Shattered Rings And Her Priceless Hidden Identity
I was rushed to the emergency room with a bleeding head after a horrific car crash.
But while the doctor was stitching my forehead, I heard the nurses whispering.
"The CEO of the Finley Group is upstairs right now, playing nurse to that pregnant actress."
My heart stopped. I ripped out my IV and dragged my battered body to the VIP suite, only to watch my billionaire husband tenderly wipe away his mistress's tears.
I filed for divorce that night and left his penthouse with nothing but a basic suitcase.
Carter was furious. He tracked me down, completely ignoring my injuries, and mocked me relentlessly.
"You're nothing but a breeding tool. You won't survive a week without my money."
When I later collapsed from severe stomach cramps, he abandoned me on the floor because his mistress faked a panic attack over the phone. He even nearly ran me over in the freezing rain as he sped back to her side.
I had loved him in secret for ten agonizing years, pouring my bleeding heart into a novel about my unrequited love. I couldn't understand how a man could be so incredibly cold-blooded to his own wife.
But Carter didn't know I was the anonymous author of that global bestselling book.
So when he tried to use his massive wealth to buy the film rights and give his mistress the lead role, I walked straight into his boardroom, slammed my contractual veto on the table, and finally fought back.
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Chapter 1
Heavy rain violently battered the windshield of the black sedan.
Evelyn Austin sat in the backseat, her gaze fixed on the blurred red taillights of the Manhattan traffic.
At the intersection, a massive delivery truck suddenly ran the red light, tearing through the downpour directly toward them.
The driver yanked the steering wheel hard. The tires let out an ear-splitting screech as they lost traction on the slick asphalt.
The sheer force of the impact threw Evelyn's body violently forward.
The airbag deployed in a fraction of a second, slamming into her chest and forcing all the oxygen from her lungs.
A thick, acrid smell of burning rubber and white smoke instantly filled the crushed cabin.
Evelyn's forehead smashed against the side window. Warm, thick blood immediately began to seep into her hairline, blinding her left eye.
Outside, the muffled shouts of paramedics cut through the rain. They wedged a heavy iron crowbar into the mangled door, prying it open with a metallic groan.
Strong hands pulled her half-conscious body onto a rigid stretcher, shoving her into the back of a wailing ambulance.
The siren screamed all the way to the emergency bay of Mount Sinai Hospital.
The blinding, sterile fluorescent lights of the ER forced Evelyn to squeeze her eyes shut. Her stomach rolled with intense nausea.
An emergency room doctor moved quickly, wiping the blood from her face and stitching the deep gash above her brow. The pull of the thread against her skin was a dull, rhythmic sting.
A nurse named Moira Walsh pulled the privacy curtain shut. As the fabric swished closed, Moira leaned toward another nurse, her voice dropping into a hushed whisper.
"Did you see the VIP floor? The CEO of the Finley Group is upstairs right now, playing nurse to that actress."
Evelyn's heart physically stopped in her chest.
The name Carter Finley hit her ears, and a cold rush of bile rose in the back of her throat.
She didn't wait for the nurse to turn back around. Evelyn reached over and ripped the IV needle straight out of the back of her hand.
"Ma'am, you can't-" Moira started, but Evelyn was already off the bed.
A wave of violent dizziness slammed into her, forcing her to grip the edge of the mattress. Her freshly stitched forehead throbbed in agonizing time with her racing pulse, but she refused to stop.
Thick drops of blood slid down her knuckles, splattering onto the pristine white hospital tiles.
Evelyn pressed her hand against the cold, sterile wall, using it to keep her balance as she forced her legs to carry her toward the elevator bank.
She hit the button for the top floor.
The doors slid open. She stepped out, dragging her heavy, aching body down the quiet, carpeted hallway toward the VIP suite at the very end.
Through the slightly parted blinds of the room, warm, soft light spilled into the corridor.
Carter Finley sat on the edge of the hospital bed. He held a plastic cup of warm water in his large hands.
Brianna Chen leaned back against the pillows. Fat, pathetic tears clung to her eyelashes.
Carter raised his hand. His thumb brushed gently across Brianna's cheek, wiping away the moisture.
Brianna leaned into his touch, lifting her own hand to press his palm flat against her face.
Evelyn's lungs seized. The air trapped in her chest felt like a solid block of cement. The tearing sensation in her gut was violently worse than the car crash.
She stumbled backward. Her spine collided hard with a metal medical cart left in the hallway. The sudden movement sent a sickening jolt of pain through her bruised ribs, but she couldn't feel it over the absolute devastation in her heart.
The stainless steel trays on top clattered together with a sharp, ringing crash.
Inside the room, Carter's head snapped toward the door, his jaw tightening as his brow furrowed.
Evelyn didn't breathe. She shoved herself off the cart and darted into the heavy shadows of the adjacent stairwell.
Her back hit the concrete wall. She pulled her phone from her coat pocket with trembling, blood-stained fingers.
She dialed her lawyer's number. When he answered, her voice was completely hollow. "Draft the divorce papers. Now."
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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.
9.7
I secured the lifeline investment for my fiancé's company and went to his office to surprise him.
Instead, I caught Preston sleeping with his top actress—the woman he publicly claimed as his stepsister.
Through the cracked door, I heard him call me his "scarred, ugly bitch shield" to hide their sickening affair.
I didn't cry. I hacked the live broadcast of the Star Awards and played their sex tape to two thousand people.
But that night, drunk and reeling from the agonizing nerve pain in my facial scar, I stumbled into the wrong hotel penthouse.
I was pinned down by a drugged billionaire, Josephus Hodges.
The next morning, he left me a million-dollar check and a Plan B pill.
When he later tracked me down to offer a cold, calculated fake marriage just to absorb Preston's ruined empire, I threw the contract at his chest and told him to go to hell.
But when I got home and looked in the mirror, the chronic, burning torture in my scar was completely gone.
His touch during that terrifying night had somehow cured the agony that had ruined my life.
I had just declared war on the only man on earth who could heal me.
Just then, my ruined ex-fiancé called, begging me to save him with a PR press conference.
"I'll do it, but I control the venue."
I booked it at Josephus's heavily guarded hotel. I was going to slaughter my ex on live television, and force the apex predator to look at me again.
8.2
Trapped in a deadly fire at my own engagement party, my lungs burned as I reached a shaking hand out to my fiancé for help.
He stopped and looked right at me through the thick smoke. But instead of saving me, he wrapped his jacket tightly around my stepsister and ran, leaving me to burn.
I barely survived. But when I woke up in the hospital, my father and stepmother didn't even ask about my injuries.
They threw a stack of legal documents right onto my bed.
"Sign the papers, Avah. Step aside. Jaclyn is far better suited to be Kain's wife."
My fiancé then stormed into the room, publicly humiliating me with false rumors of an illegitimate child and threatening to bankrupt my company.
Four years of swallowing my pride to be the perfect, obedient pawn for our family business, all for nothing.
They threw me to the wolves without a single second of hesitation, expecting me to just lower my head and cry like I always did.
But the fire had burned that pathetic version of me away.
I ripped out my IV, letting the blood drip onto the sheets, and tore their contracts straight down the middle.
"The engagement is over."
I threw my million-dollar ring right at my ex's chest, then picked up the phone to call my trust lawyer. They wanted to take everything from me, so I was going to make them bleed.
8.0
My wedding was tomorrow. I was a crisis counselor who had finally found peace with my loving fiancé, Dexter, and my best friend, Barbara.
A late-night call about a forced marriage led me to a hotel penthouse, where I found them naked in bed together.
It was all a cruel, three-year "savior game." They were bored heirs, and I was their project. They destroyed my career, caused me to lose our baby, and put my mother in the hospital.
They forced me to be a bridesmaid at their wedding-the one that should have been mine.
In front of hundreds of guests, they exposed my traumatic past and then tried to marry me off to a drunken stranger as a joke.
As I stood there, broken, a text from Barbara arrived.
"Your mother saw the livestream. She had a heart attack. She's not going to make it."
With nothing left, I ran to the 20th-floor window and jumped. They thought they had erased me. But my death was just the beginning.
7.6
My father raised seven brilliant orphans to be my potential husbands. For years, I only had eyes for one of them, the cold and distant Damien Paul, believing his distance was a wall I just had to break through.
That belief shattered last night when I found him in the garden, kissing his foster sister, Eve—the fragile girl my family took in at his request, the one I had treated like my own sister.
But the true horror came when I overheard the other six Fellows talking in the library.
They weren't competing for me. They were working together, orchestrating "accidents" and mocking my "stupid, blind" devotion to keep me away from Damien.
Their loyalty wasn't to me, the heiress who held their futures in her hands. It was to Eve.
I wasn't a woman to be won. I was a foolish burden to be managed. The seven men I grew up with, the men who owed my family everything, were a cult, and she was their queen.
This morning, I walked into my father's study to make a decision that would burn their world to the ground. He smiled, asking if I'd finally won Damien over.
"No, Dad," I said, my voice firm. "I'm marrying Hunter Beach."
9.2
Arla was supposed to marry Clinton Freeman, the perfect fiancé who had promised to love her and protect her five-year-old son.
But instead, the cold steel of a dagger pierced her chest.
As she collapsed onto the freezing basement floor, she watched her adoptive sister Blair laugh.
"Look at her," Blair sneered, kicking her son's small, blue, lifeless body.
Clinton stood there, calmly wiping the bloody blade on a pristine handkerchief.
In her dying moments, the horrifying truth became clear. Her fiancé and her adoptive family had been plotting all along to steal her massive trust fund.
To break her, they had secretly tortured her child. Clinton had watched Blair pierce the little boy's arms with sewing needles, rewarding him with candy to keep him silent.
Arla's lungs burned with the taste of copper and ash.
She couldn't understand why the family she trusted could be so monstrous, or why they had to brutally murder an innocent child just for money.
The darkness swallowed her whole, drowning her in suffocating hatred and absolute despair.
Then, she gasped for air.
The concrete floor was gone, replaced by the silk sheets of a hotel penthouse suite.
Arla had been reborn to the exact night six years ago—the very day Blair first dragged her son into the dark attic.
This time, she picked up a solid silver letter opener, ready to burn them all to the ground.