Radiant Scans

“I should’ve known you weren’t as reckless as me,” he says quietly. “You’re Elliot’s little girl after all.” “I’m not a little girl,” I snap. “I’m twenty-five.” “And I’m almost twice your age, Natalie,” he says, almost like he’s giving up. “But that didn’t stop you from coming to me.” In a second, he has me pinned against the wall. His hands trails up the sides of my body. “Do you want me to stop?” he whispers, his breath hot against my neck. “I waited for you that night,” I whisper, my hand sliding up his chest. “I imagined us doing all the things you implied you’d do.” He groans softly, a low, guttural sound that vibrates through his chest. “Did you touch yourself?” he asks in a whisper, his eyes closed. My other hand moves lower, trailing down his body until I brush against the hard evidence of his desire. I feel his breath hitch, and I smirk, knowing what I’m doing to him. “Yeah, but it was your hands I was feeling.” On the brink of her second wedding anniversary, Natalie Jones uncovers a devastating betrayal—her husband, Michael Cooper, embraced passionately with his mistress. Confronting him in a dimly lit restaurant, Nat exposes his scheme to marry her for her father’s fortune and storms out, her heart shattered but her resolve unbroken. Ric Steward, on the other hand — billionaire and philanthropist — never expected his evening to ignite with scandal. When he sees Natalie—radiant, powerful, and on the edge of a breakdown—he’s immediately captivated. Their fiery, forbidden attraction is challenged when Ric learns she’s the daughter of a longtime friend. But that doesn’t stop Nat. It only makes her want Ric more…

The day my brother, Chester Rodney, came to the orphanage to take me home, my boyfriend Dominic Huxley looked at me coldly and said, "If you choose to acknowledge your birth family, we're over." I knew he had his pride—he could never accept the difference in our social standing. So, for him, I turned my back on the family I had yearned for my whole life. In the decades that followed, I toiled without complaint, saving every cent to help him rise to success. By the time I was not yet fifty, overwork had worn me down. Lying on my deathbed, my breathing shallow and weak, I watched Dominic on television. He was now an acclaimed scientist, just awarded the nation's highest research honor. Tears welled in his eyes as he thanked another woman. "All these years," he said, "I never felt worthy of Alicia. But now, maybe I can use this award as the prologue to a love I've owed her for decades." The "Alicia" he spoke of was the woman mistakenly switched with me at birth—the false heiress the Rodney family raised as their own. The camera zoomed out. Alicia Rodney stood radiant, graceful, and perfectly preserved by years of luxury, blushing as she accepted the trophy. "I waited for you for decades," she said sweetly, "but marriage is still something I'll need to ask my brother about." Chester, who had long taken over the family, looked at her with an indulgent tenderness tinged with something unspoken. "I was adopted by our uncle back then for one reason—to protect Alicia. Making the only princess of the Rodney family happy has always been my life's mission." Only then did I realize—everything I thought I had chosen freely, every sacrifice I made without regret, was nothing but a trap, carefully woven by two men, all for Alicia. The betrayal pierced my heart. I died without peace. But when I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day Chester came to take me home from the orphanage. I glanced past the two men eyeing me with subtle disdain. Without hesitation, I stepped into the car. "Take me home," I said. This time, I'd send whoever stole my life back to the gutter they slithered from.