Love Turned to Ash: He Cheated Again, So I Took His Empire
On the third anniversary of our marriage, Adrian Griffin had a new face in his passenger seat.
This time, I, Audrey Lawson, didn't storm over to tear them apart. I didn't scream or demand explanations.
I simply went home and poured the dinner I had spent the entire afternoon preparing into the trash.
The housekeeper tried to stop me. "Mrs. Griffin, you worked all afternoon on those dishes..."
I wiped my hands, my voice flat. "It's cold. I don't want it anymore."
Not the food. Not the man I had once given up my career to marry.
I took out the divorce papers I had prepared long ago. Without hesitation, I signed my name-slowly, carefully, stroke by stroke.
Then I began packing my things. Clothes. Jewelry.
And the honors that were rightfully mine.
Adrian had no idea that every award-winning design Griffin Group had received in the past five years had come from my hand.
He had built his reputation in the industry on my work.
I dialed a number that had lain dormant for three years.
"Professor, I'm back."
From this day forward, I would reclaim everything that belonged to me.
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Chapter 3
The charity gala was held at the most luxurious hotel in Asterford.
Crystal chandeliers blazed overhead, silk gowns brushed against tailored suits.
By the time I arrived, the evening was already halfway through.
Adrian hadn't shown up yet.
I stood alone in a corner, a glass of champagne in hand.
Whispers drifted toward me.
"Isn't that Mrs. Griffin? Why did she come alone?"
"I heard Mr. Griffin's been obsessed with some intern lately. Takes her everywhere. Doesn't even bother bringing his wife to events like this."
"How embarrassing. If I were her, I'd have left already."
"I heard she came from nothing. Married into the Griffin family by pure luck. Guess the luck's run out."
The wealthy ladies' tongues were always sharper than knives.
Once, their words would have cut deep. I would have felt small, slipped into the restroom, and cried in private.
Now, they were nothing more than noise.
I took a slow sip of champagne and let my gaze sweep over the gossiping crowd.
When our eyes met, they fell silent without meaning to.
A stir rose near the entrance.
"Mr. Griffin's here!"
I looked up.
Adrian had finally arrived.
He was dressed in a white suit, polished and charming.
On his arm was none other than Jasmine—the so-called cousin of Marcus.
Jasmine wore a pale pink couture gown, its hem studded with crystals that glittered under the lights.
I recognized it instantly.
Adrian had ordered it in Hacloustein last month. He had told me it was for our anniversary.
Apparently, it had found another owner.
Jasmine clung to him like a proud peacock, a triumphant smile curving her lips.
Adrian scanned the room uneasily. When his eyes landed on me, he visibly stiffened.
He released Jasmine's hand and hurried toward me.
Jasmine hesitated, then picked up two glasses of red wine and followed behind him.
"Audrey, you're here early." Adrian lowered his voice. "Marcus had something urgent come up. He insisted I bring his cousin along so she could see how these events work. I didn't have a choice."
Marcus again.
Marcus again. Whenever Adrian needed a convenient stand-in, Marcus was the one he pulled out.
Before I could respond, Jasmine approached.
"Hello, Mrs. Griffin. I'm Jasmine. We met earlier today." She smiled sweetly and held out a glass of wine. "Mrs. Griffin, let me toast you. Thank you for lending Adrian to me as a guide."
Lend?
What a convenient word.
I didn't take the glass. I simply looked at her.
"Mr. Griffin charges a high fee for personal guidance. Can you afford it?"
Jasmine's expression froze, her eyes reddening instantly.
"Mrs. Griffin, I think you've misunderstood…"
She stepped closer, as if to take my hand.
The moment her fingers brushed mine, her heel suddenly "slipped."
She lunged toward me as if losing control.
I instinctively stepped aside.
"Ah—!"
Jasmine screamed. Missing me entirely, she crashed straight into the display behind me.
On it stood the final auction item of the night.
A priceless antique porcelain vase.
The vase hit the floor, shattering in a sharp, ringing explosion that echoed through the ballroom.
Silence fell.
Jasmine collapsed among the shards, her palm sliced open, blood spilling onto the marble floor.
She looked up at me, tears streaming down her face, and pointed.
"Mrs. Griffin! Why did you push me? I know you don't like me, but the vase was innocent!"
Adrian went ashen. He rushed over to lift Jasmine up, then turned on me in fury.
"Audrey! Have you lost your mind? That antique belongs to the Chandler family for tonight's auction! The starting bid is fifty million dollars! You're making a scene over jealousy? At an event like this? Can you even afford to pay for it?"
People gathered, murmuring.
"Fifty million dollars. The Griffins are going to bleed for this."
"Mrs. Griffin pushed her in public. How jealous can she be?"
"No class at all."
The disgust in Adrian's eyes pierced like needles.
He didn't ask what happened. Didn't check the cameras. He simply pronounced me guilty.
In his mind, I was nothing more than a jealous shrew.
I looked at the man I had once loved, now unrecognizable, and felt the final trace of warmth inside me extinguish.
I set my glass down slowly and smoothed the folds of my gown.
"Fifty million dollars, is that right?"
I stepped in front of Adrian and met his gaze.
"If I settle the matter of the vase and secure the Skycrown Spire landmark project for Griffin Group, we divorce."
Adrian stared at me, stunned.
Then he laughed in disbelief.
"You? A housewife? If you can take Skycrown Palace, I'll agree to the divorce—and walk away with nothing."
"Fine. It's a deal."
I turned to face the crowd and took out my phone.
Outside, rain lashed against the windows, lightning slicing across the sky.
I dialed the number that had lain dormant for three years.
"Professor, I'm back."
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9.2
Rebirth with a Twist.
Fawn Jones doesn't get a chance to resolve the issues with her marriage. No, she gets murdered in her own bathtub. Drowned by the husband she hated after he had moved his mistress into their bed, Fawn's last lucid thought is a promise before death. "I will not stay weak. I will make you pay. If not in this life, then the next." Then she wakes up. Different room. Different body. Different life. Cassandra Huntington – rich, infamous, beautiful in a way Fawn never had been. Cassie had been in a coma for six months after a car crash. Her billionaire husband, Blake, had just signed the paperwork to turn off her life support when she suddenly started breathing on her own. Now everyone thinks Fawn is Cassandra. The media calls it a miracle. Blake calls it complicated. The woman wearing his wife's face is softer, sharper, funnier... and so tempting he hates himself for wanting her. Fawn calls it an opportunity for revenge. Her killers are still out there. Her old body is in the ground under a lie. And the only weapons she has now are Cassandra's money, Cassandra's reputation... and Cassandra's husband. So, she plays the role. Learns to walk in six-inch heels. Smiles for the cameras. Seduces a man who once couldn't stand his wife and now can't seem to stay away from her. While she quietly buys into the company that ruined her old life. While she gets close enough to the man who killed her to watch him crack. They drowned the wrong woman. Now she's awake. And she's not done.
8.9
I returned to New York for my welcome-home party, expecting a warm embrace from Edwin, my devoted fiancé of twenty years.
Instead, his first words to me were a cold, public warning to stay away from his new girlfriend, Kacy.
He stood in my family's hotel, shielding a girl I had never even met, and painted me as a vicious, jealous bully.
"She is very sensitive, Kaitlyn. Her background is tough. Please, be gentle with her. Don't upset her."
He humiliated me in front of our entire elite circle, allowing them to mock me as the aggressive, discarded ex while he carried her away like a fragile princess.
For twenty years, I had been his loyal shadow, fixing his mistakes and loving him unconditionally.
I couldn't understand how decades of deep devotion could be instantly erased by a few crocodile tears and a manipulative damsel act.
He was absolutely certain I would throw a tantrum, cry, and eventually crawl back to beg for his attention.
But he was wrong.
He didn't know that Everett Rowe, a billionaire tech mogul, had been patiently waiting five years to marry me.
He also didn't know that during my three years abroad, I wasn't just studying art—I became "K.B.", the ruthless Wall Street predator who could swallow his family's empire whole.
I calmly pulled out my phone, ignored the mocking whispers around me, and typed a single message to Everett.
"Yes. I'll marry you."
8.3
For three years, I was the perfect, invisible wife to Bart Brown. On our third anniversary, I stood in the kitchen for four hours, preparing his favorite meal with imported truffles, only to receive a cold text command.
"Crysta fainted again. Get to the hospital. Now."
My rare Rh-negative blood was the only thing the Brown family valued. Bart didn't want a wife; he wanted a walking blood bank for his "sick" best friend, Crysta. While I was fainting from chronic anemia, Crysta was smirking in her hospital bed, clutching Bart's hand and mocking my "peasant" lifestyle.
Even his mother treated me like a servant, demanding I vacuum the floors after I'd already offered my veins for the hundredth time. When I finally reached my breaking point and signed the divorce papers, they didn't let me go quietly. They filed a false police report, accusing me of stealing a multi-million dollar diamond necklace just to watch me crawl.
I didn't understand how a family could be so heartless. I had cooked their meals, cleaned their house, and literally bled for them, yet they were determined to ruin my life the moment I stopped being useful. Did they really think I was a nobody with nowhere to go?
Standing outside the hospital with a bruised wrist and nothing to my name, I didn't cry. I simply took off my cheap wedding ring and dialed a secure line I hadn't touched since the day I married him.
"It's me, Dad," I whispered as a fleet of black Maybachs rounded the corner. "The extraction is a go. I'm coming home."
8.2
Karmen lived suffocating under a tight chest binder and a grotesque silicone scar, forced to disguise herself as her degenerate twin brother, Kem. Her only job was to maintain a fake corporate engagement with the ruthless billionaire Earl Calderon.
But her abusive father suddenly escalated his demands. He ordered her to steal Earl's revolutionary AI patents, threatening to cut off her mother's life-saving medical trust and abandon the real Kem in a locked Swiss psych ward if she failed.
The task was a death sentence. Earl absolutely despised "Kem." He treated her like a repulsive parasite, constantly threatening to break her neck. When he accidentally caught her without her wig, he mistook her for a deranged cross-dresser, forcing her to glue the dirty fake scar back onto her raw, inflamed face in sheer disgust. At home, her father hurled glass ashtrays at her, violently yanking her collar.
"Do whatever you have to do in that bedroom, Kem. I don't care how disgusting it is. Just get the signature."
Trapped between a fiancé who loathed her very existence and a father ready to sacrifice their family for greed, Karmen endured the agonizing physical pain of her disguise. She was exhausted, terrified, and running out of time as her brother's life hung by a thread.
But they all underestimated her. When the Calderon matriarch forced Earl to link his ultra-secure private phone with "Kem" to fake their romance, she unwittingly handed over the master key. Karmen wasn't just a helpless victim; she was the elite hacker Nyx, and she was going to tear their empire apart from the inside.
9.7
Pastry chef Olivia Chen is drowning in debt when billionaire Ashton Blackwell makes her an offer: marry him for one year to secure his inheritance, and he'll pay off everything plus give her a million dollars. No love, just business.
But fake vows become real feelings, and when Ashton's vengeful ex returns with devastating family secrets, Olivia must choose between protecting the man she's fallen for and exposing the truth that could destroy him.
In a world of lies and betrayal, their contract marriage might be the only real thing worth fighting for.
8.1
On the eve of her wedding, Tyla Parker found out her fiancee Jace had an affair with her best friend Edna. This is the guy she has sacrificed so much for. Tyla Parker became one of the most famous chef after she won the Bon appetit competition in France. Jace her fiancee had convinced her to give up her career as a chef and instead let Edna build herself. She has been so stupid that she hadn't known all these while what Jace was up to, how he had her cover up for Edna so many times and also had her willed the company her father had willed to her to him. Tyla was frustrated from what she found out on her bachelorette party. She has been a fool but she won't continue to be one anymore. Tyla Parker signed a hidden marriage contract with Julian Crestwood CEO of The Golden Crest restaurant, the biggest restaurants chain in the City. Julian Crestwood, the industry devil had backed Tyla up in so many ways without her knowing because she was bent on having her revenge on her ex fiancee and her best friend. Love found its way between Julian and Tyla as they faced the world and Tyla also building herself back getting to the position of the top chef once again.
The story is about betrayal, revenge and above all true love.