Plot Twists Short Stories & Devotion Love after Marriage Novels

My life was a living hell after my mother died. My father was the Don of the Rossi family, but you wouldn't know it from the way I lived. My stepsister and stepmother treated me like a maid. When the family faced a crisis, they didn't hesitate to sell me off to Caspian, the heir to the Valerius family, for their own gain. The word on the street was that Caspian was a monster—a butcher with a face torn apart by scars. I refused, but my father threatened me with my mother's keepsakes, forcing me to sign a three-year marriage contract. On our wedding day, Caspian didn't even look at me. He slid the ring on my finger, his touch like ice. "Remember," he said, "you're my wife in name only. Don't expect anything more." I wasn't hurt. That was what I wanted, too. I thought we'd spend three years as strangers, and then I'd be free. But I never expected the day he'd look at me with those possessive eyes, kiss me hard, and declare, "You're mine. My wife. Forever." And damn it, my heart actually skipped a beat.

I’m Daisy Valence. Eighteen. The favorite daughter of the Valence family. I woke up and found myself eight years in the future. Not only was I married to my nemesis, Lorenzo Astor, but we had a four-year-old son. Even crazier, the future me was a stone-cold snake, plotting to gut Lorenzo's operation while planning to run off with her "lover" after the divorce. And this "lover"? Just some nobody from the slums I was bankrolling. I must have lost my mind. Just as I was about to cut ties with all of them and get my free, single life back... I found the love letters Lorenzo wrote me, a secret stash of things I’d used, and a phone filled with my pictures… Then he grabbed me, his eyes bloodshot, and held me so tight I could barely breathe. He growled, "Who the hell gave you permission to leave me?" "I never agreed to any divorce, my wife."

To keep the peace between humans and shifters, those chosen by the Oracle are forced to mate with their bound partners. And me? I was forced to be the shared mate of twin black dragons. Every night, I brewed two glasses of moon-wine to help them sleep. The older brother, Kaelen, was cold. But when he took his glass, his scalding fingertips would brush my wrist in a silent promise, and he’d murmur a soft thanks. But the younger one, Cassian? A vicious temper. He’d smash the glass, hurl insults, and crush me with the weight of his dragon aura. I had been lying to myself. Walking on eggshells. Desperately keeping a fragile peace. Until a fellow apothecary told me the truth. She hesitated, then said: "He treats you like dirt. The other one is gentle. Why do they both get the same precious moon-wine? How is that fair to the one who actually cares?" I thought about it all day. She was right. Late that night, I left the apothecary in a sheer silk robe, carrying only one glass of moon-wine.

The moment I opened the door, I never imagined that my fiancé would be in bed with my best friend, both of them wearing nothing. I went absolutely crazy and charged toward them, wanting nothing more than to kill the two of them. But my fiancé shoved me to the floor and, turning it around, blamed me instead. "Rosalind," he sneered, "if you hadn't been so self-righteous and refused to sleep with me, I wouldn't have cheated!" Fine. Since he no longer wanted me, I married his older brother. On the day of the wedding, I smiled at him and said, "Norris, guess what? I'm your sister-in-law now."

To prove himself worthy of marrying me, Nico Ricci volunteered to take over the most profitable drug trafficking route out of Mexico. Before he left, he slipped a ring on my finger. "When I get back, we'll get married." I waited three years for him. The next time I saw him, he was holding hands with a timid woman as he asked me to end our engagement. "Leah took a bullet for me. I owe her my life. I promised her I'd marry her if we made it back to New York alive." My father, Lorenzo Moretti, handed me a pistol, his face dark with anger. "Camila, he's your man. You deal with him." I took the gun and stepped forward. With one swift motion, I racked the slide. Click. Everyone in the Moretti family was waiting for me to paint the floor with the traitor's blood. Bang! I fired several shots into the air. Hot shell casings clattered to the floor around their feet. The hall fell silent. Nico stood rigid, his grip tight around Leah Cruz's hand. I pulled off the ring and dropped it on the floor among the spent casings. "We're even." Then, in front of everyone, I called Dante Vitale, the Don of the Vitale family and the Morettis' worst enemy. "About that proposal of yours? My answer is yes."

To keep me from becoming a spinster, my father spared no expense in finding me a husband. Seduced by a handsome face, I rushed into a whirlwind marriage with a charming young gentleman. Little did I imagine that this gentleman would prove more dissolute than I. Not only did he hold clandestine meetings with four different women, but he was also legally married. Upon finding that out, I fled with my baby without hesitation. But there was something I could not fathom. Why did the fugitive the new king was hunting bear my exact face?

On the same day we were registering our marriage, my boyfriend, Levi Salfolk, had someone throw me out of the clerk's office while he led his childhood sweetheart inside. He looked at me nonchalantly. "Rosalie's child can't be illegitimate. I'll marry you once we get divorced." Everyone thought that the lovestruck me would wait for him for another month. After all, I had already waited for him for seven years. However, I went overseas that night, accepting the arranged marriage my family had set up for me and disappearing from his world. Three years later, I accompanied my husband back home to pay our respects to his ancestors. Something came up, and my husband sent someone from the local branch office to pick me up. Unexpectedly, I met Levi, whom I had not seen since I left. "Enough with the fooling around. Come back. Rosalie's child is starting preschool soon. You're in charge of picking up and dropping off the child."

For five years, I'd poured every resource my family had into making my fiancé, Julian Vane, a star. Now he was slipping the wedding gown of the century, the one supposedly made to my measurements, onto my best friend, Mia Shaw. The gown that had been digging into my ribs fit Mia perfectly. He looked at me with disgust. "Chloe, you don't deserve my designs." Meanwhile, my family was facing bankruptcy and liquidation. Julian was waiting for me to crawl back and beg him like a kicked dog. Instead, I knocked on the door of Killian Valentine, the most ruthless tyrant on Wall Street. He'd been my family's sworn enemy for ten years. "You hold the Winslow debt. Name your price. What do you want in exchange for leaving my family alone?" "I want you. Take off those dirty clothes and be my wife."