His Madness, Her Unforgiving Vengeance
I gave my childhood sweetheart, Kade, ten years of my life and the code that built his empire. I thought we were a team. Then, on the night of our success, I overheard him call me his "unpaid intern" and "beta test."
He publicly discarded me for a strategic marriage, shattering my world. I fled, rebuilt my life from scratch, and found real love with a kind man named Heath.
But Kade came back, obsessed and unhinged. When I refused to take him back, he had his thugs beat Heath bloody in an alley.
He cornered me, begging for another chance, his eyes wild with a twisted love.
"It was always you, Addy! I made a mistake!"
I walked straight into his corporate office, my heart cold as stone. I looked the monster I once loved in the eye and delivered my final promise.
"You will stay away from me and the man I love," I said, my voice lethal. "Or I will expose every last one of your family's secrets and burn your entire empire to the ground."
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Chapter 2
Addison Fitzpatrick POV:
The phone rang, shrill and insistent, jolting me awake. My eyes felt glued shut, heavy with unshed tears and the crushing weight of Kade' s betrayal. It was Ava, my best friend, her face filling the screen. Her expression was a mix of anger and disbelief.
"Addy, turn on the news! Or just look at my screen. You won't believe this."
Before I could respond, Ava angled her phone. The live feed showed a dazzling red carpet event. Camera flashes popped like firecrackers. And there, in the center of it all, was Kade.
He was laughing, his arm possessively wrapped around Jodi Dawson. Her dress glittered. His suit was perfectly tailored. They looked like the quintessential power couple, polished and beaming. My stomach lurched.
Jodi leaned into Kade, whispering something in his ear. He threw his head back, a genuine, unrestrained laugh spilling from his lips. Then he bent down, his mouth finding hers in a long, lingering kiss. The cameras went wild.
My breath caught in my throat. My vision blurred, not from tears this time, but from a sudden, searing pain. It was a physical ache, deep in my chest.
I remembered last night. After our shared breakthrough, after the code was done, after the celebration that had spilled into his bed. I remembered reaching for him, my fingers brushing his chest, seeking closeness. He had subtly, gently, moved away. He' d kissed my forehead, a chaste, almost paternal gesture. He had murmured something about respecting my space, about not wanting to rush things, about how special "we" were. He said he wanted to be careful, to make sure it was right.
A fresh wave of nausea washed over me. He had lied. Every word, every touch, every cautious gesture – a calculated performance. He didn't want to rush me. He didn't want to rush us. He just didn't want me.
The realization hit me with the force of a tidal wave. He wasn't averse to intimacy; he was averse to intimacy with me. It was a cruel, humiliating truth that twisted my gut. My body felt like it was shutting down. My lungs seized, struggling to draw in air. Each breath was a ragged gasp.
He had been setting the stage for this. Testing the waters. Confirming my naivete. The "unpaid intern," the "beta test," the "placeholder." It all clicked into place with horrifying clarity. Kade Dalton, the ambitious heir, was a master manipulator. He' d always been ruthless in business, but I had foolishly believed his ruthlessness ended where our friendship began.
The muffled cheers from Ava's phone, the distant roar of the crowd, only amplified the terrifying silence in my own room. Kade and Jodi kissed again, a slow, sensual performance for the cameras. He ran his hand through her hair, his thumb caressing her jawline. It was a gesture he had never once offered me. Not once.
He was doing it to rub it in. He was doing it because he knew I' d see it. This wasn't just a strategic merger; it was a public execution of my feelings, a brutal display of my irrelevance.
"Addy! Oh my god, Addy, are you okay?" Ava' s voice was full of frantic concern. "I swear to God, I'm going to fly over there right now and kick his smug face in! How dare he?"
My throat was raw, constricted. A terrible, guttural sob ripped through me. "No, Ava. Don't."
"Don't what? Don't care that he's publicly humiliating you after you gave him everything? Don't care that he used you like some disposable... some thing?" Her voice cracked with anger.
The bile rose in my throat. My head pounded. My heart hammered, a frantic drumbeat against my ribs. Humiliation, hot and searing, washed over me. It wasn't just that he had used me; it was that he had so utterly devalued me. My intellect, my emotions, my body - they were all just tools in his grand scheme. He didn't just dismiss my contributions; he dismissed me.
Kade pulled away from Jodi, his eyes sparkling with an inner glee. He smiled, a genuine, blinding smile, reserved for moments of triumph. It was the same smile he used to give me when we' d crack a difficult line of code, or when our app prototypes finally worked. I had treasured that smile, foolishly believing it was a sign of shared joy, shared success.
It was a lie. All of it. That smile, once my beacon, now looked like the wicked grin of a predator.
"I can't," I choked out, my voice barely a whisper. "I can't watch this anymore, Ava."
"Oh, Addy, I'm so sorry," Ava said, her voice softening. "I shouldn't have shown you. Do you want me to come over?"
"No," I managed, shaking my head violently. "I just... I need to be alone."
I ended the call, the silence in my room deafening. Kade's triumphant smile, Jodi's possessive gaze, the flashing cameras-all burned into my mind. I was alone. Utterly, completely alone. And the darkness was closing in.
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7.0
Sophia Hayes has perfected the art of control. In the high-pressure world of The Metropolitan, she's the youngest senior journalist ever hired-an achievement built on ruthless discipline, flawless execution, and a reputation that makes even seasoned reporters double-check their facts before speaking to her. She is sharp. Unshakeable. Precise to the bone. Her life runs on deadlines, color-coded calendars, and emotional walls tall enough to withstand anything.
Dean Mercer is everything she isn't-and everything she doesn't have time for. A wildly successful illustrator whose comic series Love Is a Mess has a cult following online, Dean lives in a world where structure is optional and inspiration is everything. His apartment is chaos. His sleep schedule is chaos. His heart is chaos. He creates brilliance in messy strokes but hides his deepest truths behind humor, charm, and a smile that masks more wounds than he lets on.
So when the magazine pairs them for a high-stakes project-a revolutionary feature blending investigative journalism with illustrated storytelling-everyone expects disaster. Sophia expects worse.
Their assignment: explore modern love through real stories across the city. Raw, unfiltered, unpredictable love.
Exactly the kind of assignment that makes Sophia want to run.
Dean arrives late to their first meeting with coffee stains and excuses. Sophia arrives with a binder thick enough to double as a weapon. Dean studies her timeline like it's written in a foreign language. Sophia studies Dean like he's a problem she needs to solve before he derails everything she's built.
Their partnership begins in sparks-sharp, heated, dangerous sparks.
Arguments disguised as discussions.
Discussions disguised as power struggles.
Power struggles disguised as creative differences.
But tension has a habit of twisting into something else when the nights grow long.
As they dive into the city-interviewing strangers whose love stories survived decades, storms, heartbreaks, second chances-something shifts between them. Slowly. Quietly. Against both of their wills.
Sophia begins to see past Dean's easy humor to the man underneath-the one who fears failing the people he cares about, who draws comics because it's the only way he knows how to tell the truth. And Dean sees the cracks in Sophia's armor-the vulnerability she protects like a secret, the softness she doesn't show, the fire in her that the world misunderstands as coldness.
Their conversations deepen. Their arguments soften. Their laughter blends.
And the chemistry-the kind they both pretend not to notice-tightens around them like an invisible thread.
But the closer they get, the heavier the air becomes. Because both of them are hiding something.
Sophia hides her fear of losing control.
Dean hides his fear of being the reason someone gets hurt.
And the feature they're creating-meant to uncover the truth about modern love-begins exposing truths they never meant to reveal. About each other. About themselves.
Their late-night work sessions grow intimate, electric. Their stories blur with the stories they're collecting. Dean sketches Sophia without meaning to-capturing expressions she never lets the world see. Sophia writes notes about him she can't bring herself to delete. Something real starts forming in the space between them, fragile but undeniable.
Until the past they both buried finds them.
A mistake from Dean's life-one he thought he'd left behind-reaches the editorial floor at the worst possible time. A detail with enough weight to derail the feature, shatter their progress, and wound the one person who finally saw him clearly.
Sophia's instinct is survival. Run before she gets hurt. Seal her heart before it cracks open. Dean's instinct is retreat. Protect her from the version of himself he fears is still true.
Deadlines tighten. Trust fractures.
Their work stalls, their communication splinters, and the connection they've been dancing around threatens to snap under the strain.
But desire doesn't listen to logic.
And hearts don't obey deadlines.
Even as they pull away, they keep orbiting each other-drawn back together by an ache neither can extinguish. Their arguments deepen into something rawer, heavier. Their silence holds more meaning than their words.
They must choose:
fight for the story that could define their careers...
or fight for the connection that could rewrite their futures.
And when an unexpected message, a truth revealed too late, and one irreversible decision collide, they're forced to confront the question their feature was meant to answer:
What does love look like today-
and can two people living at opposite rhythms find it before it slips through their fingers?
On the edge of losing their partnership...
their second chance...
and each other...
9.6
She was sold as a broodmare. He was a warrior with no memory. Together, they'll burn down the world.
Lyra has been called many things: half-blood, mongrel, dirty blood. Rejected by every pack she's approached, she's given one final chance-as a bride to Ronan, the cruel Alpha of Red River Pack. But when her wedding night becomes a nightmare, she stabs her new husband and flees into the frozen wilderness.
Stellan remembers nothing. Not his name, not his past, not the ancient tattoos covering his body. He only knows that when he sees a terrified woman falling from a cliff into an icy river, he must save her-even if it kills him.
On the run from a vengeful Alpha and his army of hunters, Lyra and Stellan discover an impossible bond growing between them. The moon has chosen them as mates. But Stellan's memories are returning, and with them, a devastating truth: he's not just any wolf. He's the Alpha of the North Star Pack. And a half-blood can never be his Luna.
Now Ronan's brother has sworn revenge, an ancient prophecy awakens, and three packs prepare for war. Lyra must prove that bloodlines mean nothing-and that the most powerful bond of all is forged in ice and fire.
He lost his memory. She lost her freedom. Together, they'll find everything.
7.5
I run my family's political dynasty with an iron fist. From my father’s Senate votes to my own calculated engagement, every move is mine to control.
Then, in a single evening, my ambitious stepmother made her play. She used our housekeeper as a spy and orchestrated a scandal involving my fiancé and stepsister, designed to shatter my reputation and power.
They thought they could break me. Within twelve hours, the spy was dead on the marble floor of my foyer. My fiancé’s family was blackmailed into silence. My stepsister was exiled to a Swiss boarding school, and I stripped my own father of his authority for his weakness.
As for my stepmother, Bronte, I had her declared mentally unstable and forcibly taken to a remote facility in Montana, completely cut off from the world.
Everyone saw a cold-hearted coup, but they didn't know the secret I held. I had proof that Bronte had systematically orchestrated my brother’s death years ago, all to position her own son to inherit everything. This wasn't about power; it was vengeance.
But winning the war at home has put me on a much deadlier board. Now, I'm preparing for a dinner with Eldridge Marsh—the most dangerous man in Washington—who wants to decide if I'm a player he can use, or a threat he needs to destroy.
9.0
I was sitting in the Presidential Suite of The Pierre, wearing a Vera Wang gown worth more than most people earn in a decade. It was supposed to be the wedding of the century, the final move to merge two of Manhattan's most powerful empires.
Then my phone buzzed. It was an Instagram Story from my fiancé, Jameson. He was at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris with a caption that read: "Fuck the chains. Chasing freedom." He hadn't just gotten cold feet; he had abandoned me at the altar to run across the world.
My father didn't come in to comfort me. He burst through the door roaring about a lost acquisition deal, telling me the Holland Group would strip our family for parts if the ceremony didn't happen by noon. My stepmother wailed about us becoming the laughingstock of the Upper East Side. The Holland PR director even suggested I fake a "panic attack" to make myself look weak and sympathetic to save their stock price. Then Jameson’s sleazy cousin, Pierce, walked in with a lopsided grin, offering to "step in" and marry me just to get his hands on my assets.
I looked at them and realized I wasn't a daughter or a bride to anyone in that room. I was a failed asset, a bouncing check, a girl whose own father told her to go to Paris and "beg" the man who had just publicly humiliated her.
The girl who wanted to be loved died in that mirror. I realized that if I was going to be sold to save a merger, I was going to sell myself to the one who actually controlled the money.
I marched past my parents and walked straight into the VIP holding room. I looked the most powerful man in the room—Jameson’s cold, ruthless uncle, Fletcher Holland—dead in the eye and threw the iPad on the table.
"Jameson is gone," I said, my voice as hard as stone. "Marry me instead."
9.7
A monotonous, colorless life and dull relationships instantly fade into the background the moment you step into a completely different world-one with its own rules and laws. It looks so much like ours, and yet is radically different, for here live werewolves and countless other incredible beings.
Bring a cursed Alpha King's heart back to life? Ride off into the sunset with one of the handsome guards? Or fall for a dangerous witch and uncover the true face of evil? Wrap it all up for me-I'll take it!
An extraordinary world, vivid characters, blazing emotions, and passionate love with a touch of spice ❤️🔥
18+
"Quite an interesting hall you've got here," Karadeylis said without even glancing around, his steps bringing him dangerously close. "But OURS holds unforgettable memories of the time we unwrapped your restless little ass."
I gasped in outrage at his brazen words-especially with so many people around-but my panties betrayed me, dampening at the memory of exactly what that bastard had reminded me of.
"How dare you?!" I hissed, our faces now only inches apart. Goosebumps ran across my skin at the dangerous nearness. I could feel his hot breath on my lips, the heat of his half-bare body, and that intoxicating scent I knew too well. Our breathing came ragged, as if we had just finished running a marathon, unable to break free from the magnetic pull of each other's gaze.
"No one else dares-only me, Prepedollie!" the scoundrel growled, gripping me firmly by the tail and yanking my face closer to his as his eyes devoured me. "I warned you-once I found you, there would be no mercy!"
7.7
I was dying of cancer when my destructive ex, Brooks Ferguson, returned to Seattle. The first thing he did was demolish my late father's record store.
But his new fiancée, Grace, delivered the final blow. With a vicious smile, she cornered me and poured my mother's ashes onto the filthy street.
I snapped. I rammed my vintage Mustang into her convertible-twice. I woke up in the hospital, coughing up blood, just in time to see Brooks on the news.
"When I find her," he snarled to the cameras, "I' m going to enjoy breaking every single bone in her body."
He had no idea the cancer, accelerated by his cruelty, was already killing me.
He wanted my body? Fine. I refused all treatment and arranged for the hospital to call him. My final revenge wasn't to fight him. It was to die and make him claim the corpse of the woman he destroyed.