Daughter's Hidden Power

The office was unusually quiet as I walked back from lunch, most of my colleagues still lingering in the cafeteria. I glanced at Sebastian's desk—he'd rushed off to take a call from his mother, leaving his phone unlocked and face-up on his keyboard. A notification popped up on his screen, the name "Mom" flashing with a preview of her message: "I don't care how long you've been with her. You need to end this now." My fingers froze midair, hovering over my own desk. Something in her tone made me pause. Sebastian never left his phone unlocked. Never. But there it was, open and vulnerable, just like my heart had been for the past three years. I shouldn't look. I knew I shouldn't.

Chapters

Chapter 1

"I don't care how long you've been with her. You need to end this now."

My fingers froze midair, hovering over my own desk. Something in her tone made me pause. Sebastian never left his phone unlocked. Never. But there it was, open and vulnerable, just like my heart had been for the past three years.

I shouldn't look. I knew I shouldn't.

But my hand moved before my conscience could stop it, picking up his phone with trembling fingers.

"You're getting nowhere with that poor office girl hanging around your neck," his mother's message continued. "Do you think she'll help your career? Do you think she'll open doors for you?"

My chest tightened as I scrolled up, reading their entire conversation.

"Mom, please understand. I love Phoebe."

"Don't be ridiculous, Sebastian. Love won't get you ahead in this world. Office romance will destroy your career prospects. You need connections, not distractions."

"But she's not—"

"She's nothing. A nobody. Do you think executives at head office will take you seriously with her clinging to you? Think about what I'm saying. I've already spoken to your father about this."

Sebastian's response made my heart stutter: "I'll think about it."

Think about it. Three years together, and he'd write "I'll think about it" to his mother's demand that he leave me.

I carefully placed his phone back exactly as I'd found it, my vision blurring with unshed tears. I busied myself with paperwork, trying to focus on anything but the betrayal burning in my chest.

---

That evening, Sebastian found me in our apartment, curled up on the couch with a book I wasn't really reading.

"What's wrong?" he asked, dropping his keys on the counter. "You've barely said two words since I picked you up."

I couldn't look at him. Not yet. "Nothing."

"Phoebe." His voice softened as he sat beside me, taking my hands in his. "I know when something's bothering you."

I finally met his eyes, seeing nothing but concern there. Did he really care? Or was this all part of some elaborate act?

"I saw your messages with your mom today," I said quietly.

His face went blank for a moment—just long enough for me to know I'd hit the mark.

"What did you see?" he asked carefully.

"That she wants us to break up. That you said you'd think about it."

Before I could say anything else, Sebastian pulled me into his arms, holding me tightly against his chest.

"Phoebe, listen to me," he whispered urgently into my hair. "I don't care what my mother says. I love you. Only you."

His heartbeat was steady beneath my ear as he continued, "I would never leave you for a promotion or connections or anything else. You're more important than any career advancement."

I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted so badly to believe him.

"What about what you wrote to her?" I asked, my voice muffled against his shirt.

"That was just to calm her down until I could talk to you." He pulled back to look into my eyes, his expression intense. "I choose you, Phoebe. Always you."

---

Three days later, the entire department gathered in the conference room, buzzing with speculation about the new supervisor who'd been assigned to us.

"Attention, please," a sharp voice cut through the chatter as a woman in an impeccable charcoal suit strode to the front of the room.

Her blonde hair was pulled back in a severe bun, not a strand out of place. Dark eyes swept over us like a general assessing troops.

"I'm Anastasia Franklin," she announced, her voice carrying effortlessly through the room. "Your new supervisor."

I felt Sebastian straighten beside me, suddenly alert and interested in a way he hadn't been in weeks.

"I come with extensive experience and connections with head office executives," she continued, a hint of smugness in her tone. "And I have zero tolerance for mediocrity."

Her gaze lingered on me for a fraction too long, something unreadable flickering in her eyes.

"I expect absolute compliance with my directives," she said. "This department will run according to my standards from now on."

Sebastian's hand wasn't holding mine anymore. I glanced over to see him leaning forward slightly, his eyes fixed on Anastasia with undisguised interest.

"I understand you've had quite a bit of success with the Morrison account," he said, his voice carrying in the silence that followed her speech.

Anastasia's lips curved into a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Yes, indeed. The Morrison executives were particularly impressed with my handling of their recent restructuring."

Sebastian nodded appreciatively. "I'd love to hear more about that sometime."

Something cold slithered down my spine as I watched them—the way she looked at him, the way he looked at her.

Just three days ago, he'd sworn I was more important than any career advancement.

Continue to next part

I've always been methodical about cleaning our apartment, a habit Jackson found endearing if slightly obsessive. Every Saturday morning while he was at the gym, I'd transform our shared space from lived-in comfort to pristine order. The ritual calmed me, providing structure to counterbalance the unpredictability I'd known growing up in foster care. Today was no different—except it would change everything. The vacuum hummed against the hardwood floor as I worked my way around our gray sectional couch. Jackson had splurged on it when we moved in together three years ago, insisting we needed something comfortable enough for our movie marathons. I smiled at the memory as I lifted the cushions to vacuum underneath. That's when I saw it—a flash of bright pink lace wedged deep between the cushions. "What the hell?" I muttered, setting aside the vacuum and reaching for the fabric. It was underwear.

Modern Mystery Romance

7.7

Ex-Wife, Please Have Some Self-Respect

7.7

I was driving through a rainstorm in upstate New York, pushing my old Volvo to the limit just to pick up a Dior gown for my wife, Catarina. She needed it for a gala tonight, where she planned to spend the evening standing next to the man she actually loved, Atticus Deleon. The truck hit me head-on, crossing the center line and sending my car rolling down an embankment in a shriek of twisted metal and shattered glass. As the steering column crushed my chest, my brain didn't see a white light; it was pried open by a digital tsunami, flooding my mind with the "Quantum Archive"-billions of data points on surgery, high-frequency trading, and combat. I woke up in the ICU with three broken ribs and a concussion, but the only thing waiting for me was a screaming voicemail from my wife's assistant. "Jorden, where the hell are you? Catarina has been waiting for thirty minutes! You are so incompetent it's actually impressive." There was no "Are you okay?" or "Are you alive?"-only fury over a ruined dress and a missing tie. While I was being resuscitated, my wife was on Instagram, singing "Endless Love" with Atticus and laughing at my "tantrum." She even called the family lawyer to freeze my credit cards, wanting to make sure I couldn't even buy a coffee without her permission. For three years, I had been the "useful husband," the doormat who apologized whenever she stepped on my toes. But the accident had overwritten my desperation with cold, hard logic, and I realized I had almost died for a woman who viewed me as a liability with a negative return on investment. When Catarina finally stormed into my hospital room to demand an apology for ruining her night, I didn't look at her with the usual puppy-dog eyes. I looked at her with ice in my veins and handed her a manila envelope I had drafted myself. "Sign the divorce papers, Ms. Evans. I'm done being your canary."

Action Modern Romance

9.8

He Chose Her, I Chose Freedom

9.8

My husband, Keaton, and my adopted sister, Kaylene, betrayed me. I discovered Kaylene was pregnant with his child, a calculated move to secure an heir for the shipping empire my family built and he now controlled. He painted me as a cold, career-obsessed wife who couldn't give him a child, turning our mutual decision to wait into a weapon against me. When I confronted them, Keaton promised to handle it, but it was just another lie. His deception ran deeper than I ever imagined. When a violent figure from Keaton' s past emerged, revealing he had used stolen money to marry into my family, Keaton chose to protect his pregnant mistress over me, leaving me to be attacked and seriously injured. He left me bleeding on the floor of an art gallery, choosing to shield the woman carrying his child-a child that, I would later discover, wasn't even his. I faked my own death, escaping to Ireland to start a new life, free from his web of lies. But Keaton, consumed by a twisted obsession after learning the truth, hunted me down. He found me, desperate to reclaim what he had destroyed. "You're mine, Blair," he growled, his eyes filled with a possessive fire. "Always have been, always will be."

Action Modern Romance

8.2

Healed By Another: Rejecting The Ruthless Don

8.2

I spent a year in a Swiss asylum, swallowing pills to cure a madness that didn’t exist. It turned out the medication was just sugar. My insanity was a script written by Jaxon Francis, the Don of New York, just so he could marry a Cartel princess without his ward getting in the way. When I finally escaped and tried to leave him, his new wife staged her own kidnapping and framed me. Jaxon didn’t ask for proof. He didn’t look at the evidence. Instead, he tied a rope around my ankles and dragged me behind a helicopter across the jagged rocks of the Wastelands. He held his wife close and watched as my skin was flayed and my bones shattered, believing he was executing a traitor. He left me for dead in the dirt, convinced he had cleansed his empire. I took the hush money his mother threw at me and vanished, letting Alina Phillips die in that field. Three years later, I returned to New York as "Echo," the elusive artist the world was obsessing over. At a charity auction, Jaxon bid one hundred million dollars for a painting of a woman’s scarred back, desperate to buy redemption for the ghost he thought he killed. He chased me into the rain, begging for a second chance, swearing he had destroyed his wife for me. I looked at the man who once held my heart and simply smiled. Then I turned to the man standing beside me. "Jaxon, meet Darwin," I said, linking my arm through his. "My husband."

Mafia Modern Romance

8.2

His Friend, My Living Hell

8.2

My father's routine heart surgery went horribly wrong, leaving him in a coma. The surgeon was Fabiola, my husband Julian's celebrated childhood friend. When I begged Julian to use his immense resources to save him, he gave me a chilling ultimatum: my father's life for Fabiola's career. To protect her, he stood by as she deliberately scalded my hand with boiling soup. He locked me in a rat-infested wine cellar to "teach me a lesson." He even force-fed me peanuts, knowing I had a deadly allergy, and had me committed to a psychiatric hospital when I still wouldn't break. I didn't understand how the man who once promised to build a fortress around me had become the one launching the attack, all for a woman he claimed was just a friend. So, as Fabiola shoved me from the deck of our yacht into the dark water below, I didn't fight. I let myself fall, because faking my death was the only way to destroy them both.

Action Modern Romance

9.2

His Obsession, Her Perfect Calculated Escape

9.2

When Alma's father stood in front of the bulldozers to protest, the energy company's thugs beat him half to death in the mud. Instead of arresting the attackers, the police handcuffed her bleeding father and threw him into a cruiser. "Stay back, kid," the officer barked, shoving Alma away. Her father was denied bail and framed for assaulting an officer. The corrupt mayor just smiled and told her not to cause a scene. Meanwhile, the company mailed her weeping mother a severance check that barely covered a month of groceries. Alma was forced to watch her family be completely destroyed by men with money and power. Kneeling in the cold dirt where her father's blood had spilled, she didn't shed a single tear. The panic in her chest died, replaced by a cold, absolute hatred. She realized that crying wouldn't do anything. In this world, justice didn't exist for the weak. Years later, Alma stepped onto a prestigious Ivy League campus, her cheap backpack slung over her shoulder. She was surrounded by the arrogant children of the very executives who ruined her life. She lowered her head, hiding her dead eyes, and put on the perfect mask of a timid, helpless charity case. Undergrad was just a training ground, and these elite kids were just her practice dummies. The hunt was officially on.

Action Adventure Modern

Daughter's Hidden Power

Chapter 1

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