The Kept Man Strikes Back Chapter 1

Marietta thought she had it all figured out, not until everything came crashing down. Accused of doing something she didn't do, and betrayed by those she trusted, she's left to pick up her pieces. But when she finds out she’s pregnant, things get a lot more complicated. Now, she’s fighting to figure out her future—alone, hurt, and ready to take back control. Can she start over, or will her past keep dragging her down?

Three years of marriage, and it all ends with two words. Sign it. He didn’t even look up when he said it. Just slid the papers across the table like I was another business deal to close. We weren’t supposed to fall in love it started as a contract, something practical, something safe. But feelings have a way of growing where they shouldn’t. For a while, I thought he cared. The quiet moments, the small things he remembered my favorite song, how I take my tea, the way I hate the rain. I thought they meant something. Turns out, they did. Just not for me. Every gesture, every soft word, was borrowed from a memory. From her. The woman who had him first. The one who left. The one who’s now back. So I signed. I smiled. I walked away. Not because I wanted to but because I had to. He doesn’t chase me. Not yet. But I can feel it the weight of everything unsaid still hanging in the air between us. Maybe he’ll realize what he’s lost. Maybe he won’t. Either way, this time, I’m not waiting around to find out.

After her first love died, Sophia Hayes hated me for ten years. I tried to win back her favor every day, but she only responded with cold sneers. "If you really want to make me happy, why don't you just die?" Her words were like daggers to my heart. It was a shock when she died in a pool of blood while trying to save me from an oncoming truck. With her final gaze fixed on me, she whispered, "If only I had never met you." Her mother was inconsolable with grief at the funeral. "I should have let Sophia be with Ethan Brooks. I never should have forced her to marry you!" Her father also looked at me with hatred in his eyes. "Sophia saved your life three times. She was such a wonderful person. Why couldn't it have been you who died instead?" Everyone regretted that Sophia had married me—myself included. I was driven away from the funeral, completely devastated. Three years later, I traveled back to the past after a time machine was invented. This time, I chose to sever all connections with Sophia, giving everyone the version of history they truly desired.

Five years ago, policemen beat down the doors of our house and arrested my father for financial fraud. Just as I was about to despair, my friend’s father proposed that I marry his son—Mason. In my grief over daddy’s imprisonment, and unexpected happiness of marrying my childhood love, I was blinded. I vowed to myself that I would be the best wife I could be. But my husband would never love me the way he loved Jade—my best friend who died eight years ago. I pretended everything was fine and kept being a good wife for all these years. However, when I found Jade’s ring in Mason’s pocket and saw her face, alive and beautiful, appear in the live stream, the illusion—my game of house—was shattered.

Alise Ambroise, the one and only daughter of the Ambroise Family and the next heir who caused a huge impact on the world once they knew she was still alive. Everyone thinks she's dead, but the truth is she is still alive and well. Once she returned being the heir of the Ambroise family she embarked on her new journey at Prestigious Academy. There she will encounter drama, danger, betrayal, friendship, and love. But loving this person has a consequence as she is to fall in love with one of her bodyguards. (Re-written as a new novel from "Protecting The Heir")

I was the belle of the school, good grades and all. But I wasn't the nerd they thought I was. I had been secretly dating my adopted brother's sworn enemy for three years. Lucian Palma had a strong desire for intimacy, so I went along with him in unlocking countless places to make love. He promised that he would marry me after graduation. Once he took over the family business from his wealthy father, he would make me the happiest woman alive. I believed him, even indulging him in his kink of recording us sleeping together. Lucian assured me that those videos were for his eyes only, and that no one else would ever see them. But then, I accidentally overheard a conversation between Lucian and his friends. "Lucian, you had deliberately staged a hero saving the damsel in distress situation to make Nina Etienne fall for you, all just to get it back at your archnemesis, Aaron North. If he found out his little sister had been sleeping with you, wouldn't it kill him with rage? "You've filmed hundreds of intimate videos, haven't you? When do you plan to release them? We'd love to see the nerd stripped bare under you." I didn't confront him about this. Instead, I quietly walked away and agreed to meet the fiance my father had arranged for me.

In my previous life, my sister thought that since my husband and I had high-paying jobs, she could swap her son with my child without anyone noticing. But twenty-five years later, the tables turned. My son had grown into a street thug, while her son—raised under my care—rose smoothly through life. Young as he was, he had already become a CEO. He was dutiful, bought me a villa, and even sent me traveling around the world. My sister barged into his company, waving a DNA test report, kicking up a scene, only to be thrown out by security. "Mr. Kieran said that even if you are his biological mother, you never gave him a single day of care," they told her. "So he refuses to acknowledge you." Breaking down completely, she drove her car into me and ended my life. When I opened my eyes again, we had returned to the very day she switched our babies. This time, my sister clutched her own child tightly, a wild, triumphant grin on her face. "From now on, you can be the mother of a street thug," she sneered. "The villa and all those riches—they're mine!"

Heavily pregnant, she was kidnapped and thrown into a life-or-death gamble. Her husband paid a hundred million dollars to save his first love, while she was left to die in a raging fire. At death’s door, she finally remembered the identity of herself. Five years later, she returned—not as the obedient wife of the past, but as Elianna Carrington, the esteemed Fifth daughter of the powerful Carrington family in Bryston. Loved by her father, cherished by her brothers, adored by her son, and pursued by the elites, her life was perfect. Joseph Kensington finally realized the truth. This elegant, untouchable woman was the wife he’d been searching for all these years. Desperate, he took her to court. Elianna: Give it up, Joseph. Both sons are mine. Joseph: The kids are yours. You’re mine. Overnight, Bryston was shaken. The dominant heir to a financial empire had now fallen at her feet. To win his wife back, he risked everything—his pride, his life, his heart. Too bad his two sons were his biggest obstacles. Eldest son: Daddy, my credit card swipes faster than yours. Second son: Scumbag dad, get lost!

Scarred and discarded, Ava was betrayed by the people she loved most–her mother, her sister, and her fated mate. In her death, she begged the Moon Goddess for vengeance, and she was granted a rebirth. Reborn as a Princess in another pack, she is now tied to a dark fate, she is still scared, ugly, and worse, bound to a powerful demon Alpha king with his own tragic past and a haunting secret: he had loved her once before... and killed her. Will Ava's thirst for vengeance consume her? Or will she find peace in the arms of the very man fate cursed to fall for her again?

"I was only trying to be nice to you and you did this??" Andrea wailed and fell to the floor looking down at her drenched clothes. "How could you do this to me Miss Alicia??" She cried profusely, pointing at Alicia who had great shock on her face. She hasn't done anything, what was she saying? She wasn't the waiter who had poured drinks on her body, why was she accusing her?? Alicia was damned confused. Just then, she saw it, her swift smirk when her husband began bashing her for offence she didn't commit, there she realized the b!tch had planned it all.