Hated Husband by Ali Parker

I don’t believe in love stories.

I believe in keeping my back to the wall and my emotions locked down tight.

I built my name on discipline—on being the Westwood who never lets anyone close enough to matter.

Which is precisely why I can’t stand her.

She walks into a room like she owns it and challenges me without hesitation.

She calls me calculating. I call her reckless.

Our rivalry is sharp, public, and very real.

Until our families decide our futures for us.

An arranged marriage. Strategic. Mutually beneficial. Inescapable.

The woman I’ve sparred with for years is suddenly the woman wearing my ring.

I could have managed it. Controlled it. Survived it.

If not for the secret I’ve guarded for five years.

I’m already in love with someone else — a woman I’ve never met but confide in nightly.

No names. No faces. Just honesty and a connection that feels dangerously real.

But you can’t marry your pen pal.

And the woman who sets my pulse racing with nothing more than a glare? She has secrets of her own.

Now every argument hums with tension. Every look lingers too long.

The line between hatred and hunger begins to blur, and I find myself wanting the one woman I swore I despised.

This was supposed to be a calculated alliance to protect an empire.

Instead, it’s becoming the one risk I never prepared for.

I agreed to become her husband for the sake of legacy.

But the more I see her—the real her—the more I realize I don’t want to defeat her.

I want to choose her.

And that may cost me everything.