Romans Independence Ks

In Reychelle City, a contest was held to crown the most beautiful woman. After my cousin scarred my face, she seized first place with ease. What she never expected was that this year's contest wasn't for fame; it was to select the future wife of the Third Prince, a ruthless, bloodthirsty eunuch. That very afternoon, gifts poured in by the cartload. My betrothed panicked. That night, he tore up our engagement contract and carried my cousin into the bridal chamber. The next day, she trailed her lacquered fingertips across my cheek and sneered, "Alicia, with your ruined face, who would ever want you? Perhaps the beggar at the street corner might take you in." I caught her wrist, let out a cold laugh, and said, "Who told you I would marry a beggar?" Before her stunned eyes, I pushed open my parents' chamber doors. "Mom, since Maggie doesn't wish to be the prince's consort… let me take her place." Three years later, before the eyes of a shocked court, the Third Prince entered the grand hall with me at his side, with two children in tow. No one had foreseen it. This body of mine, blessed with the rarest gift of fertility, was the perfect match for a man believed incapable of siring heirs.

My fiancé’s first love Chloe had returned. Rumor had it she’d been overseas, treating some rare disease. I hadn’t believed it—until the day she showed up at my engagement party. And I watched as the man I’d been hopelessly in love with since I was sixteen left our party with her. “Wait for me,” Nathan said, “She is fragile. I need to make sure she is well.” He ignored me, but accompanying her to everywhere. I threw away the rings, trashed the wedding gown. When I was pale and trembling from a heart failure later. Nathan finally showed up. “Don’t you dare die on me, Emily,” His hands were shaking. His voice cracked. “We still have a wedding.”

Right after Ethan and I announced our mating ceremony, his childhood sweetheart from the pack, Sophia, came rushing back. And she flat-out demanded I go through a "bloodline trial." "Someone like you, a wolf outcast, you're definitely up to no good. You have to pass this month-long bloodline trial before our pack will accept your mating!" With Ethan basically giving them the nod, Sophia and her pack betas put me through hell. They deliberately messed with my moonlight alchemy circle, almost tore my mind apart. The backlash from the moon energy tortured me until I almost broke. My body felt like it was being ripped to shreds. They contaminated my sacred water potions. The choking fumes nearly suffocated me. The betas were cruel and vicious. "She's just a lone wolf anyway. If she dies, no pack will back her up." Then, Sophia stole the Moon Goddess sacred artifact my grandma left me—the Moon Alchemy Cauldron. She taunted me, all cocky. "If you've got the guts, try summoning the Moon Goddess's power on the blood moon night to take it back! Otherwise, I'll use your family's crappy old cauldron as a chamber pot!" I’ve had enough. I’m so sick of these ‘trials,’ and there’s no way in hell I’m mating with Ethan.

"Sir, the divorce agreement from the safe." On their fifth wedding anniversary, in a dimly-lit restaurant, Xavier Hampton's secretary placed the divorce papers in front of him. Five years ago, on the day Elizabeth Eaton and he registered their marriage— She had loved him deeply. So deeply that she had prepared the divorce agreement in advance, signed her name, and locked it away in the safe. If she ever betrayed him, all he had to do was sign. Xavier picked up the pen and swiftly signed his name. Across from him, the empty seat seemed heavier than any presence. His gaze dimmed. "Send the divorce papers to Attorney Harvey," he said, his voice calm, almost detached. "Then book a hotel and have the wedding venue set up in advance." The secretary hesitated for a moment before carefully asking, "Whose names should I write as the bride and groom?" "Elizabeth Eaton and Connor Walker."

William Parker is a mafia boss. Everyone knows that I'm his weak spot. When I was abducted back in the day, he gave everything he had—including his gun—and ran the risk of being shot to get me back. To keep me from being bullied or mistreated, he's constantly toeing the line between the authorities and the underworld. After I fall pregnant, he's by my side around the clock and doesn't even let my feet touch the ground. Rumor has it that he has a secret lover that he dotes on to no end, but I've never believed it… until she appears before me to challenge me. William slices one of his fingers off to beg for my forgiveness. The very next day, his secret lover throws a pregnancy test in my face. "Will's so desperate to knock me up that he can't keep his hands off me—I can't take it anymore!"

On the day of my ninth wedding attempt, my fiancé, Lucas Yearwood, leaves me jilted again. This time, I follow him. I see him holding his adoptive sister's hand as they walk into the obstetrics department. "Lucas, I dreamed that we're having a boy—he's definitely going to be as handsome as you." Watching the two of them laugh and chat like that, I feel my blood freeze. After I chased Lucas for seven years, I got a chance to use a debt of gratitude to force a marriage contract out of him. I backed him into a corner to make him marry me. Everyone thinks I can't survive without him. But this time, I hand the marriage contract back and leave him without looking back. On my wedding day, he calls me. "Viv! Where are you right now?" I'm in the shower. My new husband picks up the call for me. "Do you have business with my wife?" Later, I hear Lucas turned all of Riverville upside down, digging through every trash can to find our marriage contract.

My sister, Yvonne Jones, tried to murder the childhood friend of a rich heir in order to seduce him. Yvonne poisoned the woman's drink and pulled out her oxygen tube after she was sent to the hospital. When the rich heir arrived in a rush, Yvonne cried in his arms daintily. "I'm so sorry. This is all my fault. I failed to protect her." I witnessed everything in the ward but didn't say a word about it. In my previous lifetime, I stopped Yvonne from poisoning the woman. I knew the rich heir would never let her get away with it if he found out about it. Yvonne was forced to give up her plan and even praised me for my foresight. However, she ended up poisoning me instead and stabbed me in the heart with her dagger when I got dizzy. "This is your fault! Die! If you hadn't stopped me, Sean Graham would've been mine!" When I opened my eyes next, I had returned to the day of the poisoning.

After dating Scott Kenta for 10 years, I said to him, "Scott, I'm pregnant." The file in his hands slipped and hit the floor. He frowned, clearly irritated. "Don't be ridiculous," he said. "This is a critical moment—my company's going public. I never planned on having a child." "It's fine. Your career matters more," I said, smiling gently. He didn't catch the meaning behind my words. I was pregnant, yes. But he wasn't the father.

The company had just taken off when a project my wife, Lenora Peterson, was in charge of ran into trouble. To ease her mind during her pregnancy, I went overseas in her stead, spending ten perilous years abroad before finally returning home, barely alive. Instead of the joyful reunion I had imagined, she greeted me with cold detachment and thinly veiled disgust. "Why are you back?" Lenora asked. "Today is Nathan’s housewarming party," she added. "Let’s head there first—we’ll talk later." We rode in silence the entire way. When we arrived, a ten-year-old girl came dashing over and clung to Lenora affectionately. “Mommy, why did you take so long? Daddy’s been waiting for you forever!” Daddy? My eyes burned with rage—until I saw my old friend Nathan Grant stepping out to greet us with a smile. "Lily, come to Daddy. Mommy’s tired—don’t bother her now." When I met Lenora’s eyes, the guilt I saw there told me everything I needed to know. I turned away and texted my assistant, Morgan Williamson, to begin acquiring the company that, by right, had always belonged to me. He soon reported back. "Mr. Brooke, the acquisition process will be completed in three days."

At our tenth engagement party, my girlfriend crushed my heart again, leaving my proposal ring dangling in the air. She had been chasing the ghost of her first love, and I was done being her fallback guy. When I finally opened my heart to someone new, she realized what she'd lost. Ten years together, ten engagement parties, and still, she wouldn't take my ring. Every time we reached the moment to exchange vows, she'd stare at the door, waiting for that man to swoop in and rescue her. She swore she'd only marry me if he crashed the party, claiming it would prove she'd truly chosen me. This time, I couldn't hold back. "If he never shows, are you just gonna keep stringing me along forever?" She shot back, "He still loves me. He'll show up to stop this. Besides, we've been together a decade. Does a ring even matter at this point?"