She was never his to own
When Elena Rodriguez fled her abusive billionaire husband while pregnant, she thought she'd never see Alexander Blackwood again. Eight months later, a catastrophic accident steals his memories-erasing six years, including their marriage and the monster he became.
The man who wakes up is Alexander at 27: kind, humble, horrified by evidence of his paranoid jealousy and controlling behavior. As he embarks on an amends tour, apologizing to everyone he hurt, Elena watches the man she once loved fight to become worthy of redemption.
But Elena harbors a secret: their daughter, Sofia. When circumstances force them together at the hospital, Alexander meets his child for the first time-and Elena must decide if she can forgive a man who doesn't remember his crimes.
As Alexander's memories gradually return, both face an impossible question: Can someone truly change, or will he become the monster again? With Sofia's future hanging in the balance, Elena must choose between protecting her heart and believing in second chances.
Some scars run too deep. Some loves refuse to die.
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Chapter 1
The emerald silk felt like armour-beautiful, expensive, suffocating. Alexander had laid it out on our bed this morning, along with the diamond earrings and the Louboutin heels I could barely walk in. No discussion. No choice.
I navigated the Four Seasons ballroom like a minefield, champagne flute in hand, smile fixed in place. Across the room, Alexander stood with a group of investors, his posture relaxed, his laugh easy. But I could feel his eyes on me. Always on me.
"You look beautiful, Elena," said Jenna, Marcus's wife, her hand resting on her pregnant belly. Seven months along with their second child. "That colour is stunning on you."
"Thank you," I murmured, smoothing the silk.
Marcus grinned. "Jenna's been craving Thai food at two in the morning. I'm basically a delivery service now."
I laughed-a real laugh-remembering when life felt that simple.
"Elena Rodriguez?"
I turned. A young man approached, his face lighting with recognition. David Chen. We'd worked together at Morrison Gallery years ago, back when I had a career, an identity beyond Mrs. Alexander Blackwood.
"David! How are you?"
"Great! I'm a curator now. Can you believe it?" His enthusiasm was infectious. "I always said I learned everything from you."
Pride flickered in my chest-a feeling so foreign I almost didn't recognize it. "That's wonderful. Congratulations."
"We actually have an opening for a consultant position. You should-"
He said something funny-I don't remember what-and I laughed. I really laughed, the sound escaping before I could stop it.
Then I felt it.
The hand on my waist came from behind, fingers spreading across my ribs. Not gentle. Never gentle anymore.
"Darling," Alexander's voice was warm honey poisoned with arsenic. "We should mingle. The Hendersons are leaving soon."
His fingers pressed harder, hidden by the drape of my dress. Pain bloomed beneath his touch. My smile never faltered-I'd learnt that trick well.
"Of course," I said smoothly. "David, it was lovely seeing you."
"Wait, let me give you my-"
But Alexander was already steering me away, his hand a vice on my waist. I caught David's confused expression and Marcus's concerned one.
"Who was that?" Alexander's voice was low in my ear, dangerous.
"David Chen. We worked together at Morrison-"
"You were laughing." Each word was precise and controlled. "Loudly. Everyone could hear you."
"I was just being polite-"
His fingers dug deeper into my ribs. I kept smiling, aware of the cameras, the watching eyes. Mrs. Alexander Blackwood, perfect wife, living the dream.
Across the room, Catherine Blackwood stood with her society friends, elegant in silver Chanel. Our eyes met. She'd seen everything-the possessive grip, my rigid smile, the way I'd gone very still.
She looked away. She always looked away.
Near the bar, Vincent Blackwood held court, his booming laugh carrying across the ballroom. Alexander's father, who'd cheated on Catherine more times than anyone could count. Who'd taught his son that women were possessions to be controlled?
The apple didn't fall far.
I saw Sarah across the room, my best friend, making her way toward me. Her expression was worried and determined.
"We need to say goodbye to the Hendersons," Alexander said, smoothly changing direction.
I caught Sarah's eyes. Wanted to mouth 'I'm okay', but the lie wouldn't come. Because I wasn't sure it was true anymore.
The car ride home was silent. Deadly silent.
I sat perfectly still in the back of the town car, hands folded in my lap, watching Seattle's lights blur past tinted windows. The driver was present but ignored, separated by the privacy screen. I knew what was coming. I always knew.
"You embarrassed me tonight."
My stomach dropped. "Alexander, I was just being polite-"
"Polite?" His laugh was sharp, cutting. "You were flirting. I saw how you looked at him."
"I wasn't-"
"Don't lie to me, Elena. I know what I saw." His voice was cold, controlled. "Throwing your head back, laughing like he was the funniest man alive. While I'm trying to close deals with investors."
"It was just a colleague from-"
"You're always so defensive. You know who gets defensive? Guilty people."
My hands shook in my lap. Every word I said became evidence against me. Every explanation twisted into confession. There was no right answer. There never was.
The car pulled into our building's parking garage. Concrete and fluorescent lights and nowhere left to run.
"Give me your phone," Alexander said.
My stomach dropped. "What? Why?"
"If you have nothing to hide, it shouldn't be a problem."
I handed it over with trembling fingers. Resistance only made things worse. I'd learnt that lesson too many times.
He scrolled through my messages, his face illuminated by the screen's glow. I watched him search for crimes I hadn't committed, for evidence of betrayals that existed only in his mind.
"Who's 'M'?" he asked, his voice sharp.
"That's Marcus. Your brother."
"Why is he texting you?" He held up the phone, showing me the innocent message: Coffee soon?
"He was inviting both of us. For coffee with him and Jenna-"
"When did this start? You and my brother texting?"
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7.1
Belle Triston, a pediatrician with a brilliant career faked her relationship with a billionaire. She didn't like Gabrielle Rolland's arrogance at all, but she had to become a surrogate mother to give birth to Gabrielle's offspring in order to fulfill her mother's last wishes before she died.
Their relationship was complicated because Gabrielle was married to a famous actress, Fleura Delacour. Belle and Gabrielle made an agreement that their relationship would only be professional. But unexpected things happened. Fleura's affair with her co-star left a deep wound in Gabrielle's heart. When his heart was wounded and bleeding, Belle was there to heal his wounds. Their relationship was no longer as simple as they thought when hearts started playing in it. When Gabrielle realized that he loved Belle and wanted to be with her, Fleura came and begged him for a second chance. Gabrielle had to choose, while his heart couldn't choose. Belle knew Fleura's biggest secret and she wouldn't just keep quiet. She would fight for her baby and her love for Gabrielle.
9.3
My fiancé, Chadwick Steele, always treated me like a dirty secret-the nerdy brains behind his glamorous tech empire. He flaunted his affair with his mistress, Isa, while constantly reminding me I was an embarrassment he was forced to tolerate.
That all came to a head in a crowded mall. In front of everyone, he publicly broke our engagement, choosing her over me and leaving me to her mercy.
But Isa wasn't satisfied with just winning. She had Chadwick's bodyguards pin me to the floor.
She slapped me, kicked me, and then pulled out a silver letter opener. As she carved a bloody gash across my cheek, she laughed about teaching me a permanent lesson for daring to exist in her world.
I was bleeding and broken, my spirit completely shattered. I thought it was over.
Then, a custom Rolls-Royce pulled up. My mother, Frederica Mooney-the silent titan of Silicon Valley who secretly bankrolls the entire Steele family fortune-stepped out. She took one look at my face, her eyes turning to ice, and gave me the only words I needed to hear: "I give you my full permission."
8.5
🔞Explicit Content🔞
"Suck my c^ck, Rosabella. That's all you're good at. A hopeless orphan can only dream of luxury. Keep your filthy mouth out of my affair...use it only to make me cum."
******
Bella Hale has known suffering her entire life. Orphaned at sixteen, she survives on scraps and desperation. She does whatever it takes not to starve with only little dignity intact.
She envies the rich-people who seem immune to hardship and pain. Yet she promised herself that if she ever got her hands on one of them, she would never let go. She was done suffering.
Lucian Rodriguez is everything she should despise.
A cold, selfish, ruthless billionaire with little conscience and no mercy...
a man who knows how to smile for the world while keeping his darkness well hidden.
Their worlds collide when Lucian's four-month-old daughter goes missing... and Bella finds her.
Lucian offers no gratitude...and Bella refuses to let the opportunity slip. She demands compensation. Not just money, but security. A lifetime guarantee that she will never be poor again. In return, she will do whatever he wants. Her body. Her life. He can have it all.
Bella is taken into his world-strictly as a deal.
What she doesn't realize is that when you make a deal with the devil, you should never expect it to be fair.
And she will learn too late that being poor was far better than belonging to Lucian Rodriguez.
A deal turns into obsession.
Survival into desire.
Desire into Hate.
Hate into Love.
That love and commitment becomes the biggest and worst mistake.
Will Bella's desperate deal destroy her?
Or Will she become Lucian's destruction?
9.2
My husband tore my ultrasound report to shreds at a gala, publicly declaring me barren to protect his mistress. I was visibly pregnant, but he erased me, our child, and my truth with a single, cruel lie. So I faked my death and disappeared.
Five years later, I returned, no longer a fragile wife but a hardened salvage expert with a fortune.
I walked into a high-stakes auction where Emerson was the top bidder.
I let my son, his spitting image, make the first move.
Then, I stepped from the shadows and calmly raised my paddle.
"Seven hundred fifty million."
8.3
I was married to the most powerful man in the city.
Yet in three years, he never learned my heart.
When I divorced him, I did it quietly.
No confrontation. No tears. No warning.
He signed the papers without reading them.
Everyone still called me the CEO's wife-
until the day I returned, no longer his woman,
but someone he could no longer touch.
Now he's chasing me.
Regretting me.
Begging for a second chance.
But the woman who once waited for him is gone.
And this time, if he wants me back,
the CEO will have to kneel.
8.4
I had just been brutally fired from my corporate firm, stripped of my career and dignity in a matter of minutes.
Before I could even process the loss, I was handed a brown envelope that shattered my reality. My billionaire sister, who had ruthlessly cut me out of her life fifteen years ago, had committed suicide.
She left behind a fifteen-year-old son I never knew existed, a $300 million trust, and a $3 million stipend for me to act as his guardian. But her suicide note contained a terrifying, desperate warning scrawled in tearing ink.
"DO NOT INVESTIGATE MY DEATH. Accept what I've given you. Protect my son. Forget I existed."
I met the boy, Elon. He crashed his bike into me on the street, bleeding and crying, begging me not to abandon him. Pity and fifteen years of guilt overwhelmed me. I sat in the sprawling office of her elite estate lawyer and signed my life away to protect this innocent, grieving child.
Why did my sister suddenly reach out after a decade and a half of cold silence? What kind of monster was she running from that drove her to such a desperate end? I thought I was honoring her final wish by taking the boy in.
But as the elevator doors were closing, I caught their reflection in the polished steel.
My terrified, weeping nephew stopped crying instantly. He turned and exchanged a chilling, imperceptible nod with the lawyer.
That silent look said everything. The first move was complete.
I hadn't just inherited a child. I had walked straight into a meticulously planned trap.