Revenge Marriage: The Jilted Ballerina's Comeback
I stood in the ballroom of the Pierre Hotel, holding a champagne flute that felt like a fragile anchor against a rising tide of anxiety.
Across the room, the crowd of New York's elite parted as my fiancé, Campbell Brock, stepped onto the stage to announce a historic merger-and a shocking engagement to someone else.
"I am proud to announce my engagement to Kandice Rose," he said, pulling the "real" daughter of the family into his arms while looking right through me as if I were a ghost. I dropped my glass, the crystal shattering at my feet, but the public humiliation was only the beginning. By the next morning, I was a viral meme dubbed the "Meltdown Girl," and the American Ballet Theatre had suspended me from my position as principal dancer for "moral turpitude." My bank accounts were frozen, my reputation was in tatters, and Kandice was on a livestream tearfully claiming I was a jealous foster girl who had tried to seduce Campbell behind her back.
I had spent four years building a life with this man, only to be discarded like a piece of old wallpaper the moment a better business deal came along.
How could the man who promised me a future turn me into a national joke overnight, and why was the world so eager to believe I was the villain in my own tragedy?
When my high school best friend, the notorious billionaire playboy Charlton Bernard, found me drinking tequila in a dive bar, he didn't offer me a shoulder to cry on. He slid a marriage contract across the table and pressed a black titanium credit card into my hand.
"Marry me for a year, Daphne," he said, his eyes burning with a dark, protective intensity that made my heart race. "We'll join their reality show as newlyweds and show the world exactly who the real winner is."
I looked at the card, then at the man who had always been my shadow, and realized that being sensible had only gotten me dumped on a stage.
"Let's go get married."
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Chapter 8
Inside the boutique, the air smelled of lavender and money.
Daphne stood in front of a three-way mirror. She was wearing a suit. Not a boring beige office suit.
It was red. Crimson. Blood red.
The jacket was tailored to within an inch of its life, nipping in at her waist and flaring out. The pants were wide-legged and powerful.
She looked in the mirror. She didn't look like a victim. She looked dangerous.
The manager walked over, holding an iPad. Her expression was grave.
"Mr. Bernard thought you should see this," she said gently.
Daphne took the tablet.
It was a live stream. Kandice Rose.
Kandice was sitting on a beige sofa, clutching a tissue. Her eyes were red-rimmed.
"I tried," Kandice sobbed, wiping a tear that wasn't there. "I tried to be a sister to her. But she was always so... jealous."
Daphne's grip on the iPad tightened.
"She tried to seduce Campbell," Kandice whispered, looking directly into the camera. "While I was in the hospital recovering. She tried to steal him."
It was a lie. A blatant, verifiable, disgusting lie. Kandice had been in the hospital for a nose job, not an illness. And Daphne had been engaged to Campbell for four years.
But the comments were scrolling by so fast they were a blur.
Die Daphne.
Ungrateful brat.
Team Kandice.
Daphne's hands shook. The red suit suddenly felt like a costume.
A notification popped up at the top of the screen. An email.
From: ABT Board of Directors.
Subject: Immediate Suspension Pending Investigation.
Daphne tapped it open.
...due to conduct unbecoming of a principal dancer... moral turpitude clause... effective immediately.
Her breath hitched.
Her career was her life. It was the only thing that was truly hers. And Kandice was taking that too.
The manager watched her sympathetically. "Water, Ms. Flynn?"
Daphne stared at the screen.
Silence wasn't working. Taking the high road wasn't working. It was killing her.
She recalled Fiona's words: Use the weapon.
She handed the iPad back to the manager. Her hand was steady now.
"I'll take the suit," she said. Her voice was ice cold. "And the black dress. And the heels. The highest ones you have."
"Of course."
Daphne pulled out the Black AMEX.
She swiped it.
Beep.
APPROVED.
The sound was intoxicating. It was the sound of power.
She pulled out her phone and called Charlton.
He answered on the first ring. "Are you okay?"
"Did you see Kandice's video?" she asked.
"I'm having it taken down for defamation as we speak," Charlton replied. "My legal team is on it."
"No," Daphne stopped him. "Leave it up."
"Leave it?" Charlton sounded surprised.
"I want everyone to see her lie," Daphne said. She looked at herself in the mirror. The red suit blazed. "So when I crush her, they know exactly why."
She took a deep breath.
"I'm in, Charlton. I'll marry you. I'll do the show."
There was a pause on the line. She heard him exhale, a long, shaky sound that sounded like relief.
"Good choice, Mrs. Bernard," he said. His voice was thick with emotion she couldn't place. "I'll pick you up in twenty."
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7.5
The Duke was standing in the middle of the room, his hands in his pockets, his head tilted to one side. It was a relaxed, casual pose, and yet the way he looked at her was anything but casual. The deep midnight of his eyes burned and he radiated a subtle, sensual energy that made the air around him crackle.
He looked like a man who'd never heard the word 'no' in all his life. Unluckily for him, 'no' was the only word she had.
"There's no reason why I should stay," Anna clasped her shaking hands together in an effort to still them. "I'm not marrying you."
His gaze flickered, his mouth curving slightly, and she had the disturbing thought that far from putting him off, her insistence was only inciting him further.
"But you haven't heard my proposal yet," he said mildly. "Isn't that why you're here?"
"I don't need to hear it. I already know that my answer will be no."
"Of course. But you can hardly tell your father that you heard me out when you haven't, in fact, heard me out.... Anna."
8.2
The prophecy didn't save me, it claimed me.
Death was not her ending...... it was her rebirth.
Awakened into a world of gods, bloodlines, and ancient curses, she learns that her second life is bound to a prophecy written long before she existed. Marked by divine blood and hunted by fate, she becomes the one Olympus never wanted to rise again.
As secrets unfold and forbidden bonds form, she must decide whether to obey the destiny forced upon her or defy the gods who control her future. But prophecies always demand a price, and some rebirths are meant to destroy the world that created them.
Because being reborn under a cursed prophecy means there is no escape, only fate.
9.2
When Rielle Morven is betrayed by her boyfriend and sold at an illegal werewolf auction to pay off his debts, she expects her life is over. But the male who buys her for five million dollars isn't a werewolf alpha, he's something far more dangerous.
Caspian Valdyr is a lycan king with a reputation for violence and a hunger for control. He doesn't just want Rielle's body, he wants to claim her soul through an unbreakable mate bond that will tie them together forever.
But Rielle carries a secret in her blood that makes her worth more than gold to the wrong people. When a fifty-million-dollar bounty is placed on her head, Caspian must decide: return her to the monsters who want to breed her like livestock, or go to war to keep what he's claimed as his.
In a world where power is everything and mercy is weakness, Rielle discovers that being owned by a beast might be her only path to freedom. But freedom comes with a price, and Caspian's claiming bite will mark her as his for eternity.
One auction. One bite. One bond that will either save them both or destroy everything.
A fast-paced, high-heat dark romance featuring an obsessive anti-hero, a heroine discovering her hidden power, explosive chemistry, and absolutely no holding back.
9.6
When a global anomaly awakens dormant powers within them, a neuroscientist, a physicist, and an artist discover they are connected by a force that defies time itself. Mert sees the memories of strangers. Elena witnesses the fabric of reality crack. Kai paints symbols from a past he never knew. Thrown together by fate, they are not alone. Across the globe, others are awakening too-gifted with extraordinary abilities. But they are not the only ones. A powerful cabal-a ruthless financier, a tech mogul, and a charismatic influencer-sees the anomaly not as a warning, but as a weapon. Their ambition shatters the timeline, scattering the group across history: from the smog-choked streets of Victorian London to a transhumanist future, and into a terrifying parallel present. Broken into three teams, the group must hunt their enemies through time itself. To survive, they must master their new powers and forge bonds of love and loyalty strong enough to bend the laws of physics. Their final battle will not be fought in any single era, but at the crossroads of all realities, where the key to existence-the very heart of time-is at stake.
9.7
Agent Alivia Sanford opened her eyes to the suffocating stench of wild animal musk and raw sex.
She hadn't just transmigrated into a savage beastman world; she had woken up in the body of a 300-pound, diseased, and universally despised woman. Worse, the original owner had just drugged the tribe's strongest warrior, trying to force a mating.
Now, the warrior pinned her to the cave floor with murderous fury.
"You think you can trap me, you disgusting pig?" he snarled, ready to rip her throat out.
After kneeing him and escaping, a "Super Charm AI" bound to her mind demanded she conquer her five designated mates to survive. But these men treated her like a walking plague. They mocked her bloated face, threw bloody raw meat into the mud for her to eat, and publicly announced they would starve her to death. Even her own family looked at her with utter disgust.
In her past life, she was a legendary survivor who could have crushed these arrogant men with her bare hands. Now, she was trapped in a weak shell, threatened with soul erasure by a system if she didn't grovel for their affection. Why should she beg for love from beasts who wanted her dead?
Looking at the five "-100" hostility scores on her system panel, Alivia coldly drew a mental cross over each of their faces. Enduring agonizing pain, she forced her bio-manipulation ability to violently purge the toxins from her fat body. She wasn't going to play their twisted game; she was going to find her own resources and make them pay.
9.0
"Seraphina, you are destined to be my Luna, and no one will ever replace you."
Alpha Alexander has been searching on Earth for his missing Luna, who was taken by a cunning rival, for decades. When he finally finds her, it's not a happily ever after reunion. In a world where loyalty is tested and love is a weapon, Seraphina must choose-before the war for her soul consumes them all.