Scrunched Up Face

My girlfriend and I were reborn, returning to the cramped basement apartment we rented right after graduation. We silently walked out the door together, neither of us mentioning staying together. She went abroad with her childhood sweetheart to further her studies while I stayed behind, grinding away at my company. Seven years later, she became a rising young designer with a bright future and a happy family. I was still grinding away at the same company. When we met again, she clung to her childhood sweetheart's arm, looking down at my slightly disheveled state with a mocking smile. "Long time no see. How did you end up looking like a beggar?" I ignored her. However, later, when the powerful, world-renowned CEO of a top design firm clung to my arm, acting sweetly, her face twisted with panic. "Alex Prescott! How can you be so close with another woman?!"

Russia, the only place where sex and guns could ever taste so sweet—my exact nightmare. The only thing I’m here for is to grind my body over shady politicians for my father’s schemes. I’d be more than willing to do so if it meant I’d pull my mother and myself out of his chains and start a new life. I was so close, so damn close—until he came . . . very much unannounced. Konstantin Morozov, the man I am going to be married off to. Russia’s ruthless beast— earning his crown with bloodied hands. With this, I only had to face two challenges: infiltrate his notorious business as per father’s order and divorce him when the time is right. But dealing with a husband who has a Morozov as his last name was never easy, especially with a gun pointed at my head, and those rough, cruel hands wrapped around my heart. I wonder which blows up first?

The day before my fifth wedding anniversary to my husband, the jewelry store manager called me. He reported that the expensive jewelry I had commissioned for my husband had been accidentally damaged by the staff. However, the shop was willing to pay a penalty for breach of contract. He hung up before I could lose my temper. I immediately received a message from my husband and $6 million in compensation. [So you're the shameless homewrecker. How dare you keep my husband's contact information! I'm warning you: I've given you the money, now get lost! Otherwise, I'll have to teach you a lesson!] The woman smugly sent me an intimate photo to follow up on her threats. Looking at the familiar side profile, I immediately called my biological parents, who were high-ranking businesspeople. "Dad, Mom, put the Shelby family's investment on hold for now. I'm getting a big gift ready for them!"

On the day I was diagnosed with uremia, my husband asked me to donate a kidney to his one true love. I turned him down, claiming I wasn’t feeling well. I didn’t expect him, my own husband, who was a doctor, to drag me to trial. The charge? Ingratitude. If found guilty, I would be executed on the spot, my kidney forcibly harvested, my soul condemned for eternity. But if the charges were dismissed, my husband would face immediate execution. His love would fall into ruin, plagued by illness and poverty. Everyone pressured me to confess. After all, when I nearly died in a car crash years ago, it was her blood transfusion that had pulled me back from the brink of death. But what they didn’t know was… I had been reborn. In my past life, I died never knowing my husband and his lover had orchestrated the car crash that nearly killed me. Now that I had returned, I would tear off their masks and expose their malice for all to see.

On the night of the Silvermoon Festival, the entire Black Forest pack is bathed in the light of the Moon Goddess. I'm about to share the spectacle with Kaelen through the mind-link, but then I spot a familiar figure. Kaelen Payne, my Alpha and fated mate, is holding a she-wolf in his arms. She tilts her face up to him, her voice edged with challenge. "Kaelen, prove I'm not just a secret. Mark me." My blood seems to freeze as I hear Kaelen murmur his agreement before pressing his mouth to hers. My wolf lets out a painful howl inside me. Just an hour ago, Kaelen's voice had come through the mind-link, "My Luna, I wish I could see the festival too, but there's an emergency at the border. Don't forget to share it with me through the mind-link." My fingertips turn cold, and I instinctively reach for him through the mind-link.

When twenty-two-year-old Evelyn Lockhart moves in the next to Connor Everest, bad boy billionaire and head of Everest industries, she makes a promise to herself to have nothing to do with the spoilt bastard. He's wild, untamed and makes her annoyed. And his wild parties almost every night keeps her awake. They get off on the wrong foot when Evelyn, fed up with his shenanigans, call the cops on one of his wild parties. Things get heated when Evelyn starts off her new job the following week and discovers that Connor is her new boss. With the press nosy for gossip, Connor fears his secret project which he's spent years working on would get leaked before it's ready and propositions Evelyn to be his fake fiancee at least until the project is launched. How long can they keep up the façade while still trying not to catch feelings?

I decided to die on my 28th birthday. It was not suicide but homicide... by my dear sister, Susan Bruno. I had always known that she would kill me. I told my older brother, Barry Bruno, and he said, "Charlotte, don't always think so badly of Susan." I told my fiancé, Calvin Simmon, and he said, "You're making up a story to draw attention again." Hence, I decided to give them the evidence they wanted most—a corpse. I installed seven cameras, set up an automatic sending program, and wrote a farewell letter. I left clues for the killer, bait for Susan, and a time bomb for my family. Today, Susan texted: [Charlotte, Dad has something for you at the safe house.] I replied: [Coming.] Before leaving, I checked my to-do list one last time. Everything was checked off, except for one thing: death. I would die. They would never know that the moment my heart stopped beating... the countdown to revenge had only just begun.

When my mother-in-law was poisoned and clinging to life, my toxicology knowledge was her only hope. I ended the call and grabbed my coat, ready to rush to the hospital. My husband blocked my path. "Hold on! It's the opening of Ella's haunted castle today. You're bailing to play ghost?" I stared at him, telling him about the dire situation. The poison needed to be neutralized within thirty minutes, or it would be fatal. He rolled his eyes. "Your janitor mom can drop dead for all I care. I'll toss some Monopoly money on her grave if it shuts you up. Don't try to cross me here." His best female friend draped herself over him. "In a hurry to chase some side guy? Girl, your face is longer than Herbert's when he is all revved up. Right, buddy?" Their shamelessness was almost laughable. The kicker? Herbert thought it was my mom dying.

Just before our Luna Ceremony, my mate, Alpha Killian, rejected me—moments after we'd mated. "The pack needs a gentle Omega for a Luna, Mia. Not a Beta with blood on her hands like you." His face was a cold mask, his Alpha command washing over me, snuffing out the lingering scent of our passion. I swallowed the pain in my heart and watched him slam the door. A moment later, a notification hit the pack network. I was stripped of my position as Lead Beta. In my place, Killian appointed Mia as the new Head Warrior. The empire I'd spent eight years helping Killian build was gifted to her on a silver platter. With my heart shattered, I walked away. It wasn't until I became Luna to Alpha Damien of a rival pack that Killian started showing up at my new border, crying and begging me to come back.

She got pregnant by the man she loved, but he left her. To protect the image of their family, Ayana Salma De’Mario was grounded and hidden, like a bad omen, together with her child. She knows only the walls of her room, her sweet five-year-old girl, her paintings, the young student she is teaching, and this mysterious ghost lover whom she has never met. But a tragedy strikes their family empire. In need of a savior, her family decided to trade the black sheep of the family to save their company. And in the picture is the cold-hearted Adam Stone De'Leon, the most notorious heartbreaker the country has ever had. But the moment he meets Ayana, something changes—something that leaves his walls in shambles. His heart starts beating only for this girl. But Ayana is done being tossed like an object. She yearns for freedom, especially to save her deprived child. But while she battles over what to do, the billionaire baby Daddy returns to claim what he believes is his. As if that is not enough tangle, her ghost lover finally reveals himself—the one whom she thought would take her out of the cage. But he turns out to be the one person she wouldn't have expected—her student. Three smoking hot billionaires, after one lost, desperate, and confused soul. And the tangle begins! Who will win Ayana's heart?