The Divorced Architect's Spectacular Comeback
My husband of three years dragged me into the freezing autumn ocean because my stepsister claimed I bullied her.
When she faked a sprained ankle in the shallow water, he immediately abandoned me in the roaring waves to save her, not knowing I was eight weeks pregnant.
The icy undertow swept me away, causing a brutal miscarriage. Later in the hospital, my traumatized body started hemorrhaging, and I desperately needed a rare blood transfusion.
My stepsister, who shared my blood type, held my life hostage. She forced my husband to sign our divorce papers before she would donate a single drop.
By the time the blood reached me, my uterus was irreparably damaged. I permanently lost the right to ever be a mother.
"The Anderson family can't have an infertile matriarch."
My own parents said this as they falsified my medical records to protect her. And my husband, blinded by his misplaced loyalty, simply walked away, leaving me with a meager settlement.
I lost my baby, my fertility, and my marriage all in one week. How could the people I trusted most be so completely heartless?
But looking at the divorce papers, I didn't shed a single tear. I calmly signed my name and unsealed my Yale architecture degree.
"I'm in. Send me the files for the Manhattan project."
The weak, pathetic Mrs. Anderson died on that operating table. Crista Cherry is back, and it's time for them to pay.
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Chapter 3
The sharp smell of antiseptic hit her nostrils. Crista forced her eyes open, squinting against the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights above.
Beep. Beep. Beep. The rhythmic sound of the heart monitor filled the room. She tried to move her fingers and felt the tug of an IV line taped to the back of her hand.
The door to the room opened. Dr. Thorne walked in, a medical chart in his hand. He paused, a look of surprise crossing his face when he saw her open eyes.
He walked quickly to the bedside, pulling out a small penlight. He shone it into her eyes, checking her pupils. "Crista? Can you hear me? Does anything hurt?"
Her lips were dry and cracked. She parted them, her voice a rough whisper. "Where... where am I? What happened?"
The doctor sighed, his expression turning serious. "You're at Mount Sinai Hospital. You've been in a coma for a full week. The Coast Guard pulled you out of the water."
A sharp pain lanced through her brain. The suffocating feeling of the water, Conrad's resolute back as he walked away-the memories crashed over her. She squeezed her eyes shut, a groan escaping her lips.
"Crista," Dr. Thorne said, his tone heavy. He flipped open the chart. "There's something I need to tell you. You were pregnant. Eight weeks along."
Her eyes flew open. Her hand flew to her flat stomach, disbelief washing over her face, followed instantly by a rush of tears.
"I'm so sorry," the doctor continued, his voice cutting through her momentary joy like a knife. "The severe hypothermia and trauma caused an inevitable miscarriage. We did everything we could, but the fetus was already gone when the Coast Guard found you."
"No..." She reached out, grabbing the front of the doctor's white coat, her knuckles white. "Please. Tell me you're wrong. Tell me my baby is still there. Please!"
Dr. Thorne gently pried her fingers loose, patting her hand. "We're doing everything we can to help your body recover. I'm giving you medication to prevent infection and stop any further hemorrhaging. But you must stay in bed. Absolute rest is required for your traumatized body." He gave her one last sympathetic look and left the room.
The room fell silent. Crista lay there, her hand resting on her flat stomach. A suffocating wave of grief pressed down on her chest. She had to tell Conrad. Maybe if he knew about the baby they had just lost, the child he had unknowingly killed, he would finally see the truth.
She leaned over, ignoring the pull of the IV, and grabbed her phone from the nightstand. The screen lit up. No missed calls. No messages.
A heavy weight settled in her chest, but she bit the bullet and dialed Conrad's private number.
It rang for a long time. Finally, the line clicked. But the voice that answered wasn't Conrad's.
It was Else. A giggling, laugh. "Hello? Sister?"
Crista's blood ran cold. Her hand tightened around the phone. "Where is Conrad? Let me talk to him."
Else laughed again, a sound full of cruel triumph. "He's right here. He's peeling an apple for me. He's been by my side this whole week, Crista. He doesn't care if you live or die."
To prove her point, Else called out, her voice sickeningly sweet, "Conrad! My sister is on the phone!"
Then, Conrad's voice came through the receiver. It was cold, impatient, and utterly devoid of emotion. "Tell her, unless she signs the divorce papers, don't bother me."
The words hit Crista like a physical blow. The phone slipped from her numb fingers, landing silently on the blanket.
The door to the room burst open. Audrey rushed in, her face flushed, her eyes red and puffy.
"Crista!" Audrey ran to the bed, taking in her friend's pale face. She burst into tears. "That bastard! That absolute bastard!"
Crista grabbed Audrey's hand, tears finally spilling over. "I was pregnant, Audrey," she choked out, her voice breaking into a sob. "And I lost the baby. But he just wants a divorce."
Audrey gasped, her face draining of color. She reached into her handbag and pulled out a crumpled square of glossy paper. "While you were unconscious, I went to your apartment to get your things. I found this ultrasound picture in your bag. You were going to surprise him, weren't you?"
Crista looked at the blurry image and squeezed her eyes shut, unable to speak. Audrey's face then twisted in rage. "I've already contacted my cousin, Caleb Arnold. He's one of the best trauma surgeons here at Mount Sinai. He's going to make sure you get the best care while I go deal with that bastard!" She stood up, rolling up her sleeves. "Where is he? I'm going to go give that son of a bitch a piece of my mind!"
Crista looked up, confused. "What are you talking about?"
Audrey pointed angrily toward the door. "They're in this hospital! Else is in the VIP suite at the end of the hall. 'Severe ankle sprain observation,' my ass. He's been playing nurse with her while you were dying!"
The realization hit Crista like a bucket of ice water. He was right there. Just a few steps away. And he hadn't come.
The grief in her eyes slowly hardened into something cold and sharp. She wiped her face with the back of her hand, her jaw setting. She placed both hands protectively over her stomach.
"Get me a wheelchair, Audrey," she commanded, her voice weak but firm. "I'm not lying here while he plays happy family. I'm going to see him."
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9.5
Being disowned by my family, and being cheated on by my boyfriend and best friend seems to be the end of the world, But I have to save my mother from her illness, I need money to save her but My father, Alpha of the biggest refuses to give a single penny and chose his Mistress's daughter over me.
Desperate and alone, I was ready to take any option I could get if my mother would be saved.
I made a deal with an almost-stranger, a contract marriage! Who was forced by his grandma to get married.
A win-win situation for both of us.
He saved my mom. I married him to fulfil his Grandma's wish, But, why is my heart aching when our marriage contract is going to end?
It was a marriage deal for both of us, but when it's coming to an end, I don't want it to end?
Being disowned by my family, and being cheated on by my boyfriend and best friend seems to be the end of the world, But I have to save my mother from her illness, I need money to save her but My father, Alpha of the biggest refuses to give a single penny and chose his Mistress's daughter over me.
Desperate and alone, I was ready to take any option I could get if my mother would be saved.
I made a deal with an almost-stranger, a contract marriage! Who was forced by his grandma to get married.
A win-win situation for both of us.
He saved my mom. I married him to fulfil his Grandma's wish, But, why is my heart aching when our marriage contract is going to end?
It was a marriage deal for both of us, but when it's coming to an end, I don't want it to end?
9.1
With only fifteen days of cash flow left to save her tech startup, Aida had no choice but to seek a five-million-dollar bridge loan from Brendan Walls, a ruthless billionaire predator.
He agreed to sign the check, but on one sickening condition. He demanded Aida act as bait to get close to his corporate rival, Grayson Lott, treating her like a high-end call girl for a business transaction.
Forced to comply to save her employees, Aida let Grayson take her to a windowless underground club, where he secretly spiked her whiskey.
As the drugs paralyzed her body, triggering horrific flashbacks of a brutal assault from six years ago, Aida locked herself in the bathroom. She had to shatter a mirror and slice her own thigh open with a jagged shard of glass just to stay conscious enough to call Brendan for help.
Brendan's armored SUV immediately smashed through the club's wall to save her, and Grayson was arrested. But lying in the hospital, the horrifying truth finally clicked in Aida's mind.
The rescue was too fast. Brendan’s men hadn't rushed from Midtown; they had been parked outside the entire time. He had watched Grayson drug her and waited for the felony to happen just so he could legally seize Grayson's company. He had gambled her life and trauma for a hostile takeover.
When Brendan casually tossed a signed contract and luxury car keys onto her hospital bed as hush money, the last thread of Aida's sanity snapped.
"The deal is dead. NovaTech is mine. If you ever come near me again, I will kill you."
Bleeding and shaking with icy rage, Aida threw the keys at his chest, formally declaring war on the monster who thought he could buy her soul.
8.7
I make my living binding monsters to their promises. But Silas Malphas is the one monster I never should have touched.
As a Thread-Binder, I can see the glowing, invisible strings of loyalty, debt, and lies connecting everyone in the city's supernatural underworld. It makes me the ultimate contract lawyer-and the perfect infiltrator.
My mission is simple: secure a job in the inner circle of the House of Malphas, the city's most ruthless monster syndicate, and steal the Primal Ledger from their lethal heir.
Silas Malphas commands the shadows themselves. He is arrogant, dominant, and terrifyingly elegant. But the most dangerous thing about him isn't his power-it's that when I look at him, I see *nothing*. He is a void in the magical spectrum. No debts. No loyalties. He is completely unreadable.
I was supposed to betray him. But as I am dragged deeper into his golden cage of high-stakes negotiations and blood-soaked boardroom politics, the lines between my mission and my dark attraction to the Beast begin to blur.
When a rival faction launches a deadly coup and my cover is blown, I am left with a terrifying choice. To survive the night, I must forge a blood-oath contract with the very monster I was sent to destroy.
I'm no longer just his lawyer. I'm bound to the Beast.
9.6
On Valentine's Day, love is in the air-but so is danger.
At 30,000 feet, trainee captain Jane Harley proves she's more than just a rising pilot when she navigates a terrifying turbulence that leaves passengers shaken and lives hanging by a thread. Calm under pressurej and fiercely capable, Jane becomes the unexpected hero of Flight 423.
But while she's saving lives in the sky, fate is already setting something far more complicated in motion.
Among the passengers is the powerful and ambitious mother of Jayden-Aurelia Air's largest shareholder-whose midair health crisis is only the beginning of a chain of events. Grateful and intrigued, she sets her sights on Jane... not just as a hero, but as a future daughter-in-law.
Jayden, a grounded pilot with a sharp mind and guarded heart, has no interest in his mother's schemes-until one unexpected name changes everything.
In a world of wealth, expectations, and high-altitude emotions, two lives are about to collide.
Love, ambition, and fate take flight in Falling at 30,000 Feet.
9.2
He married her to control her.
To break her.
To own her.
Seraphina let him believe it.
She plays the quiet wife-
soft voice, lowered eyes, perfect obedience.
But behind every smile...
is a plan he was never meant to survive.
Because this marriage was never about love.
Not even power.
It was revenge.
And when Lucien finally uncovers the truth-
when he realizes who she really is...
he won't be fighting to keep her.
He'll be begging to escape her.
7.6
To pay for her father's life support, Haleigh sold herself into a marriage with Fabian Blackburn, a ruthless billionaire in a deep coma.
But on her wedding day, she caught her boyfriend cheating with her stepsister, laughing about how they would steal the inheritance the second Fabian stopped breathing. Cornered and desperate, Haleigh secretly underwent IVF using her comatose husband's frozen sperm to secure the family trust.
Weeks later, a miracle happened. Fabian woke up.
But instead of gratitude, he treated her like trash. He threw annulment papers at her face, completely disgusted by the arranged marriage.
"If you try any dirty tricks to get pregnant, I will personally drag you to a clinic and have that bastard scraped out of you."
Terrified, Haleigh hid her positive pregnancy test and desperately tried to hack her way to enough cash to escape. But while using his computer, she accidentally opened a highly classified folder.
Inside was a medical file and a photo of a severely disabled girl who looked exactly like Fabian.
Before she could process it, Fabian walked in. Seeing the screen, his cold mask shattered into pure, unhinged madness. He lunged across the room, lifting her off the floor by her throat, completely ignoring her desperate gasps for air.
"Lock her in the basement," he roared to his guards. "No food. No water."
Curled on the freezing concrete, clutching her newly pregnant belly, Haleigh didn't understand what she had just seen that turned him into a murderous monster.
But she knew one thing: if she didn't escape this terrifying estate, both she and his unborn heir would die in the dark.