Once Upon A Time There Was

What if the only way to survive is to become exactly what they made you? Arden Steele was a good person. She trusted the two people closest to her with everything, including her life. Her husband and stepsister took her money, her health, and eventually her life. She died believing it was just bad luck. Then she woke up three years earlier. This time, Arden isn't being good. She's being ruthless. She knows every betrayal that's coming and she's decided that if she can't stop fate's events, she'll damn well decide who they happen to. Her cheating husband? Her scheming sister? They wanted a victim. They're getting a villain instead. The only problem is Jett Mercer. Stupidly rich, annoyingly perceptive, and completely unable to leave her alone. He's turning into something that scares her more than her enemies do, because she can plan around hatred. She's not so sure she can plan around love. She came back to burn everything down. She just didn't expect to feel something warm in the middle of all that fire.

“I hate you…” my words, intended as a curse came out as a filthy moan as he plunged into me so hard that I saw stars. “I don't, Dani. Because you're mine!...” he murmured hotly against my skin. “Your every breath” “Every moan” “Every tears” “Every. Single. Inch. of your Body” he spelled, each word following a deeper thrust as he claimed me over and over yet over again. * After being rejected twice by her first two mates, Danica made a vow to herself never to let herself go through another similar humiliation. Not even when she finds out that the Alpha was her third chance mate. She had no believe in the mate bond and she only took the Alpha's kindness towards her as another approach to the humiliation he planned to make her face so she never planned on admitting to being his mate. But Alpha Alexander wasn't one to give up on what he wants and right now, it could be either Danica Grayson or Danica Grayson. Will Danica give in to the relentless Alpha eventually? Or will she take her little secret to her grave? Was there a chance that she finds the love she'd always wanted or was there a chance that she'll be rejected a third time?

Calliope: All my life my parents have sheltered me and now I find out not only am I a damn fairy, I have been promised to some psycho Warlock who thinks he's a God among women. DId he really think I would just drop to my knees right then and there in the damn dining room? Why does he have to be so damn hot....maybe once couldn't hurt, I can always leave tomorrow. I will show him who the God is here, he will be begging for me. Alexander: Who the hell does she think she is? She should be so lucky to be my wife, like she is some prize. This whole arrangement is ridiculous, I am only marrying her for her kingdom why should i care? I have to admit I wouldn't have a bad time with just a 5 minutes alone with her, no strings attatched, the things we could get up to....I'll have her begging me to marry her then ill be the one to cast her aside. Either way I will be her undoing.

The doors of elite research institutions aren't open to the unknown. But Rick Allen pulled Beth out of nowhere. He poured everything into nurturing her talent and promised her the world. The Allen family's compromise was simple: the Chief Young Scientist had to be Summer Belden—someone from their own social circle. From that day on, the words Rick said to Beth most often were, "Just wait a little longer." He told her to wait when her groundbreaking paper was published under Summer's name in exchange for research funding. He told her to wait again when the research she'd perfected over three years was packaged as Summer's signature work, paving the way to major awards. "The bigger picture comes first," he said. "The next Nobel Prize—I'll make sure it's yours." But when the paper credited to Summer—though written by Beth—was exposed for fabricated data, everyone reached the same conclusion: Beth, as a core member of the project, had tampered with the data to steal the credit. Locked in a glass-walled archive room, Beth looked at Rick standing outside the door. His gaze was ice-cold, full of disappointment. "Why did you touch the data?" he said. "You've ruined everything I've built." She remembered how he once told her, "In this world, yours is the only talent I truly recognize." He had promised, "I'll make sure achievements with your name hang among the stars." Now he stood with the others, judging her. He looked at her the way people look at a ruthless, ambitious fraud. When she was finally released, Beth dug her nails into her palm until blood ran down. This time, she wouldn't wait any longer.

After the video exposing my sister Issa Acosta’s plot against me was revealed, my parents and my fiancé, Henry Nolan, stood firmly by my side, making me feel loved and safe. I confidently handed over all the evidence to them, trusting them to handle it. However, they told me that after Issa was kicked out of the house, she died in a sudden car accident, and I believed them. That was until five years into my marriage, when I accidentally saw Issa—the woman who was supposed to be dead. She was holding a little boy, clinging tightly to Henry’s hand. "Henry, if it weren’t for you and my parents, I’m afraid Zoe would’ve thrown me in prison. Thankfully, my parents destroyed the evidence and even opened a jewelry design studio for me. To avoid suspicion, you even sacrificed your own marriage. Thank you for everything in the past five years.” "Think of it as me atoning to Zoe on your behalf. As long as you and Bear are happy, that’s enough for me." So, what I thought was a happy family was nothing more than a giant lie—a scheme concocted by my parents and Henry. My parents, my husband, and Issa were the real family, and I? I was just the fool who had been deceived for five long years. Whether it was family or love, none of it was real, and I don’t want any of it anymore.

For five years of marriage, David was the perfect husband everyone envied. He gave me endless gold cards and pampering, only when mentioning children, his eyes were bone-chillingly cold. Until the day I was diagnosed with a brain tumor and accidentally got pregnant, I broke his lie that had lasted five years: he never traveled on business, but secretly financed a flower shop called “Sylvia” without telling me. The girl in the shop, Emry, had a face identical to my sister‘s, and she stroked her slightly protruding belly, calling him “baby‘s dad” coquettishly. I chose to leave [Three years later] I became the most dazzling new star in Milan‘s architecture world. When we met again, I appeared at a celebrity dinner on the arm of my real brother Eric, with a child beside me who had a pair of eyes exactly like his. This once cold and aloof plutocrat now stopped my car in the rain. He knelt in the mud with red eyes, tugging on the corner of my skirt, and begged humbly, “Alice, please... look at me again.” I just gently brushed the child‘s broken hair from his forehead, without even pausing to glance at him. “Sir, you‘ve mistaken me for someone else. My husband died in that fire three years ago.”

I spent four years pretending to be obedient by West Graham’s side. Four years ago, after the video of Nina Avery running over my younger sister was exposed, my boyfriend, Jake Smith, hired a top-tier defense attorney for her to clear her name. When I was completely alone, with no one to rely on, it was Nina’s stepbrother, West, who stepped forward and chose justice over blood. He found a lawyer for me and gathered witness testimonies and physical evidence everywhere he could. In the end, he personally sent Nina to prison. When everything finally settled, West proposed to me, and I said yes. However, in the fourth year of our marriage, I saw an email in West’s inbox. It was a birthday message from Nina, and attached was a selfie of her smiling brightly at the beach. In the bottom-right corner of the photo was yesterday’s date. [Happy birthday, West! It’s been four years since I received Erin’s sister’s heart. There haven’t been any complications at all. Thanks to you and Jake, I’m given a second chance in life.] West replied. [To make you happy, I’ll do anything.] After reading all of it, I smiled brighter than ever. It’s been four years, and their time to die has finally come.

Aurelia Blackwood rules her world with precision. As the formidable CEO of Blackwood Global, she believes power is safest when it is controlled, emotions negotiated, and attachments temporary. Love has no place in her life—only desire, on her terms. So when a quiet, attentive man slips into her orbit after a chance encounter, she doesn’t resist. He becomes her indulgence. Her secret. Her sugar boy. He is everything she allows herself to want—present when summoned, patient, observant, willing to give without demanding permanence. With Aurelia, he learns her rhythms, her silences, her need for dominance and certainty. She keeps him close but contained, convinced she holds every string. What Aurelia doesn’t realize is that he was never accidental. As months pass, control blurs into attachment. She starts looking for him when she’s tired. Trusting him with fragments of herself she never intended to share. Falling—slowly, unwillingly—for the one man who never tried to own her. Then the truth fractures everything. He is not just a man with ambition. He is not just someone else’s partner. He is tied to her greatest corporate rival—and he has been gathering information from the inside, feeding secrets that could dismantle the empire she built with blood, discipline, and sacrifice. Betrayal cuts deeper when it wears the face of devotion. Now Aurelia stands at a crossroads she never prepared for. Expose him and destroy the man who made her feel seen—or protect him and risk losing everything she’s ever fought for. Revenge promises safety. Love promises ruin. In a world where power is currency and intimacy is leverage, Her Sugar Boy Was a Rival is a dark, obsessive romance about dominance, deception, and the most dangerous choice of all: When the enemy knows your body, your secrets, and your heart

After five long years of dating, Winona Shaw finally said yes. I was elated, like a scavenger who'd struck gold. I put everything I had into the engagement party, but out of the blue, Winona embraced Claude Landton instead. She even tried to frame me and boot me to jail. I canceled the party and called the cops instead. That made Winona mad, and Claude started panicking. Icily, I said, "Now, calm down. We have a lot of trials to go through. See you in court."

Her father and stepmother died, leaving her to the brutal hands of her step brother. Her stepbrother is heartless. He treats her as a maid, is it a torture? She however discovers that she has been sold. Sold to a Ruthless Mafia, just to serve as a settlement for her stepbrother's debt. Now she fears her life. Would her life take a turn for the worse or for the best?