Reese

After six years of loving Julian Grayson and literally keeping him alive with her rare blood donations, Hazel Ashworth is just three days away from becoming his wife when he calls to cancel their wedding. 
The reason? Her half-sister Ivy has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and her dying wish is to marry Julian instead. Hazel watches in horror as Julian takes her handcrafted wedding dress to Ivy, who plans to wear it while stealing not just Hazel's fiancé, but her entire wedding—same venue, same date, even the same cake flavor. 
It's a devastating replay of their childhood, where Ivy's mother Eleanor destroyed Hazel's family by seducing her father and driving her mother to suicide, then spent years pushing Hazel out while Ivy took everything that was once hers. 
But this time, Hazel refuses to break like her mother did. She demands Julian's entire company and two million dollars as compensation, then shows up at the hospital to deliver Ivy's "wedding gift" in the most explosive way possible.
As Ivy plays the perfect dying victim and Julian remains blind to her manipulation, Hazel begins to suspect that her half-sister's illness might not be as terminal as everyone believes. When Ivy has the audacity to ask Hazel to witness her wedding to Julian, the gloves come off completely. 
Now Hazel must decide how far she's willing to go to expose the truth and reclaim what's rightfully hers, even if it means destroying the man she once loved in the process.

The Billionaire Backs Me Up

Chapter 45 - A Birthday Storm: Rejection, Revelation, and a Lurking Shadow


I stared at Julian standing on my grandmother's porch, his eyes pleading as he held out a small gift box tied with a delicate ribbon. Behind him, I spotted a fancy bakery box—clearly containing a cake—resting on the porch railing. The audacity of this man never ceased to amaze me.


"Happy birthday, Hazel," he repeated, taking a step forward. "I thought we could talk."


My fingers gripped the doorframe so hard my knuckles turned white. "There's nothing to talk about. You need to leave."


"Please, just five minutes." His voice had that familiar cajoling tone he used when trying to get his way. "I brought your favorite cake from Bellini's. Red velvet with cream cheese frosting."


A bitter laugh escaped my lips. "My favorite? Julian, that's Ivy's favorite, not mine. I've always preferred chocolate raspberry. Six years together and you still don't know the simplest things about me."
