My Guilt Will Not Purify Me

After returning from a three-month business trip, I rushed to meet my fiancé and resolve our dispute over my best friend, Elena. Elena’s ex-husband left her penniless and broken. I offered her my apartment, helped her "find herself" and accompanied her through nights of tequila-soaked sobbing. My fiance, Julian, hated it. Or so he said. "She’s a leech, Clara," he’d snap, watching her try on my designer coats. "She doesn't even know how to make toast without calling for help. Are you her best friend or her maid? People like her don't want to heal; they just want a free ride." She's lost everything, Julian," I argued."Without her, I wouldn't have survived my mother’s death. Please, just be patient for me." I let myself in quietly. The house was still, the air smelling of expensive candles and something else—something sweet and floral that wasn't mine. I walked toward the master suite, expecting to find Julian asleep. Instead, the door was ajar. The wine bottle I had brought to surprise Julian slipped from my hand, leaving me paralyzed for a moment. Elena was draped across my silk sheets. Julian was hovering over her, expertly shucking oysters—my favorite—and feeding them to her with a look of doting, soft-eyed tenderness he hadn't shown me in months. "You're so much better at this than she is," Julian purred. "Because she’s cold, Julian," Elena whispered, brushing a stray hair from his forehead. "She’s all business. She doesn't know how to satisfy men in bed." I stood in the doorway, my whole self trembling, not in cold but in pure rage and disgust. "I hope the oysters are fresh," I said, my voice cutting through the room like a blade.

After my parents died, the family went bankrupt, leaving my brother and me with a large sum of debt. To pay it off, he became a haunted-house test sleeper, while I acted as a corpse on film sets. For five years, we worked tirelessly, not daring to rest a single day—and still, the debt wasn't cleared. By the end of the year, only 13 thousand dollars remained. Gritting my teeth, I signed up as a clinical trial volunteer. When it was over, I dragged 13 thousand dollars in cash, brimming with joy, to show my brother. But I found him frowning, on the phone. "Dad, Mom, Lily's doing well. Have fun abroad," he said. "She's stopped spending recklessly. The punishment ends next year." What? Our parents weren't dead? Our family wasn't bankrupt? The five years of hardship, every ounce of struggle—I'd endured it all as punishment for my love of spending. My smile froze on my face. My stomach churned violently. A mouthful of fresh blood spilled out.

He needed my bone marrow to live. I gave it to him, and lost my heart in the process. Now my ex is out there living his best life- a baby on the way, fame on the track, and a new woman in his arms... while I can’t even cry without my heart aching. Then his brother showed up. Elias Carter, the cruel, sinfully dangerous biker who shouldn’t even know my name. But he knows more than that. He knows what I am. A wolf. Just like him. He doesn’t want love. He wants to claim me, use me, break me. I swore I’d never let him. But somehow… I ended up wearing his ring. Now I’m trapped in a marriage built on secrets, lies, and a desire that burns too deep to deny. And the cruelest part? The more I try to hate him, the more my heart forgets how.

At a family dinner, Don Vincenzo’s new pet, a dancer named Ava, came for me. She puffed out her chest and slammed a ledger on the long table. “Vincenzo, I accuse her! Skimming from the family business, our club ‘The Siren’s Song.’ Betraying the family!” Every eye in the room turned on me, sharp as knives. But Vincenzo, my boss… his face went hard. I almost pitied the little dancer who’d crawled her way out of Brooklyn. The “family business” she was talking about? It was my private club. A gift from my father. I just lent it to Vincenzo when he was starting out, to give him a respectable front. I lent it to him for two years, and now it’s family property?

My best friend, Scarlett Throne, is diagnosed with cancer. After running away from home, she takes her own life. She leaves behind only a testament and a pair of eight-year-old twins, a boy and a girl. "You're the only person I can rely on in this world. I'm not asking you to adopt them, but just make sure they have enough to eat." Out of compassion, I take the siblings in. For the next 20 years, my husband and I have been working hard together to raise them, buying them cars and houses. But one day, my adopted daughter reports my husband for being abusive toward her. Even my supposedly dead best friend suddenly appears and testifies against him. I demand to know why she does such a thing. My best friend, filled with righteous indignation, says, "I see you as my best friend! I've never thought you adopted my children just to serve your husband's perversions!" My husband's reputation is ruined, and he's been thrown in jail. I desperately try to prove his innocence, only to be forcibly sent to a mental hospital by my adopted son. There, I wither away and die. When I open my eyes again, I find myself back on the very day my best friend was diagnosed with cancer.

At twenty-eight, Matilda Anthony is tired of rejection and barely holding her struggling family together when her mother arranges her marriage to their wealthy neighbor, Maxine Walter. Handsome, influential, and a CEO, Maxine seems like salvation. He transforms her family’s life, marries her, and for a moment, Matilda believes love has finally chosen her. But after the wedding, everything changes. Maxine grows distant—always busy, emotionally unavailable, and he no longer touches her. Her complaints are met with cold indifference. The loneliness builds quietly until the night of her friend’s wedding, when she walks into the suite meant for her and finds Maxine with his assistant, Tony Abraham. Shattered, she screams, “do I really deserve this??, why did you use meeee” Without remorse, he replies, “go and ask your mother if you deserved this, I signed a contract with your mother in exchange for money so don't blame me” He stops, then continues, “I told you, you can do whatever you want, go out there go get yourself a man to burst that ancient hole you call virginity, I won't leave this moment just to please you" Ignored and humiliated, Matilda runs—only to find Alpha Rue, the man she once dismissed, watching. He laughs, then offers her a deal that could change everything. Now betrayed by both husband and mother, Matilda must decide: remain in the lavender marriage or accept Alpha Rue deal want to know more?? read me

When Matteo Ricci threatens to end our engagement for the 100th time unless I take Lydia Capone's place in the famiglia's drug trial, I don't cry or make a scene. I just sign my name on the engagement termination agreement and calmly hand over the man I've loved for eight years to my twin sister. A few days later, Lydia storms the mafia summit like she owns the room, insulting the Pirelli family and daring anyone to stop her. I'm forced to step in and bear the full weight of her chaos. And now they're saying Lydia's body can't handle the trial after all, so they want me, the older sister, to take her place. The moment I agree, my parents smile at me for the first time in years. Even Matteo, who barely notices me, hovers nearby and murmurs, "Don't be afraid. The trial isn't lethal. When you get out, I'll take you for your favorite spaghetti alla Napoletana." But he has no idea that there's a late-stage stomach cancer diagnosis tucked inside my pocket. No matter what horrors the trial holds, he will never witness me walk out alive.

Nolan Shaw is the big shot on campus that everyone is intimidated by. He's also the guy I've been in love with for a while now. Out of nowhere, a new admirer of his pops out. She bears a striking resemblance to me. When I bring him his water, she beats me to it. When I write him a love letter, she tears it up. Finally, I muster up the courage to be honest with Nolan about my feelings—only for her to rush over and kick over the candles I prepared for the confession. That's when I finally lose my patience. "Just what on earth are you doing?" She ignores me and grabs Nolan's arm before saying, "I'll be frank with you. I'm actually here on a mission. You and Nolan will end up in a bitter marriage, hurting each other. So the system wants me to stop you two from being together." I don't believe a word she says, thinking that she's just lying to separate us. But at the very next second, I hear her thoughts. [Just what on earth did this scumbag do to make the 22-year-old Teresa fall so hopelessly in love with him? I bet she'll be heartbroken if she finds out that in the future, he'll find her boring and end up keeping 18 mistresses on the side. And after the divorce, he'll even make it hard for her to earn a living. She ends up dying of exhaustion, too!]

Alaric and I had agreed to elope together. But he changed his mind the moment I signed the papers to leave the pack. Standing outside the back booth at the hotel bar, I overheard him talking with his friends. "You tricked Sophie into leaving the pack just so you could have more alone time with Vivienne? Aren't you worried she'll lose it when she finds out?" Alaric took a lazy sip of his drink. "Why would she? She's so obsessed with me she'd cling to me all day if she could. Tell her what she wants to hear afterward and she'll forgive me, guaranteed." "Besides, Vivienne's family has real pull. That kind of backing could tip the scales in my fight for the Alpha position. Sophie will just have to deal with it." Every word sliced through me until I couldn't breathe. I fought back the urge to storm in and confront him, and turned away instead. Back home, I pulled out my phone and scrolled to the very last contact in my list. "Dad. That arranged mating you mentioned — I accept."

"It's the third time this week that I'm donating my blood to this strange lady that you never seem to take your eyes off of, even with me in the room!" Emily had paused very strand of fear she had for Liam as she yelled tearfully. Liam was her husband but the four years of their marriage were like four decades of unending torture and misery. She was completely in love with him but Liam detested her in turn, he married her only to inherit the family's multi-billion dollar business and once he's gotten that, tossed her away. Emily, despite living under his shadows for several years, believed that he would one day learn to love her as his wife but her hopes were shattered when Liam repeatedly demanded for her blood for his sick mistress. She could handle being maltreated but not cheated on, and drained of blood to the point of death. Emily demanded for divorce and he happily granted her wish but unknown to him, she was pregnant which was an outcome of a drunk night. ** No parents, no home, no money, Emily hoped for death but was miraculously rescued by a stranger. She returns to the country a few years later with her child who is the direct copy of Liam. "Boss, your ex-wife is back, and she seems to be married with a child who looks exactly like you," "They are both mine, and I will fight for what's mine!"