Too Late, Mr. Johnston: She Is Gone
Kara was diagnosed with cancer, and her unborn child could not be kept. Kara planned to end the pregnancy, get a divorce, and face her impending death with equanimity, allowing Davin and his new love, Alyse, to be together. But Davin had no intention of letting her go so easily. He and the increasingly frail Kara were inseparable day and night, just to leave a child for the infertile Alyse. Kara lay dying in her hospital bed, crying and laughing, pleading, "I'll give you my life, please let me go." Later, the cold and aloof man knelt before Kara's tombstone, holding gardenias day and night, his eyes red as he murmured, "Baby, stop it, come back."
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Chapter 6
The basement smelled of mold and old cardboard. Kara sat in the corner, using the dim light of the tiny phone screen to navigate.
She called Chloe, her agent.
"You can't sell it," Chloe shrieked on the other end. "The 'Ethereal' gown? That was your masterpiece! You made that for your wedding!"
"Dead women don't need wedding dresses," Kara said. Her voice was flat. "I need cash, Chloe. Fast. Davin's network is a fortress. Any attempt to access my usual resources will trigger alarms. This is the only way."
She hung up as another call came through. It was the nursing home director.
"Mrs. Johnston," the director said. His tone was grave. "Arthur has had a second stroke."
Kara felt the floor drop out from under her. "Save him! Do whatever it takes!"
"We can't," the director said. "The Trust sent a cease and desist on payments. We are already in the red. If we don't have a hundred thousand dollars by noon tomorrow, we have to transfer him to the state facility."
The state facility was a warehouse for the dying. If Arthur went there, he wouldn't last a week.
"Please," Kara begged. "Just give me twenty-four hours."
"I'm sorry."
The line went dead.
Kara screamed. She threw the phone against a stack of boxes. She banged her head against the wall. The physical pain was grounding. It distracted her from the panic.
She had to get out.
The door handle turned. Kara froze.
Charles slipped inside. He was holding a bottle of water and a roll. He looked terrified.
"Charles," Kara gasped. She crawled over to him and grabbed the hem of his trousers. "Lend me the money. Please. I'll pay you back double."
Charles shook his head. "Madam, I don't have that kind of money."
"Then let me go," Kara said. Her eyes were wild, feverish. "I need to see Davin."
"He's at the tower," Charles said. He hesitated. He looked at her pale, desperate face.
"I'll leave the door unlocked," he whispered. "But if anyone asks, I forgot."
"Thank you," Kara sobbed.
She waited until Charles left, then slipped out. She ran through the rain, out the service gate, and flagged down a taxi on the main road.
She had no cash. She pulled off her diamond stud earrings-the only jewelry Davin hadn't bought her-and tossed them to the driver.
"Johnston Global Tower," she commanded.
The lobby of the tower was a cathedral of glass and steel. Kara walked in, dripping wet, her clothes muddy, her hair plastered to her skull. She was shivering violently. The fever was spiking.
She approached the reception desk.
"I need to see Davin Johnston," she said. Her teeth chattered.
The receptionist looked her up and down with disdain. "Do you have an appointment?"
"I'm his wife!" Kara shouted.
The receptionist raised an eyebrow. "Ma'am, I know who you are. My instructions are clear. Mr. Johnston is not available to you." She reached for the phone. "Security."
Two large guards grabbed Kara's arms.
"Let me go! Davin!"
The elevator doors pinged open. Davin walked out, surrounded by a phalanx of suits. He looked immaculate.
He stopped when he saw the commotion. He saw the wet, screaming woman struggling with his guards.
"Davin!" Kara cried out. "Grandpa is dying! Please!"
Davin looked at her. There was no recognition in his eyes. Only cold annoyance.
"Get that trash out of my building," he said to the guards.
He turned and walked out the revolving doors, leaving Kara to be dragged backward across the marble floor.
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8.7
On her eighteenth birthday, Elinor thought she was finally an adult. But a single text message reminded her she was just property.
Boyd Walker, the ruthless billionaire who dictated her every breath, threw a contract onto her bed. He had bought her adoptive father's medical debt—one billion dollars. And she was the sole collateral.
The punishment for even a hint of rebellion was catastrophic.
When her disabled friend tried to check on her, Boyd had his good leg shattered in front of a live security feed just to teach her a lesson.
When she fought off an entitled frat boy at school and came back with a bleeding arm, Boyd didn't comfort her.
Driven by a twisted, suffocating jealousy, he held her under a freezing bath, then tied a red thread with a silver bell around her ankle.
"You are a pet that needs to learn its boundaries."
Every time she moved, the high-pitched ring was a humiliating reminder of her gilded cage. The billion-dollar debt was a chain she could never break, and the monster holding the leash would destroy anyone who dared to help her.
Stripped of her money, her friends, and her dignity, Elinor lay completely still in the dark room for three days, refusing all food and water.
If Boyd wouldn't give her freedom, she would take the only thing she had left to control—her own death.
7.8
After eight years in a cold marriage, I watched my husband, Damian, run past me during a raging fire. He ignored my screams, his only focus on saving another woman.
That night, he coldly admitted he never loved me. Our entire marriage was just a business deal he was forced into.
But his betrayal didn't end there. His mistress, Aida, framed my innocent younger brother for a crime he didn't commit. Damian believed her lies without question.
He stood by as she had my brother murdered in his hospital bed. He even forced me to crawl over broken glass to apologize for "upsetting" her.
The final blow came when he threatened me with my mother' s heirloom box, not knowing it held my brother' s ashes. He had taken everything from me-my love, my family, my dignity.
He thought he had broken me. But he only forged me into a weapon.
Now, I'm back. And as the new majority shareholder of his company, I'm here to make him pay for every last sin.
7.3
Eloise was the untouchable Brandt family heiress, just one audition away from landing a lead movie role and escaping her golden cage.
But overnight, her family's empire completely collapsed.
With her father dying of heart failure, her mother forced her to beg the only man who could save them: Christian Clarke.
Christian was the ruthless billionaire who had publicly humiliated Eloise in college, ripping up her love letter in front of a laughing crowd.
Now, he tossed a fifty-million-dollar acquisition contract on the table.
"What exactly is the Brandt heiress putting up for sale today?"
To secure her father's medical care, Eloise was forced to sign a suffocating marriage contract, selling herself as a corporate tax shield.
He moved her into his freezing penthouse and treated her like a purchased asset. He mocked her attempts to cook him dinner, yet pinned her against the wall with punishing, possessive kisses whenever she tried to pull away.
Eloise's pride was entirely shattered.
She didn't understand why he was doing this. If he hated her so much and only wanted revenge, why did his touch carry such an agonizing, desperate heat?
Determined to survive, she went to her final audition and miraculously won the lead role, crying tears of joy because she had finally earned something on her own.
She had no idea that the cold-blooded monster sleeping beside her had just secretly threatened to destroy all of Hollywood to give it to her.
8.5
I woke up in the tangled black silk sheets of the Mafia Don's bed, my skin still burning from his ruthless touch in the dark.
The heavy door burst open, and his pristine wife, Bianca, looked at my bruised collarbones with visceral hatred.
Instead of having me killed for soiling her husband's bed, she offered a devil's bargain.
"You will take my place in his bed. You will be a shadow in the dark."
In my past life, I foolishly accepted, thinking her money would pay for my dying mother's hospital bills. I didn't realize the untouchable Mafia Queen was barren and just needed a disposable incubator. After I endured the Don's violent possession and birthed the Moretti heir, they cut off my mother's medicine. Then, they dragged me to a remote warehouse and suffocated me with a wet mattress to bury their dirty secret forever.
Until my last agonizing breath, I didn't understand why my absolute submission and suffering were rewarded with such a brutal, meaningless death.
Opening my eyes again, I was back on the morning after the Don first claimed me.
I knelt on the Persian rug, weeping tears of fake gratitude as Bianca handed me the cash. But the moment my escort looked away, I didn't take her fertility herbs. I bought a bitter root from an alley witch to keep my womb empty. This time, I won't give the Don a child. I'll become his darkest obsession, and use his lethal power to burn this entire family to the ground.
9.3
"W-wait! Someone's comi- ah!" Dylan's gasps were muffled with a kiss that made his legs go weak.
"Want me to stop?" The whisper made him shudder.
"...no, b-but there's-"
"Then be a good boy and focus on me. Spread your legs."
Dylan as an innocent college student knew what he wanted in a guy and coincidentally, the Waltson's, their new neighbor, had a son Theo who was a perfect fit. But sadly straight and also not single. Aiming to drink out his sorrows at the school party and move on was an act he did not see ending with him sleeping with someone, but having no idea who it was the next morning.
Soon, his hunt for the truth gets narrowed down to the Waltson's, and he gets faced with the late realization that Theo wasn't the only son of the Waltson's. With his elder brother, Lucas, and a mute twin, Kyle, his options of his drunk one night widens from one to three.
Lucas and Theo had been present at the party, and Dylan saw his only chance of knowing the truth was getting closer to them. But to do that, he needed the help of Kyle who was anything but nice to him. His constant glares, his mischievous smiles, and his hand signs that get interpreted into nothing but lies. Almost like he was trying his best to keep him away from his brothers. And just when he thought that, he takes up the initiative to search up a sign Kyle had shown to him.
^^You and him are never going to work out. I'll make sure of that.^^
In the game of finding out what Kyle meant by that, he stumbles across something even bigger. The Waltson's secret
7.5
After my boyfriend of four years publicly humiliated me at a charity gala, calling me a "charity case," I drowned my sorrows at a dive bar and had a one-night stand with a stranger.
I woke up the next morning in a luxury hotel suite to find out the stranger was Christian Porter, the most ruthless billionaire on Wall Street.
Worse, paparazzi had photographed us leaving the bar. He coldly informed me that the photos would create a scandal that could tank his company's upcoming IPO, costing him hundreds of millions. As if my world wasn't collapsing fast enough, I got a call that my younger brother had been arrested for assaulting my ex in my defense.
Christian didn't want my apology; he wanted a solution. He slammed a prenuptial agreement on the table in front of me.
He gave me an ultimatum: sign a two-year marriage contract to turn the scandal into a corporate fairy tale, or he would ruin me. Trapped, I agreed. But when my furious brother confronted him at the police station, Christian looked him dead in the eye and said something that left me breathless.
"I didn't marry her to solve a problem," he said, his voice echoing in the small room. "I married her because I've been in love with her for ten years."