Just Like That

One night, one mistake—a baby changes everything.  Their lives are intertwined, but will their love survive the storm, or will it drown in the consequences?

Jackson Sterling, a ruthless billionaire businessman with a fractured past, needs a wife to secure his family’s legacy and save his crumbling empire. Savannah Montgomery, a kind-hearted but financially struggling woman, finds herself forced into a marriage contract with Jackson to escape the clutches of debt. As the two grow closer, their marriage of convenience begins to spark real emotions, secrets, power plays, and hidden desires threaten to tear them apart. Can they overcome their pasts and learn to love, or will their contract only bind them to a future of regret?

A wolf in hunter's clothing. Belle is a rare and odd beauty among her pack. Unlike the lycans in her pack who can combine themselves with their wolves when they shift, she can only become a full wolf or a full human. She is different, but that does not mean that she is weak. With her being the newly appointed beta of the pack, the alpha assigned her a mission to watch over a human child. Belle did not like the idea of using a kid for their plans to take down the humans, so she helped the girl escape. Because of saving the child she was adopted by the humans, allowing her to enroll to their academy and learn their secrets to compensate to her pack for letting the child escape. But the more she learns, the more she realizes she is siding with the wrong people. Mysteries emerge as she learns that she is not the only lycan who can shift between human and wolf, or otherwise known as werewolves. Whenever she tries to learn about these creatures like her, she is always hampered by Ajax Finnegan, another hunter in training at the academy who is just as strong as she is. To Ajax, he feels like Belle is hiding something. He can sense that she's too different - too special, to be just an ordinary human. She's a beauty with the strength of a beast. Will Belle continue to side with the lycans, or will she continue her search for answers about these so called werewolves? Can Ajax figure out the beauty's secret?

After being reborn, the first thing I did was forge a medical report diagnosing chronic kidney disease. In my previous life, my nephew had been diagnosed with kidney failure, and he needed a transplant to survive. I rushed to get a matching test and donated one of my kidneys to him. But over time, my health deteriorated. At twenty, my body felt like it belonged to someone eighty. Even simple chores like sweeping the floor left me exhausted. I couldn't go out to work or earn a living, yet my brother and sister-in-law scolded me for "pretending to be sick." "It's just a kidney." my sister-in-law snapped. "Do you expect to leech off our family forever?" She even went so far as to buy a pair of fresh pig kidneys and smash them in my face. "Since we took one of yours, here's a new pair. Happy now?" Because I had lost a kidney, I died before the age of thirty, alone in a rented apartment. The next time I opened my eyes, I was back—before my nephew's diagnosis even came in.

Master Ethan Thompson, the rich 25 year old lad returned to his father's hometown after 10 long years of living in Britain. Brought up in a broken family and seeing his parents divorcing, he owned one harsh personality to easily trust in relationships. Reason of his sudden return was one. The heavy inheritance of his father demanded his attention, being the only heir of the business. Certainly many things have been changed since he left. Sick father's health was giving up rapidly and it was time for him to take over all the duties as the only successor of Thompson's dynasty. Things were expected well until one mysterious woman entered in the picture. Gorgeous, attractive and a woman with positive morals. 23 year old Sylendra Louis was taken in by Master Ethan's father when she was just only 10. Brought up by the elder man, the woman was said to be raised like his own daughter. And that very fact wasn't so easy to digest by Sebastian who just returned to his father's home, what irritated him the most was the woman's involvement in his business too. Mysterious woman's closeness with his father and too way personal engagement on his family matters made Master Ethan insecure as he started showing his hate over everything related to Sylendra, obviously unknown to the knowledge of his life slowly being fated with her. "Magic was she, black magic!"

On my birthday, the dining table was loaded with all my favorites. My mom had been cooking and baking the entire afternoon, insisting everything be perfect for when Mike got home from work so we could celebrate together. But then, he called and said his first love had been drugged at a bar, and he had to go help her. I stopped him and begged him not to go. Mike snapped at me. "Jesus, Em, don’t pull this jealous wife crap. She’s alone, defenseless, and unconscious—I can't let some random dude take advantage of her!" My mother heard those words and was so enraged that she had a heart attack. She died on the spot. Just like that, my mom died on my birthday. I called Mike, asking him to attend my mom's funeral. But before he could reply, I saw Cathy Miller's latest Instagram post, captioned: [Mikey… after all these years, it was always you.] Mike had liked it. My thumb moved before my brain caught up, typing out the only words that mattered: [A homewrecker and a lying bastard. Hope you rot together.]

My boyfriend passed away from illness. Before he died, he asked me to look after his only younger brother—Callum Ressler. I put Callum through college, and helped him build his company from the ground up. Then one night, after a round of drinking at some work function, he ended up in bed with me. While I wrestled with what we were to each other, I noticed something on his office desk: a photo of me, framed neatly beside an engagement ring. My heart stirred. I pushed open the lounge door, ready to finally talk about us. But just as the door creaked open, a white camisole fell at my feet. I froze. Callum pulled the covers tightly around a shocked female assistant. "Diana, ever heard of knocking?" he snapped. Face pale, limbs suddenly uncoordinated, I started backing out. But the assistant's timid voice stopped me. "Diana… could you hand me my clothes?" I ignored the hostility behind her eyes, grabbed the garment, tossed it onto the bed, and left in a hurry. Once I stepped outside the company building, Callum called. "Diana, you should really stop barging into my room like that." I laughed and agreed. From that moment on, I never stepped into his world again.

At my engagement dinner with Greg Willis, the Rossi mafia family’s underboss, his assistant, Sydney Carlson, casually tossed a half-eaten cookie on his plate in front of everyone. Greg didn’t react. In full view of the guests, he calmly picked it up and ate it. That night, after we returned, I told him I wanted to call off the engagement. He rubbed his brow with his fingertips, his voice steady in that familiar, composed way of his, yet there was distance beneath it. “All this,” he said, “over a cookie?” “She already took a bite,” I corrected him. He fell silent for a moment before replying in a low voice, “Zoe, you’ve always been sensible. Why get hung up on something so small?” “I’m not hung up,” I said evenly. “I just don’t want to settle.” When he saw that I wouldn’t back down, something complicated flickered in his eyes. Then, his tone hardened, almost like a warning. “Think it through carefully. Don’t you regret it.” He was certain I couldn’t leave him. After all, he was a mafia underboss. There were countless people eager to take the position of Mrs. Willis, and I was nothing more than a minor employee at his company. What he didn’t know was that I had never coveted the title of his wife. All I ever had for him was love. But now, that love was gone, and once I turned away, I would never look back again.

During the mandatory freshman orientation camp, my skin had flared up with a severe allergic reaction, so I didn't use the plastic washbasin the school handed out. Instead, I opened my suitcase and took out the custom silver basin I had brought from home. My roommate, Louisa Carter, immediately made a snide remark, drawling, "You're really something, huh? Kids from broke families like us are lucky to have any basin at all." I didn't bother responding. I simply pulled out my facial essence to do a cold compress, but she immediately rushed over, slapped the bottle out of my hand, and jabbed a finger at my face. "Bet you get tens of thousands a month for living expenses. You have a sugar daddy, don't you? Don't you feel guilty making your folks work their fingers to the bone back on the farm? People like you don't deserve to be at our school. I'm reporting you to the student counselor." I laughed in disbelief and slapped her. … The next morning, the family photo I'd left on my desk had been slashed to ribbons. Across the back, carved in ink, were the words: 'Daughter of a homewrecker. Go to hell.' I went straight to the police. While officers pulled the dorm security footage, our student counselor and the university president rushed in. The moment the president saw the man whose face had been cut apart in my photo, his legs nearly buckled. He almost dropped to his knees.

I thought I was signing a job contract. I didn’t know I was signing away my freedom. When desperation forces me into the office of billionaire CEO Adrian Blackwood, I accept a six-month personal assistant role that feels too perfect to be safe. The money is good. The rules are strict. And the man watching me across the table feels like he already knows how this ends. Adrian Blackwood is cold, powerful, and terrifyingly composed — a man who doesn’t make mistakes. And he didn’t hire me by accident. As lines blur between professionalism and possession, I begin to realize the contract isn’t the real danger. It’s him. And the truth I was never meant to find — not yet.