Starting Over Without You Novels & Stories

I'm playing hide-and-seek with my son when he locks me on the balcony. It's freezing outside, and my face turns blue from the cold. However, all he does is laugh at me while I call for help. He makes ugly faces at me through the glass. "You look like the stray dog downstairs, Mom! You're so ugly!" I die a frosty and terrible death. Before breathing my last breath, I see my son excitedly give my husband a video call. "Mom has frozen to death, Dad. Can you take Ms. Cole home to be my new mom now?" When I open my eyes again, I'm taken back to the moment my son wants me to play hide-and-seek with him.

My roommate bought an antique bronze censer online. She burned incense day and night, praying to be with a wealthy boyfriend. I thought it was silly, until her face began to look like mine. Soon, she became the admired heiress, while I was left drowning in debts she had deliberately racked up. I begged her for my identity back, and she pretended to agree. However, she tricked me into giving her my bank account password and pushed me off a rooftop. I learned at that moment that the censer was a cursed relic that grants wishes by draining the life and luck of another. She could take everything from me once my life was ruined, but death was not the end for me. I woke up on the day she first got the cursed censer. The truth was every wish comes with a price, and I was going to make sure she pays.

In my previous life, my sister set her sights on the formidable river dragon and married him without hesitation. I chose the unassuming merman. She thought she would ascend as the queen of the dragon clan. However, when the river dragon failed his ascension trial, my sister, as his mate, was caught in the fallout and narrowly escaped death. Meanwhile, the merman unexpectedly inherited the Sea God’s Legacy and rose to become ocean royalty. Everyone knew I was to become the empress. At the celebratory banquet, my sister poisoned my wine. Reborn into a new life, my sister rushed toward the merman and chose him, saying, “The empress’ throne will be mine!” Little did she know that the merfolk’s true nature was cruel, finding pleasure in tormenting others.

She spent three years faking moans for a boyfriend who never made her come. One night, one stranger in a mask, and she finally learns what it means to be wrecked against a wall. But when the mask comes off? He’s her professor. And he’s not done teaching her.

I've planned seven wedding ceremonies in total, and not once has my fiance, Zachary Gardner, ever shown up for it. The first time, his adopted younger sister, Louise Foster, bursts into tears because she lost her passport at the airport. It was the dead of winter, but he dumped me by the side of the road and left me. The second time, Louise's dog sprained its ankle. Zachary stuffed the ring back into its box and rushed to the animal hospital to accompany her. Every time I argue with him about it, he declares nonchalantly, "We can get married anytime, but I can't let Louise be upset." Everyone around us agrees with him, saying that we're all family anyway, so I shouldn't be so petty. None of them has seen Zachary and Louise kissing fiercely on the dance floor. Today is the seventh wedding ceremony. Once again, he turns to leave after getting a call. I grab the corner of his shirt and say in a choked voice, "If you leave this time, Zachary, I won't marry you anymore." He stops in his tracks and peels off my fingers. "Wait for me," he says before rushing off. What he doesn't know is that this time, I won't be waiting for him any longer.

Campus food deliveries vanished so often that no one even commented anymore. Then it happened to me again and again. I never identified the thief, but by New Year's Eve I was finished with being an easy mark. I set out a bowl of soup as bait and soaked it with water wrung from an old bathroom mop. I meant to make whoever stole it regret touching my food. A week later, the police did not come for the thief. They came for me. The counselor slid a penalty notice across his desk—600 dollars for food costs and medical fees, due next week. The person who ate my food had been hospitalized for "poisoning." The school was already discussing a major demerit, the cancellation of my first-class scholarship, and the loss of my needs-based stipend. That stipend was the money keeping my sick mother alive. They planned to pin everything on me, shield the real culprit, and bury me under paperwork. Unfortunately for them, they chose the wrong target. I was the law department's resident argument addict, and I intended to turn their dirty little mediation into a public collapse.

My daughter has a sudden allergic reaction, and my husband, an expert in these things, is the only one who can save her. I call him at this critical juncture, but his childhood sweetheart is the one who answers. "Clinton is busy. He wants me to tell you not to call him if it's not important." There's no time for me to get mad. I say anxiously, "Tell him to come to the hospital now. Ivy has had an allergic reaction and is waiting for him to save her." Clinton Reeves says impatiently, "Gemma and I are just watching a soccer match. Do you have to joke around with Ivy's life? I'm so disappointed in you." Later, Ivy dies in the hospital, her body covered in rashes. I wipe my tears and call Clinton once more. I say icily, "Let's get a divorce." The first thing I hear is his and Gemma Walken's laughter. After a while, he says, "Sure, but Ivy is mine."

Honey Mariah Owens thought heartbreak had already taken everything from her. After her boyfriend steals her savings, destroys her dreams, and disappears with another woman, Honey is left drowning in debt, family responsibilities, and a future that suddenly feels impossible to reach. Her once-promising fashion career is gone, her father’s medical bills are piling up, and hope feels like a luxury she can no longer afford. Then one drunken night changes everything. Dragged to a nightclub by her best friend for a reckless “heartbreak cure,” Honey meets Jayson Kingsley—heir to one of the most powerful families in Spring Hills, CEO of Spring Hills Oils. Rich. Dangerous. Infuriatingly handsome. Jayson is completely convinced she is someone else. Nichole Solange Sinclair. The missing daughter of a powerful political family. The woman he was supposed to marry. A woman who looks exactly like Honey. When Jay realizes Honey is not Nichole, he offers her a deal that could save her family and destroy her heart—pretend to be Nichole until the real one is found, and in return, he will give her enough money to change her life forever. One fake identity. One contract marriage. One man she was never supposed to love. But as Honey is pulled deeper into a world of wealth, secrets, and dangerous family expectations, pretending becomes harder… especially when Jay starts falling for the woman behind the lie. And just when Honey begins to believe she might finally deserve happiness, the real Nichole returns. Same face. Same name. Now Honey must decide whether to walk away from the man she loves... or fight for a place in a world that was never meant to be hers. Because some love stories begin with one beautiful mistake.And some are powerful enough to last forever.

Though we've been in love for six years, Arnold Porter, the Chief Legal Officer of the Werewolf Council, has canceled our marking ceremony 66 times. The first time he did so, he claimed that Erna Porter, his adoptive sister, was coughing blood in the middle of her heat. Decked in my gown, I stood in front of the Altar of the Full Moon alone until the moon had disappeared from the skies and everyone had left. The second time the ceremony gets canceled, it was because he suddenly received a message in the middle of the ceremony, saying that Erna was abducted by Rogues. He tore off his robes and shifted into his wolf instantly, rushing to save her, while I was forced to endure the laughter of our guests. Whenever we are to hold a ceremony, Erna will always get into trouble and then seek his help. Finally, when he cancels the ceremony for the 66th time, both my wolf and I give up. I break up with him and leave. Three days after I traverse the borders of the snowy plains riddled with powerful winds that conceal my trace, he seems to go crazy. He sends the elite guard of his pack on a mission just to find me.

Serena Sinclair is the most attractive she-wolf in the Mystic Moon pack. Many wolves are head over heels in love with her. But when she's about to become Alpha Caspian Lockwood's Luna, the video of her wild and loose side in bed gets sent to every wolf's phone in the pack. She falls from grace immediately. Not only is she demoted to the status of an Omega and has lost her right to become the Luna, but the wolves who were once respectful to her keep humiliating her as well. They even run all the way to the Sinclair residence just so they can pelt her with more curses and slurs. Serena runs off to look for Caspian, consequences be damned. After all, he's the only one who has those videos in his phone. But the moment she arrives outside his house, she overhears his subordinates' voices. "This way, Serena will never become your Luna, Alpha Caspian. She can only watch as you mark Aurelia as your mate." "Serves her right, honestly. She's the one who's been shamelessly clinging to the Alpha's side. She has no idea how much the Alpha loathes her. In order to avoid touching her, he often cleanses the scent every night before telling his younger brother, Forrest, to sleep with her and record those racy videos." "If she finds out that her lover's younger brother is the one whom she's been sleeping with all these years, will she die of an aneurysm on the spot? Ahahaha!" Serena's wolf keeps howling in her mind. She can only cover her ears as she flees away from the Lockwood residence. The last shred of hope is already gone. After that, she goes through the procedures of leaving the Mystic Moon pack once and for all. But when she's truly gone, why is it that everyone sinks to their knees and begs her to return to them?