Do Groundhogs Play Dead

The human traffickers were apprehended, and after DNA verification, the police returned me to my affluent parents. My parents gave a cold nod, thanked the officers, and instructed the butler to make me comfortable. Two months after returning home, the fake heiress, Irene Burrel, secretly signed me up for a wilderness survival course. My parents gently stroked her head. “Since you want to play, let her accompany you.” They did not care one bit if I died out there. Irene smirked triumphantly at me. “What does it matter if you’re the real heiress? I can still do whatever I want with you! “Survival training is my daily routine. I’ll make sure you leave that competition on a stretcher!” When we arrived at the wilderness training grounds in the mountains, I laughed. I grew up in these very forests. Did she think I did not know this place?

When the college admission notice arrived, I suddenly developed a high fever and was bedridden. My sister encountered a kidnapping on her way to help me collect the notice, and her life was uncertain. My parents hated me deeply. After tearing up my admission notice, they forced me to give up my studies and work in a factory. Later, I experienced a kidnapping as well. After narrowly escaping, I hid in an abandoned factory and sent them a message for help. My dad called me and shouted at me without restraint, “Lena, are you even human? How could you play such a joke on us on Jessica's memorial day!” “Do you have any idea how much your mom and I wished it had been you who died back then?” In my last moments before death, their insults echoed in my ears. I was tortured and killed, turned into a monster, and my body was thrown into a stinking ditch for three full days. Even my father, the most experienced forensic expert, couldn’t recognize me. When my sister returned home with the guy she eloped with years ago, my dad had just restored my appearance through technology. They knelt before my decaying corpse and cried until they fainted.

[WARNING 18+] This book contains descriptive intimate and violent scenes. There could be triggering content like self-harm, drug addiction, and depression. [TROPES] Billionaire. Revenge. Second Chance. Escape while pregnant. - When Mellow Fanning married Zeath Lupin, the cold chairman of Lupin Group, she thought their love was forever. But everything crumbled when he introduced his pregnant mistress at a family dinner. Angry, Mellow sought to make Zeath restless by kidnapping the mistress. However, that resulted in a tragedy that nearly claimed her life and that of the child growing inside her—a child Zeath didn’t deserve. She faked her death and ran away, bound to return as Zeath’s only means to remain as the chairman of Lupin Group. Would he recognize her? Would she accept his apology if he ever gave one? And what would happen when the threat she once fled from rekindled, endangering her and her child’s lives once more? >>>>> “Do you know how much I wished you wouldn’t come near me, or even... touch me?” Zeath drones on. “All those cuddles and kisses, all the affection, made my skin crawl—like a troll embracing its victim before gobbling them. One can only imagine how much it stinks. You are no different from that troll. You merely caught my attention because you were a self-absorbed twonk, and we needed to test if you even had the heart to love another.” “We?” I croak out. Then Zeath’s fingers trail gently along my face, his eyes glinting with pure poison, and his voice is no better. “Poor Mellow, it is all a dare, a gratifying one. Divorce or not, it’s your choice.”

After ten years together, Aiden, my Alpha, my first and only love, finally promised to hold the mating ceremony with me during the Spring Hunt Festival. I was overjoyed. That night, at the festival party, I downed a few extra glasses of wine. However, Aiden, who had always been so gentle with me, suddenly became someone I didn't recognize. He scolded me, said I was unfit to be the future Luna if I couldn’t even follow the rules, and shoved me out of the car. Drunk and dazed, I was left alone in the dangerous Shadow Forest. Terrified but unwilling to break, I walked through that forest for five hours in the dead of night. When I finally made it back to our home, I heard him in the other room, sending a voice message to Seraphina, his first love. "If you’re willing to come back," he said, his voice soft and warm, "I’ll do anything for you." Seraphina replied, "Even cancel the mating ceremony?" Time stopped. I silently counted to thirteen. Then, I heard his answer: "Yes." Listening to that voice—the one that used to whisper promises to me—I cried. If that was what he truly wanted, then maybe calling off the ceremony was for the best. So, to spare him the choice, I fled. On the day of our mating ceremony, I disappeared. No one expected what came next. The proud, composed Alpha Aiden went mad trying to find me.

Race International Corporation is now facing an issue as to why the company’s ratings and sales have dropped. To organize this Rena Claudia Race, the female heiress, had to marry the sole heir of the Fe Veragon Franchise. At first, she thought everything was going to be easy. That by agreeing to marry that man everything would be all right. But what she didn’t know, as Weidal entered her life many more problems lay ahead. And the worst part? She'll fell in love with him. At the time of their wedding, would she say I do or runaway? "I thought you loved me so I became complacent. But was I wrong the moment I believed you felt the same?"

During a battle between packs, both my adopted sister Chloe and I were injured. A Rogue tore me apart, leaving me a mangled heap of flesh and blood. My wolf was already fading from my spirit. But my Alpha mate, Damon, ran straight to Chloe. She had nothing more than a scratch on her face. He refused to use his Alpha power to save me, blaming me for the entire disaster. "Elena, if you hadn't slowed us down, none of this would have happened! How could Chloe have gotten hurt?" "You're not worth wasting the pack's resources on." In the end, I was left for dead in the forest, unclaimed and forgotten. And when the truth came out that I had died to save him? That cold-blooded Alpha who rejected me so viciously went insane.

My wife, Lindsey Kelsey, suffers from an aversion to intimacy. For ten years of marriage, she pushed me away again and again. Then, on our anniversary, she abandoned me and, in front of the crowd, kissed another man with reckless passion before the two of them walked hand in hand into a luxury hotel. Afterward, Lindsey brazenly declared that a real man should be magnanimous, not petty. Magnanimous? Then I wish them both eternal bliss—may they be bound so tightly they can never break free from one another. Later, I handed Lindsey the divorce papers with a blank expression. I was determined to walk away from her. But Lindsey went mad when she realized she couldn't find me anymore.

A town with a strange past. A group of teenagers with secrets to hide. A world inside a box and a man who should no longer exist. Will they ever find out where they truly belong?

Three years of marriage. Three years of hell, humiliation, and being compared to a ghost. To Alexander Hale, the ruthless CEO feared by all Abigail was never a wife, only a woman that desperately wanted her best friends lover. He didn’t know that Abigail was the real pen pal who healed him with her letters... the same woman whose heart he crushed beneath his arrogance. Until the night she vanished. Declared dead after a brutal car accident, Abigail left behind only her wedding ring and a diary that shattered every illusion Alexander ever had. But fate is far from finished. Months later, Alexander attends his cousin’s wedding, only to see his dead ex-wife again. Alive. Pregnant. And standing beside another man.

After dating for seven years, I proposed a hundred and one times to my boyfriend, Jason Brown. However, he always told me that he was not ready, rejecting my proposals. This continued to my 28th birthday. In his suit pocket, I found a ring box. Thinking he was about to propose to me, I was overjoyed. However, to my horror, I saw him going down on one knee to propose to his assistant, Marcella Hopkins. Right before my eyes, he placed the ring I had yearned for so long on her finger. When one of his buddies asked what he planned to do with me, Jason wrapped his arm around his new love and chuckled. "Dude, I don't think I can bring myself to marry a woman who wants to get married that badly. She's so needy. However, if I do get a second wife, I might consider her. After all, she is hopelessly in love with me." He was sure I would wait for him, and he even placed a bet with his friends that I would crash his wedding. However, on his wedding day, I never showed up. Moments before his wedding ceremony was about to start, he suddenly noticed me, fully dressed up in a wedding gown in a separate banquet hall. Seeing me about to marry someone else, he almost went crazy.