Forgive the Knife, Not the Lie
Natalie Harrington never expected that less than a year after remarrying, Adrian Brown would cheat on her again.
As the design director of Brown Group, she had worked late into the night once again. When she returned home, she saw the servants standing in a row at the foot of the stairs, blocking the way.
The moment they spotted her, their faces turned deathly ashen.
"Mrs. Brown... why are you back? Didn't Mr. Brown say you'd be working through the night and wouldn't be coming home? I... I'll go upstairs and ask him to come down."
As the servant turned and went upstairs, Natalie heard the sounds coming from above.
"Ah... that feels so good! Adrian, slow down, I can't take it..."
"Go on. Louder. Natalie isn't home anyway. You can scream all you want."
"You're so bad... ah!"
Seeing Natalie's expressionless face, the servant asked nervously, "Mrs. Brown, I'll go tell Mr. Brown right away that you're back."
"No need." Natalie turned and walked toward the dining room, her voice calm. "I'm hungry. Prepare a late-night meal for me."
The servants were utterly shocked, not expecting her to remain so composed, unaware that she had already decided to divorce.
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Chapter 3
"I know." Natalie nodded, her tone completely flat. "Is there anything else?"
Adrian frowned. "You… aren't angry?"
Something was off. Everything felt wrong.
If this were before, she would have caused a huge scene.
Why had she suddenly become so cold?
"I'm not angry. She's right. I am a corpse in bed, and I don't know how to please you. But it's obvious she makes you very happy. As long as you're happy, that's fine."
After organizing the documents, she prepared to take them out to her assistant.
Adrian suddenly grew irritated. "And you say you're not angry? If you're not angry, why are you talking like this? All sarcastic and cutting. It makes me really uncomfortable!"
"Then what do you want me to say?" Natalie reached out and pushed him aside. "I'm really not angry. I actually think this is fine. I'm busy. If you have nothing else to do, Mr. Brown, you can go find some more exciting games to play with Ms. Bennett."
Adrian had no intention of leaving. Instead, he softened his tone. "I know you're upset about what happened last night, and Yana provoked you again today. Of course you're unhappy. How about this? It's already lunchtime. I'll have lunch with you today, alright?"
Natalie refused him again. "I said no."
"What exactly do you want?"
Adrian had completely lost his patience and was about to snap when Yana walked over, looking pitiful. "I'm sorry, Ms. Harrington. I came to apologize. That video was sent to you by accident. I was just fooling around with Mr. Brown. I didn't mean to send it out."
Natalie was already exhausted from hearing this kind of performative innocence.
If this were before, she would have exposed her without mercy. Now, she barely reacted. "I accept your apology. I really need to get back to work. Please, do as you like."
Watching her walk away, Adrian's brows knitted tightly.
"Something is really wrong with Natalie." Adrian said.
"What's wrong? Isn't this how you wanted her to be?" Yana stood on tiptoe, wrapped her arms around his neck, and said sweetly, "I'm hungry. I want you to take me out to eat."
Adrian pulled her hands away, his face cold. "Don't get this close to me at the office anymore. And without my permission, you're not allowed to enter the CEO's office again."
"Fine, I got it. You're really strange. Ms. Harrington gets angry and you're unhappy. She doesn't get angry and you're still unhappy. I really don't understand what men are thinking!" Yana replied.
Adrian didn't know either, but he strongly disliked Natalie's current attitude.
People said that when a woman stopped caring, it meant she no longer loved him.
Had she really stopped loving him?
It seemed he would have to seriously win her back.
That night, Adrian came home early, carrying a pile of gifts.
When he returned, Natalie was watching TV.
"Natalie, look at what I bought for you. They're all your favorite things…"
When Adrian brought the gifts over to her, she didn't even lift her head.
"Mm. Just put them there."
Her attitude set him off again. "Natalie, how long are you going to keep this up? Do you know how much I hate it when you act like this? If you have something to say, say it. Stop pretending you don't care!"
"Fine. Then I'll say it." Natalie looked up at him. "I don't need you to comfort me. I just want you to fire Yana and cut all ties with her. Can you do that?"
"Why do you have to be so extreme? Yana is still young, and she already said she wouldn't compete with you for the title of Mrs. Brown. Isn't that enough?" Adrian looked completely confused. "If that's still not enough, I'll fire her and keep her somewhere else. You won't have to see her again."
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8.7
On her eighteenth birthday, Elinor thought she was finally an adult. But a single text message reminded her she was just property.
Boyd Walker, the ruthless billionaire who dictated her every breath, threw a contract onto her bed. He had bought her adoptive father's medical debt—one billion dollars. And she was the sole collateral.
The punishment for even a hint of rebellion was catastrophic.
When her disabled friend tried to check on her, Boyd had his good leg shattered in front of a live security feed just to teach her a lesson.
When she fought off an entitled frat boy at school and came back with a bleeding arm, Boyd didn't comfort her.
Driven by a twisted, suffocating jealousy, he held her under a freezing bath, then tied a red thread with a silver bell around her ankle.
"You are a pet that needs to learn its boundaries."
Every time she moved, the high-pitched ring was a humiliating reminder of her gilded cage. The billion-dollar debt was a chain she could never break, and the monster holding the leash would destroy anyone who dared to help her.
Stripped of her money, her friends, and her dignity, Elinor lay completely still in the dark room for three days, refusing all food and water.
If Boyd wouldn't give her freedom, she would take the only thing she had left to control—her own death.
8.5
For five years, Alena lived as the secret girlfriend of Hollywood's golden boy, Kane Moody, locked away in a luxury penthouse.
Everything shattered when Vanity Fair announced his engagement to a famous actress, quoting him saying it was his "first time finding real love." But instead of letting Alena go, Kane's security team trapped her inside the apartment.
When she tried to fight back, she discovered the horrifying truth.
The entire penthouse was wired with hidden cameras, recording her most private breakdowns to use as blackmail.
His crisis team threatened her sick mother and forced Alena to sign away her life.
He even used her trust fund to secretly buy his new fiancée a $2.4 million emerald necklace.
The darkest betrayal came when she sneaked out to buy emergency contraceptives, only for Kane to call her untraceable burner phone.
"You don't need that," he whispered.
He revealed that months ago, under the guise of a vitamin shot, his private doctor had secretly implanted a three-year contraceptive device in her arm.
Alena was paralyzed with dread, her body violated and her existence reduced to a node in his surveillance network. She couldn't understand why a man who publicly discarded her refused to let her leave his sight.
Desperate, she used a secret work assignment to flee on a private helicopter to an isolated cabin in Aspen. But as the chopper flew away and the cabin door opened, Kane was standing by the fire, smiling as the winter storm rolled in.
8.3
I was the "crazy girl" my family sent to a survivalist commune in Utah to rot. Four years later, I returned to Manhattan with a titanium USB drive and a heart full of ice, ready to blackmail the one man who could burn my family to the ground.
But I underestimated how much they hated me. My fiancé, Preston, was already laundering money through my inheritance and sleeping with my replacement. He didn't even flinch when I showed him the evidence of his crimes.
Instead, he grabbed me by the shoulders, smashed my phone, and shoved me out of his moving Lincoln into a midnight storm. I hit the wet pavement hard, my knees scraping against the asphalt as I watched him drive away, laughing about how I was a "dirt-poor exile" that nobody wanted.
Within minutes, my credit cards were flagged as stolen and my father’s lawyers were drafting a statement calling me mentally unstable. I was left shivering in a puddle of oily sludge, wearing a ruined Chanel suit, with no money, no home, and no one to hear me scream.
I couldn't understand how they could be so cruel. I was their flesh and blood, yet they treated me like a broken toy to be discarded in the trash. I was a "distressed asset" in a city that only valued gold.
That’s when a black armored SUV pulled to the curb. King Wagner—the ruthless shark of Wall Street and Preston’s own uncle—looked at my muddy face with cold, calculating eyes. He didn't offer me pity; he offered me a leash.
"You belong to me now," he whispered, pulling me into the dry warmth of his car. By the next morning, he had announced our engagement to the world, turning me into the very weapon that would slit my family's throat.
7.2
She was collateral. A silent bride in a five-billion-dollar deal, bound by a contract that stripped her of her name and her voice. He was Austin Walton. A ruthless billionaire who viewed his new wife not as a partner, but as an asset with a depreciating value.
His plan was simple: use her to secure his empire, then discard her.
Her plan was simpler: survive him.
But on their wedding night, something changes. The terrified girl he expected is replaced by a woman with cold fire in her eyes, a woman who can do the math faster than his analysts and anticipate his enemies' moves before they happen. She dismantles her own family's treachery from the inside out, turning his wedding into a corporate battlefield where she is the undisputed victor.
Austin bought a pawn for his chessboard. He's about to discover he married his queen. And in this game of power, the only rule is winner takes all.
9.0
I never thought one broken promise could shatter my world twice.
His name was Marcus. He swore he'd stay in touch when he left for that "year-long business trip." Three months later, silence. No calls, no texts, nothing. On my birthday, drunk and done with heartbreak, I went home with a stranger. One reckless night. I slipped out before dawn, leaving a fake name. No more men. No more drama.
Then the perfect job fell into my lap: personal assistant to Victoria Langford, a young, filthy-rich heiress. Live-in position, great pay, exactly what my sick little sister and I needed. I moved in, ready for a fresh start.
Until I walked into her mansion and saw him. Marcus. In her arms. My fiancé was her boyfriend.
Rage burned through me, but I swallowed it. I needed this job. He begged forgiveness, fed me lies about a big contract, how he never stopped loving me. Weak, stupid, lonely. I fell back into him. Secret touches, stolen nights, right under her nose.
Then everything exploded. I came home to blood and sirens. Marcus swore he didn't know what happened. But when the police started digging, he pointed the finger at me. How do I escape this? Who's the father of the child growing inside of me?
9.3
For seventeen years, I was the crown jewel of the Kensington empire, the perfect daughter groomed for a royal future. Then, a cream-colored envelope landed in my lap, bearing a gold crest and a truth that turned my world into ice.
The DNA test result was a cold, hard zero percent-I wasn't a Kensington. Before the ink could even dry, my parents invited my replacement, a girl named Alleen, into the drawing room and treated me like a trespasser in my own home.
My mother, who once hosted galas in my honor, wouldn't even look me in the eye as she stroked Alleen's arm, whispering that she was finally "safe." My father handed me a one-million-dollar check-a mere tip for a billionaire-and told me to leave immediately to avoid tanking the company's stock price.
"You're a thief! You lived my life, you spent my money, and you don't get to keep the loot!" Alleen shrieked, trying to claw the designer jacket off my shoulders while my "parents" watched with clinical detachment.
I was dumped on a gritty sidewalk in Queens with nothing but three trunks and the address of a struggling laborer I was now supposed to call "Dad." I traded a marble mansion for a crumbling walk-up where the air smelled of exhaust and my new bedroom was a literal storage closet.
My biological family thought I was a broken princess, and the Kensingtons thought they had successfully erased me with a payoff and a non-disclosure agreement. They had no idea that while I was hauling trunks up four flights of stairs, my secret media empire was already preparing to move against them.
As I sat on a thin mattress in the dark, I opened my encrypted laptop and sent a single command that would cost my former father ten million dollars by breakfast. They thought they were throwing me to the wolves, but they forgot one thing: I'm the one who leads the pack.