Novel & Cerita Bonnie Foxy

Five years ago, my family died in a car crash. My parents. My adopted sister, Liz. Everyone but me. They left behind grief, an empty house, and a debt so large it swallowed my life. When the collectors came, I turned to the only person I had left—my husband, Adrian. He told me he had cut ties with his own family to marry me and had nothing left. I believed him. For five years, I worked every job I could find, paid every dollar I earned, and told myself love was worth the suffering. When the balance dropped to its final $18,000, I signed up for a paid drug trial at a private clinic. They handed me a waiver, warned me about possible delayed reactions, and promised fast money if I swallowed the experimental dose. I thought it would buy us a new beginning. Instead, I came home early and heard Adrian on the phone. “Let Liz use the card. Evelyn still doesn’t know. She took away Liz’s money five years ago, so she has to earn every dollar back herself.” Then he laughed softly. “One more year, and her punishment is over.” That was how I learned the dead were alive. The debt was fake. My husband had never been poor. And the life I had fought so hard to survive was only a sentence they had given me.

My mother and sister never liked me. The only son they ever truly cared about was my older brother, Lucian Vieri. Before she married me, Serafina Valcieri, the only daughter of one of the most feared syndicates in the country, was always the one who stepped in when I was cornered, mocked, or blamed for things that were never mine to carry. She never said much. She just made people back off. Then she married me. Then, not long ago, Lucian shoved me off a ski slope. I said he meant to kill me. My mother called it an accident. My sister said he had only been trying to save me. Only Serafina believed me. When I woke up in the hospital, I heard voices outside the door. “Who told you to do it like that?” Serafina said, her voice low and cold. My mother answered in a panic. “Lucian’s leukemia can’t wait. If Cassian learns the baby isn’t his, everything falls apart.” Then Serafina said the words I still can’t forget. “I chose him, and I married him for my own reasons. But Lucian still needs this child. If anything had happened to Cassian, none of you would have walked away from it.” I stood there in silence, listening to every word. The child my wife was carrying was never mine. It had been conceived through IVF to save my brother. And the marriage I had trusted from the beginning had never belonged to me alone. I had spent my whole life coming second to Lucian. I just never thought Serafina would be the one to prove it. If no one truly wanted me, then I would leave.

I had lost count of how many times Aaron and I had dissolved our mate bond. He always said it was temporary. Vivian was the only she-wolf from Blackridge Pack who had made it into Hollywood. Her father had died saving Aaron during a rogue ambush. From then on, Aaron treated Vivian like a debt he could never repay, and I became the easiest thing to sacrifice for that debt. Whenever Vivian returned, Aaron took me to the Bonding Hall and dissolved our bond. Whenever she left, he came back and let the elders write our names into the bond ledger again. In Blackridge Pack, Aaron could take me to the Bonding Hall, dissolve our sanctioned bond, and come back for me when Vivian no longer needed him. At first, I cried and begged. Later, I learned to pack quietly, sign quietly, and hand back the Luna position along with whatever tenderness he had left for me. But this time, when Aaron waited at the Bonding Hall to renew our mate bond, I never came.

Ethan Hale was the name every pilot at North Ridge Air Base looked up to. I was Ava Morgan, his wife and his only flight partner. To earn my ace qualification, I had to complete three final evaluation missions within the review period. I failed all three. I refused to accept it as coincidence, so I followed the access logs, flight records, and maintenance files until every abnormal detail pointed to one person. Chloe Bennett. When I took the evidence to Ethan, I heard him arguing with his deputy, Liam Reed, behind the office door. "You are putting Chloe forward for the ace-track recommendation? She can barely hold steady in a back seat," Liam said, his anger barely restrained. "Ava is my wife and my flight partner. Chloe is different. She has nothing." Standing outside the door, I suddenly laughed. Then I turned around and accepted the return offer from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Before I left, I gave Ethan three things. And he would regret them for the rest of his life.

Evan Moore is the perfect husband in everyone's eyes. He gives me a grand wedding and fully supports my career dreams. When I faced a difficult labor, he stayed by my side, kneeling for a full day and night until he nearly passed out from exhaustion. Afterward, he held me in his arms, sobbing until his eyes were red and swollen, his voice trembling with fear. "Honey, let’s not have any more kids… It's just too much." From then on, he spends his days and nights at the monastery, praying devoutly for me and our son, earning the title of the city’s most pious CEO. But one day, by pure chance, I glimpse the handwritten scriptures he keeps so carefully copied. And that's when I realize every word, every stroke, is a confession of his undying love… for his first love. All his tenderness, all his care—it was never truly for me. It was learned for her. I was nothing more than practice—a stand-in for his so-called true love.

The day Stella Jameson was released early from prison for good behavior, my husband Samuel Xenos, who was always so calm and collected, lost control. He did everything he could to please Stella in her bed. He said that our marriage was nothing but fake. He never had any real feelings for me. And that lawsuit, for which he risked his life to win for me three years ago, was nothing but a complete setup. [Zara, the man you love most is just my dog. He comes whenever I call. He has always been like this. He’s no different from Victor back then.] That was the message Stella sent me to taunt me. I wiped my tears and prepared a big surprise for them.

The day my elder sister stole my fiancé from me, I did not fight back. Instead, I slipped past the maid guarding me and went straight to find my father. “She can have my fiancé. I’m marrying the Regent!” My father stared at me in shock. Everyone knew the Regent was in charge, but rumors said he could not father a child and had a nasty temper. What they did not know was that I was born under heaven’s favor—blessed with the gift of life itself. In my previous life, that blessing became my curse. My elder sister and stepmother smeared my name, claiming that my curves and easy fortune meant I had been defiled before marriage. My fiancé was disgusted and turned away from me. That was when my sister seized the chance to take my place. Even on her wedding day, my sister was not at ease. She had me dragged away like a lowly servant and sent to a brothel, ordering the madam to torture me. While I lay dying in the dark, she lived in the light, bearing children with my former fiancé and enjoying a lifetime of happiness that should have been mine. Now that I had been given another life, I refused to bow to fate again. She might have stolen my fiancé, but she could never take the blessing I was born with.

A game of spin the bottle wasn’t supposed to change my life. I wanted to get out of our small town, and the only way to do that was to get good grades. I didn't want to get distracted by anyone or anything, but I couldn't seem to ignore Liam. He was sexy, moody, and about to become my stepbrother. Exactly the kind of trouble I should have avoided. But I let my hair down for a party in the woods; a couple of girls and guys playing spin the bottle and truth or dare. Silly games shouldn't change your life but sometimes fate steps in. It's nearly graduation and I'm closing my eyes, thinking that I can't deal with having one surprise today, but two.

When I joined my pregnant wife at her class reunion, I heard the thoughts of her male bestie. 'Once she kicks her bum husband to the curb, the money's all mine!' He was snuggling up to my wife, raising his glass in salutations with a perfect smile, but I still caught the flicker of disgust in his eyes. 'Stupid sow thinks I'm in love with her? Who would care about her if it weren't for her money?' He had no idea that Mary's family had gone bankrupt long ago, and her life of luxury now was all thanks to me!

My wife, Evanna Johnson, is cursed with a love hex. She needs to bed a man in order to dispel the hex's effects. I'm overrun by anxiety and panic, and yet Evanna refuses to let me help her out. Instead, she rushes into her male best friend, Clay Armstrong's arms. Evanna tells me, "It's not that I don't believe you. Getting hexed is no child's play. Besides, Clay and I work better together. "A polished, well-raised man such as yourself won't understand the matters of the military." Just like that, I'm forced to listen to Evanna's unbridled moans the whole night outside the room. Later on, I decide to divorce her. But she tugs at my sleeve while begging me to return to her.