Foreigner On The Periphery

For our fifth anniversary, my boyfriend, Caelen Blackwell, flew me—and his mother—to Miami. I thought he was going to propose. Instead, he checked me into the cheapest room of a luxury villa and disappeared. Two days later, I found out he was staying in the private suite with another woman—his mistress, Samatha, the same woman he had just proposed to. When I confronted him, all he said was, “I’d never marry a crippled woman. Look at you, you’ll never be rich, powerful, or beautiful like her.” So I just made one phone call to my father—the most feared mafia boss in Spain—and told him to cut off everything Caelen had been using to build his empire. It’s not like I didn’t know how men like him worked—use a woman up, then toss her aside. I just never thought he would be stupid enough to believe I was the kind of people who could be disrespected or discarded like this.

My husband, Carlton Stewart, looked me right in the eye and asked me to abort his unborn child. Then he asked for a divorce. That didn’t hurt me more than when I discovered the reason he asked me to abort his child. I felt so worthless and even more worthless when my husband threw me in jail after my sister accused me of a crime, we all knew I would never commit. Six months went down in speed and I was out of prison with six months pregnancy. Unconventionally, I met a young man who surprisingly was hell-bent on helping me take revenge on my ex-husband and all of them who’d hurt me.

Navisha dan William pernah bersama saat di bangku sekolah menengah atas. Tapi, bukan cinta monyet penuh dengan romantika remaja, seperti pada umumnya. Navisha hanya seorang gadis bodoh yang terlalu mengagumi William, dan selalu mengalah walau disakiti seperti apapun. Hingga saat menjelang kelulusan. Navisha mendengar kabar pertunangan William dengan anak rekan bisnis orang tuanya. Navisha pun menyadari, mungkin sudah saatnya menyerah untuk hubungan penuh toxic itu. Akhirnya Navisha pun pergi, tanpa mengucapkan kata perpisahan pada sang pujaan hati. Lima tahun berlalu. Mereka pun di pertemukan kembali oleh sang takdir. Sayangnya, hati Navisha masih terlalu sakit untuk menerima William lagi. Luka itu bahkan masih kerap berdarah kembali hanya dengan melihat wajah William. Nahasnya, pada saat bersamaan. Navisha terlibat kasus hukum, yang mengharusnya segera mempunyai pendamping hidup, agar bisa mempertahakan hak asuh anaknya. "Aku rela melakukan apapun untukmu, Nav. Asal kau mau memaafkanku, dan kembali bersamaku," ucap William dengan sungguh-sungguh. "Termasuk mengalihkan seluruh hartamu atas namaku?"

After closing a 100-million-dollar business deal, I dip into an ordinary-looking cafe by the street on a whim. "I'll have a cup of cappuccino, please." The waitress, who's immaculately dressed, rolls her eyes at me before sashaying toward me. In a fake, nasally tone, she says, "I'm sorry, but there aren't any servers here. I'm the owner of this place." She eyes me up and down before continuing, "The prices here are relatively high for regular people. Are you sure you want to order coffee from me?" I pause in the act of massaging my temple. Finally, I scan around the cafe. "Your cafe is nothing to look at. Are you saying that you're not going to serve regular people, then?" The owner's friend jumps up to her feet instantly at my comment. Then, she starts berating me angrily. "Gianna has opened this cafe just to burn her free time and contribute to the community by giving them a taste of what it feels like to be rich! How dare you question her! "Do you even know who Gianna is? She's the successor of Luxara Corporation! Her boyfriend is Levi Anderson, the CEO of Miller Group! How dare you talk to her like this! You won't be able to make a living in Westford anymore!" I raise an eyebrow in response. The man who had kneeled before me with tears rolling down his cheeks while begging me to invest in his company… was the boss of Luxara Corporation, if I remembered correctly. Also, isn't Levi that live-in husband of mine?

In order to protect my father, I was tortured for ten hours, but my father was busy celebrating his adopted daughter’s eighteenth birthday. With my dying breath, I called my father and said, “Dad, it’s my birthday today. Could you wish me a happy birthday?” “You crazy monster! You got your mother killed in order to celebrate your birthday! How could you still ask me to celebrate your birthday? You should just die!” With that said, he hung up. The next day, my corpse was placed in different flower pots and put in front of a police station. My father was in charge of inspecting my corpse, and he could immediately tell that the murderer did this for revenge. What they did to me was cruel and made a mockery of the police’s authority. But he did not manage to tell that the deceased was the daughter he hated.

When my ex-boyfriend leaks my sextape and my family expects me to die from shame, here’s what I do: I tell the old creep trying to buy me to fuck off, get myself thrown out, and fly across the country to my best friend’s mansion to figure out my next move. What I DON’T expect is to walk in on Knox Reid—my best friend’s ex-military billionaire father—stroking his cock to my viral sex tape. I should be horrified. Humiliated. Instead, I’m soaking wet and completely mesmerized. And for the first time since my life exploded, I feel powerful. He catches me staring. Doesn’t stop. Keeps stroking, harder, faster, his dark eyes locked on mine until he comes all over himself. That forbidden moment changes everything. Spending the holidays at Knox’s mansion was supposed to be my escape—a place to hide while the scandal blows over. Instead, it becomes my rebellion. Now I want him fucking me everywhere, against the frosted windows, on his desk, in front of the fire while my best friend party’s outside. I want to feel alive again, and Knox makes me burn in all the best ways. But he’s my best friend’s estranged father trying to fix their relationship. And I’m trying to rebuild my shattered life, not destroy it again. We should stop, but we can’t. He’s forbidden. He’s mine. And he’s all I want for the holidays…and maybe for the rest of my life.

"Interested in having a date with me? Hurry up and get over here!" Elliot Coleman sends me a photo of a venue that's decorated romantically. It's followed by that sentence and an address. He and his friends laugh hysterically when I arrive in a carefully selected dress. "I told you, right? She'd come running with just a single sentence! Trust me, she'll do whatever I want her to do!" Elliot ignores my embarrassment and publicly confesses his feelings for Isabelle Stevens. He even falsely accuses me of refusing to leave him alone and tries to chase me off. Then, he turns pale when my newlywed husband arrives and shields me.

"You drive me fucking insane," he breathes against my throat. Heat pools low in my belly as he pulls back to look at me, his eyes dark with hunger. "Say stop," he whispers, voice strained. I hold his gaze. "I won't." … I never wanted to come to KAQ Academy. But when your mother marries into the Blackwell family, you don't get a choice. What I didn't expect was her new stepson deciding I was his personal enemy on sight. Grayson Blackwell—hockey captain, honor student, golden boy with a black heart—has made it his mission to destroy me. He's beautiful and cruel and absolutely magnetic, the kind of boy who sets fires just to watch them burn. He wants to break me, piece by piece, until there's nothing left of the girl who dared to invade his perfect world. The problem? I like the way he burns. But I'm not the only one obsessed with me. Someone has been sending me twisted letters for years, and they've followed me here. When Gray finds out about my stalker, something dark shifts in his eyes. Suddenly, I'm not just his enemy—I'm his obsession.

It's my first time visiting my girlfriend, Jennifer Hayes' family for the holidays. At the dining table, her childhood friend, Duncan Foley, suddenly slams his cutlery down. "How could you bring a prostitute client home for dinner, Jenny?" The atmosphere becomes awkward immediately. Everyone initially thinks that Duncan is running his mouth because he's had too much to drink, but he continues to ramble in a matter-of-fact tone. "My buddy is a part of the anti-prostitution task force! As if I can get the person he's personally arrested wrong!" As he speaks, he tosses a copy of the public security administrative penalty notice onto the table. My name is displayed on it. The sight leaves me stunned. It's true that the anti-prostitution task force arrested dozens of offenders in the city last month. But I'm the one who gave the signature of approval as the newly promoted chief commissioner…

I am the daughter of the Alpha of the Blood Moon Pack, my parents are very rich, but I have nothing. When black magic was eating away at me with a month to live, I asked to borrow ten dollars and they said I was "not worthy." I dragged my sickly body to buy the cheapest herbal medicine, but I saw them spending billions of dollars to celebrate my foster sister Vivian's 18th birthday. Tears streamed down my face, I just wanted to spend ten dollars on a piece of fabric and make my own ceremonial robe, even though I wouldn't live to be eighteen.