She Cried He Lied Novels & Stories

The most powerful Godfather in the mafia underworld—Dante Costello—had an expensive diamond signet ring custom-made to fit my finger perfectly and sent straight to our home. He said that whoever could wear the ring would become the lady of his family. The Monroe family had long since fallen from grace. All that remained were four women. On ordinary days, we fought endlessly, tearing each other apart. Every single one of us wanted to marry Dante because marrying him meant preserving a life of dignity and comfort. In the first life, the fake heiress, Blair, secretly had the ring resized smaller and married into the family. Dante took one look at her, then had her thrown into the river to drown. “Not her.” In the second life, my cousin, Chloe, underwent plastic surgery to alter her fingers and force the ring on. Dante gifted her a staged car accident. “Still not her.” In the third life, my stepmother, Catherine, clenched her teeth and forced the ring onto her finger. Her blood hadn’t even dried when she married Dante. He coldly slashed her face, then locked her in the basement, where she slowly wasted away until death. By the fourth life, all three of them were terrified. None of them dared to marry him anymore, so they hurriedly pushed me forward instead. I put on the ring. This time, the size was perfect. Just when I thought my good days had finally begun, Dante stabbed me to death on our wedding night, his eyes burning red with madness. After my rebirth, the consigliere of the Dante family delivered the ring once again. This time, all four of us avoided it like the plague.

I have two kidneys. I've given one of them to my wife, Teagan Holt. In just one year, Teagan and her childhood sweetheart, Morgan Backman, have gone through all 72 karmasutra positions in bed. They can't wait to experience them all over again. My other kidney is given to Morgan. They've used 365 condoms, and the water bill is more than five times its regular rate. Teagan can't even get out of bed every day from how sore she is. Two years later, when Morgan needs another kidney transplant in order to survive, Teagan steps into the manor on her own. She looks everywhere for me, only to see our nine-year-old son, Milo Shepherd, crouching at the doorway. "Milo, as long as you can convince your dad to donate his kidney to Mr. Backman, I'll allow you to come home with me." Milo just stares up at Teagan innocently. "But Mom, you have Dad's other kidney inside you."

At one of the exclusive private casino parties, my eyes landed on a diamond tiara. The catch? It was the prize for a high-stakes blackjack game. Luckily, poker happens to be one of my many sins. A girl named Elara—whom I once pitied enough to introduce to Throne, hoping she’d land a job—has now declared she wants the tiara too. Naïve. Probably thought beginner’s luck was a real thing. I figured, fine. Let the cards decide. If I win, I walk away with the tiara. If I lose, I’ll find another way to soothe my pride. Easy enough. Thorne, my ever-watchful husband, leaned in and murmured, “Go easy on her.” I didn’t. I won. Beat the dealer faster than her and won the tiara. That girl cried at the table. Thorne didn’t look impressed for once. He rather seemed... irritated. I thought it was for Elara’s sake. Turns out, it was for mine. A year later, same party, different stakes. The grand prize? My own sex video. While holding Elara in his arms, my husband said to me, voice almost amusing, “Don’t you like winning prizes? Then go on. Win our sex tape back.”

On the day of the SAT exam, my girlfriend’s childhood friend, Benedict Casper, forgot his admission ticket at home. She insisted on retrieving it for him, but I begged her not to go. In the end, Benedict missed his final chance for taking the exam and, overwhelmed by despair, he jumped to his death. Years later, my girlfriend, Ella Simpson, and I graduated from Whitmore Institute of Technology, landed high-paying jobs, and built a picture-perfect marriage. But on the anniversary of Benedict’s death, she stabbed me repeatedly, her voice trembling with rage, “You killed him. If I’d gotten his admission ticket, he would’ve never jumped.” When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of the exams. Ella’s frantic voice rang in my ears, “I have to go back, Dominic. I need to get Benedict’s ticket!” This time, I smiled and said, “Go ahead. Be careful on the way.”

Rejected as a wolfless slave and marked for execution, Aria’s life changes forever when the world’s most dangerous Alpha claims her as his prophesied mate. But as her jealous twin sister plots her ultimate destruction, Aria must awaken a forbidden fire within her soul to protect the man who saw her worth.

On the third day of our cold war, my Alpha mate, Cain Beckett, purposefully takes his secretary, Vera Anderson, on a trip to Roseville. He thinks I'll kick up a fuss hysterically like before. But when he returns one month later, he realizes that I've completely changed. When Cain snatches away the territory negotiation task that I'm in charge of and passes it to Vera, I no longer fight back angrily. Instead, I take the initiative to arrange the documents and prepare the paperwork for her. In order to help Vera stand out on the night of the full moon, Cain rejects the project proposal I've spent three months working on in front of everyone. I no longer fight with him over it. Instead, I shoulder all the punishment quietly. Even when Cain decides to bend the rules by making Vera the Beta of the pack, I still remain cool and composed. Heck, I even smile and agree with his decision. Vera takes Cain's hand while saying coquettishly, "See? I told you that you can't fight fire with fire when it comes to people with Leah's personality. You need to neglect her for her to be more understanding. She must have been terrified of losing you because of the way you listen to me and no longer spoil her. That's why she's being so docile." Of course, Cain has complete trust in Vera. He praises her for being clever. In order to reassure me, he even promises me that he'll officially mark me during the next full moon. I just shake my head in return. Nah, I don't need it. I don't need Cain's mark anymore. After all, I'll be leaving the pack soon. From now on, I'm cutting all ties with Cain Beckett. We won't have anything to do with each other anymore.

My billionaire husband suffered from chronic insomnia for years. Only the sleep balm I made could help him sleep. On the night of our seventh wedding anniversary, his childhood sweetheart poured a basin of scalding water over the old camphor tree in our garden. I wept and tried to save the tree as she apologized, “I didn’t know you used its leaves to make the sleep balm.” My husband gently comforted her and ordered his men to tie me to the tree trunk instead. “What a precious tree. You’ll spend the rest of your days with it!” With my wrist fractured as a result, I filed for divorce immediately. A month later, my husband was unable to sleep late one night. He stood in the garden and stared at the withered camphor tree.

Suzy was the only normal person in our family. While our father drank himself into oblivion, our mother gambled away everything, and I descended into mental illness, she sacrificed everything to pay our debts and keep us alive. She even found the best doctors to treat me. We all carried a lifetime of guilt for dragging her down. Then she became engaged to the heir of the most powerful family in the country. Only after I died in a psychiatric hospital did I uncover the horrifying truth. Suzy had been chosen by a system. My father's alcoholism, my mother's gambling addiction, and even my mental illness were never accidents. They had been carefully engineered to create the perfect tragic backstory for her, shaping her into the resilient, selfless heroine. We were nothing more than disposable tools in her mission, used until we had served our purpose and then discarded.

My mate, Alpha Ryan, started skipping my healer's appointments after I got pregnant. He always blamed pack business. But I found him at the clinic anyway. He was with another pregnant she-wolf—his childhood friend, Bonnie. He held her with a tenderness he no longer gave me. "I'll take responsibility for this child," he promised her. "He'll be safe." His words shattered my world. Their child? I stormed in to confront them and saw it: his temporary mark on her neck. He swore the pup wasn't his. He claimed a rogue attacked her and the mark was only for protection. His lie was a knife twisting in our mate bond. I was carrying his pure-blooded heir. But he let the pack brand my child a bastard, while hailing her half-blood pup as his true heir. To protect Bonnie, he locked me in a silver-laced cell. The silver was a living death. He didn't realize his mistake until I took the forbidden herbs, sacrificing our child and collapsing in a pool of my own blood. Only then did he cradle my broken body, begging for a forgiveness I would never give.

To help my surgeon husband with his erectile dysfunction, I made an appointment with an expert six months in advance. But as the day approached, Isiah Coleman canceled it without explanation. Just as I was about to call him to demand answers, I spotted a post from his female friend on her social media. My usually stoic husband was beaming as he wrapped his arms around her. The caption read: [Only I can cure your illness.] What struck me, though, was the telltale bulge in his pants in the photo—a reaction I'd never seen from him with me. With a cold laugh, I liked the post and left a comment: [What a miracle worker!] The post exploded, with everyone speculating whether I'd confront the mistress. But what awaited him after the holiday was our freshly printed divorce certificate.