REGINA MCBRIDE
12 Published Stories
REGINA MCBRIDE's Books and Stories
Stealing My Rival's Bride At The Altar
Romance I was Hollywood's sweetheart, walking down the aisle in the "wedding of the year" to marry a star athlete.
But this wasn't a fairytale. It was a cold, calculated business transaction orchestrated by my own mother.
My fiancé, John, didn't want a wife; he wanted an asset to double his brand value.
My mother ignored my suffocating dread, treating me like a product on display. She even forced me to turn down a massive movie role just to secure this merger.
As my father proudly handed me over to a man who only saw me as property, John squeezed my hand, his possessive grip a silent threat.
I stood at the altar in a million-dollar gown, surrounded by thousands of white roses, feeling like I was being buried alive.
The whole world was watching, cheering for the perfect couple, completely blind to my silent screams.
Why did my own family sell me out for money and connections? How could I be forced to say "I do" to a hypocrite who made my stomach churn?
I thought I had no choice but to surrender to this beautifully crafted cage.
Until I looked into the shadows at the back of the church and met the ice-blue eyes of a complete stranger.
He saw right through my flawless makeup to the shattered soul underneath.
And judging by the dark, furious look on his face, he wasn't going to let this wedding finish. Ruthless Tycoon: Protecting My Contract Wife
Romance Amira worked grueling shifts to pay for her NYU tuition, only to return home and hear her parents plotting her ruin.
Her mother decided to force her to drop out and marry a creepy, fifty-year-old man for a $50,000 dowry, just to secure her brother's future.
When Amira refused and fled into the freezing rain for help, her wealthy best friend maliciously framed her for having underground gambling debts.
Her boyfriend Angelo believed the lies, looked at her dripping wet figure with pure disgust, and dumped her on the spot.
Cornered, Amira returned to pack her bags, only for her mother to lock her inside a sweltering, windowless bedroom for three days without food or water.
Her mother intended to starve her into submission before handing her over to the old man.
As her fever spiked and her throat bled, Amira felt the crushing weight of utter despair.
She couldn't understand why her own blood treated her like disposable livestock, while the people she loved threw her to the wolves.
But what her greedy family didn't know was that the night before, a desperate Amira had gone to her reclusive, billionaire boss and signed a marriage contract.
Just as she was about to die on that floor, the heavy padlock was smashed open by men in expensive suits.
"If you ever come near Mrs. Shaw again, I will make you beg for death."
Amira was done crying, and it was time to make them all pay. The Scars She Hid From The World
Modern The heavy iron gates of the Wilderness Correction Camp groaned as they released me after three years of state-sponsored hell. I stood on the dirt road, clutching a plastic bag that held my entire life, waiting for the family that claimed they sent me there for "rehab."
My brother, Brady, picked me up in a luxury SUV only to throw me out onto a deserted highway in the middle of a brewing storm. He told me I was a "public relations nightmare" and that the rain might finally wash the "stink" of the camp off me. He drove away, leaving me to limp miles through the mud on a snapped ankle.
When I finally dragged myself to our family estate, my mother didn't offer a hug; she gasped in horror because my muddy clothes were ruining her Italian marble. They didn't give me my old room back. Instead, they banished me to a moldy gardener's shack and hired a "babysitter" to make sure I didn't embarrass them further. My sister, Kaleigh, stood there in white cashmere, pretending to cry while clinging to her fiancé, Ambrose-the man who had once been mine.
They all treated me like a volatile junkie, refusing to acknowledge that Kaleigh was the one who planted the drugs in my bag three years ago. They wanted to believe I was broken so they wouldn't have to feel guilty about the "wellness retreat" that was actually a torture chamber.
I sat in the dark of that shed, feeling the cooling gel on the cigarette burns that covered my arms, and realized they had made a fatal mistake. They thought they had erased me, but I had returned with a roadmap of scars and a hidden satellite phone.
At dinner, I didn't beg for their love. I simply rolled up my sleeves and showed them the price of their silence. As the wine spilled and the lies crumbled, I sent a single text to the only person I trusted: "I'm in. Let them simmer." The hunt was finally on. Woke Up Engaged To My Rival
Romance I spent seven years as the secret benefactor of the man I loved, waiting for the day he would finally acknowledge our relationship. I traded my sharp business suits for a soft silk dress, ready to tell the world that the brilliant artist Andre Wilcox was finally mine.
But at our anniversary dinner, the truth hit harder than any corporate betrayal. I sat inches away, hidden by a partition, as Andre laughed with his ex-girlfriend. He called me a "suffocating burden" and a "checkbook with legs" that he only tolerated until he became famous.
Devastated and drowning in vodka, I stumbled into a nightclub and ran straight into Charls Wiley, my most hated business rival. In a haze of pain and alcohol, I clung to his expensive suit while paparazzi cameras flashed, sobbing that I loved him and begging him not to leave me. He swept me into his arms to escape the scandal, but our getaway ended in a horrific car crash that left us both buried in shattered glass.
When I woke up in a hospital suite, the trauma had wiped my memory clean. My brain, unable to process Andre’s cruelty, filled the gaps with the only man who was there when the world went dark.
"Charls, darling, you're hurt," I whispered, looking at my sworn enemy with pure, unfiltered adoration.
I truly believe the man who tried to destroy my company is my devoted fiancé. My mother and Charls quickly realized that a fake engagement could save our stock prices and seal a fifty-million-dollar merger, so they decided to let the lie live.
Now, I’m recovering in the arms of a shark, calling my nemesis "Hubby" while he waits for my memory to return so he can finish the war he started. Wedding Day Humiliation: A Love Lost
Romance The wedding music had been looping for over an hour.
Everyone was looking at me, standing alone on the stage under the ridiculously expensive floral arch.
My fiancée, Sophia Reed, was absent on our wedding day.
My phone buzzed. It was a video call from Sophia.
A wave of relief washed over me. Her face would pop up, she' d apologize, and the party could continue.
But it wasn' t her face that filled the giant screen.
It was a scandalous scene, broadcast in high definition for hundreds of our closest friends and business associates.
A smug man' s voice asked, "Am I better than Ethan Miller?"
Then Sophia' s voice, breathless, replied, "Liam, you' re so much better."
A collective gasp sucked the air out of the room. My smile froze.
My brain kicked into overdrive. I calmly activated the screen recording function.
The crowd erupted, phones out, filming the spectacle. Sophia' s family stormed towards me.
Her father yelled, "Ethan Miller, turn off your phone!"
"Mr. Reed, what' s the point?" I asked, gesturing to the sea of phones. "Everyone' s already seen what they shouldn' t. My reputation is ruined. The wedding is a joke. So let them see it all. Let them see I' m the victim. That' s the best way to salvage my image now."
Despite everything, I found myself handing him his emergency heart medication.
I, Ethan Miller, the self-made man, who had endured so much for their family, including agreeing to marry Sophia despite knowing her secrets, was now publicly humiliated.
But then, the unbelievable happened.
"It' s fake!" she blurted out, her voice trembling. "It' s all fake! It's makeup! Even the video… it was pre-made AI footage. It wasn' t me…!"
My mind, usually so quick and decisive, short-circuited.
Why would she do this? Why orchestrate such an elaborate, humiliating lie?
I knew then that I had to find out. Betrayed By Love, Rebuilt By Fate
Modern The award felt heavy in my hands, a testament to my genius as Ava Monroe, the best structural architect in the business.
But the triumph was short-lived.
Overnight, the newly completed Olympia Skyscraper collapsed, and suddenly my stepsister, Chloe Vance, was on every news channel, her face a mask of tragic sorrow.
"I had a vision. A premonition of the collapse," she declared, looking directly into the camera, her eyes seeming to find mine. "I tried to warn Ava Monroe. But she did nothing. She said she needed to wait. To let the problem get worse so her firm could charge a higher fee to fix it. It was about the money."
The world stopped.
My firm fired me, Liam, my fiancé, abandoned me, and my father, Mr. Monroe, disowned me, siding with Chloe.
My mother' s memorial garden was vandalized; the cornerstone, a piece of my heart, ripped out and thrown into the river.
I dove in, desperate to get it back, but the current dragged me under, the cold despair a crushing weight.
Then I gasped, sucking in clean, dry air.
I was in my bed, sunlight streaming through the window.
It was the morning of the collapse, before the accusations, before my world ended.
This time, it would be different. A Second Chance, Fall In Love Again
Romance The sharp pain in my head was nothing compared to my stepsister Sarah' s screams.
My fiancé, Liam, already by her side, shot me a look of pure accusation: "Chloe, what the hell did you do?"
Sarah clutched her ankle, twisting her face in agony, then whispered, "She was just… upset that you were holding my hand."
A gentle poison. Liam' s suspicion solidified into certainty, his eyes hardening with disgust as he scooped Sarah into his arms.
"Her ankle looks broken. We can' t carry her and help you walk. You' ll have to wait here."
He abandoned me in the middle of nowhere, my own leg throbbing, my head pounding, leaving me utterly alone with a profound, bottomless despair.
In the hospital, Sarah and her doctor brother, Dr. Evans, casually manipulated Liam, fabricating a diagnosis of a mere bruise for my fractured leg, and suggesting I was "not well."
Liam, blinded by guilt and Sarah' s lies, agreed. The man I loved was gone, replaced by an angry stranger who punished me for a pain he refused to see.
He pushed my wheelchair, demanding an apology, completely ignoring the new, blinding agony ripping through my leg as it jolted.
A dark discoloration rapidly spread from my knee, yet Dr. Evans dismissed it as "just the bruising settling."
They were going to send me to a mental institution. I looked at Liam, then at the ring he tossed to the floor-our future, discarded.
Something within me broke, a cool, clear voice whispering: Let go of this life. I can give you a new one.
I shed my old self, my art, my love for Liam. I was Chloe no more. As I finally walked onto the hospital rooftop, Liam' s scream cut through the air.
He lunged, a desperate, impossible attempt to save me, only to fall with me. The Price of Disownment
Billionaires My father, Rufus Scott, paraded Ethan Lester around our grand ranch, praising him as the "son he always wanted" instead of me, Wesley, his actual son.
I watched from the sidelines as Ethan, my father' s new favorite, subtly poisoned the minds of Scott Oil & Gas board members against me.
Then, in front of our entire wealthy Texas social circle, my own father coldly declared me a disgrace, disowned me, and ordered me thrown off my family' s property.
The humiliation was a physical ache, a public execution of my inheritance, leaving me with nothing but the bitter taste of betrayal.
But just as the security guards moved in, the rhythmic thudding of a helicopter echoed overhead, and a suit-clad man stepped out, changing everything with two words: "MIT admissions." The Billionaire's Divorce Threat
Billionaires I was the CEO of a multi-billion dollar tech corporation, but my wife, Chloe, knew me only as Ethan Miller, a modest app developer.
I cherished the idea that her love for me was pure, untainted by wealth or status, so my true identity remained my closest secret.
That carefully constructed life crashed down when I arrived at Austin' s most exclusive club for a crucial business meeting.
Instead of an empty suite, I found Chloe, encircled by her snobbish friends, her waist possessed by Blake Harrison, a rival who clearly relished my perceived "lowly" status.
Before I could process the scene, her friend Tiffany sneered, "Chloe, darling, is this your… little app developer?"
Then, Chloe herself, face flushed with embarrassment, whispered urgently, "You can't be here. This isn't your world, Ethan. You're embarrassing me." And, louder for the room, "Are you stalking me?"
The accusation hit me like a physical blow.
Me? Stalking her? After all I' d built, all I' d sacrificed for us, she saw me as an embarrassment, someone who couldn't even belong in a fancy club without her.
A cold, hard certainty settled in my gut: She's ashamed of me. Was our entire relationship built on a lie of my own making, or hers?
The pain was sharp, but beneath it, a decisive edge hardened. "Chloe," I stated, my voice flat, cutting through the smug chatter, "I want a divorce."
The room fell silent. Little did they know, this was just the prologue to a truth that would shake their world to its foundations. You might like
Jilted Girlfriend? I Am The Tycoon's Wife
Dolores Cara Lewis sat quietly as her boyfriend of three years pushed a plate of dessert across the table, wearing a rehearsed mask of sorrow.
He claimed he had to break up with her for her own good, blaming his lack of connections on Wall Street and insisting he couldn't give her the life she deserved.
He acted like a martyr making a tragic sacrifice, waiting for her desperate tears and trembling denial.
Instead, Cara calmly pulled out a stack of glossy photos and an elegant engagement invitation.
She exposed his secret affair with the wealthy Hailie Lewis, completely dismantling his hypocritical social climb.
Leaving the cheating narcissist pale and humiliated, Cara paid the bill and walked out, thinking the trash had finally been taken out.
But her newly single evening took a chaotic turn when a teenage gaming partner called in a panic.
He begged her to crash his elite prep school and pose as his aunt to save him from expulsion.
Cara agreed, flawlessly playing the role of the secret new wife to his uncle, a notoriously ruthless Wall Street titan.
She was thoroughly dominating the snobby school board when the office doors suddenly swung open.
The real billionaire uncle, Beck Greer, walked into the room.
Cara's heart dropped into her stomach as his glacial eyes locked onto her, knowing her social existence in New York was about to end.
Caught in a terrifying, inescapable lie, Cara made an insane calculation.
She stepped forward, firmly hooked her arm through the billionaire's, and smiled sweetly.
"Honey, what took you so long? Julian and I were being bullied."
She waited for the executioner's axe to fall, but the untouchable tycoon simply covered her hand with his and played along. Jilted Ex-Wife? The Secret Billionaire Heiress!
Hei Baidong I was in the hospital, enduring the agonizing pain of labor, while my husband, a famous hockey captain, refused to show up.
When I called him for the twelfth time, begging for him, he lost his patience.
"Giving birth is a woman's job, don't bother me with this stuff."
Then, I heard my stepsister's sweet voice offering him a drink, and he immediately softened before hanging up on me.
I gave birth to twins all by myself.
The nurses treated me with cold indifference, and the family in the next bed loudly mocked me as a pathetic "Puck Bunny" who was just an adopted orphan about to be dumped.
They were right. A month ago, my husband had thrown divorce papers at me, demanding I make way because my stepsister was pregnant with his child.
I thought my life was a joke. I was just a discarded prop he married to satisfy his grandfather, a fake daughter my adoptive parents only used to elevate my stepsister.
I was completely alone, ready to sign the papers just to protect my two babies.
But then, the head of the hospital rushed in, transferred me to the top-floor VIP suite, and handed me a DNA test.
It turned out I wasn't an unwanted orphan, but the long-lost daughter of the ultra-wealthy Sinclair family who had been searching for me for twenty years.
Looking at my billionaire parents and three powerful brothers who just flew in on their private jets to protect me, I picked up my phone to call my arrogant husband.
This time, I was going to make him leave with nothing. The Captain's Regret: Chasing His Runaway Wife
Lunacy Five years ago, I stared at the pregnancy termination and divorce papers pushed toward me on the cold hospital bed.
My husband, NHL superstar Brock Griffin, didn't even have the guts to face me himself. Instead, he sent his fake PR fiancée to force me out before his championship game.
"Sign the papers, take the payout, and get out of New York."
To support him from the shadows, I had hidden my global medical credentials and worked as a lowly locker-room assistant. In return, I was discarded. I signed the papers, faked the abortion, and fled into the freezing Manhattan rain.
For five years, I lived in hiding, raising our twins in secret. But my peaceful life shattered when my five-year-old hacker son accidentally exposed our location to the most ruthless man in New York.
Cornered at the airport, Brock pinned me against a concrete pillar, his eyes bloodshot and desperate.
"Where is my child, Elizabeth? Where is the baby from five years ago?"
I was completely bewildered. He was the one who demanded the termination. He was the one who let that pathetic fake doctor steal my surgical achievements. Why was he acting like a madman tearing the city apart for a baby he ordered me to kill?
When he dragged me back to his penthouse, his fake fiancée tried to frame me for assault using forged medical records.
She clearly forgot one thing. I am the legendary ghost surgeon Dr. Cynthia, and I'm done hiding. While I Was Bleeding Out, He Lit Lanterns For Her
Katie Oettgen As I lay on the floor of our manor, bleeding out from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, I used my last ounce of strength to call my husband, Cole.
I begged him for help, my vision blurring.
But the only thing I heard was the clinking of champagne glasses and his mistress's giggle in the background.
"Stop the drama, June," Cole snapped, his voice cold. "We're about to go on stage. Don't call again."
He hung up, leaving me to die alone on the Persian rug while he accepted an award with another woman on his arm.
I woke up in the hospital days later. My baby was gone. They had removed my fallopian tube.
Cole finally arrived, smelling of expensive scotch and his mistress's perfume. He didn't hug me. He didn't cry.
Instead, he leaned over my hospital bed, pressing his knee into the mattress until my fresh stitches tore open and bled.
"You embarrassed me by calling an ambulance," he hissed. "My mistress, Alycia, says you're faking it. Clean yourself up."
He left me bleeding again to go announce a $10 million donation to Alycia's "groundbreaking" medical research.
I stared at the TV screen, numb. The research Alycia was taking credit for? It was mine. I wrote that patent years ago under a pseudonym.
They thought I was just a poor, orphan housewife who needed Cole's money to survive.
They had no idea I was actually a billionaire scientist hiding my identity.
I pulled the IV needle out of my arm. A drop of blood fell onto the divorce papers I had been hiding.
I didn't wipe it off. I signed my name right over it.
Then I walked into the bank, reactivated my dormant account with $128 million, and bought the penthouse directly overlooking Cole's house.
The mourning widow is dead. The avenger is born. THREE-YEARS CONTRACT MARRIAGE WITH THE HOT BILLIONAIRE
Ashley Ray "Sign the contract, or lose everything."
I stared at the papers that would seal my fate-a three-year marriage to Julian Blackwood, the ruthless billionaire they call the Ice King.
My family didn't ask. They demanded. My father's company was drowning, my stepsister's engagement had exploded, and I was the replacement bride they could sacrifice. Just another transaction.
Julian made it clear on our wedding day: "Don't expect affection. Don't expect companionship. Certainly don't expect love."
He refused to kiss me at the altar. He gave me a bedroom down the hall and told me to stay out of his way. I was Mrs. Blackwood in name only-a contract, a convenience, a means to an end.
I accepted it. I had survived twelve years of abuse in my own home. I could survive three years of indifference in his.
But then Nate, Julian's best friend, showed me kindness, and suddenly my cold husband became possessive. When my sister attacked me, he became protective.
Now the man who promised me nothing is fighting his own father to keep me. The marriage that was supposed to be fake is becoming terrifyingly real and the secrets about my mother's death are threatening to destroy everything.
They said Julian Blackwood destroys everything he touches. What they didn't tell me... is that sometimes destruction is exactly what you need to be reborn.
With a pregnancy involved, how was I going to end this three-year marriage peacefully?
Pampered By The Ruthless Biker Boss
Anywho After six years away, I returned to my hometown with a single suitcase and a picture of my fiancé tangled up with my stepsister.
I thought it was just a simple, disgusting betrayal, but when I planted a bug in their private suite to get a confession, I heard a truth that froze my blood.
My fiancé, Leo, laughed about how my own father had already signed over my mother's legacy-The Nightingale Ranch-as collateral to his powerful family.
"Once this is all done, Claire will have nothing. And the woman you marry will be me," my stepsister Jenna cheered.
Leo cooed back, calling me a stray dog he'd kick to the curb once he was bored, a worthless woman who couldn't even hold onto her family's land.
My family had sold me out, and the man I loved was planning to leave me with absolutely nothing.
I didn't cry. The pain burned away into a cold, hard hate. How could my own father conspire with them to destroy the only thing I had left of my mother?
I crashed their prestigious charity auction and played their filthy recording over the speakers for the entire town to hear.
But when Leo charged at me in a murderous rage, a wall of leather and muscle stepped in front of me.
Kade "Chaos" Peterson, the terrifying President of the rival motorcycle club, crushed Leo's wrist and announced to the stunned room, "She's with me now." The Runaway Wife: Hiding His Secret Triplets
Hen Bu Five years ago, I stood in the freezing rain at my mother's funeral, waiting for my husband.
Blake Knight, the billionaire NHL superstar, was two hours late. When he finally showed up, he brought his rumored girlfriend, the woman he had just rented a hotel rooftop for to celebrate her birthday.
Watching him defend her fake tears, my heart completely died. I took off my diamond wedding ring, placed it on my mother's headstone, and walked away from my marriage forever.
I fled to London, changed my name to Ava, and secretly raised the triplets he never knew existed. I thought I was finally safe from him.
But today, my kids vandalized a silver Aston Martin in our apartment's parking garage, and the owner caught my youngest daughter.
My phone rang. The voice on the other end was Blake's.
He had moved into my building, and he was holding my little girl in his penthouse, demanding her mother come get her immediately.
Panic suffocated me. If I walked through that door, my five years of hiding would be instantly destroyed. He would recognize me, realize I didn't get rid of our child like everyone thought, and he would use all his power to take my babies away.
I couldn't let him ruin my life again.
"I'm just her nanny," I lied through my teeth.
I frantically begged my best friend to go upstairs and rescue my daughter in my place. He bought the disguise, but now, the King of the Ice is dangerously obsessed with investigating my new identity. The Hockey Prince's Secret Ice Queen
Lila All I wanted was to find a computer genius to process the non-linear dynamic equations for my ecological model.
Instead, I found myself cornered by Julian Andrews, the university's hockey prince, trading a public, staged kiss for his academic support.
To finalize our "deal," I was dragged to the campus ice rink.
The cheerleaders and puck bunnies immediately swarmed him, mocking my plain clothes and treating me like a pathetic joke.
Brooke, the head cheerleader, even set up a figure skating competition with a date with Julian as the grand prize.
She performed a basic spin, blew him a kiss, and smugly waited for me to fall flat on my face and humiliate myself.
His hockey teammates laughed from the sidelines, watching me try to support Julian as he stumbled around the ice like a newborn giraffe.
But as I held his warm hand to keep him from falling, I couldn't help but feel something was terribly wrong.
Why was a top-tier athlete faking such awful balance?
And why did his ice-blue eyes stare at me with such knowing anticipation, as if he already knew about the professional figure skating past I had spent years trying to bury?
"Just let go and skate."
He whispered, slowly releasing my hand.
I took a deep breath, glided to the center of the rink, and landed a flawless double Axel.
As the entire rink fell into a dead, shocked silence, I realized I had just exposed not only my own hidden past, but also the biggest secret of the campus god. He Thought I Was A Doormat, Until I Ruined Him
SHANA GRAY The sterile white of the operating room blurred, then sharpened, as Skye Sterling felt the cold clawing its way up her body. The heart monitor flatlined, a steady, high-pitched whine announcing her end. Her uterus had been removed, a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding, but the blood wouldn't clot. It just kept flowing, warm and sticky, pooling beneath her.
Through heavy eyes, she saw a trembling nurse holding a phone on speaker. "Mr. Kensington," the nurse's voice cracked, "your wife... she's critical." A pause, then a sweet, poisonous giggle. Seraphina Miller. "Liam is in the shower," Seraphina's voice purred. "Stop calling, Skye. It's pathetic. Faking a medical emergency on our anniversary? Even for you, that's low." Then, Liam's bored voice: "If she dies, call the funeral home. I have a meeting in the morning." Click. The line went dead.
A second later, so did Skye. The darkness that followed was absolute, suffocating, a black ocean crushing her lungs. She screamed into the void, a silent, agonizing wail of regret for loving a man who saw her as a nuisance, for dying without ever truly living.
Until she died, she didn't understand. Why was her life so tragically wasted? Why did her husband, the man she loved, abandon her so cruelly? The injustice of it all burned hotter than the fever in her body.
Then, the air rushed back in. Skye gasped, her body convulsing violently on the mattress. Her eyes flew open, wide and terrified, staring blindly into the darkness. Her trembling hand reached for her phone. May 12th. Five years ago. She was back.