1606 Book(s) Related to cold enough to burn

“I have waited five years to find you. Do you really think I will let you disappear again?”

Five years ago, I saved a dying stranger in the darkness.

I never knew that one act of kindness would change my destiny forever.

Now my company is falling apart, my fiancé betrays me, and I am forced into a contract with Callum Mercer—the most powerful billionaire in the city.

He is arrogant. Controlling. Impossible to understand.

Yet somehow, he knows things about me no one else could know.

Why does he look at me like he has lost me before?

Why does my heart react to him like we have known each other forever?

When his secret finally comes to light, I discover Callum is not just a billionaire.

He is an Alpha wolf.

And according to his world…

I am his destined mate.

But loving a wolf means entering a war I was never prepared to fight.

"Why do you need money this badly?"

Lorenzo gripped my chin, his gaze arrogant and dangerous.

"For money, are you really willing to do anything?"

I bit my lip and didn't answer.

Because if my two daughters couldn't survive, self-respect was worthless.

——

My name is Scarlett O'Brien.

To pay for my twin daughters' heart surgery, I signed a humiliating contract and sold myself to the most dangerous man in New York.

Lorenzo Vittori.

Young, handsome, arrogant, and the most feared heir to a mafia family.

He was cruel and sharp-tongued, humiliating me until I had nothing left, yet time and again he reached out his hand when I had nowhere else to turn.

And I told myself there was only a transaction between us.

As soon as I saved enough for the surgery, I would take my daughters and leave his world completely.

But I gradually discovered that this cold-blooded and vicious man seemed to hide even more scars than I did.

When the contract was about to end, true feelings began to spiral out of control.

I didn't know whether what awaited me would be redemption...

or a mafia storm destructive enough to destroy everything.

Accidental Pups×Contract Marriage × Multiple Identity × Drama × Vengeance & Betrayal × One-Night Stand × Billionaire/CEO × Brave Heroine × True & Fake Heiress

Warning: This is a slow-burn romance. The love story develops gradually through trust, healing, family, and shared secrets.

“He doesn’t trust anyone.”

“I know.”

“Then why does he trust you?”

I don’t have an answer.

I only know that when I found little Cassian bound and abandoned, I couldn’t walk away. I didn’t know then that he was the son of Alistair Voss—the cold, powerful billionaire who trusted no one.

But Cassian trusted me.

And that changed everything.

When Alistair asks me to stay for his son, I refuse. Until he makes an even more shocking offer: marriage.

What begins as an arranged marriage slowly becomes something neither of us expected. Beneath the same roof, Cassian becomes the family I never knew I needed, while Alistair begins to see the woman behind my guarded heart.

But I didn’t return to Verona simply for a new life.

Five years ago, I lost my memory. My identity was stolen. Someone betrayed me, and someone wanted me gone.

Now the past is catching up with us.

And when it finally does, I may discover that Cassian chose me for a reason no one ever expected.

Some loves take time. Some truths take even longer to uncover.

“Lucy stole my fiancé.”

My best friend stared at me.

“So?”

I smiled.

“So I'm going to marry her uncle.”

I never planned to become Manhattan's biggest scandal.

But after my fiancé, Kyle, cheated on me with Lucy—and I discovered that I was drugged, left in a stranger's bed, and pregnant with a baby whose father I couldn't remember—I was done being the woman everyone could betray.

Lucy stole my man?

Fine.

I'd become her family.

I walked into billionaire Adrian Wells's office, claimed he was the father of my unborn baby, and proposed a contract marriage.

One year. One billionaire husband. One unborn heir.

It was supposed to be the perfect revenge.

Then Kyle wanted me back. Lucy tried to destroy me. My coworkers came after my career.

And Adrian—the ruthless man I thought I could use—turned out to be the most dangerous temptation of all.

I married him to punish the people who betrayed me. But what will happen when they expose the one lie that could make my husband betray me too?

After I retired, I was willing to do the dirtiest work at a small auto repair shop—just to give my sick daughter an ordinary childhood.
I endured my mother’s insults, my eldest brother’s wage cuts, my younger brother’s extortion.
But they actually joined forces to steal my daughter’s life-saving money for gambling, then sold me into an illegal mine to pay off their debts.
When the iron chain locked around my wrist, when my daughter cried in despair, the killing intent that had slept in my blood for three years finally woke up completely.
They had no idea I was once the iron-blooded God of War—commander of a million troops, the name that made enemy nations tremble.

When the apocalypse struck, my brother Leo didn't hesitate to choose the offshore sanctuary.
In our past life, faced with a choice between a powerful inland warlord commanding a massive army and a leader clinging to a solitary island, Leo snatched up the first option.
But when a zombie horde overran the mainland and defenses collapsed, he fled to my island for refuge.
Jealous of how well I was surviving the end of the world, he and our parents knocked me unconscious in the dead of night and threw me into the ocean to drown.
Now that I've been reborn, Leo immediately took our parents to the maritime base, leaving the "dangerous" mainland to me.
He thinks the ocean is a natural barrier that guarantees his safety, that he can sit back and relax while the world burns.
But there's one thing he doesn't know.
Zombies aren't just static, mindless walking dead—they evolve.
And when they do, that offshore sanctuary will become a floating hell with no way out.