The Lies He Told Me

Vivian Harrison used to be an ordinary nurse at the hospital, but she had the rare Rh-negative blood type. Three years ago, she saved the life of the king of the underworld, Archie Palmer, who had been on the brink of death, with her blood. From that moment on, she had completely fallen for him. However, when Archie awoke, he just coldly handed her a marriage contract. "I never owe anyone a favor." The marriage, in the name of repaying a favor, became a gilded cage that confined Vivian for three years. Archie made Vivian his wife, yet he gave all his tenderness and devotion to a vivacious and innocent woman-Cassie Fuller. He would drive across half the city on a stormy night just to stay with Cassie because she was afraid of the dark. He would spend a fortune at an auction to acquire a piece of priceless jewelry, because Cassie said she liked it. Yet, all he ever offered Vivian was endless indifference and suspicion. When Cassie suffered even the slightest grievance, he would unhesitatingly lay all the blame on Vivian and even torment and punish Vivian in the cruelest ways. "Your blood disgusts me as much as you do, Vivian." Later, when Vivian took a fatal bullet for him and lay bleeding on the ground, he walked coldly past her, holding the frightened Cassie in his arms, without sparing Vivian even a glance. At that moment, Vivian finally understood that this marriage was nothing but a joke from the start. She decided that she would no longer play along with Archie. But when Vivian, her body battered and broken, resolutely left Archie, and Archie, who had always claimed he never loved Vivian, for the first time felt his eyes sting, and frantically searched for her all over the world.

Seven years ago, my fiancé, Don Dante Moretti, sent me to prison to take the fall for my adopted sister, Chiara. He called it a gift—a way to protect me from a worse fate. Today, he picked me up from prison only to abandon me at my family's estate. His reason? Chiara was having another one of her "episodes." My parents then informed me I'd be staying in the third-floor storage room, so as not to disturb the fragile girl who stole my life. They celebrated her "recovery" with a lavish dinner party, while I was treated like a ghost. When I refused to join, my mother hissed that I was ungrateful, and my father called me jealous. They assumed I couldn't understand their venomous whispers. But prison was my university. I learned Spanish. I understood every word. It was then I realized I wasn't just a sacrifice; I was disposable. The love I once felt for all of them had turned to ash. That night, in the dusty storage room, I logged onto an encrypted channel I'd set up years ago. A single message was waiting: "The offer stands. Do you accept?" My hands, scarred and steady, typed back, "I accept."

On the same day she undergoes a life-altering surgery, a woman is blindsided by her husband's cold demand for a divorce. While she fights for her life on the operating table, her spouse is already moving on, leaving her to face a brutal betrayal alone. Set against a backdrop of dangerous mafia ties and modern high society, this story follows her journey as she navigates the wreckage of her marriage and seeks a path toward personal reclamation.

The smell of leaking gasoline burned my nostrils, but the cold look in my husband's eyes hurt worse. Trapped in the overturned car, I watched Jacob reach in. He didn't reach for me, his wife. He unbuckled his mistress, Cassandra, shielding her head with a tenderness he never showed me. He walked away, leaving me to burn. I survived, but at a brutal cost. My right hand—the hand that played Chopin—was crushed into a useless claw. Jacob didn't apologize. Instead, he moved Cassandra into our home. He let her wear my diamonds, mock my injuries, and burn my sheet music. When I tried to expose her embezzlement, he called me unstable. To punish me for "betraying the family," he dug up my mother's grave and threw her ashes into the sea. That was the moment the wife died, and something else was born. He thought he had buried me under the weight of his cruelty. He didn't realize he had planted a seed. I staged my death and vanished into the snowy streets of Vienna. Five years later, I am a world-renowned composer, and Jacob is a ruined man in a wheelchair, begging for a forgiveness I no longer have the energy to give.

My new boss is gorgeous, arrogant, and filthy rich. The only problem? He doesn't know he's also the father of my baby. Six years ago, I was supposed to get married. But the night before the wedding, my groom-to-be showed me sides of himself I'd never seen before. I might've died in that hotel room... If Mikhail Novikov hadn't burst in to save me. Handsome, strong, capable knight in shining armor-sign me up, right? WRONG. Because Mikhail wasn't just the hero I never knew I needed... He was also way more dangerous than I ever could've known. But for one night, I let myself do something I never should've done. It was worth it-several times over, if you catch my drift. In the morning, though, I did the reasonable I RAN. For six years, I keep running. Until I walk into work one day, and find my new boss waiting in my office. Guess who? And guess what he does when finds out about our baby?

I went to the bank to set up a trust fund for my twins, only to have the manager look at me with pity. "Mrs. Dunlap, the trust requires the *biological* mother's signature." I froze. I *was* their mother. Or so I thought. That day, I learned my husband, the most powerful Mafia Don on the coast, had used his ex-lover’s frozen eggs. For six years, I wasn't his wife. I was just the incubator. When his "true love," Iliana, returned from exile, my life disintegrated. My children, poisoned by her lies, pushed me down the stairs and called me "just the nanny." Gavyn didn't help me up. He stepped over my bleeding body to take his "real family" out for ice cream. But the ultimate betrayal happened on a windswept cliff. Staged by Iliana, we were both tied up, allegedly rigged to explode. Forced to choose who to save, Gavyn didn't hesitate. He cut Iliana loose. "You did this to yourself, Alex," he said, driving away with the children, leaving me to die. He thought he was leaving behind a corpse. He didn't know I had skimmed ten million dollars from the household accounts. "Cut me loose," I told the hitman, transferring the money. "And tell him the ocean took me." Two years later, the Don is on his knees in my garden, begging for a second chance. Too bad he has to get through my new fiancé first—the head of the rival cartel.