From Ruined Wife To Tycoon's Obsession
Everly spent four years playing the perfect, accommodating wife to Carson Moss, swallowing every grievance just to secure medical treatments for their sick daughter.
But at a high-society banquet she exhausted herself organizing, Carson's pregnant mistress crashed the party.
The woman shoved an ultrasound of Carson's "real heir" directly into Everly's frail grandfather's face.
The shock triggered a massive heart attack.
Carson refused to use his private helicopter to save the dying old man, choosing to protect his mistress and his company's IPO instead. Her grandfather died on the hospital table.
Instead of remorse, her mother-in-law demanded Everly publicly cover up the murder.
"You will do exactly as I say, or I will freeze every single cent of the medical trust fund paying for your crippled daughter's treatments."
When a battered Everly returned to the estate, she discovered her three-year-old daughter covered in dark bruises and pinch marks. Her in-laws were deliberately torturing her disabled child.
Everly couldn't comprehend how a family could be so utterly heartless. Her only family was murdered, her child was abused, and her husband threw a five-million-dollar check at her face as hush money.
They thought she would just break and quietly disappear.
But when a terrifyingly powerful billionaire unexpectedly blocked Carson's security team from locking her up, Everly finally saw her window.
She grabbed her sleeping daughter and ran out into the freezing storm, making a blood-bound vow to make the entire Moss family bleed.
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Chapter 7
Everly pushed open the heavy door to the nursery. The room was dim, the curtains drawn tight. The air inside was thick and stale, smelling sharply of unwashed linen and neglect.
She limped quickly toward the crib in the corner.
Three-year-old Aria was curled into a tight ball, her tiny fingers gripping a worn-out stuffed rabbit.
At the sound of footsteps, Aria's eyes flew open. Panic flashed in her large, innocent eyes. But when she saw it was her mother, her little face crumpled. She let out a weak, pitiful cry and reached her arms up through the wooden bars.
Everly's heart physically tore in her chest. She reached down and pulled her daughter into her arms, pressing her face into Aria's soft hair.
As she lifted her, Everly immediately felt the heavy, sagging weight of Aria's diaper. It was soaked through, cold against the child's skin. The nanny hadn't changed her all night.
Everly's jaw locked. She carried Aria into the attached bathroom and turned on the warm water in the sink, grabbing a soft washcloth.
She laid Aria down on the changing table and gently unzipped the child's fleece onesie.
As she pulled the fabric down, Everly's eyes froze. Her breathing stopped completely.
Scattered across Aria's pale thighs and the soft skin of her inner arms were dark, purple bruises. Next to them were distinct, crescent-shaped red marks-the undeniable shape of adult fingernails digging into flesh.
Everly's hand began to shake so violently she dropped the washcloth into the sink. Water splashed everywhere.
She reached out with a trembling finger and lightly touched the edge of a bruise.
Aria flinched violently, pulling her arm back. "Owie," she babbled, her voice trembling. "Bad."
Tears erupted from Everly's eyes, hot and blinding. Marion had ordered the nanny to do this. They were torturing a disabled child.
Everly pulled Aria against her chest, holding her tight as the sound of the running water masked the guttural, agonizing sobs tearing out of Everly's throat.
When the tears finally stopped, they were replaced by a cold, mechanical focus.
Everly dried Aria off, dressed her in warm, clean clothes, and set her in the playpen.
She moved frantically around the room. She grabbed a nondescript canvas duffel bag from the closet. She shoved in diapers, Aria's medical files, her own passport, and the few pieces of jewelry she owned. She zipped the bag shut and shoved it deep into the back of the closet.
She was going to take Aria and run tonight.
A sharp knock on the door made her jump. Brenda, the head housekeeper, pushed the door open without waiting for permission.
Brenda looked at Everly with a thinly veiled sneer, maintaining the icy facade of a high-society servant. "Mrs. Moss has requested your assistance with the dinner service tonight. She felt a more hands-on role would be appropriate for you given recent events. The maid's uniform is prepared. You are to come downstairs immediately."
Everly stared at the woman. A cold laugh almost escaped her lips. To keep them blind to her escape plan, she had to play the broken victim.
"Fine," Everly said, her voice dead.
By sunset, the deafening roar of helicopter rotors shook the glass windows of the estate. The wind whipped the autumn leaves across the lawn in a violent frenzy.
Everly stood in the shadows of the grand foyer, wearing a stiff, ill-fitting black maid's uniform. She kept her head down as the massive front doors were hauled open.
Carson Moss practically bowed as he walked backward into the house, leading a tall, imposing figure out of the cold.
The man stepped inside. He shrugged off his black cashmere overcoat, handing it to the butler. The chandelier light hit his sharp, sculpted jawline and cold, predatory eyes.
Everly's heart slammed against her ribs. She instinctively took a step backward, pressing her spine against the wall, trying to melt into the shadows.
It was him. The man from the Maybach. The man who had thrown money at her bleeding body in the rain.
"Mr. Lancaster," Carson said, his voice dripping with desperation. "Welcome to our home. It is an honor to host the head of the Lancaster Group."
Guilford Lancaster shook Carson's hand with minimal effort. His dark eyes swept over the opulent foyer with an air of absolute boredom.
Suddenly, his gaze stopped.
His eyes cut through the crowd of servants and locked flawlessly onto Everly, hiding in the dark corner.
Everly stopped breathing. Her stomach twisted into a tight knot. She waited for him to speak, to expose her as the pathetic woman from the street, to humiliate her in front of her abusers.
Guilford's eyes darkened slightly. His gaze swept over her pale face, the bruise on her cheek, and the humiliating maid's uniform. The eye contact lasted for less than a second.
Then, as if he were looking at a blank wall, he looked away.
"Let's get this over with, Moss," Guilford said, his voice a flat, emotionless drawl. He walked past Carson, heading straight for the dining room.
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9.3
Marissa was the perfect wife. She traded her high powered corporate ladder for home cooked meals and a designer sanctuary, all to support her husband, Ethan.
But when Ethan confesses to a four month affair not out of guilt, but because his mistress is extorting him for $300 million...Marissa's world turns to ash.Ethan's solution is as twisted as his heart.
"Cheat back. Get even. Stay married."Driven by a cocktail of rage and Revenge, Marissa decides to take him up on his offer. She heads into the night looking for a single moment of rebellion to wash away the scent of Ethan's lies.
She finds it in the arms of a cold, devastatingly masked handsome stranger who makes her forget everything.Broken and fueled by the betrayal, Marissa decides to take the ultimate risk. She slips into an exclusive, members only masquerade club...a place where names don't exist and only desires matter.
Behind a lace mask, she meets him....a man who smells of expensive bourbon and cold command.He is the first person in years to see the fire in her, not just the wife she became.They share a night of scorched....earth passion that leaves Marissa breathless and "even." She leaves before the sun rises, intending for the stranger to remain a ghost of her revenge.
But some ghosts have a name.When the masks come off and the corporate world demands her return, Marissa comes face to face with the man from the club. He isn't just anyone. He is Xavier Sterling....the ruthless billionaire CEO she once worked for, and the man Ethan calls his "best friend."Xavier knows her scent. He knows her touch. And most dangerously, he knows exactly what Ethan did to her.
Now, Marissa has to navigate a world where her husband wants her to stay, the mistress wants her dead, and the CEO wants to own the one woman he was never supposed to touch.
Now, Marissa is caught in a lethal triangle. Xavier wants to own her, Ethan wants to keep her to save his reputation, and the $300 million debt is threatening to drown them all. In a world of billionaire power plays, Marissa is about to learn that revenge is a dish best served... in the CEO's bed.
9.8
When I woke up on the muddy bank of the freezing river, I unlocked a brutal, unfiltered preview of my actual future.
For the past six months, I had been the town's ultimate joke, chasing after a city boy who looked at me like a diseased insect. Everyone thought I jumped into the river because he rejected me.
But the nightmare didn't stop there. In the future I foresaw, my entire family was destroyed. My eldest brother was handcuffed and dragged into a squad car. My second brother died in a pool of blood on the asphalt. My parents passed away from sheer grief and humiliation, and our farm was foreclosed.
Meanwhile, Bart Hawkins—my family's sworn enemy, the boy everyone accused of pushing me, but who actually jumped in to save my life—became a billionaire tech mogul. I ended up starving to death in a damp, moldy basement, completely alone.
I finally understood that I was just a pathetic, tragic side character meant to drag my family into hell. My own sister-in-law, Felicie, had been stealing our food and money, laughing at my misery behind my back.
But right now, my mother was still alive, my brothers were safe, and the farm was ours.
When Felicie walked into my bedroom, playing the devoted sister-in-law with a bowl of clear, meatless broth while a stolen roasted chicken thigh leaked grease through her apron pocket, I didn't play along.
"What's in your pocket, Felicie?"
This time, I was going to tear that horrific future apart with my bare hands.
8.0
After years of a freezing, loveless marriage, my billionaire husband Israel finally threw me out to make room for his new lover, Ayla.
Before I even packed my bags, he ordered a crew to shred the Dogwood tree in our backyard and pour thick concrete into the crater, claiming it was a symbol of my infidelity.
He didn't know that buried beneath those roots was the urn containing the ashes of our unborn baby.
Stripped of everything, I tried to rebuild my shattered life by securing a supporting role in an indie film.
But Israel bought the entire production studio just to cast Ayla as the lead, demanding I act as her pathetic stepping stone.
When I refused, he cornered me on set with a sickening audio recording.
"We want one million dollars. This will ruin Karen forever."
It was my own parents. They had forged my medical records, planning to sell a story to the tabloids that I was a violent, delusional schizophrenic.
Israel smiled coldly, threatening to lock me in a padded room on an involuntary psychiatric hold unless I signed an unpaid contract to serve Ayla unconditionally.
My own flesh and blood had sold me out to a ruthless monster for cash.
Staring at the extortion contract, the last shred of desperation and love in my chest burned away into cold, gray ash.
To survive a monster, you have to become one.
I picked up his pen, violently signed my name, and prepared to rip his precious Ayla to shreds on camera.
9.0
Carli followed an anonymous text to a dark garage, only to find her fiancé of seven years tangled with another woman in his Porsche.
She smashed his window, threw her engagement ring at his face, and walked away.
But the betrayal didn't stop there. Her own family sided with the cheater. Her father slapped her across the face so hard she bled, demanding she hand over her late aunt's trust fund.
"If you don't do exactly as you're told tonight, I will freeze every credit card in your name," her father roared.
Forced to attend the exclusive Gutierrez family gala, Carli watched her ex-fiancé parade his cheap mistress to humiliate her, while her stepsister tried to publicly ruin her.
Suddenly, a violent screech echoed as the massive crystal chandelier above them snapped from the ceiling.
In a split second of pure instinct, Vaughn shoved his mistress to safety and threw himself to the ground, completely abandoning Carli to be crushed.
Staring up at the plummeting glass, Carli felt the crushing reality that her entire life had been surrounded by monsters.
But the fatal impact never came.
A massive force yanked her into a hard chest, shielding her body entirely from the explosive shrapnel.
Carli opened her eyes to find Fletcher Gutierrez—the ruthless billionaire king of Wall Street and the masked stranger from her reckless one-night stand—bleeding heavily over her.
Feeling his warm blood on her hands, Carli knew the game had just changed.
7.9
For five years, I was the invisible force behind my charismatic architect boyfriend's empire, painstakingly designing the dream home we built together.
But for the eighteenth time, Jayson canceled adding my name to the deed, rushing out on our candlelit dinner for yet another "critical emergency" with his young, attractive mentee, Ciera.
He left me alone at our custom dining table, blindly prioritizing her manufactured crises over our future. Hours later, Ciera posted a photo on Instagram. She was sitting in his executive chair, wearing his unbuttoned dress shirt, with two empty wine glasses on the desk. When I finally confronted him the next morning, he didn't apologize. Instead, he looked at me with arrogant amusement.
"Where are you going to go, Allison? Without me? Without this firm? Don't forget, I made you!"
My love didn't die in a sudden explosion; it bled out drop by drop over eighteen broken promises. I had poured my soul into his success, only to be treated like a disposable asset in my own home. To make the irony even more suffocating, a plastic stick in my bathroom soon revealed two stark red lines. I was pregnant with his child.
I didn't cry, and I certainly didn't use the baby to beg for his love. Instead, I packed a single suitcase, accepted a senior role at his biggest rival firm in London, and left a resignation letter on his desk. This time, I am building an empire of my own.
9.7
"This is not a game." As I wrapped my arm around her waist, I slipped my hand under her dress.
"What are you doing?" She froze, eyes like a deer caught in the headlights.
Kissing the back of her ear, I whispered, "Do you want me to take it out now?" I rubbed my finger against her pussy. As expected, she was soaking. A blaze of lust and need swept through me. My cock was hard, pressed against her ass. "You're drenched, my love. I know you enjoy it. Stop fighting it. Give in. Submit to your desire."
***
TARA
A family practice forces me to run away from home, leaving me disgraced and my family in shame.
Just when I start making new friends, someone threatens to expose who I am and the person behind my nom de plume. The condition- a contract marriage, the very same reason I fled from.
So, what's so different this time? Mad Shanewood- the achingly handsome, with waving red flags, an irrefutable passion, or a magnetic attraction?
With my secrets still haunting me, now the whole world is watching, and our delicately fragile public image is at stake.
After a glimpse beneath his shallow exterior, there is a damaged soul who makes me feel as if I'm everything to him.
And how is it that the one thing I never wanted has me fighting so hard to keep?
***
MAD
I always get the deal done until my recklessness has thrown the company into a tailspin, derailing my path to a billion-dollar project.
With my image under brutal public scrutiny, marriage is my last straw.
Tara Montimer not only intrigues me. She's selfless, kind-hearted, and sexy as hell. And something deep in her eyes makes me question if I'm worthy to be her husband.
For me, it seems that it's not just fixing my reputation anymore- the entrancing deposed princess didn't only steal my breath away. She penetrates the protective wall around my heart that I built for years.
Our goals may be aligned. But then there's a disapproving father who is a King, a law, and constant threats that prevent us from getting married.
Will this razor-thin edge arrangement be enough to fix what's been broken, or is something between us worth fighting for?