my fingers, my chest, everywhere.
I turned to Serena. My friend. The same girl who has been my friend from grade 6. The same girl who hugged me downstairs. The same girl who smiled at me like nothing was wrong.
"How long?" I asked her, my voice tighter now. "How long has this been going on?"
She didn't even look ashamed.
She leaned back on the bed like she was bored, picked up her phone, and shrugged.
"Like he said... it's nothing. Just for fun."
Something inside me cracked.
"You're my friend," I whispered. My voice broke this time. "You're my friend, Serena."
Lucas stepped closer. "Ivy, listen...".
"No!" I snapped, stepping back quickly. "Don't come close to me."
He sighed like I was the problem. Like I was overreacting.
"I said I'm sorry," he added. "I didn't think it would be this serious."
"Not serious?" My voice rose. "Two years, Lucas. Two whole years! And you're standing here telling me it's not serious?"
He ran his hand through his hair. "I didn't mean for you to find out like this."
That hurt more than anything.
So it wasn't about regret.
It was about getting caught.
Before I could say anything else, Maya's voice came from the door.
"Ivy, you found...".
She stopped immediately when she saw them.
Her eyes widened. Then her face hardened.
"What the hell is this? What's going on? she demanded.
I swallowed hard. My throat felt dry. "He was with her... Maya."
Silence filled the room.
Then Maya exploded.
"You idiot!" she snapped at Lucas. "You stupid, useless fool! A whole two-year relationship and this is what you're doing?"
She turned to Serena, her eyes sharp. "And you? You call yourself her friend? You're actually disgusting!"
Serena didn't even react. She rolled her eyes again, still focused on her phone like none of this mattered.
"It's not that deep," she said casually.
Maya let out a sharp laugh. "Not that deep?
You slept with your friend's boyfriend and you're saying it's not that deep?"
I just stood there, feeling empty.
Like everything inside me had gone quiet.
"Ivy please...listen to me...". He pleaded walking forward.
Maya got defensive immediately, blocking me from him.
"Don't you even dare touch her".
He turned to Maya.
"Please stay out of this, this is our business".
"To hell with YOUR business, you ruined it the moment you decided to cheat on her".
Maya grabbed my hand firmly. "We're leaving."
Lucas stepped forward quickly. "Ivy, wait...please. Let's talk."
"Talk?" Maya scoffed. "You should have talked before doing this nonsense."
She pulled me out of the room. I didn't even look back. I couldn't.
We walked down the stairs fast. My legs felt weak, but I forced myself to keep moving.
Outside, the cold night air hit me again.
This time, it felt worse.
I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly aware of the dress again. The way it clung to my body. The way it exposed me.
I hated it.
A thought slipped into my mind.
What if this was his plan?
What if he wanted me distracted?
Busy with people staring at me... talking to me...
While he came upstairs to be with her.
My stomach turned.
Maya was already trying to book an Uber.
"This stupid app..." she muttered under her breath.
"Call him," I said quietly.
She tried. Then frowned. "His number isn't going through."
Of course it wasn't.
"Let's just walk," she said finally.
We stepped out onto the road.
The party noise faded behind us, replaced by a strange silence. The streetlights cast long shadows on the ground. My heels clicked softly with every step, the sound echoing in the empty night.
The breeze brushed against my bare skin, making me shiver.
Then suddenly.
Three guys stepped in front of us.
Blocking the road.
"Where are you girls going?" one of them asked, smiling in a way that made my stomach twist.
"Move," Maya said immediately.
They didn't.
One of them stepped closer to me. Too close.
"You look good," he said, his eyes dropping slowly. "Very good."
Before I could react, his hand grabbed my arm.
Another hand pulled my hair slightly.
I gasped. "Let go of me!"
"You think you can walk around like this and nobody will touch?" he said with a smirk.
"Come on... don't act shy now."
His hand brushed against my chest.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
Maya didn't hesitate. She kicked one of them hard. "Get off her!"
One of the men turned and grabbed her hair roughly.
"Ahh!" Maya cried out, her body jerking back.
"Maya!" I shouted, panic rushing through me.
I tried to reach her, but another man blocked me, grabbing my wrist tightly.
"Stay still," he said coldly.
I struggled, twisting, kicking, trying to break free. My breath came fast, uneven.
"Ivy, run!" Maya shouted.
"I'm not leaving you!" I yelled back.
"Go!" she screamed, her voice strained as her hair was pulled harder. "Just go!"
"I can't go without you!" I cried.
Then.
A car screeched to a stop.
The door opened.
A man stepped out. Tall. Slim. Dressed in a sharp, expensive suit.
Calm.
Too calm.
"Let them go," he said.
The men paused.
One of them scoffed. "Why? You think we're scared of you?"
Another added, "It's three of us... one of you. You should be the one backing off."
The man didn't move.
"I'm going to call the police," he said calmly. "And you can explain why you're assaulting two women."
He looked at them, steady. "Your choice."
The men exchanged looks.
One of them muttered, "Let's go, guys. These two ladies are not worth us ending up in jail."
They released us and walked away into the night.
Everything went quiet again.
I rushed to Maya. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," she said, breathing hard. "That asshole almost ripe my brain out.Are you okay?
I nodded slowly.
The man looked at us. "You're safe now. Get in."
I hesitated for a while.
"C'mon you're safe".
We got into the car.
Maya gave him her address, before I did.
The ride was quiet. The city lights passed by in a blur.
I stared ahead... until my eyes slowly lifted to the rearview mirror.
And that was when I saw his face clearly.
My breath caught.
No way.
That was him.
The CEO of Nova FM.
My boss's boss's boss.
And he had no idea who I was.
The car slowed down as we reached Maya's street first.
Maya opened the door and stepped out, then leaned back in slightly.
"Thank you so much, sir, for the ride. We really appreciate you. Thank you... you are our knight in shining armor," she said with a small smile.
Then she added, pointing at me lightly, "Please, take good care of my friend. She's really heartbroken. She actually caught her boyfriend cheating on her... sleeping with her friend."
"Maya, jeez!" I said quickly, embarrassed.
She laughed softly. "Oh-sorry. Good night. Take care!"
She leaned closer to me.
"You know they best way to get over a heartbreak is a great one night stand, and he's handsome and filthy richIvy! Maya whispered,
"Maya! I called unbelievably she said that.
"Go home ma".
"I will call you, or text me how it goes". She mouthed.
She shut the door and walked away.
I glanced at him.
For a brief second, I noticed it..
A small smile.
Not quite a full smile.
Just something subtle.
"I'm so sorry," I said quietly. "That's Maya for you. Her mouth doesn't have a filter."
"I understand," he replied calmly. "Friends like that... they are rare."
The rest of the ride was quiet again.
Soon, we got to my place.
Before I could open the door, he had already stepped out.
He walked around the car and opened the door for me.
That alone caught me off guard.
I stepped out slowly, still a little shaken from everything.
"Thank you... for tonight," I said softly. "And I'm really sorry about what my friend said earlier."
He shook his head slightly. "It's fine."
Then he looked at me properly this time.
"That boyfriend of yours is a fool to let you go," he added calmly. "You won't stay single for long... unless you choose to."
I didn't know what to say.
"Good night," he said.
"Good night," I replied.
He got back into his car.
And then.
He drove off.
Leaving me standing there...
Still trying to understand how my worst night...
Somehow ended like this.
I took the elevator,watching myself on the side mirror and seeing how miserable I look. And how my boyfriend was busy f*****king my friend.
"I have been a fool all my life". I wanted to shout so loudly that all the neighbors would rush outside.
I heard a loud clash on the elevator.
I froze.
"What is there?" I called out, my voice unsteady.
The lights flickered off, then on again.
A chill ran down my spine.
Slowly... the elevator doors slid open.
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7.2
Title- A Name Without A Past
Author- Abraham Tejiri Onojighofia
Genre: Psychological Suspense Romance / Crime Thriller
Tagline: Memory lies. Danger doesn't..
Larry awakens in an abandoned hospital with no name, no past, and no memories-except one. A woman's face. Her voice. Her presence. The single image floating in the hollow wreckage of his mind is so sharp, so undeniable, that he knows she matters. He doesn't know who he is, but he knows he must find her.
Moments after he escapes the hospital, someone tries to kill him.
Driven by instinct and the one memory he trusts, Larry follows the fragment of recognition until it leads him to Ella Morgan, a composed and fiercely intelligent homicide detective. But instead of relief, he's met with confusion. Ella has never seen him before. According to her, he is a stranger.
But danger arrives before either of them can walk away.
A sudden attack convinces Ella that Larry is not lying-someone wants him dead. And the attempt on his life mirrors the recent string of unsolved murders she is investigating. Against policy and against her better judgment, Ella takes him under temporary protection. Immediately, unsettling cracks begin to appear in her certainty.
Larry recognizes places connected to the case.
He reacts to threats with a trained instinct he can't explain.
And his fragmented flashbacks seem tied to secrets Ella wasn't supposed to uncover.
As they race to piece together his missing identity, a darker truth begins to emerge. Larry's amnesia is no accident. Evidence points to a covert operation, a covered-up crime, and powerful enemies determined to bury the truth permanently. His erased memory may hold the key to a conspiracy that reaches into the police force, the city's elite-and Ella's own past.
With each step closer to the truth, the connection between them deepens. Larry feels drawn to her with an unshakable certainty that defies logic, while Ella fights the pull of a man who may be the missing link to her most dangerous case yet.
But as Larry's memories begin to return, so does a chilling realization:
Ella wasn't just a face in his mind. She was the last person he tried to protect before everything went dark.
Now, the enemies hunting Larry have turned their sights on her.
In a deadly race against a faceless adversary, Larry and Ella must unravel the past he's forgotten before it destroys them both. Because the silence Larry woke up with isn't empty-it's hiding a witness, a secret, and a truth someone is willing to kill to keep buried.
And the closer the truth gets, the more dangerous remembering becomes.
7.3
Five years ago, he had abandoned her, betrayed her, destroyed her company when she had trusted him and needed him the most.
Five years later, Evelyn was back for revenge. She would return everything he had done to her tenfold, and to do that, she needed to live in the same house with him again.
"Ex-husband, let's sign a marriage contract again!" Evelyn demanded after barging into her ex-husband's party.
"Okay."
****
She had sworn to frustrate and destroy his life as they live under the same roof but who can tell Evelyn why everything was different from what she had expected?
Who was this man cajoling her every request? Why is her ex-husband who's supposed to be an enemy looking at her dotingly?
Ex-husband, this was supposed to be a fierce revenge battle, not a love battle!
8.8
Scarlet's world shattered the night she discovered her husband in her bed with her own sister.
The betrayal was brutal. The humiliation, unforgivable. And what hurt the most? Neither of them felt a single ounce of remorse.
Within months, her husband divorced her and married the very woman who helped destroy her life, her sister.
They thought she would break. They thought she would disappear quietly.
They were wrong.
Ryan Marchetti-cold, calculating, and dangerously powerful, has spent years waiting for the perfect chance to destroy his business rival. Marrying that rival's ex-wife is the ultimate move. Strategic.
For Scarlet, marrying Ryan isn't about love. It's about revenge.
A calculated alliance. A public statement. A promise that she will rise from the ashes they left her in. Together, they become the scandal that shakes empires.
But revenge is never simple.
Because behind Ryan's icy control lies a secret, one tied to her past, to her ex-husband, to the very marriage that ruined her life. A truth so explosive it could unravel everything she thought she knew.
Was she just a pawn in Ryan's war from the very beginning?
Or is the man she's slowly falling for capable of betraying her too?
In a game fueled by vengeance, power, and buried truths, Scarlet must decide:
Will she let betrayal destroy her again...
Or will she risk her heart for the one man who might truly love her?
7.2
SYNOPSIS:
"I spent ten years scrubbing your floors, Greene. Tonight, you'll scrub mine."
Elara Vance has always been the pride the Republic until she ran away from home, fell in love with Greene Jones, a man who treated her like dirt and discarded her like she was never the girl the entire Republic feared because of her strong dominating pheromones.
Now she's back after twelve years to serve revenge to Greene Jones like a hot dish in a way that he will pay for every act meted out on her for twelve years. But things wasn't going to go as planned as she meets Silas, the handsome bulky head of her father's security but a recessive omega of her past that she has totally forgotten but now wears a new stance as her bodyguard, recognized by the entire republic as an Alpha, and her perfect chosen mate, Calvin; ruining the comeback and revenge she planned out for herself and now she has to think about saving and claiming her mate, Silas while navigating and protecting the seat meant for her.
The real question becomes; will Calvin ever allow her take all it took him twelve years to build?
THEME: The true definition of power. Is it found in the biological dominance of an Alpha, or in the resilience of an Omega who survived in the lion's den?
9.6
My world revolved around Jax Harding, my older brother's captivating rockstar friend.
From sixteen, I adored him; at eighteen, I clung to his casual promise: "When you're 22, maybe I'll settle down."
That offhand comment became my life's beacon, guiding every choice, meticulously planning my twenty-second birthday as our destiny.
But on that pivotal day in a Lower East Side bar, clutching my gift, my dream exploded.
I overheard Jax' s cold voice: "Can't believe Savvy's showing up. She' s still hung up on that stupid thing I said."
Then the crushing plot: "We' re gonna tell Savvy I' m engaged to Chloe, maybe even hint she' s pregnant. That should scare her off."
My gift, my future, slipped from my numb fingers.
I fled into the cold New York rain, devastated by betrayal.
Later, Jax introduced Chloe as his "fiancée" while his bandmates mocked my "adorable crush"-he did nothing.
As an art installation fell, he saved Chloe, abandoning me to severe injury.
In the hospital, he came for "damage control," then shockingly shoved me into a fountain, leaving me to bleed, calling me a "jealous psycho."
How could the man I loved, who once saved me, become this cruel and publicly humiliate me?
Why was my devotion seen as an annoyance to be brutally extinguished with lies and assault?
Was I just a problem, my loyalty met with hatred?
I would not be his victim.
Injured and betrayed, I made an unshakeable vow: I was done.
I blocked his number and everyone connected to him, severing ties.
This was not an escape; this was my rebirth.
Florence awaited, a new life on my terms, unburdened by broken promises.
8.0
For six years, I played the perfect, submissive wife to Wall Street titan Francis Castro. I suffocated my own ambitions to fit into his conservative world.
But while I waited alone at a Michelin restaurant, a news alert popped up. My husband had just dropped millions on an aquamarine diamond necklace for his "muse," Chanelle.
The real nightmare began when I rushed home to find our five-year-old son in severe anaphylactic shock. I frantically called Francis from the ambulance, but he manually rejected my calls. He couldn't leave the bidding war for Chanelle's PR launch.
When he finally arrived at the ER, Chanelle was right beside him, wearing that blinding multi-million-dollar necklace. He didn't ask about our dying son.
"Why weren't you watching him?" he demanded, his voice hard and accusing.
And when my son woke up, hazy from the drugs, he rejected my touch and reached for Chanelle instead. Francis just stood there, praising Chanelle for knowing exactly how to calm him down.
I stared at the three of them looking like a perfect, happy family. Six years of swallowing my pride, only to realize my husband would let our son choke to death just to buy another woman's smile.
The last thread of my heart snapped. I handed him the divorce papers, demanding zero alimony. Then, I drove to a hidden Brooklyn loft, cut off my hair, and unlocked my safe.
It was time to resurrect my true identity—the legendary fashion designer, Ember.J. I am going to burn her empire to the ground.