the hitcher 2 i've been waiting

"Upon discovering I was pregnant, I excitedly rushed to my husband’s company to put our baby down as our insurance beneficiary. However, I was shocked to read my husband’s file. Partner: Victoria Winston Children: Jack Hudson, Sophia Hudson. I froze. The HR manager said the woman was his legally wedded wife and the heiress to the largest hotel chain on the East Coast. Their children were already seven years old. It felt like my world was crumbling down around me. If she was his wife, what was I? His mistress of five years? His friend with benefits? Even more absurdly, I was now pregnant with his child. A child who would never be acknowledged by their father. An illegitimate child. I nodded dazedly. My whole body felt weak. The man I considered my husband was never mine. Even after death, his gravestone would not have my name!"

My fiance, Dante de Rossi, is the heir to a mafia family in Manhorne, and he loves me dearly. Yet, a month before our wedding, he says his family has arranged for him to have a baby with his childhood friend, Isobel de Luca. Despite my refusal to agree to it, he brings it up daily and tries to push me into it. Half a month before the wedding, I receive a pregnancy report. I find out that Isobel is over a month pregnant. I have yet to give Dante my permission. This is when I realize just how fragile our years-long relationship is. I cancel the wedding and destroy everything he has ever given me. On the day of the wedding, I set off for Etolia to further my medical career. I accept a role with an international medical organization, severing all ties with the mafia. From that moment onward, he and I no longer have anything to do with each other!

I am diagnosed with severe systemic lupus erythematosus, and I only have three days left to live. When my husband rejects my 188th plea for help, I take my test results and enter the hospice care center. "Hello, I'd like to schedule my own cremation process and apply for government aid." Ten minutes later, they arrive. Before I can speak, my lawyer husband, Jasper Horton, coldly slaps me across the face. "You're faking a terminal illness just to steal attention from Janice?" My doctor brother, Casey Carter, snatches the medical report from my hand and scoffs at it. "Lupus? If you're going to fake being sick, at least make it believable. Only one in a million people gets this." I endure the pain in my body, return to the counter, and hand in the application form and my medical records once more. The staff member sees the butterfly-shaped rash on my wrist and sympathizes with me. "I have no family left," I say. "I'm requesting cremation in three days, location doesn't matter. I just don't want my death to burden anyone."

When the apocalypse hit, and 90% of humanity turned into zombies,I, Oliver Burton, accidentally activated the Romance System. To my surprise, it didn't just apply to humans, and I ended up bound to Emily, a beautiful zombie girl. By feeding her raw meat, I slowly gained affection points. Things got complicated when my treacherous neighbors, Jack and Katie, demanded food. I saw through their plans and refused. A conflict brewed as they plotted a raid, but I was already one step ahead.

I grew up abroad. My mother feared I might marry a foreign man, so she arranged an engagement for me with a talented and handsome man in Flodon. She insisted that I return home to get engaged. I came back and started shopping for an engagement dress at a luxury boutique. I selected an off-white strapless gown and decided to try it on. Suddenly, a woman nearby glanced at the dress in my hand and told the saleswoman, “That’s a unique design. Let me try it.” The saleswoman immediately yanked it out of my hands. I protested indignantly, “Excuse me, I was here first. Don’t you understand the principle of ‘first come, first served’? Or do you just not care about common decency?” The woman scoffed and retorted, “This dress costs $188,000. Do you really think a broke nobody like you can even afford it? “I’m Lucas Goodwin’s sister in all but blood. He’s the chairman of Goodwin’s Group. In Flodon, the Goodwin family sets the rules.” What a coincidence! Lucas Goodwin was my fiance! I immediately called him and said, “Hey, your ‘sister in all but blood’ just stole my engagement dress. Do something about it.”

In her past life, Portia Brooks injures her legs trying to save her birth mother, only to get drained dry by her bloodsucking family while her fiance and sister hook up right over her deathbed. This time around,she cuts them all off without a second thought. She destroys her parasitic family, dumps her cheating fiance, and completely destroys her backstabbing sister. With her incredible skills at restoring antiques, Portia quickly marries Wesley Locke, Northden's richest man,and uses his connections to get her revenge. Family love that shows up too late is worthless. This time, she only protects her adoptive mother and her real love, making sure her enemies pay with everything they've got.

Leonard Miller nearly dies a dozen times completing every level of a mysterious game in closed beta. The moment he returns to the real world, the game goes live.On Earth, for everyone, whether they signed up or not. Dragged back in against his will, Leonard has one edge no other player does: he's already been through all of it. Armed with maxed-out attributes and complete knowledge of every trap and pattern, he tears through the stages, protects the people he loves, builds alliances, and slowly pieces together a chilling truth that a higher civilization has been using Earth as a playground. He intends to shut it down permanently.

Leonard Miller nearly dies a dozen times completing every level of a mysterious game in closed beta. The moment he returns to the real world, the game goes live.On Earth, for everyone, whether they signed up or not. Dragged back in against his will, Leonard has one edge no other player does: he's already been through all of it. Armed with maxed-out attributes and complete knowledge of every trap and pattern, he tears through the stages, protects the people he loves, builds alliances, and slowly pieces together a chilling truth that a higher civilization has been using Earth as a playground. He intends to shut it down permanently.

When the apocalypse hit, and 90% of humanity turned into zombies,I, Oliver Burton, accidentally activated the Romance System. To my surprise, it didn't just apply to humans, and I ended up bound to Emily, a beautiful zombie girl. By feeding her raw meat, I slowly gained affection points. Things got complicated when my treacherous neighbors, Jack and Katie, demanded food. I saw through their plans and refused. A conflict brewed as they plotted a raid, but I was already one step ahead.

My husband cheated with my high school first love, the one I personally betrayed. She hated me to the bone, plotting revenge with precision. But what she didn't know was I heartlessly left her back then to protect her, because I was actually the illegitimate daughter of a corporate chairman. I choose to accept her revenge, to repay that betrayal. Yet between hatred and testing, our buried feelings spiraled out of control. I couldn't help but kiss her. As revenge began to waver, love rekindled. A forbidden romance born from betrayal was about to go beyond control.

"Selene, your bloodline is too lowly. You don't deserve to be a Luna! You must let your Alpha mark his sister-in-law!" My mother-in-law despises me because I'm a lowly Omega. When my mate's brother dies in an accident, my mother-in-law wants me to allow my mate, Eugene Latham, to have pups with his sister-in-law, Kristy Unwin, because of her superior bloodline. Otherwise, Eugene will lose his right to become Alpha! Eugene wraps his arms around me tenderly and says, "You're the only one in my heart, but you need to understand that the pack can't go without an Alpha. I'll announce to everyone that you're my Luna once Kristy's pregnant and I become Alpha, okay?" I love him deeply, so I believe him. However, when Eugene goes from sleeping with Kristy once a month to sleeping with me once a month, I realize he's no longer a mate who belonged to me alone. When Kristy announces that she's pregnant and that she and Eugene are going to get married, I'm the only one who's kept in the dark. My heart shatters into pieces when I see the glimmering Luna's ring on her finger. If this is what Eugene wants, I'll fake my death and leave him. I won't ever return.

On my sweet sixteen, my three brothers came home with a girl named Sylvie. They said I have to treat her like my family. I didn’t think much would change. But years later, everything did. Jace, my youngest brother, shoved me down the stairs for her. Asher—the oldest, who once promised he'd protect me forever—told me to get out. So I left. Quietly. They thought I was just acting out. So they took Sylvie to France, didn't even bothering to check in What they didn’t know was that I’d signed my name on a contract—one that aligned me with our family’s biggest rival by becoming their youngest chemist. Written in black and white, I could never go home again. The night they found out I was really gone for good? They broke. Every last one of them.

Emily Davis has never been in a relationship before. But for a chance to win $210,000, she teams up with her best friend of 24 years, Alex Carter, and pretends to be his ""friends with benefits"" on a steamy reality dating show. She thought she just had to fake it for the cameras. But from the very first night, Emily finds herself having to kiss—and even sleep in the same bed with—other male contestants like Noah Parker and Nathan Harris. For someone who's never been with a man before, this wild, provocative experiment is a whole new world. Can Emily keep her secret and make it to the end for the grand prize, or will her true self be exposed under all the heat?

To test his loyalty, my stepsister, Wendy Lidell, drugged my childhood friend. Then, she shoved me into his room. Unable to watch Connor Gordon suffer, I willingly helped him through the night. In a fit of pique, Wendy ran off and married a cruel mafia don. I got pregnant, and Connor was forced to marry me. At that point, he started to despise me. During the ten long years of marriage, he treated me and our son coldly. But during a flood overseas, he sacrificed his life to get me and our son back on solid land. I failed to keep my grip on him. As he sank into the depths, he looked at me and said, “If we could redo everything, make sure you don’t help me that night.” Those words stung me greatly, and I fainted right away. When I next opened my eyes, I found that I had gone back in time. I had traveled back to the night when Wendy had drugged Connor and locked me in his room.

On our seventh wedding anniversary, I was straddling my Mafia husband, Lucian, kissing him deeply. My fingers fumbled in the pocket of my expensive silk dress, searching for the pregnancy test I'd hidden there. I wanted to save the news of my unexpected pregnancy for the end of the evening. Lucian's right-hand man, Marco, asked with a suggestive smile in Italian: "Don, your new little canary, Sophia. How does she taste?" Lucian's mocking laughter vibrated through my chest, sending a chill down my spine. He replied, also in Italian: "Like an unripe peach. Fresh and tender." His hand was still caressing my waist, but his gaze was distant. "Just keep this between us. If my Donna finds out, I'm a dead man." His men chuckled knowingly, raising their glasses and swearing their silence. The warmth in my blood turned to ice, inch by inch. The one thing they didn’t know was that my grandmother was from Sicily, so I understood every word. I forced myself to remain calm, keeping the perfect smile of a Donna fixed in place, but the hand holding my champagne flute trembled. Instead of making a scene, I opened my phone, found the invitation I had received a few days ago for a private international medical research project, and tapped "Accept." In three days, I would disappear from Lucian's world completely.

I'm lying here, my body burning from within as the wolfsbane spreads through my veins. Meanwhile, my Alpha mate, Ryan, is giving the antidote I discovered to his childhood sweetheart, Vivian. With what little strength remains, I beg him to spare just a portion of the cure—enough to keep me alive for a few more days while I search for another remedy. Ryan doesn't even glance my way. He snarls, "I can't believe you're faking illness when Vivian is fighting for her life! Control your jealousy before I lose all respect for you!" Under his command, I'm confined to my quarters to "contemplate my sins." In the end, the wolfsbane consumes me completely. When Ryan discovers what he's done, he digs my grave with his own hands, howling with regret that comes too late.

A daughter of a wealthy family was swapped out at birth. From then on, she had been on the receiving end of bullying and malicious schemes until a rich, young man came along and showered her with love.

Emily Davis has never been in a relationship before. But for a chance to win $210,000, she teams up with her best friend of 24 years, Alex Carter, and pretends to be his ""friends with benefits"" on a steamy reality dating show. She thought she just had to fake it for the cameras. But from the very first night, Emily finds herself having to kiss—and even sleep in the same bed with—other male contestants like Noah Parker and Nathan Harris. For someone who's never been with a man before, this wild, provocative experiment is a whole new world. Can Emily keep her secret and make it to the end for the grand prize, or will her true self be exposed under all the heat?