MARRIED BY MISTAKE
She never meant to become his wife.
Aria Hale had only stepped into the marriage registry to deliver her sister's documents. Yet somehow, she walked out as the legal wife of Leon Mercer-the city's most ruthless billionaire.
One signature. One mistake. One furious husband determined to make her regret it.
"You trapped me," he growls, ice lacing every word. "You'll pay for this."
But Aria isn't who he thinks she is. She carries secrets he could never imagine-an identity carefully hidden, a fortune he never suspected, and a strength that refuses to break under his cruelty.
He assumes she's a gold-digger. She lets him believe it.
When he insists she stay until the divorce is finalized, she agrees-but only because she has her own plans.
And then he notices. The way she never begs. The subtle power in her laughter. The way other men glance at her... and how his chest tightens in ways he can't explain.
By the time the truth comes crashing down-when he finally discovers who she really is-it's too late.
Aria is gone.
Now the hunter becomes the hunted. The billionaire married the wrong woman by mistake. And losing her will be his greatest regret.
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Chapter 1
It never occurred to Aria Hale that her sister's wedding day would end with her own marriage license. Pushing through the glass doors of the New York City Marriage Bureau, she held the manila envelope to her chest. Immediately, chaos erupted: clerks yelling names, couples yelling over paperwork, and phones ringing nonstop. A bride in a discolored white gown was yelling at her groom about his mother while a baby cried close to the fountain.
Aria wanted to disappear-one job. Deliver the documents. Leave. Invisible, like always. "Next!" a clerk barked, waving impatiently from behind the scratched plexiglass. Aria stepped forward. "Hi, I'm here to-" "Name?" "I'm not-" "NAME?" "Aria Hale. I'm just delivering-"Ariana Hale!" Her stomach dropped.
"No, that's my sister. I'm Aria, not-" "You responded to the name. Good enough." The clerk shoved a clipboard through the slot. "Fill this out. Your groom's already twenty minutes late. If he doesn't show in ten, you forfeit your slot."
"But I'm not getting married!" Aria's voice cracked. The clerk finally glanced up, expression neutral. "Everyone's nervous, honey. Just breathe and sign when he arrives." Aria checked her phone. Nothing. No texts. No calls. Just a curt message from her sister: ARIANA: Emergency. Can't make it. Leave the papers. Thanks! No apology. No explanation. Just an order.
She typed and erased responses she would never send while her fingers lingered over the screen. After twenty-four years of being forgotten, invisible, and cleaning up other people's messes, she was rewarded with a room full of strangers who couldn't even pronounce her name correctly. The doors burst open.
Every head turned. A man walked in like a storm given human form. Broad shoulders, dark hair, grey eyes, sharp enough to pierce steel. Leon Mercer. Billionaire. CEO. The man her sister was supposed to marry.
He stopped in front of her. "You're late." Aria opened her mouth. Closed it. Wrong person. Wrong sister. Wrong everything. "Save it. Let's get this over with." He grabbed her elbow. Warm. Firm. Unyielding. Trapped. "Wait, you don't-" "Ariana Hale and Leon Mercer!" The clerk slid the papers across. "Sign now." Her hand shook. She looked down at the certificate. Aria Hale. Not Ariana. Not her sister. Her own name.
She froze. Her heart pounded in her chest. "Sir, I think-" "Think later. Sign now."
His Patek Philippe gleamed in the overhead light as he checked his watch. Aria's mind raced. Run? Scream? Call her parents? But who would believe her? Who would take her side when she had just signed the papers herself? Her hand moved on its own. Aria Hale.
The pen scratched across the page. The clerk stamped it with a heavy thump. "Congratulations. You're married." Time slowed. Every sound dulled. Leon's grey eyes lifted to hers. Cold. Furious. Ice. "You're not Ariana." "I tried to tell you-" "You signed." He held up the certificate. "Aria Hale."
With a low voice that cut like a knife through the chaos, he said, "You trapped me.". "You will regret this every day until I am free of you. Aria had a burning throat. She was on the verge of tears, but she held back.
Not here. Not now. "I didn't trap you. You didn't even look at what you were signing." He ignored her. Shoved the certificate into his jacket. His other hand gripped her wrist-not cruel, not gentle, just possessive. "You're coming with me," he said, phone pressed to his ear. "Lawyer. Meet me now." Outside, a black Mercedes waited.
The driver already held the door. Aria's mind raced. She could run. She could scream. She could call her family-but who would listen? Who would believe her? She looked at Leon. The fury simmered beneath his controlled exterior. The man hated her. And legally, she was now his wife. The door closed.
She felt the smooth, cold leather against her back. She took a sharp breath. "Go. The harsh, blinding sunlight hit her face. She caught a glimpse of herself in the window's tint. Aria Hale. Not Ariana. Nobody's second choice. She had recently unintentionally wed a billionaire who hated her. She also didn't know how she would survive what was about to happen.
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8.2
"They say marriage is a big gamble, and I bet on the wrong man."
***
Victoria Solace was a once beloved Alpha daughter of the Palemane Claws Pack and an heiress to a renowned perfume empire. After her dad died, she married her long-time crush, Elijah Arison, making him a powerful Alpha instead of being it herself.
She thought everything she had given was enough to keep a happy marriage, yet only to get a cruel betrayal.
Being framed to harm his mistress' unborn pup, she was imprisoned in the dungeon. Elijah stomped on all her pride and still tried to suck the last of her worth out of her.
In her darkest hell, she contacted a man who she once thought she'd never cross paths with again. Damien Verlice, Alpha of the Infernal Shadows Pack.
Dealings with the devil always come with a price. But this time, Victoria swore to learn her lesson. She'd keep her heart and be the ultimate winner.
***
My back bowed so high from the bed, and all my muscles were taut. I was too scared to move even a muscle as it would set off my orgasm.
"Who's fcking you, V?" he banged me hard as he looked at me with his burning gaze.
"You. Damien," my voice was hoarse and I knew he wouldn't let me high if I couldn't answer right. "Fck me, Damian. I'm yours."
Cover by @Rainygraphic
7.3
BLURB
Sophia died hating the man she once loved. Then she woke up ten years younger with a chance to make him pay.
Alexander Sterling destroyed her in ways he'll never remember. Now she'll become the woman he can't forget, and can't have. But he's dreaming of her death. She's planning his downfall. And neither knows they're both pawns in someone else's game.
8.1
Iverson played the role of a rebellious, useless loser to survive in his mother's new wealthy family. He deliberately tanked his grades and hid his genius so his perfect stepbrother wouldn't feel threatened.
But when a violent gang extorted Brenda, the only woman who actually acted like a real mother to him, Iverson dropped the act. He brutally dismantled four armed thugs with a broken aluminum pole to save her life.
At the police station, he faked being a terrified victim to avoid jail. But when his biological mother arrived, she didn't even ask if he was hurt. Instead, she glared at him with pure disgust.
"How much more humiliation are you going to put me through?"
She threw a tutoring folder at his chest, praising his stepbrother's Ivy League prospects while threatening to cut off Iverson's trust fund for fighting over slum trash.
Iverson clenched his fists in silence. He had deliberately played the idiot and ruined his own reputation just to keep her safe in that toxic mansion. Yet, she looked at him like he was absolute garbage. She truly believed he was just a brainless thug holding her back.
Back in his room, Iverson locked the heavy oak door and booted up his highly encrypted laptop. The screen loaded into the world's most elite underground academic network.
"Welcome back, Rank 1."
He stared at the glowing screen with a cold, dangerous smile. He was done playing the fool.
8.3
Zarelle Feymere-heiress to the most powerful werewolf dynasty in the world-made one mistake: she fell for an Alpha who saw her as nothing more than a rare blood bag.
For three years, she endured the humiliation of a loveless mating, her veins tapped like a commodity to sustain the woman Calden Ashmoor truly loved, Thessaly. His fated mate, who rejected him to marry his brother.
When a web of lies and betrayal is uncovered, Zarelle does the unthinkable: she walks away.
Now, stripped of her disguise as a docile omega, the true daughter of the Missatian Pack returns to claim her birthright-and her revenge.
Calden always thought he'd married a nobody.
He never expected his discarded mate to come back as a queen.
7.1
Eleanor Heather enjoys her ordinary life, working as an accountant, repaying student loans, and living in an apartment with her best friend, Lana. However, one night, a strange man attacked and bit her, leaving her traumatized and afraid to go out alone. Little did she know, this incident was just the beginning of a life-altering journey. When she crossed paths with Nicholas Shaw, a lawyer and owner of the firm she audited, her life took a drastic turn. Despite dark secrets surrounding Nicholas, Eleanor couldn't help but be drawn to him, and Nicholas Shaw was determined not to let her go.
7.2
I sat in the freezing conference room, my knuckles white as I strangled a cheap plastic pen. Outside, Manhattan was weeping in the gray rain, but inside, the air was sterile and dead. I stared at the polished mahogany table, seeing the distorted reflection of a man who hadn't slept in forty-eight hours—a man about to sign his own divorce papers.
Across from me, my wife Linda wouldn't even look at me. She was too busy drumming her fingers near a diamond ring that cost more than I had made in the last five years combined. Then the door swung open, and Simon Thorne walked in. The billionaire heir didn't say a word; he just walked behind Linda and placed a heavy, possessive hand on her shoulder, marking her as his.
"Let's wrap this up," Simon said, checking his Patek Philippe with the bored tone of a man ordering a coffee he didn't want. Linda finally looked through me like I was a ghost and told me to stop dragging this out. She whispered that I couldn't even afford myself anymore, a physical punch to the gut given I’d lost my job three weeks ago. After I signed, Simon flicked a business card at me, mockingly offering me a job as a doorman for minimum wage.
I walked out into the downpour, shivering in a suit I couldn't afford to dry clean. My phone vibrated with a text from my landlord: "Pack your things. Keys by tonight or I’m calling the cops." I stood on the corner of 5th Avenue with exactly $42.18 to my name, watching Simon kiss my wife through the glass wall of the penthouse. I was thirty, homeless, and drowning in a city of lions.
I wanted to roar until my throat bled, but I just stood there, a drowned rat in a world of predators. How could I have lost everything so fast? Why was the woman who promised to stay through "for poorer" now leaning into the arms of the man who just humiliated me?
Suddenly, my phone screen exploded with a blinding golden light. An app called the Midas Protocol installed itself, declaring poverty a disease and itself the cure. With one tap, a million dollars bypassed a federal hold and hit my account, and a "Nemesis Card" appeared in my digital inventory. I didn't hesitate. I typed Simon Thorne’s name into the vengeance algorithm and hit execute. The game had officially changed.