1559 Book(s) Related to maria's kitchen near me

What makes a hero?

They say a hero is someone that has given his life to something bigger than himself.

I say a hero is no braver than an ordinary man, he is just braver for five minutes longer.

All soldiers are brave, it's what they do with their bravery that makes them heroes.

Am I a hero?

I am a soldier that put my life on the line to save my squad. It is my job, doing my job should not make me a hero.

Clayton Jackson is a First Lieutenant in the Marine Corps. He joined the Marines at the tender age of eighteen and has never dreamt of doing anything else. After a fateful accident during deployment, Clayton becomes disabled and gets his ticket back home.

Isabella Jones, previously married to a Marine, runs away to the town where Clayton lives to get away from her past.

Clayton and Isabella meet one day as they both seek the comfort of the outdoors to clear their heads. The connection is immediate, and their relationship is off to a quick start.

When Clayton gets the opportunity to return to the Marine Corps, Isabella is left to decide if she will go with him or stay behind.

Will Clayton become the ultimate soldier, and will he have Isabella by his side?

Ayla:

I grew up shielded from the Mafia lifestyle... until a merciless killer got his eyes on me.
Alessio Razone. Mysterious, intense, and ruthless. A decade my senior, with enough influence to bind me in an arranged marriage from which there's no escape.
His demand for obedience is startling. I'm treated more like a possession than a spouse. Yet, why does his rough, possessive demeanor feel oddly fitting?
With each surrender, I sink deeper into darkness. Unveiling desires I never knew existed.
Desires I should resist.
It would be simple to surrender. But if I relent, will he shatter me?

Alessio:

Ayla's innocence is a blank canvas, and I'm determined to leave my mark. Indelibly.
The offspring of our family's greatest adversary, she's mine to shape however I please.
She'll submit to me, or I'll annihilate her.
I'm too damaged for love, but I'll relish in molding Ayla into my obedient plaything. When she complies, I'll ignite her passion. When she defies, she'll face consequences.
Our union is nothing more than this. She's my fixation, but she'll never truly comprehend me.
If I allow Ayla to glimpse behind my façade, she'll discover my true self.
And that would spell ruin for us both.

The night he took my innocence, he branded me his.
I never imagined he’d return years later as the enemy…
Demanding my loyalty.
My silence.
And the daughter he never knew he left behind.

I thought what we had was fate.
But loving Santino Romano was forbidden.
He was my brother’s best friend—
And the heir to the Famiglia Romano that ruined my bloodline.
A ruthless prince in a kingdom of crime,
And the only man who ever tasted the softness I kept hidden from the world.

Then came the fire.
The blood.
The betrayal that tore everything apart.

Now he’s back—colder, harder, more dangerous than ever.
He doesn’t ask. He takes.
Locks me in his penthouse cage and tells me I belong to him.
Body, heart, soul.

He punishes me for running.
He worships me like a sinner at the altar.
He kisses like a threat and touches like war.
And despite the fury in his eyes, I see it…
The man who once made my heart race still burns beneath the scars.

But he doesn’t know the truth I’ve hidden.
Our secret.

Our daughter.

And if my family discovers he has me, they’ll spill blood to bring me home.

What they don’t understand is this:
My captor is now my protector.
And Santino Romano will paint the streets red before he lets anyone take me or our child away.

Sequel to Mary's Path, this is the second book in the White Rose series

Mary have just made a decision that will forever change her life. It's not like Mary to make life altering decisions. In fact, Mary usually doesn't make decisions at all.

After years of feeling like she's all alone, that the she is worthless and that the people in her life is just using her as a props in their own lives, Mary is ready for something new.

She will come along with the Lady and Kopa to their homeland. She will try something new and hope that what she is running to is better than what she is running from. And if she can mend her broken heart, that's an added bonus.

I glared when his hand reached again to my neck. Our faces only an inch apart. His big hand was almost wrapping it whole. His thumb massaging my throat like a feather. "And when I thrust inside of you, I want to hear you scream my name. Every name of mine."
"Dante. Adriano. Sol. Di. Angelo." His thumb stroking the center of my neck while uttering every name he owned. His eyes hooded in heat, lust clouding the windows of his soul. "And when you cum, it'll be Dante you moan."

Hailynn Fleury is a talented painter. Growing up as an orphan, she and her best friend Ethan, always wanted to get back to the people that helped and cared for them. When one of her friends convinced her to auction her paintings at one of her charity events, it didn't take much persuasion knowing the money would go to the orphanage.
On the night of the auction, her future took another turn when she saw a handsome man holding a gun. Later finding out that he was a mafia boss with an intention of keeping her from thereon. Witnessing him pulling a trigger to someone would have been the mafia boss' wisest decision to never let her go. Except that he couldn't touch the girl knowing the promise he had with his cousin. Dreams of bedding the girl is no longer an option. But how will he treat his ragazza, really?

Find out how both of their lives took a turn- with the aspiring artist and the Italian mafia boss.

He is the deadliest man in the city. Calculating. Powerful. Unscrupulous. And Ágata needs to get his attention.
Because Hernán De Almería could have information about how his father died. And also how his mother disappeared.
There is only one problem... and it is the force of attraction between the two. He can't resist. The moment he wants her, she can't refuse.
No person so far has given Hernán De Almería a "no" answer. Until now, that a little girl does it.
A highly dangerous situation, being surrounded by the most dangerous men in a room.
He can be her lover, her punisher, her man.
But…. Can she give him her heart?

Beneath the cover of a decent society lurks a hidden world, a world of darkness ruled by blood, betrayal and greed. But in this dark Mafia world, years of war and turmoil have left many crime families in ruin and on the brink of extinction, and among them is the once mighty Lorenzo family.
Born into this world of blood and power is the beautiful Isabella Lorenzo… born and raised from childhood to obey and serve, in a world where women were nothing but currency for power and alliance. When her aging father, Don Antonio Lorenzo begins to lose his grip on the remains of his once powerful empire, Isabella is forced to become a pawn in a last ditch alliance: a contract marriage to Luca Moretti, the deadly and emotionless heir of the rival Moretti syndicate.
To the outside world, their union is a merging of wealth and influence, but beneath it lies a fragile bundle of chaos waiting to erupt. Luca is every bit a mafia prince… ruthless and power hungry, while his wife Isabella is a beauty who buries her pain under loyalty to her father.
However, there is an undeniable attraction between Luca and Isabella, but years of bad blood between both families make trust an impossible dream… they may share a bed, but not a soul.
Unknown to Isabella, the Morettis have no intention of keeping their part of the bargain… Their marriage is only a cover for annihilation.

Carlie Eloise Heston is the epitome of perfection. The daughter of the most illustrious noble family, owning one of the biggest fashion labels on earth, brushes up on all the achievements she wants. In essence, she's a diamond without rust. Perfect. 
 
Carlie dreams of receiving a prestigious trophy that would make her the best designer in the world. But her dream 
were dashed when the trophy was stolen by Tiffany Emerald, the woman Carlie believed had cheated. And since that day, Carlie has dedicated herself to uncovering Tiffany Emerald's schemes and turning her back on the world. 
 
But at that time, she did not know that behind Tiffany Emerald stood a shield.  Named Jonathan Austin. The so-called King of Darkness. The Mafia. The most dangerous man in the dark world. And with reckless abandon, Carlie lunges at the man to get her justice back. But her plan doesn't go as she'd hoped. Meeting Jonathan Austin was a disaster. A string of miseries followed after that. Carlie falls into a vicious pit that drowns her in a darkness she's never tasted. She had never tasted. But at the same time, she also fell into an overwhelming attraction. 
 
To that man who hides a million pain behind his cruel eyes and a million moans of help, which no one ever realized.

In her past life, Arabella Oberon was the lowest-ranking member of the Oberon family.

She genuinely took in Regina, the butler's daughter, only to be constantly manipulated by this cunning and manipulative woman.

Regina gradually stole the love from her three brothers.

Arabella was forced to give Regina blood transfusions time and again, her weight plummeting to a mere eighty-eight pounds.

Ultimately, under the relentless pressure from her brothers, she jumped out of a window in despair and died. Her last words were,

"What about Regina's blood transfusions?"

When she opened her eyes again, Arabella found herself reborn three years earlier—the very day Regina appeared at her doorstep crying, begging for help.

Looking at the pitiful, tearful girl before her, Arabella smiled.

No more soft-heartedness.

No more groveling.

Instead, she "kindly" arranged for Regina to move into the servants' quarters, to earn her own living through honest labor.

Faced with her brothers who sided with her, she no longer bothered to please them.

And towards her former fiancé, Theodore, whom she had once fawned over, she remained cold, distant, and indifferent.

Moreover, in this life, they would discover that her identity was far more than just the eldest daughter of the Oberon family.

Alex has never known peace. Between a sick younger brother, parents whose love curdled into daily war, and a cheating ex who turned violent, she learned early that survival means never trusting too deeply and never hoping too much.
When one night of terror drives her into the path of three dangerous men who look like sin sculpted in flesh, her world shifts in ways she never could have imagined.
Reed, Rhett, and Rhys.
Three brothers with eyes like night and a power that hums in the air around them. They rule Denver's underground, their names whispered with equal parts reverence and fear.
Until Alex collides with their world.
What should have ended in disaster becomes something far worse. When her family is forced to relocate for her grandfather's funeral, Alex uncovers the unthinkable truth. The same three men who saved her, the ones who etched fear and forbidden desire into her mind, are her step-uncles.
Now she is trapped inside their mansion, surrounded by luxury that feels more like a cage than a refuge. The house is thick with tension. Reed's gaze is sharp and challenging. Rhys's words brush too close to danger. Rhett's quiet attention carries a weight she does not want to examine too closely.
They are older, powerful, and each of them carries a darkness that draws her in despite everything she knows she should resist.
Beneath the cold marble walls and glittering wealth lie secrets her father refuses to explain. Secrets about why he left this family years ago and what kind of empire his half-brothers truly built.
The Alcatraz brothers are not just men. They are predators in tailored suits, bound by blood and sin, ruling the underworld and loyal only to each other.

“You’re dripping,” he groaned. “You hear that? You’re making a mess all over me.”


He's the school's willful billionaire bad boy— hot, tall, handsome who made her fall and loosen herself for him just to find out it was all a lie.

A bet.

Well, two can dance a tango, right?

A comeback is all she needs. One that would make the so-called dangerous bad boy fall to his knees.

It wasn't just a game to him.

What if there's something more…

A facade he's hiding behind?

WARNING: Contains strong vulgar languages, sexual scenes, erotic contents, triggering situations, and lots more.

Everything she believed in was a lie.
Keira and Alden were Chosen Mates who built the powerful Stormfang Pack together—until she discovered their Mate Bond was a witch's illusion, and the child she raised was actually his with his true Fated Mate, the Omega Rena.
Broken and ready to leave, a secret letter reveals she is the long-lost daughter of Mooncrest Pack's Alpha, the sole heir to a legacy she never knew.
As her dormant Alpha blood awakens in rage, she vows to reclaim her birthright.
But when Kaelan, the cold and calculating Alpha King, approaches her and claims, "You are my Fated Mate," Keira is thrown into deeper confusion.
Why would he say that? And in a world built on deception, can a bond that begins as strategy ever become real… or is it just another layer of the game?

"Do you enjoy this? Ignoring me like I don't exist? Do you have any idea how humiliating this feels, waiting for you like some fool?" After three years of a cold, loveless marriage, Selene Henderson finally gathers the courage to walk away from her distant billionaire husband, Sebastian Kingsley.
She's ready to file for divorce... until a tragic accident changes everything. When Sebastian wakes up with no memory of the woman he once pushed away, Selene finds herself trapped in a marriage she was desperate to escape—this time with a man who suddenly looks at her like she's his whole world.
But can love born from broken memories survive the truth of their painful past? Or will the secrets she's been hiding destroy them all over again?
"Are you always this shy around your own husband, wife?" his voice dropped into a low, dangerous growl, his hands anchoring me against the wall.
"We didn't... we didn't use to do this," I gasped, trying to look away from his piercing gaze.
He leaned in, his breath hot against my lips. "Then your body has a better memory than my brain. Because right now, it's telling me you belong exactly right here."

"There is no us. There hasn't been for six years."
"You dropped divorce papers at my feet, Aidan. In front of cameras and everyone who mattered. Your mistress called me trash, and you stood there and said nothing."
"He is not yours, Aidan. He has a father. If I had been pregnant with your child back then, I would have gotten rid of it. You don't deserve anything from me."
Six years ago, Evelyn believed she had the perfect marriage.
On the night Aidan Smith celebrated his greatest achievement, she was ready to reveal the happiest news of her life. She was pregnant with his child.
Instead, she was publicly humiliated.
Aidan believed a cruel lie and chose his mistress over the wife who had loved him for years. In front of cameras and high society, he ended their marriage without knowing he was leaving behind a child who would change everything.
Heartbroken, Evelyn disappeared and started over.
Six years later, she returns as Evelyn Cole, a world renowned fashion designer and billionaire CEO. She built an empire, raised her son alone, and became the woman no one can look down on anymore.
Then fate brings her back into Aidan's life.
When the truth finally comes out, Aidan realizes the woman he abandoned was the greatest treasure he ever lost.
He wants his ex wife back.
But Evelyn Cole no longer belongs to him. And this time... he will be the one begging for her love.

"She was MINE before. How could I have known she would find another man so quickly?"
Dresden Wade was pretty sure the goddess was punishing him. Married for half a decade to his childhood sweetheart without a child, he is desperate for a chance to fight his wrongs when he sees her again.
His TRUE mate. The woman he scorned and humiliated all those years ago.
Except that now, she is standing holding hands with another Alpha.
Mara Reid wants nothing to do with the surly, arrogant Alpha that used to be her mate. He had made the earlier parts of her adulthood traumatic to say the least.
So why did meeting him again feel like coming home?
Why did her traitorous heart skip whenever he called her name?

Catherina Hanshaw Dalton has spent six years believing she lived a fairytale, married to billionaire Xavier Dalton, cherished by him, and building a life rooted in devotion, even amid one heartbreak she cannot control: their inability to have a child. Though Xavier assures her she is enough, Catherine senses his quiet disappointment, a wound deepened by the venomous hostility of his mother, Lydia Dalton. Lydia never misses a chance to insult Catherine’s infertility, idolize Xavier’s sister Mia and her children, or imply Xavier married beneath his status. Catherine endures it all, clinging to the one constant comfort, Xavier always defends her. Or so she believes.
This Christmas, however, Catherine’s dread of another humiliating Dalton family gathering turns into confusion. Lydia is gracious….kind, even. The manor is full of relatives, business partners, and esteemed guests, including Hunter Powell, Xavier’s ruthless business rival. The brief moment when Cathy’s eyes meet Hunter unsettles her, but nothing prepares her for Lydia’s “special Christmas gift.”
During the toast, Lydia presents Caroline Turner…a beautiful young woman who is allegedly four months pregnant through surrogacy…with Xavier’s child.

As a housewife, I never forgot a single milestone: every wedding anniversary, my husband’s 7th career anniversary, and the birthdays of my husband and daughter. Yet, my own birthday was always ignored. Both my husband and daughter only cared about that outsider woman. Finally, one day, I chose to walk away and revive my vintage shop business. Now... they are the ones filled with regret.

"Don't you dare lay a hand on her, Olivia!" He growls at me in anger.
Inwardly, my wolf whimpers in pain; Enzo may not have been our fated mate, but we had formed a mate bond with him.
I have never seen Enzo act this way before. He was naked but didn't care about his appearance. He had never fiercely protected me this way before.
"Our marriage is over. I'm sick of you anyway. I, Alpha Enzo, reject you, Olivia, as my mate and Luna." Enzo's voice was filled with hatred. "Sign the divorce papers and put an end to this ill-fated relationship."
My wolf submitted to the alpha command in Enzo's voice, and I couldn't do anything to stop myself from signing the divorce papers against my will.
I had made Enzo the alpha of this pack and given him everything; not once did I dream that the powers I handed over to him would one day be used against me.
I'm tired of being cheated on.
It's payback time, alphas.


She has been betrayed and hurt by love not just once but twice.
The first man to betray Olivia was her mate, Hunter; he slept with another woman before they could get engaged.
The second man who stepped on Olivia's heart was Alpha Enzo, her husband. He did it the day she was about to share the news of her pregnancy with him.
Olivia made Enzo an alpha, but he made her an unhappy woman after marriage and then forced her to divorce him. He stole everything and left Olivia with nothing.
Left with nothing but a baby, Olivia is offered a deal from her ex-mate, Hunter. A contract marriage. But this time around, Olivia refuses to be a fool who gets used and dumped by men when they are done getting what they wanted.
Olivia wants revenge on the two men who had ruined her life and broken her heart; however, with hidden secrets and past misunderstandings, will Olivia's cold heart and cruelty be justified? Or will she regret her decision for revenge?

Seren Han was just another broke student eating instant noodles and mocking bad romance webnovels online—until a ridiculous accident killed her mid-rant.

When she wakes up, it’s inside the very story she was criticizing. Worse, she’s not the heroine destined for love, but Seren Nightwind, the villainess omega fated for rejection and disgrace at the Mate Ceremony.

And then comes the System.

Quests. Penalties. Ridiculous missions like “Laugh at the heroine” and “Seduce the Alpha.”

Every command pushes her closer to ruin, but refusing carries consequences she can’t ignore.

Trapped between the Moon Goddess’s script and the System’s threats, Seren has only one question:

How do you survive when the story itself wants you to lose?

Caroline Mercer once believed kindness could be proven by sacrifice. She took in two orphaned children, gave them schools, doctors, tutors, rooms beside her daughter's nursery, and a path into the Mercer name.

Years later, those children returned as witnesses against her. Sloane Vale smiled for the cameras while calling Caroline a monster. Nolan Vale handed federal investigators a beautiful stack of forged evidence. Caroline's husband was broken, her company was seized, and her only daughter, Evelyn, died after being traded into a marriage meant to protect everyone else's reputation.

Then Caroline opened her eyes on the morning the Vale children first arrived at her door.

This time, she would feed them. She would house them. She would educate them. She would keep every receipt, every doctor's report, every legal notice.

But she would never again give strangers the keys to her child's future.

I thought ten years of childhood sweethearts could weather any storm.

Until that night when Charles rushed out after her call, leaving me alone in bed with his child growing inside me, not knowing how to tell him.

Seraphina Blackwood, tech dynasty heiress, threatened Charles with her father's billion-dollar empire to marry her. And me? Just an orphan girl who seemed to mean nothing in Silicon Valley's power games.

When I watched him remove our wedding ring, when I saw their sweet photos at the hospital, when I lay bleeding on the floor and he chose her... I finally understood that maybe love really can't survive against money.

But what I didn't know was that while I started my new life in Switzerland, there was a man secretly protecting me with his kidney, his heart, his everything...

Until his assistant appeared at my little bakery, desperation in his eyes: "Ms. Thorne, please, you have to save him!"

I found my husband's vasectomy certificate while sorting medical bills. The procedure was done a year ago. But I was six months pregnant now.

I stared at the date on the paper and my hand just... stopped. I kept checking it again and again, but it was still the same. I was freaking out. I looked down at my bump showing through this baggy sweater, and my hands started shaking.

I got in my car and drove straight to my husband's private club. I needed answers about this, now.

Dante Ashford is my stepbrother, and the one person I should never have fallen in love with.

When I was ten, my parents died saving his family. The Ashfords took me in. He was good to me back then. Somewhere along the way, I fell for him.

When I was eighteen, he nearly died in an ambush. I donated blood, then a kidney to save him. I was unconscious for three days. When I woke up, Vivian Ross sat by his bed—and he believed she was his savior.

After that, he pushed me away. Vivian became his fiancée.

In my past life, Vivian's crimes brought disaster to our family. Dante got on his knees and begged me to take her punishment. I refused. She died anyway. Then he pretended to love me, planned our wedding—and on that day, his assistant announced to everyone: "This wedding was a lesson to show Miss Elena Hayes what it feels like to be abandoned by the whole world."

I jumped from the church balcony.

When I opened my eyes, I was back at that moment—him on his knees, begging.

This time, I said yes.

Dante, from now on, we're done.

The day I died in a foreign country, my boyfriend was in the spotlight with another woman.

He's the man I built from nothing. Five years ago, I saved a broke orphan fresh out of college from the gutter. He said he wanted to be famous, wanted to make it to the top of the hockey world. In exchange, he became my boyfriend for five years.

I gave him the best coaching staff money could buy. Bought an entire hockey franchise and made him the centerpiece. Called in every favor I had to make him MVP.

But while he enjoyed everything I gave him, he refused to make our relationship public. Said it would "hurt his brand." He could make headlines with reporters and models, but nobody could know I existed.

He even said on national TV: "Those owners who just throw money around are pretty boring. Hockey is about skill, not money."

So why did he lose his mind when he found out I was dead?

They told me the baby was gone, but they didn't tell me my heart was being carved out, too.

I woke up on the operating table, paralyzed. Through my blurred vision, I saw my beloved husband, Marco, trembling with excitement as he held my medical chart.

"Her blood is perfect," he whispered. "It is a perfect match for Isabella. We can proceed with the transplant now."

"Finally. It wasn't in vain that I brought her back." My revered father let out a sigh of relief. "If it weren't for this day, how would someone who wandered outside for so many years be qualified to step into this house again?"

When my husband said "I love you," he actually meant "Your heart is perfect for the woman I truly love."

I couldn't scream; I couldn't move.

I could only watch helplessly as the silver scalpel pierced toward my chest, while my sister, Isabella, lay on the operating table next to me, smiling in her sleep.

I was never a long-lost daughter, nor was I a beloved wife.

I was just a mobile blood bank waiting to be slaughtered.

"Sloane, where there's smoke, there's fire. If you're really clean, why is it only burning you?"
In my last life, when those fabricated hotel records went viral on the company Slack, I scrambled to explain. I cried. I begged.
What I got was a suspension, a blacklist, and a foster mother who died on a hospital bed because I could no longer pay for her meds.
The person who started it all? Walked right over my corpse into a partnership.
Then I opened my eyes—and I was back. Three days before the promotion list dropped.
I stared at the pixelated "explicit screenshot" on my screen, and I didn't cry. Didn't rage.
I just smiled and hit screen record.
This time, I'm not proving I'm clean.
I'm proving they're guilty.

Forty-eight hours before my wedding, I was kidnapped and gang-raped, surviving by only a thread in the depths of despair.   When my mafia boss fiancé and my police detective best friend stood guard by my hospital bed with bloodshot eyes, I heard him suddenly switch to Navajo and ask her, "The death row inmates from the dark web—were they dealt with cleanly?"   My best friend chuckled, replying in the same language. "Don't worry. The guys who put their hands on Maya have been wiped out. Dead men tell no tales."   "Sacrificing Maya alone gave you the perfect excuse to wipe out the rival family and swallow the southern smuggling network, while earning me a high-level promotion. It was a damn good deal."   Amidst tearing, agonizing pain, it felt as if I had been plunged into an ice cliff.   They thought I could never understand this obscure tribal language, so they brazenly feasted on the spoils of victory built upon my very flesh and blood. But what they didn't know was that, to surprise my fiancé during our wedding vows... I had been secretly studying Navajo for an entire year.

In bed, he gripped my hips, whispering, "Principessa." In public, he was Cosimo—the ruthless mafia don who dismissed me with an icy, "Piccola."
For three years after he bought me, he never touched me. But a year ago, when Caterina returned, everything changed. He became a man possessed, tearing my dresses to shreds in the dead of night, claiming me with wild fury. He even promised to marry me in seven days.
On a storm-drenched afternoon, clutching my positive pregnancy test, I rushed to his private club to surprise him.
But as my hand touched the doorknob, Cosimo’s cold warning drifted through the door.
"Marcellino, know your place as a double. My things—especially Serenella—are strictly off-limits."
My blood ran cold. I peeked through the gap.
Cosimo sat on the sofa, completely indifferent. And by the pool table stood a man with a face identical to his.

To help his life-saving benefactor, he personally pressed a pregnant me on the operating table to draw bone marrow.
I cried and begged him, "James, I'm pregnant. It's your child. Don't do this to me..."
But he had a look of disgust in his eyes. "Elizabeth, you'd lie about something like that just to get out of helping Mandy?"
Until there was a river of blood in the operating room and that unformed child turned into a pool of bloody water, he finally panicked.
Later, when he knew that the person who saved him in the fire ten years ago was actually me, he held my ashes and knelt outside the operating room for a full three days.

My brother was jealous after I won a $50 million lottery jackpot, so he tricked me into believing an extreme ice-age apocalypse was coming.
Because I trusted him, I spent every last dollar my parents and I had—fortifying the house and stockpiling supplies.
Two weeks later, he told me that there was no coming apocalypse. It had all been a lie.
Just when I was drowning in despair, hail started falling in the middle of summer.
The deep freeze apocalypse had really begun.

"Valerie, you've been working yourself to death. I booked you a flight to Switzerland—take Leo, go relax for a while." My husband Cedric set an Hermès scarf down on the table. "Early gift for our tenth anniversary."
I was thrilled, twirling in front of the mirror with the scarf, admiring how it looked.
That's when my son came around the corner, iPad in hand. "Mommy, a message just popped up. Daddy said he wants to give Seraphina a real family."
My mind just... blanked out.
I opened the message myself, and there it was—a whole year of secrets I never even knew existed.
So he wants to make things right with his old flame? Fine.
Then I get to take back everything I ever gave him.

The craziest thing I've ever done? Agreeing to Mason's idea—sex in the middle of nowhere.
But then his first love called, and he left me stranded out there. Alone. In the dead of night.

"The sooner I leave, the sooner I will return to execute judgment on those who have hurt me and also to take back what is mine," I said to my uncle with a firm and determined tone.
She loved him with all her heart; she gave up everything for him; she left her uncle's company, which she was supposed to inherit after her studies; she became a housewife; all these things in order to please him; but what did she get in return?
A divorce paper was thrown right at her face the same day she gave birth, and as if that wasn't enough, he confiscated her child, sending her away with nothing.
Five years later, he regrets his actions and wants her back, but it's already too late. The lady he divorced five years ago is not the same again; she's now one of the richest billionaires in the country, and now all she wants is to make the man who hurt her pay, make him lose everything he had worked so hard for, and at last reclaim her son.
Will she succeed in her revenge mission, or will she end up falling for him again?

Wale never expected the world he built to crumble. One drunken night with his staff, Maya, led to a scandal that forced him into a marriage he never wanted. Behind closed doors, he promised his true love, Kate, “I’ll get rid of her in a year.”
For a year, Maya tried to win Wale’s love, enduring his coldness and distance, but he remained emotionally locked away. Just as he was about to hand her divorce papers, she revealed a shocking secret—she was pregnant. Wale, torn but still set on leaving her, abandoned Maya on the day she went into labor to be with Kate. In a cruel twist, a devastating accident claimed their baby’s life.
Devastated and broken, Maya confronts Wale with a chilling finality, “Congratulations, Mr. Wale. My baby’s gone. I want a divorce. You’ve taken the last reason I had to stay.”
For the first time, Wale feels something he’s never experienced—fear. Fear of losing the woman he dismissed for so long. But now, as Maya walks away, he’s faced with the hardest question of all; is it too late to win back the woman he pushed away? And even if he tries, can Maya ever forgive him for the pain he’s caused?

I thought I was a powerless human in a school full of witches, heirs, and monsters.
Until a black magician tried to kill me.
Until my blood awakened.
Until the boy with phoenix fire knelt bleeding in my arms—and I brought him back from death.
Now everyone wants my secret.
And someone wants me dead.

He swore to kill his mate.
She was convinced she’d never have one.
For twenty-one years, Ximena Blackthorn has lived as the disgrace of her pack.
Born to an Alpha and Luna without a wolf, she's treated as lower than a servant—beaten, ignored, and reminded every day that she should never have been born. Without a wolf, she believes she is beyond the reach of the mate bond.
Then the impossible happens. The moment the Supreme Alpha touches her, the mate bond awakens.
There is only one problem.
Damon has spent centuries believing that a mate is nothing more than a weakness. He made a promise long before Ximena was born: if fate ever gave him a mate, he would kill her with his own hands.
So instead of claiming her...
He hunts her.
But the more Damon tries to destroy the bond, the more his own wolf rebels against him. And when ancient powers begin awakening inside Ximena—powers that should have remained buried forever—everyone begins hunting the woman the Supreme Alpha swore to kill.
Because Ximena isn't just the Supreme Alpha's mate.
She is the one person who was never meant to return. And when the power sleeping inside her finally awakens...
Damon may discover that fate has given him something far more dangerous than a mate. It has brought back an ancient curse. And some curses don't end with death…
They begin with it.

When the zombie apocalypse hit, my elder brother shoved me into a horde of the undead. Now, I've been reborn exactly five days before the end of the world, and he's trying to scam me out of my winning lottery ticket with a beat-up old ring. What he doesn't know is that this ring is a genuine pocket dimension artifact. He thinks he's pulling the ultimate con, completely unaware that I'm going to use this very relic to forge my own post-apocalyptic empire. This time, I'm going to make them pay back every last thing they owe me.

In high school, my ex only dated me because she needed a dependable errand boy.

I believed it. I tutored her, fixed her grades, rewrote her papers, and cleaned up every mess she made.

Then I overheard her telling her friend, “He’s good at studying. That’s it. Dating him is already me being generous.”

At graduation, she dumped me without hesitation.

Years later, I became the CEO of a public company.

Her company was collapsing—cooked numbers, broken cash flow, investors pulling out—and she needed one deal to survive.

She didn’t know who I was.

She scraped my car in the garage, then warned me not to cling to her, saying the CEO she came to meet was way out of my league.

Then the boardroom door opened. She looked up and saw me in the seat at the head of the table.

She thought I’d use this to get revenge.

I didn’t. I just opened her file and said, “You may begin.”

Six hundred years into our marriage, I found out my husband had a son.

I had ended my border patrol three days early, wanting to surprise Valerius.

Not far away, Valerius was channeling his exclusive magic, teaching a boy how to weave the darkness.

"Dad! I did it!" The boy looked up. His bright eyes were a near-perfect reflection of Valerius's.

My mind instantly went blank.

Dad?

A woman walked over.

She draped a small cloak over the boy's shoulders, her hand brushing against Valerius's chest with practiced familiarity. "Valeri, the wind is picking up. He'll catch a cold now that he's sweating."

Valerius naturally wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "My fault."

The image of them huddled together like a picture-perfect family was an ice-tipped needle driven straight into my eyes.

The sharp sting made my breath hitch in my throat.

The man who had sworn before the Senate to love me for all eternity—the man bound to me by a Soul Blood Pact—had already betrayed me!

A sudden, agonizing cramp seized my lower abdomen.

It was an old wound from six centuries ago.

When the Sunfire Curse nearly reduced Valerius to ashes, I had offered my high-born pure blood and my womb as a sacrifice to forcibly block the hex for him.

The price was permanent infertility, along with an excruciating backlash of pain I had to endure every single month.

Back then, Valerius had held me, his eyes red and tear-filled. "I don't want any children! I would rather lose my seat in the Senate than ever betray you!"

Yet the scene before me crushed those words into fine dust.

I stumbled backward, my chest feeling as though it had been ripped open by bare hands.

I was terrified I'd lose control and rush over to scream at him.

Worse yet, in the face of this cozy, happy family of three, I was afraid I'd look like a pathetic, unwanted outsider.

Suffocation gripped my throat. I turned and fled.

My adopted sister, Cordelia, conspired with her biological mother to harvest my organs alive, yet she had the audacity to claim I paid thugs to rape her.
My biological parents didn't bother to ask for the truth. They cursed me, calling me a vicious bastard, and threatened to break my legs.
My fiancé, Caspian, coldly announced the cancellation of our engagement, declaring he would marry the very murderer who killed me.
I had been dead for exactly three days. No one cared. My body was rotting back in a moldy storage room.
Through it all, my soul was trapped in the manor, forced to witness this absurd farce.
But what they didn't expect was that when they finally learned of my death—
Everyone went completely insane.

Fresh off the operating table after barely surviving a miscarriage, I received a $50,000 bill—every cent spent on a waterbed and aphrodisiac aromatherapy on a yacht.
 
I called my husband, the only other person who knew about that account.

Over the phone, he sounded gentle yet aggrieved: "Honey, how could I afford a luxury yacht? It must be a banking error. You just lost our baby; please rest well. My flight to New York is taking off soon, and I'll be right by your side the moment I get back!"
 
I didn't expose the deafening sounds of the wild party in his background. I simply hung up.
 
He thought his lie was flawless. He had no idea that as the hidden heiress of the Windsor Consortium, that priceless yacht, the Poseidon, was actually a coming-of-age gift from my grandmother.
 
I ripped the IV out of my arm and dialed a number I hadn't called in years since marrying beneath my station.
 
"Grandma, you were right. He doesn't deserve me. I'm going to the ship to catch him red-handed."