Ridiculous Artinya

I'm one of the entertainment industry's most popular celebrities. One day, the Holmes family, the richest family in Hemmingville, comes to me and tells me I'm one of them. The day I return home, the city's paparazzi follow me to capture every second of my return. When I arrive at the Holmes residence, my adoptive sister stops me from entering. "We've looked into you and found out that you shot to fame after starring in an adult film. "The Holmes family has its rules—you have to change your clothes in public before you can step foot in here. Dad said that I'm the one who calls the shots when he and Jason aren't at home, so I hope you can understand me." In my past life, I would've acted cautiously and adopted a lowly stance for the sake of my image. But I've been reborn. I kick aside the things in my way and shove Nancy Holmes aside. "How ridiculous! You'd better stop and think whether you're worthy of telling me what to do. How dare you ask me to strip in public? "I'm insured from head to toe—you can't afford to pay me back if you even touch a hair on my head! And you call yourself the heiress of the family, huh? I'd like to see you grovel at my feet and beg me later!"

“Give me the baby! You’re worthless—you don’t deserve to be a mother!” My step-sister had used a prosthetic belly to fake her pregnancy for nine months to force Adam Kastner, the young master of the most powerful Kastner family, into marriage. Now she needed a baby to present to the family to secure the marriage. She was after my child since I was eight-months pregnant. Unlike her fake nine-months belly, mine was real and it even hurt to tie a shoelace while carrying my child in my womb for so many months. My father, blinded by greed, stood by as they injected me with labor-inducing drugs—and even tried to sell me off to a fifty-year-old monster to settle a debt. On that rainy night of desperate escape, I stumbled into a limited-edition luxury car and met David Summer. He was the most dangerous man in the city—and the true mastermind behind that ridiculous marriage scam. To survive, I risked everything to expose my stepsister’s lies, never imagining that gamble would cost me my whole life. After that night, he tossed a contract at me. “Be my wife, and I’ll make sure you and the child live.” I thought it was just a transaction—each of us getting what we needed. But little by little, I found myself falling into his trap of tenderness. Until he trapped me in his arms, lowered his head, and bit my earlobe, his voice hoarse like embers burning low: “Baby… I want another kiss.”

I stared at the Vercetti marriage contract my father pushed across the table. Without hesitation, I wrote my half-sister’s name, Demi, and slid it back. My father froze. Then his eyes lit up with ridiculous excitement, like he’d just won the lottery. "How can you give such a perfect chance to your sister?" Last life, my marriage was a joke for everyone around me. I was the red-haired, untamed little witch who dared to climb into the orbit of Cassian Vercetti, heir and leader of the old-blood Vercetti crime family. I was never perfect nor obedient. He loved goddess gowns. I wore mini skirts and danced on tables. He demanded missionary, traditional, orderly intimacy. I wanted to climb on top, ride him, lose myself completely. At a gala, society wives laughing at my hair, my dress, my “wildness.” I thought he would at least pretend to defend me. He didn’t. “Forgive her. She’s not…properly trained.” Trained. Like a dog. I spent my entire last life suffocating under his rules, bending myself bloody to fit the shape he wanted, until the night our house caught fire. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the moment I learned of the arranged marriage. I looked at the contract in front of me. This time? I think the nightclub boys suits me better. But the moment Cassian realized the bride wasn’t me, he shattered every rule he’d ever lived by.

Blurb;    Reena Walters was possibly the worst spy to have ever existed. Recruited by the FBI to infiltrate the stronghold of a dangerous man, Reena decided that seduction was the way to go. Dressed in the ridiculous yet most alluring way possible, Reena Walters succeeded in infiltrating the dungeon like mansion for the biggest and most exclusive ball of the year. Armed with her glittery mask that helped her blend in with several others, Reena finally got her hands on a Thorne brother and did what she knew how to do best, seduction, and charmed the secrets out of him by winning a game of wits. Unknowingly to her that the dominant and ridiculously attractive silver eyed man beneath her was none other than the younger Thorne rumored to be crazy and volatile, and worse, he was playing a game with her, a game she was not aware of. Charming the secret codes and location out of him, Reena continued on her mission, shaking off the nagging feeling that it had all been too easy. Finally getting her hands on the highly sought after flash drive, Reena could not resist the urge to blow an obnoxious kiss to the face of the startled yet crazy eyes that stared at her in the dark. And that split second was all it took for a dangerous obsession to take root and grow in the mind of the older Thorne. Caught like a bird between two dangerous men, Reena must place all her stakes in one game by recklessly choosing the one she deemed lesser of the two evils, but what she did not know yet, and what she would soon learn was that hell was not hot at all, it was freezing cold, and yet burned hotter and brighter than an inferno.

Once upon a time, the world was balanced and peaceful, thanks to its protectors of nature, the Amazons, a unique breed of werewolves that existed solely to protect and maintain the balance of the natural world. But they fell victim to the seduction of greed and power, ultimately leading to the Tribe’s downfall, shattering the balance and laws of nature with it. This gave rise to the Council and its insatiable greed, depravity, and power-hungry behaviors, creating a further imbalance in the world, with she-wolves, once revered and respected, slowly dying out due to their enslaved existence. Still, some refuse to go down without a fight, clinging to the hope and rumor that a powerful she-wolf, their Savior, will rise and save them. Corinna Woods is the naive and kind-hearted Luna of the Dark Shadow pack and chosen mate of Xander Woods, but after years of horror, she runs. Years later, she’s changed into a broken, paranoid, reckless single mother unable to escape her pain. When she discovers her mate, she is petrified and refuses to accept, having vowed never to allow a man that kind of power over her again. Wyatt Campbell is a powerful Alpha who believes in the old ways of fated mate bonds and thinks the council's laws are ridiculous and degrading, refusing to follow them within his pack. When he finds his mate, he is shocked not only to find her after years of searching, but also when she rejects him. Can he prove to his mate that he is not like the others? Can their fated mate bond, along with the support of their allies, change the ways and restore the much-needed balance to the werewolf world before they become extinct?

After my rebirth, the very first thing I did was ride from one blood donation van to another, giving blood until I nearly collapsed. Why? Because in my previous life, my fiancé's newly hired intern, Shirley Lynch, had bound herself to a blood-exchange system. Every milliliter she donated was siphoned directly from my own veins. In just a month, she transformed from an ordinary college girl into the nation's beloved Blood Angel, showered with fame and fortune, while I, suffering from severe anemia, was fired from the hospital for being unable to work. When I exposed her scheme to my fiancé, he looked at me with disgust and broke off our engagement. "You're selfish and cowardly," he sneered. "You refuse to donate your rare blood type, and now you slander Shirley? You call yourself a doctor, yet you believe in such ridiculous nonsense!" From then on, every time Shirley donated blood, I would suffer heart palpitations, dizziness, and sometimes collapse outright. I begged the doctors in my department for help, but my fiancé blocked every attempt, accusing me of jealousy and wasting medical resources. In the end, to steal my promotion ahead of schedule, Shirley donated a full 1000 milliliters of blood live on television. As her blood drained, so did mine. I went into shock and died. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day Shirley first claimed she carried my rare blood type.

Three years after Alpha King Damien Caldwell marks me, Drake Whitaker finally remembers I exist. Turns out he really believes I'll "wait for him forever." Twenty black SUVs clog the private road into Ridgefield pack territory, trunks crammed with moonstone jewelry, old talismans, and rare herbs. Drake steps out of the tricked-out Hummer, wearing a smug smile and clutching a stack of parchment contracts. "Aria," he calls up, like some medieval knight, "I told you once the Silvermoon Coalition was official and Kenneth's supply lines were stable, I'd bring you to my pack. "The High Council finalized five packs yesterday. I came first thing this morning to show you I mean it." I sit in the upstairs study, watching a video Damien just sent of him playing with our son, then glance through the blinds at the ridiculous scene unfolding below. Drake lifts his face toward the second floor. "I know you're upset, but Kenneth controls the biggest timber in the Eastvale region. I had to mark Isabella. It was politics. You get that. Feelings don't need a mark anyway. I'll treat you better than a Luna." His words made my skin crawl. I pressed the intercom button on the desk. "Clear the drive. Tell security someone's trespassing." What a day! I've just taken my son to the medical center for his one-month checkup. Damien sends me back to Ridgefield pack for a week to rest. Instead, I get this mess on my doorstep.

We had agreed to spend the New Year with our own families, but at the last minute, my husband, Drake Murrell, changed his mind and insisted I go back with him this year. I agreed, planning to take this opportunity to finally tell him the truth about who I really was. When we first got married, my parents told me to keep a low profile so that Drake, who came from a single-parent household, wouldn’t feel pressured. So I hid the fact that I was the daughter of the richest family in the capital, the Thorntons. When we returned to his hometown, I specifically bought my mother-in-law, Diana Murrell, a pair of gold bangles. She accepted them with a beaming smile, praising me again and again for being such a thoughtful daughter-in-law. However, the next day, as I passed by the old oak tree at the edge of Willow Creek, I overheard her talking about me with a group of people. "Oh, you have no idea. My daughter-in-law is absolutely ridiculous!" My hand froze midair, still holding my phone, as I instinctively ducked behind a haystack. I heard her continue loudly, "She bought me a pair of gold bangles this year. The moment I touched them, I knew they were fake! I’m telling you, they’re probably those cheap online knockoffs, like the kind that cost next to nothing and start fading the moment you wear them!" I was stunned with anger. She called pure gold fake? Looks like the million-dollar New Year gift I had prepared for her wasn’t necessary anymore.

Everyone in the pack knows Marcus has loved me for a decade—that I'm his destined mate. He's devastatingly handsome and brilliant, the youngest and most gifted pack healer we've ever had, with she-wolves practically throwing themselves at his feet. Yet this alpha prince has eyes only for me. But when I was nearly assaulted by a rapist, Marcus signed a settlement agreement on my behalf and issued a psychiatric diagnosis, condemning me to a mental institution. Inside the institution, I was attacked by the truly insane—they tore at my hair with clawed fingers and kicked my stomach until I couldn't breathe. Meanwhile, he held the rapist's sister Victoria close and told me: "Emma, I'll take care of you. I'll compensate you when you get out, but Victoria has severe depression. She can't handle her brother getting in trouble." Even more ridiculous—when I begged him to let me see my suicidal sister one last time, he was honeymooning with that woman in Iceland, hanging up on my eighty-nine calls. The day my sister died, I coughed up blood in that mental hospital. Three years later, he came to get me, saying he still wanted to bring me home as his mate. Looking at his careful demeanor, I suddenly laughed. Marcus, do you know? No matter how high the mental hospital walls are, they can't stop someone who's crawled back from hell for revenge. What you owe me, what you owe my sister—I'll collect it all with interest, using what you care about most.

After my boyfriend, Mitchell Cooper, finds out that I've spent 300 thousand dollars on a mug, he demands that I buy his mother a single-level apartment that's worth eight million dollars in the heart of the city. Naturally, I turn his ridiculous demand down in a roundabout way. But this sets him off instead. "Don't be so stingy! My mom will become your mom in the future! What's wrong with showering her with gifts in advance?" Afterward, he records all our expenses that have taken place during our relationship on presentation slides and tells me that we have to split them up. "If you think splitting up our expenses is a troublesome thing to do, then you might as well imburse all of them. You're the rich one, after all. "I've already discussed everything with my family. We'll only give you one dollar as a form of wedding gift. It means 'the only one,' which sounds amazing, right?" Upon noticing my lack of response, Mitchell issues the ultimatum right away. "If you refuse to accept these conditions, then we can call off the wedding. You've already dated me for so many years. I'd like to see if anyone wants a second-hand woman like you." I stare at the long list of expenses that need to be split. I even catch sight of the two-dollar Uber fees that were charged when Mitchell came to look for me in the past. With a smile on my face, I reply, "Okay, then. I don't want a single cent from you in terms of wedding gifts. I'll buy your mom that apartment right now."