Until Dawn Stranger Novels & Stories

Until The Lie, Loved Me by Elle Targaryen Celeste Monroe's picture-perfect marriage was a lie. Behind the doors of her luxurious home lived a man who controlled her, broke her, and left her mourning three lost pregnancies in silence. Then he had an accident. When he wakes from a coma, he's not the same. The cruelty is gone. In its place is tenderness, protectiveness-and a love she never thought she'd feel. For a while, Celeste lets herself believe in miracles. Until she uncovers the truth: the man in her home isn't her husband. He's a spy sent to erase her. Now, Celeste must play a dangerous game-caught between the man who stole her heart and the mission that could end her life. "How do you escape the man sent to destroy you-when your heart is already his?"

When the lights came on at the end of the graduation party, the spotlight suddenly shifted and froze on a young couple kissing passionately at the back of the auditorium. The young man held up a bouquet of roses and shouted to the crowd, “Sophie, be my girlfriend!” The moment the girl covered her face and nodded, the cheers in the hall nearly lifted the roof. Amid the thunderous applause, my hand trembled around my phone. The screen still showed the message he had sent half an hour earlier. Rowan: [Wait for me. I’ll come to you right away.] After the party, I took off the couple’s bracelet from my wrist and threw it into the gutter, along with four years of love.

Love does not always look like salvation, sometimes, it looks like ruination. For six years, Sara has lived in the shadows of her own marriage. Hidden, humiliated and disgraced, over and over again. Her husband's hatred of her has striped away every layer of her identity. She is empty, she has given and given. Now, there's nothing left to give. Sara has had enough. She is filing for a divorce and needs separation from her husband. She is determined to make something good out of her life, and leave Derek Marshall behind. Just when she is almost free, she stumbles on a devastating secret, a secret that unravels her life. Now, Sara has to chose between the man who has broken her heart, lied to her, broke her trust over and over again, and, the promise of a better, simpler, easier life. Sara and Derek find themselves, stuck between a bullet and a heartbreak. Quite literally.

Elena Vale has spent her entire life sticking to the rules, until the night she's forced into an engagement she never wanted. Fleeing from her high-society cage, she ends up in a grimy bar, drinking with a brooding stranger who offers the one thing she never expected: freedom.  Jack Roman is the last man a woman like Elena Vale should marry. Tattooed, sharp-tongued, and hiding secrets behind his sea blue eyes. He's everything she's been taught to avoid. But when an impulsive drunken wedding turns into a full-blown scandal, Elena seizes the chaos. She makes him a deal — six months of pretending, then they part ways. To Elena, faking a marriage with a stranger is supposed to keep her safe. But as sparks turn to passion, and buried truths come to light, Elena realizes she may have just traded one kind of prison for another. Because Jack didn't just walk into her life by accident… and falling in love with him might just cost her everything.

When Damian Voss lets his wife walk in on him kissing his first love against their kitchen island, he believes he's finally free — done with the quiet woman he married in secret, ready to claim the powerful public life he always wanted. What he doesn't know: the woman he just handed divorce papers to carries his child, his most dangerous competitor's personal vendetta, and a surname worth ten billion dollars that was stolen from her before she could walk. For three years, Lila loved him in secret — no announcements, no red carpets, no credit. She covered for his late nights, ignored the suspicious texts, and carried champagne and silk to a penthouse where she planned to give him everything. That moment arrived on their anniversary. He was already kissing someone else when she walked through the door. She signed. She slid the papers across the marble. She walked out without a single tear — and picked up a phone call that changed the shape of the world. Some men confuse silence for weakness. Some women are only quiet because they haven't yet decided what to burn. And some divorces don't end a story — they start one, with a crown, a rival, and an empire rebuilt on the ashes of everything he thought he owned.

I find out I'm about two months pregnant before my wedding. Luke Logan drunkenly caresses my belly and half-jokes, "I'm not ready to be a father, Summer. Can we not keep the baby?" My heart is calm. I say softly, "Sure." In my past life, I insisted on keeping the child. Meanwhile, Riley Richards had an accidental miscarriage, making it difficult for her to conceive again. Luke held a grudge against me for that and treated me coldly after we married. As for the son that I put one foot in the coffin to bring into this world, he, too, cried and fussed. He wanted Riley to be his mother. Later, I got into an accident and suffered from significant blood loss. However, Luke and our son merely hurried past me to be with Riley as she went into labor. I slowly bled to death on the floor above, while Luke and our son celebrated the birth of Riley's child on the floor below. Now that I've been reborn, I won't lose sight of myself and take the wrong path again. I call Eric Nottingham. "I'll join the expedition team to Glacia."

Three years ago, on the day I married Luca Moretti, he personally handed me a marriage contract with a fixed term of three years. His tone was casual, indifferent, as if he were discussing an ordinary business deal. "This marriage exists solely to serve the alliance of interests between the Morettis and the Vitales. Sign this agreement. After three years, the marriage will automatically dissolve. When that time comes, you can go and pursue your true love." I barely hesitated before signing. Ten years earlier, at an inter-family business gala, when I was ten and Luca was sixteen, I had already fallen hopelessly in love with him. What looked like a strategic alliance was, in truth, the outcome of my decade-long unrequited love. During the three years of our marriage, Luca was attentive and gentle toward me. Over time, I began to believe I was loved. I sank into that illusion, unable to pull myself out, forgetting entirely about the agreement. That illusion was shattered completely on the night of our third wedding anniversary. That evening, Luca arrived with Elena, who had just returned to New York, and attended what was supposed to be our third anniversary celebration together. She stood beside him with ease and composure, smoothly engaging with business partners. People praised her, saying she looked more like the Donna of the Moretti family. In that moment, even though Luca never mentioned the agreement again, I understood clearly that it was time for me to step aside. After breaking free from his control, crossing an ocean to rebuild myself, and becoming a brilliant leader in my industry, I would no longer wait for his love.

After seven years of marriage, my wife had rarely asked me to accompany her back to her parents' home. She always said she didn't want me stepping into that cramped, crowded little house and feeling wronged. This year, during the New Year, I happened to be in the city where my in-laws lived for a business trip. By chance, I came across a local video online. It was posted by a resident of an upscale neighborhood. "Mom, Dad, my beloved wife and son—thank you for giving an orphan like me a complete and happy life." The elderly couple in the video were dressed in the same high-end outfits I had bought for my in-laws. I thought of how frugal they had always been, how they lived simply and spared every penny. A decision formed in my mind: tomorrow, I would buy them a place in that very neighborhood, in their name, so they could enjoy a comfortable retirement. It would be my small act of filial piety. But the next day, the moment I stepped into the residential complex, I saw my in-laws coming downstairs—with my wife and a child. Could it be that my wife had secretly bought them an apartment? I pressed my lips together, about to step forward, when a man rushed over and caught my father-in-law just as he nearly stumbled. "Dad, careful now." My footsteps froze. My wife was an only child. I had never heard of any foster relatives. He called my father-in-law "Dad." Then… who was I?

SYNOPSIS For three years, Elena Hart believed marriage was built on patience, sacrifice, and unconditional loyalty. She dedicated herself completely to her husband, billionaire heir Ryan Ashford, becoming the perfect wife his family demanded graceful, supportive, obedient, and endlessly understanding of his emotional distance. She tolerated his late nights, his increasingly cold behavior, and the subtle hostility from his family, she convinced herself that love required endurance. On the night of their third wedding anniversary, Elena expected a romantic dinner and perhaps a chance to finally reconnect with her husband. Instead, Ryan handed her divorce papers. As if that wasn't enough,he informs her that another woman is pregnant with the heir his family has been waiting for, something Elena had supposedly failed to provide. With humiliation and frustration, mixed with emotional damage, Elena signed the divorce papers and walks away from the marriage. But what Ryan did not know is that just hours before the divorce, Elena discovered she is pregnant with his child. Unable to process the betrayal and terrified for her future, Elena walked nto a night of reckless drinking in Las Vegas. She wakes the next morning in a luxury penthouse owned by Adrian Kane.. One of the most feared billionaires in the country, CEO of Kane Global, and Ryan Ashford’s greatest business rival. Without arguing much, Elena agrees to stay married to Adrian. As Elena journeys into Adrian's dangerous world of billion-dollar deals, she starts uncovering disturbing truth about her failed marriage.

Anna Walton hasn't had an easy life, but that all changes when she applies to be the caretaker for Jack Weston. The last member of a wealthy family with a rare mental illness. Each day Jack believes he is a different person, but one thing remains constant: his lust for Anna. His loyal caretaker, she fulfills his every need, but after each night she's left wondering: will she ever really know this stranger in her bed?