The Secret Wife Makes A Spectacular Comeback
On our third anniversary, I spent hours cooking my husband's favorite meal, waiting for him to come home.
Instead of a greeting, I overheard him and his mother in the living room, planning to evict me. He was an A-list actor, and I was his secret wife—a "failed PR investment" they now wanted to erase with a $250,000 NDA.
He told me my trailer-park background was a stain dragging his career down. Later, when I suffered a severe allergic reaction to a sleeping pill and nearly died, he didn't care. He stormed into my hospital room, accused me of faking a suicide attempt for attention, and called my late mother a pathetic drunk. Even the arrogant ER doctor treated me like a desperate, hysterical housewife wasting medical resources.
I gave up three years of my life to be his unpaid maid and his shadow, only to be thrown away like garbage. But what my husband didn't know was that the mysterious, top-tier creator "Xen" he was desperately trying to sign a life-changing deal with to save his career... was actually me.
I ripped the IV out of my arm, bleeding onto the hospital floor, and smiled at him.
"I'm going to watch you fall."
I hired the most ruthless divorce lawyer in LA to take half his fortune, and quietly canceled his dream contract. This time, I'm going to watch his gilded life burn to the ground.
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Chapter 6
Emily glanced at the clock on the microwave. It had been two hours since Carma went to bed. The apartment was too quiet. Carma usually tossed and turned, the floorboards creaking. Tonight, nothing.
A knot formed in Emily's stomach. She walked down the narrow hallway and stopped outside the guest room door. She knocked softly.
"Carma? You asleep?"
No answer.
Emily knocked louder. "Carma? I'm coming in."
She turned the knob. The room was dark, the curtains drawn. Emily flipped the light switch.
Carma was lying on the bed, her body twisted in the sheets. Her face was swollen, covered in angry red hives. Her lips were a terrifying shade of blue. Her chest was heaving, a rattling sound coming from her throat.
"Carma!" Emily screamed. She rushed to the bed, grabbing her friend's shoulders. Carma's eyes were open but unfocused, rolling back in her head.
Emily's eyes darted to the nightstand. The open bottle of Ambien lay on its side, a single white pill resting on the wood beside it. Only one was missing.
Suicide. She was trying to kill herself.
Emily's hands shook so badly she almost dropped her phone. She dialed 911, her voice a ragged shriek. "Help! My friend took some pills—I don't know how many—but she's not breathing!4321 Sunset Boulevard, apartment 2B! Hurry!"
The next fifteen minutes were a blur of sirens and flashing lights. The paramedics burst through the door, lifting Carma onto a stretcher. Emily rode in the back of the ambulance, clutching Carma's limp hand, tears streaming down her face.
The Cedars-Sinai Emergency Room was a chaos of beeping machines and rushing nurses. Carma was wheeled into a trauma bay, the curtains pulled shut around her.
Emily stood outside, her face pressed against the fabric, watching as doctors and nurses swarmed her friend.
"BP is dropping! Sixty over forty!"
"Intubation tray!"
"Push point-five epi!"
A tall man in blue scrubs stepped into the bay. He had dark hair, sharp cheekbones, and cold blue eyes behind a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. He moved with a precise, robotic efficiency, barking orders that the nurses scrambled to obey.
"Get the charcoal ready," the doctor said, his voice devoid of emotion. "And call the psych ward. We have another overdose."
Emily flinched. She pushed through the curtain. "She didn't overdose! It was an accident!"
The doctor turned his cold gaze on her. "Ma'am, you need to step back."
"But she only took one! I think she's having a reaction—an allergy or something!" Emily sobbed. "It's because of her husband! He's leaving her! She wasn't trying to die!"
The doctor-Arvel Hurst, according to his badge-stared at her. His jaw tightened. He looked back at the swollen, blue-lipped woman on the gurney. Another broken heart. Another waste of his time.
"Ma'am, I need you to wait outside," he said, his voice clipped. "Now."
Emily was escorted out by a nurse. She slumped into a plastic chair in the waiting room, burying her face in her hands.
Inside the trauma bay, Arvel worked methodically. He inserted the breathing tube, pumped the woman's stomach, and administered the antidote. It was textbook. It was routine. It was utterly exhausting.
He looked down at the woman's face as the color slowly returned to her cheeks. She was young. Too young to throw her life away over a man.
"Stupid," he muttered under his breath. He pulled off his gloves with a snap and walked out to update the chart.
An hour later, Carma opened her eyes. The world was a blur of white ceiling tiles and harsh fluorescent lights. A tube was jammed down her throat. Her body ached like she had been hit by a truck.
She gagged, and a nurse rushed over, gently removing the breathing tube. Carma coughed, her throat burning.
Emily was at her side in an instant, grabbing her hand. "Oh my god, Carma. You're awake. You scared me to death."
"What... what happened?" Carma croaked, her voice a rasp.
"You had an allergic reaction to the Ambien," Emily said, her eyes red and puffy. "Your throat closed up. I thought... I thought you were..."
She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't mention the pills on the nightstand or what she had told the 911 operator.
Carma lay back against the pillow, her head pounding. She had almost died. Over a sleeping pill. The irony was too bitter to swallow.
The curtain parted, and Dr. Arvel Hurst walked in. He didn't look at her face; he looked at the monitors, checking the numbers. He held a tablet in his hand, tapping the screen with a stylus.
"Miss Forbes," he said, his voice flat. "You're awake."
"Yes," Carma whispered, her throat raw.
Arvel didn't look up. "You're lucky your friend found you when she did. Another ten minutes and you would have been brain dead."
Carma stared at his profile. He was handsome, in a severe kind of way, but his demeanor was arctic. "Thank you for saving me."
Arvel finally looked at her. His blue eyes were hard, devoid of any warmth. "Don't thank me. Thank the paramedics. I just did my job." He tapped the tablet again. "Your friend said you were under significant personal distress. Anaphylactic shock isn't a joke. Next time you're dealing with emotional turmoil, I'd suggest calling a therapist, not reaching for medication you're unfamiliar with. This ER is for people with acute medical emergencies, not for those who are careless with their health."
Carma blinked, the words stinging with their cold, clinical judgment. "What? I didn't-"
"Save it," Arvel cut her off, his lip curling slightly. "The 'my husband doesn't love me' routine is old. You're wasting resources that could be used on patients who are actually fighting to live. Don't do it again."
He turned on his heel and walked out, the curtain swishing shut behind him.
Carma stared at the empty space, too stunned to speak. He thought she was careless. He thought she was pathetic.
Emily squeezed her hand, her face pale. "Carma, I'm so sorry. I told them you took pills because of Kendall... I didn't know it would be that bad. I made a mistake."
Carma didn't respond. She just stared at the ceiling, the humiliation burning hotter than the hives on her skin.
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7.3
I found out my husband of three years had cheated on me and his mistress is the one who told me-because he didn't have the balls to do it himself.
I move out and get a new apartment, a job as a bartender, and try to move on with a broken heart. I wonder where it all went wrong, if I hadn't been enough for him, if I'd been stupid for marrying him in the first place.
I'm at work one night when he walks inside-the most beautiful man I've ever seen. He sits at the bar and a forest fire burns between us. I was depressed the moment before he entered, but the second I look at his blue eyes, I forget the dumpster fire that my life has become. I invite him back to my place and it's the most passionate night of my life. I expect to never see him again.
I just want him as an anti-depressant-but he wants me all to himself. I just got my heart ripped out of my chest so I want something easy and no-strings-attached, but he wants all the strings because he's hooked.
I don't get much of a say in the matter, and that's not surprising when I learn why-because he's the Butcher. The crime lord of all crime lords, the boss that overshadows all of Paris, that makes everyone abide by his rules-or pay.
And now I'm his.
8.1
At sterlinggate university, only one rule matters:
Monsters do not belong.
Yuna never meant to become one.
After being publicly humiliated by her boyfriend , Yuna's emotions spiral out of control, she had a tough encounter with her bully, Megan, triggering a secret she was never meant to awaken. She isn't just a werewolf.
She is a kitsune.
A nine-tailed fox believed to be extinct.
A creature every wolf has been trained to hunt.
When her transformation is exposed, the university goes into lockdown. Hunters flood the campus. Silver charms are distributed. And one order is made clear:
"Kill the kitsune".
The only person willing to protect her is Noah Phillips,the star wolf of the university... and the son of the chief hunter leading the execution.
As danger closes in and her powers grow harder to control, Yuna must choose:
hide and survive, or rise and fight back.
Because if the wolves discover the truth...
They won't just kill her.
They'll start a war.
7.6
When the Pollard family kicked Alyssa out into the freezing rain, Walter threw a ten-thousand-dollar check into a dirty puddle.
"Take it and get out. Don't ever come back," he sneered.
Her adoptive mother and stepsister stood on the mansion's porch, mocking her as a worthless country girl who tarnished their wealthy name. They laughed, claiming she wouldn't even be able to afford community college and would be begging on the streets in a week.
They looked at her cheap clothes and worn backpack with absolute disgust.
They were completely unaware that for the past five years, Alyssa was the secret mastermind who had built their failing gallery into a multi-million-dollar investment empire.
Every key investment, every fortune they made, came from the anonymous notes she had slipped into their unread books. They genuinely believed they were business geniuses, while treating the true architect of their wealth like a stray dog.
Looking at their smug, arrogant faces, Alyssa didn't feel a shred of sadness, only a cold, sharp irony.
They actually believed they had raised her.
She stepped close, whispered the master code to Walter's most secret offshore account, and watched the blood completely drain from his face.
"I raised you," she said, turning her back on the mansion without hesitation.
Walking into the storm, she pulled out a heavily encrypted phone and gave a single, cold order.
"Initiate a full hostile takeover of the Pollard Group."
It was time to end this little game and step into her true life—as the world's most elusive medical genius, and the long-lost billionaire heiress of the Summers dynasty.
9.0
"You and your baby are mine whether you want it or not."
Renata Neroni's life was shattered the moment she discovered her boyfriend and stepsister's betrayal. In a rare lapse of judgment fueled by grief and alcohol, she spent a single, anonymous night with a stranger, unaware that she had just surrendered herself to Domenico Veronesi, the most formidable figure in the global underworld.
That night left Renata with more than just a memory; she was pregnant with the heir to a mafia empire.
As her father, desperate to free himself from the debts, prepares to marry her off to a man nearly his own age, Renata finds herself trapped. Her only escape arrives in the form of Domenico himself. Asserting his claim, he interrupts the arrangement and brings Renata to his secluded estate.
Within the fortified walls of the Veronesi estate, the man known for his cold, merciless exterior reveals a singular obsession: the protection of Renata and their unborn child.
However, Domenico's readiness to provide is met with a wall of ice.
Despite his efforts to provide for her, Renata's resentment initially hardens into a wall of silence.
To her, Domenico is simply another powerful man attempting to control her fate. However, as she is forced to navigate the inner workings of his life within the mafia world, she begins to see the man behind the fearsome reputation.
Renata discovers the deeper layers of Domenico, a loyalty and a hidden vulnerability regarding their child, and the fear that once defined her begins to dissolve.
8.0
My sister Rosalie always played the role of my gentle protector. On the night of my engagement, she insisted I take a secluded canyon road for my own safety.
In my past life, I didn't know it was a deadly trap. I fell for the staged ambush and the rival mobster, Julian, who took a fake bullet to "save" me.
Because of my blind trust, my entire Falcone bloodline was annihilated overnight. My father was beheaded, my brothers were gunned down, and my sweet little sister was left to die in a filthy alley. I was even brainwashed into betraying my new husband, Damien Moretti. I shot the only man who truly protected me right through the heart, just before Rosalie drowned me in a freezing lake, laughing as she confessed she was just a bastard child stealing my life.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very night my nightmare began. I was trapped in a penthouse, a lethal drug melting my sanity, pinned beneath Damien. But after he brutally sweat the poison out of my veins, he didn't look at me with love. He handed me a Plan B pill with a gaze full of ancient, chilling hatred.
"Swallow it," he commanded, his voice a sheet of ice.
He remembers. The Dark Don remembers the past life where I murdered him. But this time, I won't be a pawn. I wiped the blood of my traitorous maid from my hands, ready to drag my fake sister straight to hell.
9.1
The heavy oak doors of the Crane estate splintered under the battering ram. Annetta was just putting her five-year-old daughter to sleep when the SWAT team stormed the nursery.
They told her that her husband, Major Alek Crane, was killed in action overseas. But instead of a hero's funeral, he was branded a national traitor, and the feds were seizing every penny of their wealth.
Lead investigator Issac Rocha dragged Alek's charred remains into the grand hall just to mock him. He stripped Annetta of her wedding band, confiscated her winter coat, and officially exiled her, her daughter, and her hostile mother-in-law to a freezing Appalachian death zone. In the federal holding cell, the extended family turned on Annetta, calling her a cheap commoner and leaving her to shiver on the concrete floor. They were dumped in an abandoned mining town with nothing but canvas jumpsuits to die in the snow.
Annetta knew Alek was framed in a ruthless political hit. Issac Rocha wanted them to rot in the mud and freeze to death, completely forgotten by the world.
"We are going to live, and we are going to burn Issac Rocha to the ground."
But Issac made one fatal mistake. He didn't know the quiet, submissive daughter-in-law had spent the last three years secretly building a military-grade doomsday bunker right in the heart of that very mountain. Stepping past the freezing mud, Annetta initiated the biometric scan, and the massive steel blast doors slowly swung open.