Jealous Billionaire’s Endless Regret

Obsessed Billionaires, Cherished Brides #8

by Ava Selwyn

He believed she’d come running back—now he’s running after her.

“You love me unconditionally, but I want a divorce. I need to marry someone else.”

When Lorenzo Moretti said those words, he watched the light die in Krystal Vale’s eyes.

For two years, she had been the perfect wife—sweet, obedient, calling him ‘baby,’ delivering his meals three times a day, rain or shine. A woman with no family, no friends, no complaints. Just devotion to a man who never once looked back.

“I’ll give you anything in return. A hundred million,” he offered.

“I don’t want it. Let’s get a divorce,” she replied, and vanished before he even got home.

He thought she would return once she grew tired.

She never did.

Somehow, tracking down his orphaned housewife with no ties has become impossible for the richest billionaire in the country—and it’s driving him mad!

Krystal couldn’t be happier leaving that ‘Human Cactus’ behind. Who even wants to stay married to him?

Now, she asks for a divorce every single day, and for some reason, he’s the one losing his mind.

Isn’t he the one who asked for this?

Things to know about this

Second Chance RomanceFL who finally stops chasingAngsty RomanceA lot of GrovelAll the books in the Obsessed Billionaires, Cherished Brides Series are standalone novels and can be read in any order. They are intended for an adult audience only.

Genres: Romance, Second Chance, Contemporary, Contemporary Romance, Billionaire Romance, Second Chance Romance, Billionaires

469 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 30, 2025

About the author

Ava Selwyn is an Asian, steamy billionaire romance author with a passion for angst, heartache, and love that burns with intensity. She creates worlds filled with powerful, possessive men who crave to give everything to the women they love. Her stories are drenched in longing, desperate passion, and unforgettable happily-ever-afters.

When she's not writing, Ava loves to travel, indulging in new cuisines and exploring diverse cultures. She lives with her many fictional husbands, who never fail to keep her heart racing.

Reviews

[Cynthia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Okay…

This book reads like a fever dream or better yet, a chaotic collage of ideas copy-pasted from someone’s Notes app at 3 a.m.

The reasoning behind anything that happens is absolutely ridiculous. The writing? Incomprehensible. It jumps between timelines and settings so erratically it feels like the author was playing Mad Libs with her own plot. At times, it’s so absurd it starts to resemble a sketch from an unfunny comedy show.

The female lead? A certified, full time, top tier idiot. And she’s not alone ohhh no, she’s in good company with the male lead and the mysterious “Esther” (aka crazy bitch), who somehow manages to make everything even more confusing.

The fact that she’s supposedly relieved she doesn’t have to deal with “the cactus” (the husband), yet still chooses to cosplay as the perfect Stepford wife for the sake of emotional martyrdom? I wanted to gouge out my eyes, boil them, and toss them into the nearest river just to avoid the risk of reading anything like this ever again.

Oh, and the plot twist? (“one of many”) They were both drugged two years ago and had sex. But wait! Let’s make them both virgins (romantic, I know). And because they were drugged, neither of them realizes it was each other that night. Fast forward two years, and they’re both still obsessing over that one hazy, anonymous encounter, haunted by the memory of some mysterious stranger they apparently had life-changing sex with (while “fully” unconscious, mind you).

Then comes the second time: only he is drugged this time because crazy Esther is trying to seduce him. Meanwhile, the female lead shows up because, oh yeah, someone literally put a price on his head. You’d think she’d be concerned about who drugged him, or maybe even try to keep him safe?

But no. Instead of, I don’t know, doing anything remotely responsible, she just gets swept up in the moment and lets herself be “seduced” by a completely drugged man. Yep. That’s what we’re doing now.

And of course, despite being drugged and out of it, he magically remembers her scent and how she “felt,” and begins to suspect she might be the mystery girl from two years ago. Naturally. Also naturally, he’s somehow a full-fledged sex god while she’s still fumbling around with softcore amateur hour vibes.

Also, just to add to the chaos: the whole “there’s a price on his head” plot point? Completely forgotten. Never mentioned again.

Just like everything else this book randomly throws in and then immediately discards. Consistency? Never heard of her.

And then there’s Esther, the walking red flag with a mysterious illness that may or may not exist. Multiple times, it’s implied (sometimes outright stated) that she’s faking it. At one point, she even declares herself magically cured right in front of him… because the female lead was supposedly going to inject her with—drumroll, please—poison (it was actually just water). I truly wish I were making that up, but alas, this is the reality of the plot we’re working with.

Oh, and let’s not forget this gem: she ends up marrying him. Why? Because she’s his doctor and she had to help him recover after a car accident—so naturally, that means they must get married.

It’s so bland and lifeless that I genuinely don’t understand how it has more than one star. I’ve read cereal boxes with more depth.

The only remotely well written scene is the infamous “first/second/was it even consensual?” sex scene. It’s weirdly detailed so much so that I had to pause and wonder if the author briefly hired a ghostwriter just for that part.

English isn’t my first language, and still I was left baffled by the writing style. It reads like one of those TikTok game ads, the ones where characters have a baby and someone cheats every 15 seconds.

Honestly, you’d find better structure, character development, and emotional logic on Wattpad. Written by 13 year olds.

[Night reader · Rating 1 out of 5]

one of the dumbest things I've read.

[Jeanette Wolfe · Rating 1 out of 5]

It is so bad. . . it is difficult to know where to start.

to get into this book you'd either have to suspend any intellectual capacity or be a preteen who doesn't know jack about the world to deal with this level of immaturity and ridiculousness while all of it is so overdramatic.

First, I have to say the plot has so many mistakes or holes or conceptual issues -- I don't know what you'd call it, but it's all over the place, and it is ridiculous. Blood clots in the nerves within the brain? What is the name of that condition? Then there's the incongruity of how the male lead is supposed to be this strong, powerful, muscular, uber tough guy, but he has some health condition caused by a car wreck that causes him to shake that she had to cure him of. The cure that took two years and a powder put on his food or drink three times a day that he remained completely unaware of? So a magic non-commercial pharmaceutical cure and not a surgical intervention. Yet Krystal is a renowned neurosurgeon, not a neurologist? And this mysterious shaking didn't affect his strength or stamina? Okay, sure. Was it horn from some nearly extinct animal, the internal organs of some mythical creature? Oh wait, it was unicorn horn, mixed with fairy farts.

Then there's the plot holes around the whole reason she's married to the jerk, which is repayment of a debt to his grandfather who paid for her education. How has she gotten all this experience practicing Neurosurgery and is so famous but is still super young and hasn't practiced in 2 years yet is still current on her medical license, huh? How would her ex-husband's personal assistant know she hadn't touched the alimony money from looking at the divorce papers? Wouldn't he need to look at their joint account? I mean, they didn't offer her a check that she could have torn up. The vehicle that swerved in front of Crystal and her friend/brother/ whoever Darren is, blocking Darren's car started out as an SUV and then is described as a Maserati Quattroport which is a high-end luxury sedan not an SUV.

I mean it's just everything about how this was written, it's so childish, immature, and the details conflict with each other, the language is ridiculous, the bragging -- oh Lorenzo is the best of everything, she's the best of neurosurgeon (that hasn't practiced in over 2 years except on her husband, the one client who didn't know she was treating him), her friend is the best of everything -- come on. The whole thing reads like a puffed up braggard parade. Consequently, I couldn't make it past the ridiculousness of the plot, the language, the writing style -- ooh, and the diction writing seems straight out of AI generated content-- but it didn't fix the problems with the plot or the storyline. So yeah, I did not finish. From what I did read, I have to say this is some of the worst I've ever experienced.

[Joanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Comedy of Errors

This is over the top telenovela meets koreanovela sprinkled with a little bollywood drama and anime reactions.

There might be spoilers ahead. But honestly the plot twists kept twisting. There were many loose ends. And misunderstanding miscommunication trope was well used in this one. The FMC has a secret identity which he hides by wearing a face mask. She is a broke world renowned surgeon. Yes. She escapes discovery by changing from doctor clothes to civilian clothes. These are just a few of the scenarios that when put together just seem like a comedy of errors. The internal thoughts are ridiculously hilarious. The story had so many things going on but nothing truly made sense.
The only good thing I can say about this is that it is not a dark book. No actual cheating. But the whole plot borders on silliness and cringeness. To that effect it is a light read if you are into comedy.

[Jetscarbie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Do you know those fb ads where you see like a preview of 3 or 4 chapters of a book, then they want you to click the link to download the app? And that app just wants your $$$$$$? Well, this is definitely one of the books I've seen in those ads. Sometimes the names are changed, or they will add an shifter/rejected mate to the storyline, but it is literally the same story. That made me curious, so I went to look further into this author's books. I read more and more blurbs from the different books she has on Amazon. THEY ARE ALL FAMILIAR! It's all so bizarre.

[Tmstprc]

This repeatedly popped up in my FB feed, and I caved… painfully bad, DNF @ 30% and that was 25% too much.

[Margerm, Pat · Rating 2 out of 5]

For me this book was a disjointed collection of preposterous events rather than a cohesive story. The h and H characters didn't seem to evolve and grow. For quite a chunk of the book the H seemed to be enraged and physically violent.
The story begins with the H asking the h for a divorce after two years of marriage. The H married the h at his grandfather's request. The h an expert doctor married the H so that she could secretly administer the medication he needed to cure nerve damage that resulted from a car accident. She was able to treat the H by hiding the medicine in the meals she delivered to him three times a day despite the weather - blizzards.
This is just one of the implausible premises of the story.
The H is cold and distant to his wife through their two years of marriage to protect her from the mess that is a result of his belief that he had sex with an OW while drugged and that he is responsible for the nerve damage that she suffered in the same car accident. It wasn't the OW he had sex with, it was the h.
There are many plot holes and unbelievable coincidences like the h find a slip of paper with a name that is the same as hers with info about a two month pregnancy.
I skimmed through several chapters that included scenes of sexual intimacy between the H and h that seemed to be very aggresive and in which the h continually said "ahhh'. it did not work for me.

[rez · Rating 4 out of 5]

its a guilty pleasure book. kinda basic but fun to read if ur bored. I understand all the reviews saying it sucked cuz it lowkey did but also didnt😭😭

[A.B. Shepherd]

DNF: 26%

I've fallen for the tiktok hype again.

You know those movies like Sharknado that are so bad that you kinda guiltily enjoy them?

Well this is kind of like that except I'm not really enjoying it.

Unrealistic situations, unrealistic dialogue, and ridiculous plot.

This book looked so good - marketed saying he asked her for a divorce so he could marry someone else, then becomes upset because she leaves without a fight, right?

Well that's true enough I guess, but the circumstances are so convoluted it's ludicrous and he has no idea who he is even married to. 🙄

[Georgen Charnes · Rating 1 out of 5]

Once again I was seduced by a Facebook ad to read a terrible book. It happens late at night, when I'm scrolling mindlessly, tired, and not wanting to go to bed. I'll be offered book after book, and I'll finally just click it, and then feel obligated to read it. I have to stop.

So, the setup is, a wildly WORLD FAMOUS SURGEON marries the grandson of a man who put her through medical school, because she has a miracle cure for the grandson's shaking hands, caused by a car accident he had two years ago. She has to put powder in his food and it will cure him. A wee bit sketchy on the medical stuff, I think. But HE does not know that she's anything other than a housewife, and assumes she's totally incompetent at everything. She's secretly saving him. Why, I don't know. Why wouldn't he just take this magic powder himself? Why would it need to be in secret? He could hire a medical aid if he's incompetent with taking medicine.

So, it's a sexless marriage - the grandfather made him marry her, and she pretends to be a doormat for two years. So she can put the powder in his food.

So, two years ago she was raped. She was drugged and put into a car with an unknown man who was also drugged with an aphrodisiac that made him uncontrollably sexual. So there's third party responsible. Oh, and you're not supposed think of this as rape. And again, a wee bit sketchy on medical facts about how aphrodisiacs work.

He asks for a divorce because he thinks the EVIL WOMAN who is faking being sick was the one he raped and then was in an accident with. He believes he owes her. Our FMC leaves with no money, but then when he wants to consult her as a WORLD FAMOUS SURGEON, not knowing they're the same person, she totally rips him off. There are huge amounts of money being thrown around - he offers her $100 million as alimony (I think she meant as a settlement), she charges $200 million for a medical consult (although this number changes occasionally over the rest of the book). But luckily, she looked in the EVIL WOMAN's mouth and could tell that she's not ill, as all the other doctors say, but is taking medication that causes blood clots. So, again, might have wanted to spend a couple of hours on WebMD before writing this, since the author's confused being a physician with being a psychic.

The guy and the WORLD FAMOUS SURGEON/HOUSEWIFE DOORMAT run into each other every day in the great big city of Manhattan. He wants to know where she is as his wife and as the surgeon. Luckily, no one can recognize her as his wife (including him) when she wears a facemask. Every sidekick/man knows how to hack into cctv feed and wipe it clean. One is a guy who it's implied she used to grift around with, moving from town to town. But if so, when did she become a WORLD FAMOUS SURGEON?

This tried to be a screwball comedy, but then about 3/4 of the way through becomes a more traditional romance novel without the hidden identity aspect. There's a few sex scenes, and they are LONG - like a chapter and a half each.

I like reading light books. I usually have something more substantive going as an audiobook and want something light to read in the pool. But man, this was below my very low standards.

[Moochi · Rating 2 out of 5]

was it badly written?? yes. did I read everything?? yes
this book is like those YouTube shorts about a ceo and his white lotus😭😭

[Aarann · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an entirely OTT soap opera and really had some plotting issues. But I'll admit, it was a little fun.

Lorenzo and Krystal were married for two years. He married her because... I dunno, his grandfather wanted him to...? She married him because he had a mysterious illness that only she, secretly a world-renowned surgeon working under the alias Dr. Astra, who can apparently cure anything and specializes in everything, including what sounds like some sort of hand tremors with a special medication only she knows the formula for. Only Lorenzo doesn't know any of this, only that he didn't want to marry her, and wants to marry OW. See, Lorenzo was in a car accident prior to the marriage, which caused his hand tremors, and so was OW, who now has a mysterious blood clotting disease that keeps her sick and infirm.

This car accident must have involved toxic waste for all the weird side effects it caused.

But there's even more to the story. I'm going to refrain from going into it right now because I want to keep this relatively spoiler free. The point is, after being married for two years, Lorenzo and Krystal have never consummated their relationship, she secretly calls him a "Human Cactus" and can't wait to get out of their marriage because he really is a jerk to her, but yet she makes sure to bring him breakfast, lunch, and dinner all day every day because that has his medication in it that he doesn't know he's taking. I'm just curious if the grandfather ever tried saying, "Hey, so I know this miracle doctor who can cure your hand tremors." At first I thought even the grandfather didn't know about Krystal's secret identity, despite paying for all her medical school, and she just did this as a solid to pay him back without him knowing, but later in the book it seems like he knew who she was all along.

And then there's Krystal's secret identity. After refusing $100 million from Lorenzo from the divorce and "disappearing," (there's an implication she might be in danger, but no one ever says why that would be) she shows up in OW's room as Dr. Astra (scrubs, mask, hair covered, etc.), figures out immediately with almost zero examination that OW is faking most of her symptoms, and demands that same $100 million she just turned down to cure her, which of course, Lorenzo (the dummy) provides. Since OW isn't actually sick (or rather, she is, but it's her own doing), Dr. Astra bounces with half the money and after being chased, disappears into a hallway, only for "Krystal" to come out and everyone's all, Krystal! Why are you here after disappearing for so long? Did you see Dr. Astra?! and Krystal is all, I dunno, someone in scrubs went thataway! This happens two or three times over the course of the book -- Astra wearing a mask, disappears and Krystal reappears and she's all innocent, I do not know who is this Dr. Astra of whom you speak, but I did see someone sneaking out a window a few moments ago. She lets him think she's everything short of a call girl, so his jealousy escalates even though he genuinely seemed to want nothing to do with her at the beginning of the book.

And I am leaving so, so, so much out. This is the stuff I consider non-spoilery.

Honestly, this wasn't good and the plotting seemed like it was done as the author wrote the scenes, but it was a lot of silly fun, and I finished it, so the joke's on me. I can't even say it was a hateread because I was cackling at how totally dumb Lorenzo was (totally Lois Lane to Krystal's Clark Kent/Superman schtick). That said, I'm not sure I'll pick this author up again.

Buuuuut I'm also not sure I won't.

[Çilek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reread it at school today bcs i was bored and i remembered that i actually tlly liked this book and that it was so fun. Was it good and well written? Well........ no! But i had a fun time :p

[Serial Romance Librarian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Why did I read this? I don’t know. The plot was all over the place. The push/pull between the MC’s was exhausting and insufferable. It was so disjointed and all over the place. I don’t know why I wasted my time, honestly.

[Dee Dee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Krystal Vale married Lorenzo Moretti in order to repay a debt to his grandfather. But then she fell in love with him. Just as her obligation was met Lorenzo asked Krystal for a divorce. She signed the papers with no argument and without asking for a thing from him. But that's not what he wanted. He expected her to come running back to him. He wanted her to come back to him. He wanted her to love him. Was it too late? In the midst of the "are they divorced or not" there were other issues circling them and past lies and present danger involved. This is a really fun book. It's the most elaborate tale of hide and seek I've ever read. I'd love to see more books of this quality from this author.

[Sora · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK, so I started this book because of the drama and the chasing, and I have to say—it was really fun.
I genuinely enjoyed it.
It was basically a plotless book full of drama and Lorenzo regretting everything.
It wasn’t the best, but if you just want something entertaining to read, it’s good.
I only read this one and then found out it’s a series—and this was the last book.
So now I’m going to start from the first one and read the rest 😂😂

[cara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I could read a 100 in this series
Safe

[reehbeeh {fŕęe Pălésťinè}☪️ · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh my eyes.....it's so badly written.

The whole story seemed like those Instagram novels that shows up on our fyp

[‧₊˚ ☁️sophie ☾｡♡⊹。 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is all for funsies 🤭🤭

[Lisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really need to stop falling for these Instagram ads. This book kept popping up in my feed highlighting the part where the hero, Lorenzo, just casually announces to his wife, Krystal, that they should divorce. And then she accepts it without argument and leaves with nothing. Flash back to Lorenzo and he cruelly asks his lackey if Krystal kicked up a fuss on her way out and then is shocked and pissed when he learns she left with nothing.

That snapshot was enough to make me get the book but, unfortunately, the rest of the story didn’t live up to that promising scene. For starters, it’s about twice as long as it needs to be and there are MULTIPLE examples of repetition to the point where it makes the characters’ actions not make sense. Everything is amped up for the maximum drama, but nothing has realistic consequences.

And contrary to how the ad had portrayed her, the heroine is actually a pretty bad person too. The ad made her look like a pure and selfless martyr who’d decided to make a classy exit from a marriage where her husband never appreciated her. So classy that she refused to take the $100 million he offered her as part of the divorce settlement. But as the book progresses, we find out she’s a scheming liar who never cared about her husband and thinks nothing of blackmailing him into paying her $200 million to treat someone who, as far as she knows, is on death’s door.


The story opens with Krystal going to Lorenzo’s office. She’s brought him lunch and as soon as she’s alone she sprinkles some kind of medicine onto the food and into the drink she brought him. Her inner monologue quickly tells us that this is his very last dose of the treatment she’d secretly been giving him for the 2 years of their marriage. We’re told that she’d only married him as a favor to his grandfather, who had somehow paid for her entire education and medical school. She’s a famous doctor known as Dr. Astra who is apparently a neurosurgeon but also known for miraculous holistic treatments.

Two years earlier, Lorenzo had been in a car accident that caused some kind of nerve damage that made his hands shake. He couldn’t even hold a glass but, apparently, was too proud to let doctors treat him. So, his grandfather had asked Krystal to marry Lorenzo and treat him in secret. And for the entire 2 years of their marriage, she’d cooked him 3 meals a day and brought them to him rain or shine, because that’s how she’d been secretly dosing him with this miracle cure she’d somehow figured out.

So, you can see how we’re talking pure bullshit here, right? He seriously didn’t notice his food tasted funny all this time? There was never a day when he just skipped lunch and ignored the food she’d brought? He never had to go on any business trips that whole time? Never left the house before her or went out to dinner without her?

And just what is this miraculous powder she’s sprinkling on his food that apparently needed to be administered 3 times a day, every day for 2 years, but now she’s giving him his last dose and he’ll never need to take it again for the rest of his life? And how can she possibly know that the treatment has been completely effective when she can’t run any medical tests on him? And in this scene, she only manages to get him to take a single sip of the drink she brought him, but that’s enough to make her say her mission is accomplished? So, was she, like, massively overdosing him if a single sip gives him everything he needs?

Moving on, Krystal quickly tells us that she can’t WAIT to get out of her marriage with Lorenzo. She refers to him as The Cactus, and thinks nasty things about him in her mind. So, when he announces that they should get divorced, she actually has to work to hide her grin because he’s actually playing right into her hand. But she still puts on this façade of being the poor, martyred wife.

We get a couple of scenes from the perspective of Xander, Lorenzo’s dogsbody. And in this scene, Xander thinks that Lorenzo is a complete scumbag for treating the saintly Krystal this way. He’s the one to actually gives her the divorce papers, already signed by Lorenzo, and he’s there when she sees that the papers say she can have $100 million. She signs the papers but somehow Xander and Lorenzo both say that she didn’t “take” the $100 million. How do you figure that? She signed the papers with them saying she got the money. She didn’t even, like, cross that part out or anything. Legally, she didn’t refuse shit. But for the whole rest of the book everyone just agrees that she didn’t take it.

She goes back to Lorenzo’s house and packs a suitcase then calls someone and says she’s finally free and to pick her up in 10 minutes. This someone turns out to be a guy named Darren who apparently knows all about what Krystal has been doing these 2 years she’s been fake married. They’re super close, to the point where they immediately live together…but we’re never told who the hell Darren is to her. I kept expecting to find out he was her brother or her cousin or something since they were SO close but there was never any hint of a romance between them, but the book ends with us never finding out.

Meanwhile, Xander has gone to the hospital where Lorenzo is with a woman named Esther. She’s apparently got blood clots that keep forming in her brain and Lorenzo is just oh so worried about her. She’s the reason why he broke things off with Krystal, so he can marry Esther and take care of her forever. Xander then informs him of Krystal leaving without any money or jewelry and Lorenzo is pissed. He rages about how she doesn’t have any friends, family, or marketable skills. She never even went to college! How will she support herself without his money? Xander asks if he should try to find her but Lorenzo scoffs and says that she’ll come crawling back soon enough, then he goes back to Esther. In the room, the doctor insists that Esther is getting worse and only the famous Dr. Astra can possibly save her. Lorenzo vows to do whatever it takes to find her and tells Xander to put out a bounty for her.

Flash over to Krystal and she and Darren are talking about how they’re flat broke. Like, broke to the point where they’ll be out on the street in a few weeks when rent comes due. They need to start earning some money, fast! Which really begs the question of what Darren has been living off of all this time while she was married. And where the money she surely earned as a world-famous neurosurgeon went. Didn’t she have a portfolio? Then they magically find a posting on the dark web saying someone is willing to pay $100 million for Dr. Astra to treat someone. Krystal says to accept it and then they go out to party.

And here begins the endless repetition. Literally every time Krystal goes somewhere for the entire rest of the book, Lorenzo just HAPPENS to be there too. At this point, it’s been a few weeks since she left and Lorenzo has been wondering how she’s been supporting herself. He actually HAS had Xander looking for her, but so far hadn’t had any luck. Then he sees her in a short, tight, revealing cocktail dress and accompanying Darren to a bar. He starts asking how she can afford to be in a place like this high-end bar and she fumbles through a bunch of lies until settling on saying that she’s doing some modeling and Darren is her photographer. Lorenzo says that she doesn’t have to do “work like that” she can have the money from their divorce settlement, but Krystal refuses and says to leave her alone.

Moving on, she goes to the hospital to meet this mystery guy who is willing to pay Dr. Astra $100 million (because she can totally just waltz into a hospital she doesn’t work for and treat people.) and she barely sees in time that Lorenzo is in there, with Esther practically super-glued to his arm. So, she finally knows why he divorced her. He simply must be in love with Esther. After all, he never showed Krystal any concern whatsoever. Not even when she was walking through snow and rain to bring him his 3 meals per day. So, she doesn’t go inside but instead has a friend at the hospital tell Lorenzo that Dr. Astra is not coming. Lorenzo, of course throws a fit and demands the doctor appear. Krystal has Darren communicate with Lorenzo that she’ll only see the patient if he’s willing to pay $200 million. Lorenzo agrees.

A few days later, Krystal goes to Lorenzo’s mansion, wearing a surgical mask, and finally goes to see Esther. Lorenzo thinks Dr. Astra seems familiar, like Krystal, in fact, but she’s cocky and rude, not quiet and deferential like Krystal was so he shakes it off. For some reason, Lorenzo allows this woman in a mask, who has shown absolutely no forms of identification, to see Esther alone instead of insisting on being in there with them. And Krystal determines with a 2-second glance into Esther’s mouth that she’s faking her illness by taking some medication which causes blood clots.

Esther first tries to bribe Dr. Astra into helping her with her little ruse and when Krystal won’t agree, Esther starts screaming her head off about how the doctor just tried to kill her. Krystal, afraid of being unmasked if there’s an altercation, books it out of the room. For some reason she can’t get out of the house, though, so she runs into her former bedroom and removes her mask.

Seconds later Esther bursts in and does NOT put it together that Krystal and Dr. Astra are the same person. Instead, she starts verbally attacking Krystal for being in the house when she and Lorenzo are divorced. Krystal matches her barb for barb until she hears Lorenzo coming and then flings herself on the ground, crying and apologizing and begging Esther not to say any more mean things. Lorenzo comes in and buys Krystal’s performance hook, line, and sinker and chastises Esther for being mean to the saintly Krystal. Behind Lorenzo’s back, Krystal sends Esther a triumphant look and tells us in her inner monologue that she’d been manipulating Lorenzo for 2 years, so Esther was a pathetic amateur compared to her.

You see what I mean about Krystal not being a nice person? The beginning makes it seem like she’s got the moral high ground but, as the book progresses, we see that she’s just as horrible as the rest of them. Here she is, swindling Lorenzo out of 200 million dollars and manipulating him for her own ends, AND SHE’S PROUD OF HERSELF FOR DOING IT.

And what’s more, SHE NEVER TELLS LORENZO THAT ESTHER IS FAKING HER SYMPTOMS. That just doesn’t make sense. Why would she help Esther by keeping quiet about her ruse? Surely a third-party doctor could corroborate her diagnosis? Doesn’t she feel a little bad for Lorenzo that he’s getting duped like this? No, apparently, she doesn’t. She just happily takes the $200 million and tells us she “did her job” and “treated” Esther by looking at her for 2 seconds. These are not nice people.

There’s also this whole confusing back story involving Esther, Lorenzo, and Krystal that’s underpinning everything. Apparently, two years ago, Lorenzo and Krystal both got drugged at a night club. He was in his car and drugged out of his mind, and when an equally drugged Krystal staggered past his car, he grabbed her and dragged her in for sex. Krystal does not consider this situation to be rape because she remembers it well enough to know that she was a willing participant and that both she and the man had been drugged. Somehow, she does NOT remember what the man looked like, though. Not even when she woke up in the car with him still asleep and she left.

Lorenzo, likewise, doesn’t remember what his mystery woman looked like, but when he woke up, Esther was in the car with him, in a state of undress, and claiming they had sex. Then some car rear-ended them and Esther has claimed that was the source of her blood clot issue (and Lorenzo’s nerve damage problem). Lorenzo has felt guilty about being the “cause” of her troubles and has vowed to “take care of” her. Esther has been playing the tragic waif all this time and has been begging Lorenzo to marry her before she dies because it’s always been her dream to be a bride. Of course, she plans to make a miraculous recovery once they’re married and get a fat paycheck out of the whole thing.

After the scene at the mansion, Esther decides she needs something stronger to bind Lorenzo to her, so she puts some kind of information on the dark web, which Darren helpfully finds. It’s not really explained what Darren saw, but it’s enough to make Krystal feel she needs to save Lorenzo. So, she goes to the hotel room she somehow knows Lorenzo will be at and the second she walks in the room, he’s on her like a rabid dog, apparently already drugged the way he was that night two years ago. She manages to drag him to a different hotel room she’d booked for the purpose, and then they proceed to have sex all night. Meanwhile, an enraged Esther is back in the original room in a lacy negligee stomping her foot.

Krystal sneaks out before Lorenzo wakes up and he somehow AGAIN can’t recognize that his lover was Krystal, but he does remember that it “felt the same” as the person he slept with in the car two years ago. Likewise, Krystal, too, realized that it “felt the same” and so she’s figured out that Lorenzo was the guy she slept with.

In between all this, there have been multiple meetings at bars and restaurants where Lorenzo is there and sees Krystal arrive with some handsome man. Also, Lorenzo has two close friends, who apparently never met Krystal in the whole two years they were married. One of them sees Krystal in the parking lot and “falls in love” with her at first sight. When he later describes this goddess to Lorenzo and he realizes it’s Krystal, Lorenzo goes berserk and comes close to attacking his friend. Lorenzo has basically become obsessed with Krystal, but still feels he simply MUST help Esther because of reasons.

Time moves on with Krystal working at the hospital, even though she’s got $200 million and could literally go anywhere in the world. Esther sends her boyfriend to attack Krystal in the hospital. He runs toward her and then stabs himself in the side to try to make it look like she tried to kill him. Lorenzo spends millions of dollars scrubbing footage and things to help his ex-wife. This all blows over very quickly.

Then there’s this bit where Krystal is walking through the hospital and just HAPPENS to find someone’s hospital records on the floor. And that person just HAPPENS to have the same first and last name as Krystal. And they just HAPPEN to be pregnant. This is ridiculous, of course, so I kept waiting for her to realize that it was actually her own records and she really was pregnant from her night in the hotel room with Lorenzo. But, no, it’s not. We’re asked to believe this really is just a bunch of unrelated coincidences.

Esther, though, somehow finds out that Krystal is “pregnant” and feels like that would be the final nail in her coffin with Lorenzo. Lorenzo, for his part, has been pulling away from Esther. Feeling increasingly annoyed by her clingy ways as he’s become more and more infatuated with his wife. He’s also questioning whether Esther really was the person he slept with two years ago because he knows for sure she wasn’t the woman in the hotel room with him and he’s so sure that woman was his car partner two years ago. He tells Esther that he’s not going to marry her, and her usual “but you proooooomised” tactics aren’t working. So, she randomly throws out “I’m pregnant” into the conversation and he laughs at her because, obviously, the only time they MIGHT have slept together was two years ago so that doesn’t make sense.

Meanwhile, someone tries to run Krystal over with their car and Lorenzo, who, again, just HAPPENS to be close by, saves her. Every time they interact, Krystal tells Lorenzo to get lost, even when they do things like kiss and rub up against each other. She keeps trying to get him to file the divorce paperwork so they can be done with each other, even though she’s panting after him and he’s acting like an insane person with how desperately he wants her. She also keeps saying “Esther’s the one you love” and most of the time he doesn’t deny it, but sometimes he does deny it and she still says it again the next time. Rinse and repeat this stuff about 30 times throughout the story.

Eventually, Lorenzo’s team miraculously turns up a surveillance video of that night two years ago. Something you’d THINK they would have done ages ago. And that video clearly shows Krystal being the one Lorenzo grabbed, and then Esther coming along after the fact. So, he kicks Esther to the curb. She then goes to a sperm bank and tries to get herself inseminated, only to be told that the drug she was taking to cause the blood clots has permanently and fatally damaged all her organs and she’s got about 3 months to live.

Then Lorenzo gives Krystal the full court press on trying to win her back. He starts cooking meals for her, like she used to do for him. This involves him burning himself 1000x but he soldiers on. Krystal says no for like 30 seconds before eventually just taking him back. HEA. It was very abrupt and unsatisfying, honestly.

Overall, it’s just not a well written story. It reads like something from Wattpad where the author just kept throwing up another chapter, then another one, over the course of years with no over-arching plan, because things get introduced and then don’t go anywhere. And the characters contradict themselves. In the beginning Lorenzo is a cold-blooded bastard who never gave a damn about Krystal and had been forced into marrying her. He never even slept with her throughout their whole marriage.

In the end, he says that he’d been desperately in lust with her the whole time but was afraid of scaring her with his crazed desire so he’d put a wall of ice between them. Then Esther showed up and he felt like he had to take care of her so he just kept Krystal at arm’s length. But that line is completely contradicted with just how much of an asshole he was to her when he told her he wanted a divorce.

Then there was this whole scene with the grandfather where Lorenzo finally finds out that Krystal had been treating his condition their whole marriage and he’s devastated to learn that she hadn’t married him for love? Even though he’s said from the start that they were forced to marry? It’s the same on Krystal’s side where she tells us the whole book that she’s always hated Lorenzo. Only staying married to him so she could treat his condition and counting the days until she could get out. But then at the end we’re told she’d been in love with him the whole time? HOW? WHY? It’s madness!

[redmamameka · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF and less than 1 star. This was all over the place, it felt like this was a foreign writer with no concept of the culture that the characters were trying to portray. Blunt, stilted writing and like WHAT? are they even trying to do with this story?!
Hands down a super hard NO from me.
0 spice
0 chemistry

[M. · Rating 1 out of 5]

is so bad it is difficult to know where to start. to get into this book you’d either have to suspend any intellectual capacity or be a preteen who doesn’t know jack about the world to deal with this level of immaturity and ridiculousness while all of it is so overdramatic First, I have to say the plot has so many mistakes or holes or conceptual issues Blood clots in the nerves within the brain? The cure that took two years and a powder… he remained completely unaware of? So a magic non-commercial pharmaceutical cure Yet Krystal is a renowned neurosurgeon, not a neurologist The details conflict with each other the language is ridiculous the diction writing seems straight out of AI generated content… I couldn’t make it past the ridiculousness of the plot, the language, the writing style So yeah, I did not finish. From what I did read, I have to say this is some of the worst I’ve ever experienced.

[Margeaux (meg_booklover7) · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was excited to read this novel because of an excerpt I saw on social media. But when I started reading, I quickly recognized the plot as very much similar to several Chinese dramas I've watched. From the contract marriage to heal the cold, unfeeling CEO, the mysterious doctor FMC, to the CEO's Grandpa who dotes on the ex-wife. Even the OW who pays someone to trick the CEO that she was the woman who relieved him of his aphrodisiac cloud. The aphrodisiac trick is so typical of Chinese dramas. And the OW paying someone to help her fake her illness. It is all a big mess that echoes. . .copies a Chinese drama plot. The only thing original are the intimate scenes which are never shown in Cdramas. I was hoping for more but was so disappointed.

[Inês · Rating 1 out of 5]

First and foremost, I didn’t enjoy this book, and I absolutely don’t recommend it. I decided to grin and bear it till the very last page out of pure stubbornness.
If you are a romance reader, like I am, you’ll probably enjoy the cliché lines and plot twists as well as the grovelling and the possessive MMC type, which is a genre favourite. Let me tell you that in this book all those things aren’t enjoyable, and I feel the author tried so hard to incorporate these signature romance features into the book that they are almost caricaturised for being taken to the extreme.
Spoilers ahead, continue at your own risk.
The book is narrated in the third person. I’m not a fan of this sort of storytelling but rarely does this impact how I feel about the storyline or the characters. You don’t get that meaningful inner thoughts that help you understand the story and the actions happening. All inner thoughts are shallow and don’t relay any kind of information as to what’s happening or happened in the past. You are reading a story that has no context making it very confusing and hard to follow. I couldn’t empathise with the characters because they have absolutely zero depth.
Krystal is a world-renowned doctor, whose training was sponsored by Lorenzo’s Grandfather because he saw potential in her. Even though she is famous in the medical world and described as a genius nobody knows what she looks like. Krystal comes across more as a grifter than an actual medical genius. She has a roommate/sidekick/best friend/employee called Darren and even though he calls her Honey we have no idea whatsoever what he means to her or how he came to be in her life. He seems to be a jack of all trades playing the role of a supporting male that hangs around and picks the FMC up when she needs a ride.
Lorenzo is a billionaire hot shot with a terrible temper. Two years prior he had an accident and sustained nerve damage which he refused to acknowledge so his Grandad called Krystal, the medical genius he sponsored to come and help him. They absolutely had to be married because if Lorenzo knew Krystal was indeed a doctor he would have refused treatment. The poor woman played the part of the perfect wife, bringing him three meals a day, like clockwork, dosed with the medicine he needed to get better. Our story starts on the very last day of treatment and, coincidentally, the same day Lorenzo asks for a divorce. Perfectly timed!
The FMC is described multiple times as a dedicated, obedient and submissive wife, all characteristics that make her the perfect wife. WHAT????
Then how old are these people?? They are said to be both virgins two years prior when they had a sexual encounter while both drugged, however he is an established businessman and she a medical genius widely known, so I’m assuming they are between 28 and 33 years old. The cliché isn’t clichéing if you get what I mean!
After being dealt divorce papers by the MMC’s PA/Hound dog, the FMC just packs up and leaves with nothing because she was in it just to repay her debt to Grandpa. Even though the MMC asked her for a divorce and she took it quietly he thinks she’ll come knocking back, that’s how confident he is at this point. Problem is that FMC is indeed in love with him and while it started as a way to pay back her debt to his grandfather, she’s got feelings for the sour billionaire.
If he expects her to waltz back into the picture, then why would he ask for a divorce, you might ask? Well because he believes that the woman he slept with two years prior and with whom he had the accident was forever injured and out of pure responsibility, for the injury and apparently taking her virginity while he was drugged and nearly passed out, he has promised to look after her. For the FMC it just means he is in love with this other woman, her name’s Esther, and thus why he never has nor ever will love her.
Turns out, the FMC, or her alter ego Dr. Astra, is Esther’s final hope. Dr. Astra, broke and depleted from two years pretending to be a perfect 1800’s wife, is in need of cash, so she agrees to treat Esther under disguise and charges the MMC 100M$ as payment.
So, in a very badly written scene, that makes zero sense, we learn that Esther is lying and has been taking illegal pills to appear sick, which failed to be detected by any other doctor she saw, while it took the FMC only a look in Esther’s mouth to find out.
Yeah, all quite plausible!
The MMC is spiralling and everywhere he goes he encounters the FMC, who in reality is not submissive nor modest dressing but rather a sexy modern woman. This does not sit well with him, so he chases her and invariably makes a scene. He spends the better part of the book grabbing her forcefully and having ridiculous and exaggerated jealousy attacks. He is rude, violent and has as terrible temper which he is unable to control. Every man he sees around her is immediately his competition and he ends up hitting a couple of them out of the blue and unprovoked. In a word – TOXIC!
In the end Esther is the bad guy alongside her hinted lover, they get what’s coming to them and that’s it!
The MMC has a go at grovelling, but the FMC pushes back, so he resorts to reading self-help magazine articles on how to win back a woman, again, quite plausible (insert eye roll)!
Finally, she gives in, they get married, AGAIN, this time with a bunch of people at the wedding that never came up during the storyline. Turns out this was the author’s way of closing the loop on this series, however it just seems another big mess on top of a huge mess already because they are all written as close friends, so close they have zero appearances in the book.
To sum up, if you enjoy a silly book with weak characters and a confusing doubtful story, please, go ahead and read it, if not, save yourself the trouble, it’s not worth it IMO.

[Maria · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF 🪦
I’m not even sure what I read. It was like a daytime soap opera, like days of our lives - written by someone writing down anything that happens without separating characters thoughts and lines. Just a big mess.

[hals🩷 🤍 · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m dying of laughter what is this book

[Esra Cengiz · Rating 1 out of 5]

This wasn’t what i expected it was all over the place definitely a no. I can’t believe I waited for this book to come out for almost a month

[thisisnotimeforprettylies · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t know why I keep reading sh*t like this. Is it because I spent 4 years as a Literature major, reading classics and then spent several years teaching the same? Possibly. I guess I just enjoy the drama when it’s not happening in my own life. This book is bonkers. Some parts of it are really f*cking funny and some are so ridiculous it’s hard to believe what you’re reading. There’s a very “Superman” like situation where the MFC is both the long suffering wife and then sometimes the world renowned doctor everyone is looking for, but she hides her identity with a doctor mask and a white coat and we’re supposed believe people don’t know the two are one and the same. After she’s served with divorce papers at the beginning of the book, she takes off with some guy named Darren. Darren and she share an apartment, but she’s been away for two years, having left her life behind to marry and secretly medicate her husband, who wants nothing to do with her, because his grandfather asked her to. After she’s goes back to her real life, she and Darren and whole bunch of people who are her friends but are never fully explained go to clubs and casinos and medical conferences and , of course, keep running into her ex-husband who is now jealous of every man who is in her vicinity. At this point, I still don’t know who the hell Darren is to her, but now there’s other woman drama with a woman named Esther who’s pretending to be sick because she wants to marry the MMC to get all his money, because, billionaire right? And now there’s a guy named Jim who keeps causing problems. The sex scenes seemed more like assaults because the MMC is drugged by Esther once and never gets consent the other times. And now I am just exhausted from this book in its entirety and I need a nap. Two stars for just how whack-a-doodle it is.

[Juli · Rating 3 out of 5]

KU*

Krystal and Lorenzo were certainly interesting as a couple. As always I love a good grovel and I was hoping to get it here and in a way I think I did, but the story was so prolonged I didn’t get to really enjoy it. Honestly, I’m not really sure why they got married, I know why Krystal married Lorenzo which was a favor to his grandpa to help Lorenzo medically; but why did he marry her if he didn’t “like” her and was going to do right by Esther, whatever that meant because it changed throughout the book constantly. I think my favorite part is that he asked for the divorce and he was hurt & mad when she gave in willingly then he refused to file them for the entire book to the point that she filed them and he flipped out.

The whole Esther and Joe plot was a bit messy for me and all over the place. For someone who wanted Lorenzo so bad where was she for 2 years? Was Joe a doctor or henchmen? This part of the book had so many plot holes it was sad. Then the fake pregnancy when they hadn’t had sex for 2 years even though they never had sex.

The best parts of the book was when Krystal gave Lorenzo a taste of his own medicine and didn’t give into him when he wanted. It was also good to see Lorenzo fall apart without his wife and realize how much he loved her and wanted her then try to earn her back.

Krystal’s secret identity as doctor seemed odd to be able to hide for so long in that field to be honest. We also never get explanation or background on her relationship with Darren, I thought he was her brother, but we get no information on him; they are very close like siblings.

I loved the ending we get to see all the couples from the previous books one last time.

[Ellianna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Deliciously awful.

I read this book off of an Instagram suggestion- I’m a sucker who loves a good grovel romance. And while this story definitely had groveling, it also had ridiculously-worded dialogue (all of which was inexplicably lumped with inner thoughts- there was literally *no* distinction, so good luck keeping track of what was being *said*, and what was being *thought*), inane situations (offering $100 million dollars for a surgery? A surgical mask that hides the FMC’s identity from her *husband*???? NO ONE putting together that she’s a world-renowned surgeon? ), and characters who say the same damn things over and over.
And yet…I kept reading. I even read the epilogue that heavily featured characters who must have been from other books in this series, because there’s no reason for their presence otherwise. Why? Because I’m shamefully addicted to the equally-awful Reelshort videos on YouTube (though admittedly, some of the actors are pretty decent- they’re just given terrible material), and this book plays out much the same. I *had* to keep reading because I couldn’t believe that something like this actually *exists*. It’s SO bad, that it’s actually entertaining…though not for 400+ pages. It could have easily been half the length and nothing would have been lost, save the many, MANY errors.
On the upside, the spicy scenes were well-written, if a bit repetitive (we get it, Lorenzo- you’re biting her to mark her as yours), and this book does have one worthy accomplishment- the knowledge that literally ANYONE can write a book.