S.S.Tulip

Six years ago, Catherine Bell signed a contract she barely understood. Fifty-fifty, he called it. Fair. Equal. Clean. What it really meant was simple. Everything would be divided. The bills. The responsibilities. The children. Even her suffering. For six years, she carried the weight of a marriage built on numbers while her husband measured love like a business transaction. She gave up promotions, endured lonely pregnancies, raised their twins almost alone, and kept their home together—believing that if she gave enough, one day he'd finally see her. He never did. Until the day she stopped giving. Now, Catherine places a neatly compiled ledger in front of Mason Blake—six years of invisible labor, sacrifices, and broken promises, calculated down to the last cent. Debts he never knew existed. Debts money can never truly repay. Then she does something he never imagined. She starts living by his rules. Fifty-fifty. As the life he'd taken for granted slowly falls apart around him, Mason discovers that money can replace labor... but it can never replace love. And by the time he finally understands what she was worth, Catherine has already learned the one lesson that changes everything. She never needed him. Now the man who built his marriage on equality is drowning in the very numbers he once worshipped. Because some things were never meant to be split in half. Especially a heart.

They buried her. She came back as their mother. Freya Calloway was the genius who built her family's empire — and the embarrassment they hid from every photograph. Too fat to stand beside them. Too sharp to be loved. Her husband, Adrian, was the only one who never looked through her. Until she came home early one afternoon and found him in bed with her adopted sister. When she confronted them, they didn't beg. They pushed her off a balcony, dumped her in the woods, and told the world she'd run away with another man. Her own parents buried an empty coffin to protect the family name. But Freya didn't die. Three years later, she returns to Chicago with a new face, a new fortune, and a new name — and a proposal no one saw coming. She won't be marrying Adrian. She'll be marrying his godfather. Now the woman they tried to erase is inside their walls, at their table, holding their futures in her hands — smiling sweetly as she dismantles everything, one at a time. They called her a disappointment. They're about to call her Mother.

Emily Brown has spent her entire life being the perfect daughter and the perfect fiancée. She follows the rules, protects her reputation, and keeps her secrets buried. After all, she knows what happens to women who become the subject of a scandal. Then she meets Adrian Carter. A ruthless billionaire. Her fiancé’s uncle. A man who always gets what he wants. And now, he wants her. One forbidden encounter spirals into a dangerous affair, and Adrian has no intention of letting Emily walk away. He doesn't care about the consequences, the whispers, or the woman he's expected to marry. He wants Emily, and he's determined to have her. But Emily has everything to lose. With a cheating fiancé, a jealous rival, and a family that values reputation over the truth, she cannot afford to let her forbidden desire destroy the carefully constructed life she's spent years protecting. Yet the more she tries to resist Adrian, the harder it becomes to deny what she feels for him. And when the shadows of her mother's scandal begin to resurface, Emily discovers that some secrets are far more dangerous than forbidden love. Adrian might be the man who ruins her reputation. But he could also be the only man willing to uncover the truth that destroyed her family.