Read I"s

Ashley is a shy girl who keeps to herself, with a bad past all she wants right now is to focus on her future. What happens when she meets Jake who is the exact opposite of her? Will she open her heart to him? Will she be able to deny the attraction between them? Join them in their journey of love and drama!

In my past life, I was trafficked and gave birth to a son. When Noah Barrett turns six, I plan to take him and escape from the mountains. On my first attempt, I map out the route in advance and prepare to flee with him. But in the morning, my mother-in-law, Ruth Whitaker, blocks me at the door. She ties me up and locks me inside the shed. Then, she starves me for three days. On my second try, I secretly buy sleeping pills from an unlicensed village doctor and slip them into dinner. At the table, Ruth flips the table without hesitation and beats me until I am half dead. The third time, I take advantage of a village meeting and escape with Noah again. We hide in a concealed mountain cave. Neither of us makes a sound, yet Ruth finds us with ease. I am dragged back and locked away in the pigpen. Ruth takes a shovel and strikes me with it again and again. "You filthy bitch. You dare run off with my precious grandson!" Her eyes are bloodshot. With the final blow, she uses all her strength and smashes the shovel into my head. I collapse to the ground. My consciousness fades. My blood drains away, and I die. When I open my eyes again, I am back on the day I plan to escape the mountains with Noah. Suddenly, I can hear Noah's thoughts, his voice clear and dripping with viciousness. "Mom can't be allowed to run. Grandma says Mom is our family's slave. She's supposed to serve us for her whole life."

I was the top engineer at the National Deep-Sea Institute—and the only person in the world with real deep-sea rescue experience. When my younger brother's submarine went down and he called for help from 35,000 feet below, I hung up on him. Then, calm and unhurried, I went straight to the police station and turned myself in for leaking classified research data. A few minutes later, my father called, furious. "Your brother's life is hanging by a thread—where the hell are you?! I demand you to get to the site and save him right now, or you won't see a single penny of the family fortune!" I pulled the blanket over myself and said into the phone, perfectly composed, "Busy. Don't bother me—I'm trying to sleep."

For three years, I was the unrecognized genius bleeding for Marcus’s empire. On the night he was crowned the city's youngest billionaire tycoon, I stood in the shadows, waiting for the proposal he promised. Instead, I watched him pull my treacherous step-sister onto the stage, sliding a six-carat diamond onto her finger while presenting my life’s work as their joint masterpiece. When I confronted him, his sneer was dripping with disgust: 'You belong hidden in a sterile lab, Elara. She belongs in the spotlight. Know your place.' ​Stripped of my legacy, my reputation, and my dignity, I was discarded in the freezing rain. That was where the bulletproof Maybach found me. ​Alexander Thorne. The ruthless tyrant of the business world. An apex predator who viewed human emotion as a disease—and the only man with the power to crush Marcus overnight. He rolled down the window, his gaze lethal. 'I need a brilliant doctor to keep my sister breathing, and a wife who knows how to submit in public. You need a weapon. Get in.' The contract was absolute: Two years of marriage, total obedience before the cameras, and absolute silence regarding his family. In exchange, he would grant me the unimaginable wealth and power to destroy the parasites who ruined me. ​Marcus thought he had buried a pathetic, obedient lab rat. Alexander thought he had bought a desperate, easily controlled doctor. As I signed the marriage certificate and became the untouchable Mrs. Thorne, they both failed to realize one fatal truth. I didn't just want my research back. I was going to burn their empire to the ground.

“I’ll give you one chance, Li,” he spat. “Prove it’s mine. Prove you didn’t cheat—right here. Right now.” My stomach dropped. Gasps swallowed the room. “Bastard,” I whispered. Then came the final blow. Uniformed officers stepped forward. “Mrs. Hale, you’re under arrest for corporate espionage.” Five years ago, Cassian Hale destroyed my life, divorcing me publicly, framing me for crimes I didn’t commit, all while cheating with his manipulative secretary, Scarlett Reed. I survived. I thrived. I married his greatest rival, Tristan Valenti. Now I’m back. A ruthless CEO with a secret son he never knew existed, I have one mission: revenge. And I won’t stop until he pays—for the betrayal, the lies, and the life he tried to steal from me. Once I'm done with his cheating ass and his sorry excuse of a side chick, they will wish I was dead.

After the cruise ship strikes a hidden reef, panicked passengers shove me and Kristen Langford into the sea. My boyfriend, Elijah Jensen, is the ship's captain, so he plunges into the water. But instead of saving me, he grabs Kristen and boards the last lifeboat. I thrash and cry for help, but he slaps my hand away. "You can swim. Stop pretending for attention!" Elijah snaps. "Kristen's body temperature is dropping. I have to get her to a hospital!" The waters around me are pitch-black, and his words feel like a death sentence. When the tracking bracelet I always wear is discovered inside a shark, Elijah dives alone into shark-infested waters, searching for three days and nights. In the end, the brilliant captain who once ruled the oceans can never sail again.

On our first wedding anniversary, my husband came home with a woman who was six months pregnant. He introduced her as his cousin, someone who had fallen on hard times, and asked me to take care of her. I was just about to agree when fragments of imaginary commentary floated through my mind: [She's just my 'cousin'. Uh-uh, that's a cliche.] [Poor supporting female character! A maid by day, the husband's bedwarmer by night.] [But she totally deserved it! If she hadn't broken up the main couple, they'd have a whole soccer team of kids by now!] Wait—what? Supporting female character? Me? And what's this about breaking them up? So now these two get to cheat under my roof, and somehow I'm the villain? Before I could process it all, my husband was already dragging her luggage inside. "Alice doesn't like fried food," he said matter-of-factly. "And nothing too salty or spicy. Make sure you keep that in mind when you're cooking. "Oh, and pregnant women love sweets. Go out now and buy a cherry cake. The one from that bakery in the suburbs."

Annabel once believed her bond with Damian, the Beta of their pack, was unbreakable. But his infidelity shatters her, and she finds herself entangled in a dangerous relationship with Elijah, Damian’s mysterious uncle. As Damian's cruelty pushes her away, Elijah’s possessiveness draws her in, forcing her to navigate a treacherous path between these two powerful men. Caught between love, hate, and control, Annabel begins to discover a strength within herself that she never knew existed. As tensions rise within the pack and old enemies resurface. She must decide whether to embrace the power Elijah offers or find a way to break free from the chains that bind her—even if it means facing Damian’s wrath. Annabel’s journey is one of survival and self-discovery. Once seen as a weak wolf, she evolves into a force to be reckoned with, determined to reclaim her life and identity. But with every choice comes a cost, and Annabel must decide if she will conquer the darkness that threatens to consume her—or be consumed by it.

I'm admitted to the hospital for gastritis, but my boyfriend shoots to his feet after receiving a call. "Chelsea has a fever. I'll go check on her; I'll be right back!" He runs off without waiting for me to say anything and doesn't return for the rest of the night. That night, I see a short clip that Chelsea Calloway has shared. "I'm not afraid of any illness with you by my side." I comment, "He is pretty good at caring for others."

One divorce. One hundred dollars. One hell of a mistake. Katherine West had it all, until her husband, George, dropped a bomb on their five-year anniversary: He’s gay, he’s in love, and she’s evicted. Left with a frozen bank account and a shattered heart, Katherine decides to go out with a bang. She spends her last hundred dollars on the most dangerous-looking man at The Gilded Lily, hoping for one night of friction to erase five years of lies. It worked. It was the best mistake of her life. Until the next morning, when a court order forces Katherine and George to live together for ninety days of marriage counseling. George has lost his fortune and moved them into his mysterious new lover’s penthouse to save face. The door opens, and Katherine meets her new landlord: Killian McLeroy. The man she hired last night. The man her husband calls the love of his life." Now, Katherine is trapped in a house of glass with the man who knows her body, the man who stole her husband, and a secret that could burn all of Manhattan down. Ninety days. Two enemies. One bed. Let the games begin.