All works

1 Seattle, 8:00 PM. I had been waiting for two hours, sitting in front of a table full of an elaborate dinner. Today was my birthday. Simon Stone had promised to accompany me. But the clock's hands kept ticking until midnight. I was getting drowsy when the door finally opened. The time had already passed. The birthday cake sat lonely on the table, proving what day yesterday was. "You're still awake? I told you many times not to wait for me," Simon said. He took off his suit jacket with a n

My twin brother, Caspian, and I were born under a dark omen. In our kingdom, twins were believed to bring nothing but ruin and calamity. Terrified for our lives, our mother, the Queen, hid Caspian away in a damp, lightless basement. I grew up in the sun, draped in silk and drowning in affection. Meanwhile, Caspian lived like a ghost, rotting in the shadows. On the day of my coronation, Caspian approached me under the guise of a celebratory embrace. He drove a blade deep into my heart. Whe

Chapter 1 My family just won the lottery. My mother-in-law called us all together with a grave expression to divide the spoils. "One million for our new house, one million for my youngest son, and one million for our retirement. As for you―" She threw a divorce agreement right at my face. "Get the hell out of my house. You're not getting a single cent!" I didn't even argue. I scrambled to sign my name as fast as I could. These idiots had no idea. I was the one who won sixty million dollar

1. The day I lost our baby in a car wreck, Vincent Costello was driving by in his bulletproof Cadillac with his new assistant. He saw the blood spreading across my white dress. He covered the girl’s curious eyes with his hand. “Just some trash on the side of the road,” he said, his voice cold as ice. “Don’t look.” Then he hit the gas and left me in his dust. That night, in the corner of the walk-in closet in our penthouse, I found a piece of lace lingerie that wasn’t mine. I closed the do

I had been diagnosed with schizophrenia when I was a kid. I often did and said things that made no sense to normal people. Because of this, my marriage became my parents' biggest headache. My dad was the wealthiest tycoon in Chicago, and he introduced me to countless girls, but my alter ego drove every single one away with vicious curses. Nobody knew that my second personality could see right through a person's soul. Every woman brought before me was just after our money. They all had hidd

On our tenth wedding anniversary, my wife unveiled her latest jewelry collection at a high-profile press conference. Amid the gasps of the audience, she slipped a dazzling blue diamond ring onto the finger of her first love. “I once owed you a grand wedding,” she announced softly into the microphone. “Let this make up for the regrets of our past.” The multimillion-dollar ring was named “Endless Devotion.” Her first love’s initials were even carved into the platinum band. Meanwhile, that same

My sister and I were finally rescued after being kidnapped for three days. My mother, a renowned surgeon, reallocated every medical resource in the hospital just to give my terrified sister a full-body checkup. She didn't care that I was having a fatal heart attack and needed immediate resuscitation. When I begged her to save me, she only screamed in my face. "Your sister almost had a heart attack from fear! Can't you be more mature? Stop making up these lies just for attention!" In th

All I did was share a picture of my friend’s newborn with Peyton, remarking on how cute the baby was. In response, he sent five furious voice memos, calling me disgusting and accusing me of trying to baby-trap him. I drove toward his office to apologize, but a horrific car crash met me on the way. As roaring flames swallowed my car, Peyton happened to drive past, and I desperately begged him for help. He merely glared down at me with disgust before speeding away with his female secretary. T

The day I was promoted to chief surgeon, I picked up a forty-five-pound dumbbell and shattered my own right hand. The injury cost me the only evaluation surgery I had waited five years for. Everyone pitied me for throwing away a brilliant career. Meanwhile, I downed two entire bottles of vintage bourbon in pure relief. In my previous life, I stood in the operating room for ten agonizing hours to pull a patient back from the brink of death. That very patient was my wife's untouchable first lo

1 To save my childhood friend, Jason, I became a vegetable. The next year, he brought a girl, Ashley, home to my parents and said, "She's an orphan. She can take care of you in your old age." For ten years, I was trapped in my own body, witnessing Jason and Ashley fall in love. I also witnessed Ashley inheriting all of my parents' estate. The day I was finally about to wake up, Jason pulled out my oxygen tube. "Finding a new identity for Ashley has been a real headache," he muttered. That's wh

My brother was in the final stages of kidney cancer. My parents demanded I give him one of mine. I told them I only had one kidney left. I told them I would die if they took it. They didn't believe a word I said. Instead, they strapped me to the operating table. "It's just a kidney. Can't you stop being so damn selfish for once?" They didn't know I wasn't lying. Years ago, after my father's car accident, I had already donated a kidney to save him. 1 I'm dead. I died at the hands of my own

The sudden earthquake tore my wife's grave wide open. I brought a team to relocate her remains, but when the casket was pried open, I found two bodies inside. Their cold, skeletal hands were intertwined, each wearing a matching couple's ring. It was only then that I realized my wife, who had been gone for ten years, had been buried with her secret lover all along. Fuming with rage, I confronted my daughter, who had organized the funeral. She didn't look guilty. Instead, she yelled back at m

When I was thirteen, Silas Vancroft framed me and cast me out to the desolate Silver Creek wilderness. He was my betrothed, but he did it all for the sake of Shae Miller. Six years later, he returned in a luxury SUV, holding Shae's hand as they came to find me. He looked at me with cold, arrogant eyes. "I hope these years have taught you some humility," he said. "What happened back then was your fault. Don't blame me." "If I hadn't sent you to Silver Creek to fix your attitude, I could

1 Havenport, early May. It was my twenty-first birthday party. Xander, the man I'd loved for six years―the man I called my uncle―was proposing to another woman right in front of me. The room erupted in applause, but I couldn't even force a smile. All I felt was a sharp, bitter ache deep in my chest. As I stood there paralyzed, my phone began vibrating violently in my bag. I pulled it out to find a flood of messages. My thesis advisor's text was pinned right at the top, just under Xander's n

“For five years, I had been Silas Blackwood’s gilded canary. Then, that afternoon, he told me his true love was coming back.” “As I listened with my one good ear, I forced a smile. That is wonderful news, I said. Congratulations.” “He had always been generous with me. Even as he ended things, he insisted on giving me a massive sum of money.” “He told me, Elara, this is enough to keep you comfortable for the rest of your life. Consider it compensation for your hearing. From now on, we owe e

1. Hour 23 of the blizzard. My phone died filming a TikTok, the last 1% draining away. In the video, Mia was vlogging from a suite at The Zurich Grand, the Van Cleef & Arpels necklace sparkling against her neck. That was the necklace Ethan had glanced at on my birthday last year, dismissing it with, “Something that flashy doesn’t fit the professional image of a future lawyer.” Then he handed me a copy of The Federalist Papers. Now, that same necklace glittered on Mia’s collarbone. The captio

An emergency patient was rushed in during the night shift. Even though I was the attending on duty, I used a stomachache as an excuse to lock myself in the restroom. I left the sweet-talking rookie resident to handle the critical resuscitation all on her own. In my past life, I poured every ounce of my strength into saving that very same man. I pulled him back from the brink of death through pure sheer willpower. Yet when he woke up, he sued me for breaking four of his ribs during chest com

1 I wanted to bury my husband where we first met, but my children were fiercely against it. I only found out why on the day of the funeral. Louis had left a secret will behind my back. He wanted to be buried next to his first love, sharing a grave so they could continue their romance in the next life. This turned our thirty years of marriage into a complete joke. When I confronted the children I raised with my own hands, they spat insults at me. "Dad is dead. This was his only wish," Silas

1 It was my third year of marriage when my widowed sister, Sarah, came to me with a bizarre request: she wanted to borrow my husband's "seed." I flat-out refused. My mom acted like I was betraying her blood. Mark, my husband, called me a fake sister. Even my six-year-old, Timmy, whined, calling me heartless. That night, I walked Mark to Sarah's room myself. The whole family was beaming, praising my "selflessness." I just smiled. I've always been generous with things I'm about to throw awa

At our wedding, my fiancé took his childhood sweetheart by the hand and called off our engagement in front of everyone. "Gwen, being with you will never make me happy. It's pure torture." "I only want to be with Savannah. She's the true love of my life." I took off my bridal veil and gave a cold smile. Carter Shaw only had everything he owned today because of my family. Chasing true love? Then go chase it straight into the gutter. My younger brother sneered, "Whoever dares to invest in th