8177 Book(s) Related to that was then this is now book

I need a fake date to my brother's wedding, and billionaire Charlie Walgrove owns a tux. Simple, right?   He’s also my sister’s boss, and I agree to let her set me up with the awkward genius, who apparently has even less luck in the dating game than a struggling artist, aka me.   We’re total opposites, but the date goes okay. We agree to be friends, the kind who won’t become lovers.    Famous last words.   On a series of “friend dates” involving bar snacks, acrylic paint and hedgehogs, I discover that Charlie is nothing like what I expected. Under his hoodie and glasses, he’s handsome and down-to-earth, stuck in a job he hates and afraid to disappoint people by walking away. His heart is as gorgeous as his hidden face.   I’ve always felt like the flaky sister in my family, but Charlie sees me as the artist I want to be. As our friendship deepens, so do my feelings for him. Maybe I’m even falling in love.   But gambling with my heart feels dangerous when all my relationships end in failure–especially if he’s only looking for a friend.   Is it only princesses that get a Happily Ever After? Or is there hope for a hot mess like me?   No Match for Her is a STANDALONE friends-to-lovers, opposites-attract romance. It is part of the Berkeley Hills series.

I was eight weeks pregnant when I suffered a violent hemorrhage inside the café’s restroom. Clutching my bleeding abdomen, I called my husband fourteen times—only to be labeled a hysterical faker. That same night, he toasted champagne with his young female assistant in his arms without a single shred of guilt.
Three days later, surveillance footage exposed the truth. The woman he cherished had been the one who shoved me down the staircase on purpose.
The night I lost our child, he was out raising his glass in celebration.
Fine. I will make them pay for every single thing they’ve done.

They say Mafia Don Luca loves me. He loved me when I was his brother's wife.
He loves me now as he locks me in his estate and showers me with blood-bought diamonds.
But his love is a poison.
Four years ago, he put a gun to his temple, forcing me to save his bastard son while my four-year-old daughter was reduced to ashes on the Brooklyn Bridge.
Now, he lets that same mistress smash my baby’s urn. He hands me over to a rival syndicate to keep his fake family safe.
He thinks he's making the hard choices to keep us together.
What he doesn't know is that I've already made mine—and it's going to leave him with nothing but ruins.

As the Guardian of the Sylvan Enclave's Sacred Vein, the centennial Fading Period was the one time I was utterly defenseless.

Yet, on this exact day, the four High Lord brothers I had protected for centuries decided to harvest my Vein—all because our adopted human sister whined about wanting to become an elf instantly.

Without the Vein, the Enclave would wither.

In my past life, I desperately fought them off. I begged them to reconsider, promising to manually infuse her with my magic to sustain her life.

They backed down, but Cassianne's greed didn't. She sneaked into the Forbidden forest seeking a shortcut to power and was devoured by beasts.

When news of her death hit, my brothers lost their minds.

They smashed my sanctuary and physically tore open my chest.

"If you hadn't been so selfish, hoarding your Vein, she wouldn't have been so desperate! Rot in hell, you monster!"

Blinded by rage, they shattered my limbs and hollowed me out, leaving me to suffocate in my own pooling blood.

Opening my eyes again, I realized I had been reborn.

This time, I decided to give them exactly what they wanted.

Trapped in a lifelong obsession with my flawed face, I found solace only behind beauty filters.
Seraphine, the undisputed beauty of our town, had not only stolen Cillian—the boy I liked—but made a habit of publicly humiliating me.
When I signed up for the Magnolia Queen pageant, I knew I didn't stand a chance. But one foggy morning, while fetching the paper, I found a mysterious silver compact mirror inside my mailbox.
With just a light dab of the powder, my lifelong acne scars vanished entirely. But engraved inside the lid was a list of previous owners, and Seraphine's name was glaringly present.
The faceless shadow that briefly flashed in the mirror was a grim reminder: this perfect skin didn't belong to me.
Who secretly delivered this curse to my doorstep?

At 18, Iris Hawthorne’s world shattered the moment a man in military boots kicked down her door. Donovan Sharpe, the ruthless and legendary arms dealer, dragged her into his dark, dangerous realm as if she were a helpless kitten.Wild, feral, and dangerously possessive, he growled his claim:“Iris, you will only ever smell like me. So much as one person lays a finger on you, and they won’t live to see the sunrise.” He burned every bridge behind her, yet lavished her with all his gentleness: “Iris, even if the sky falls, I will put your happiness first.” Then came the day she ran. To save her, Donovan charged alone into a hail of bullets. Amid the rubble, bloody and broken, Iris nuzzled his blood-stained chest and whispered softly: “Donovan… come any later, and I’m done with you.”

A monotonous, colorless life and dull relationships instantly fade into the background the moment you step into a completely different world—one with its own rules and laws. It looks so much like ours, and yet is radically different, for here live werewolves and countless other incredible beings.
Bring a cursed Alpha King’s heart back to life? Ride off into the sunset with one of the handsome guards? Or fall for a dangerous witch and uncover the true face of evil? Wrap it all up for me—I’ll take it!
An extraordinary world, vivid characters, blazing emotions, and passionate love with a touch of spice ❤️‍🔥
18+
“Quite an interesting hall you’ve got here,” Karadeylis said without even glancing around, his steps bringing him dangerously close. “But OURS holds unforgettable memories of the time we unwrapped your restless little ass.”
I gasped in outrage at his brazen words—especially with so many people around—but my panties betrayed me, dampening at the memory of exactly what that bastard had reminded me of.
“How dare you?!” I hissed, our faces now only inches apart. Goosebumps ran across my skin at the dangerous nearness. I could feel his hot breath on my lips, the heat of his half-bare body, and that intoxicating scent I knew too well. Our breathing came ragged, as if we had just finished running a marathon, unable to break free from the magnetic pull of each other’s gaze.
“No one else dares—only me, my prepedollie!” the scoundrel growled, gripping me firmly by the tail and yanking my face closer to his as his eyes devoured me. “I warned you—once I found you, there would be no mercy!”
My books: 'Too Human To Be His', 'The Price of Bought Passion '

After seven years of being an ignored wife and mother, she finally files for divorce.
She returns to her career as a top designer and shines brightly.
When her billionaire husband realizes what he lost, he begs her to come back.
But it’s too late—she’s already moved on.

My six-month business trip to Europe was finally over. I decided to surprise my husband Nathaniel by coming home early without telling him, bringing my six-year-old son Lucas straight to his newly opened upscale restaurant.

Lucas excitedly ran toward the children's play area while I scanned the restaurant for Nathaniel, eagerly anticipating our reunion.

Suddenly, a scream shattered the peaceful atmosphere.

I turned to see a woman in work uniform roughly shoving my son, snarling viciously:

"What the hell are you RUNNING around for, you little brat! Can't you watch where you're going?"

I froze. How DARE this woman treat my child like this in my husband's restaurant?

"Only one woman leaves alive. Choose, Jared."

My husband didn't even hesitate. He rushed past me, untying his weeping mistress, Natalie. "I choose her! Take Danika!" he screamed, refusing to look at me as I sat bound to the chair. He walked away, leaving me alone with the man paid to rape me. The monster laughed, unzipping his pants, thinking I was a broken doll. But he forgot I had nothing left to lose. As he forced himself on me, my hand found a pen in his pocket. I didn't beg for mercy. I plunged it straight into his eye socket.

Danika, the perfect wife of upcoming businessman Jared Fox is known to the world as a naive, beautiful wife who loves her husband to the core, however, no one knows just how dark her life is.

Enter Lysander Laurent-Ashworth, cold, disciplined, and feared across the business world for his ruthless precision. To everyone else, he is untouchable. To Danika, he is the stranger who saved her, and the man who seems determined to shield her, even from the truths she can’t remember.

Bound by a dangerous agreement neither of them fully understands, Danika finds herself drawn into Lysander's world but Lysander might just do anything to protect her. Absolutely, anything.

I once believed his oath wholeheartedly. I sacrificed all my power to lift him onto the Alpha King’s throne. What a cruel twist: the man who swore to die for me became my executioner.
He cast me aside for another female, and my past life ended in endless sorrow and destruction.
Now I am reborn, and I am no longer the naive girl who loved blindly.
I shatter the token of our blood oath in public, ending our bond forever.
To the shock of all onlookers, I do not seek another chance with him. I turn and pledge myself to the new Alpha King.

I went for a prenatal check-up, only to catch my beloved Alpha husband gently holding Omega Rosa’s hand through the crack in the door, whispering,
“Our pup looks perfect.”

He’s my husband.
She’s his childhood sweetheart.
And me? I’m the one they decided was expendable.

Later, he stood in the hallway and murmured,
“For the good of the family, I have to claim her pup—not yours.”

Rosa leaned in with a smile:
“Don’t be mad, Isabella. Once you give birth, we can raise your baby… as our adopted son.”

That was the moment I realized—being Luna meant nothing.
To them, I was just a pawn in a game of betrayal.

And the pup in my belly?
He was never meant to survive in a world this cruel.

The Moon Goddess may have fated him to be my mate, but fate clearly had a cruel sense of humor—because Alpha Eddy was never the type to settle down. Women clung to him like shadows, and he never once turned them away.

Before our bond could even form, he wrapped his arms around me and fed me the same excuse he always did.

"Carol, the healer says it’s congenital. I can't help it. Being with them is... just a way to protect you from getting hurt."

I cried. I begged. I screamed. But the carousel of beautiful women in his life never stopped spinning.

Then came the breaking point.

On a so-called business trip, Alpha Eddy heroically rescued three sisters who were cornered by Rogues. Instead of sending them back to their pack—or literally anywhere else—he brought them straight into our home. Not just anywhere in the Red Tree tribe's castle, but into the Luna’s chambers. My chambers.

When I questioned him, his response made my stomach turn.

"Carol, don’t overthink it. They’re just helpin

I took my sister’s place to save my family. Now I am living a life that could destroy me. I never wanted anything to do with the mafia. But when my twin sister vanished without a word, I stepped into her world and became her… the wife of Rowan, a man people fear and never question.
Every day, I live a lie. His son, Dante, looks at me like I am his mother, and something inside me breaks every time he says in a low voice that l look like his mom. But not everyone is fooled.
Rowan’s family watches me too closely. They see what does not belong and they are waiting for me to slip so they can get rid of me for good.
I tell myself I can handle it. That I just need to survive long enough to protect the people I love.
But I am losing control. Because the man I was never meant to love is starting to look at me differently. And the worst part is… I think I am falling for him too.

In my family, "democracy" was just a gilded word for bullying.
Every time there was a conflict between me and my adopted sister, Ivy, my fiancé and my brother would settle it with a family vote.
The location of my marital home? I lost, 3-1.
The guest list for my wedding? I lost, 3-1.
 
And when Ivy wanted the massive south-facing master suite in my new house to build her walk-in closet?
"Let's vote to keep things fair," my fiancé, William, declared.
I was a rising architect at Boston's most prestigious firm, yet I didn't even have the right to design my own marital home.
The result was unanimous. The bride's bedroom would be half the size of the adopted sister's closet.
 
Out of more than a hundred family votes over the last ten years:
My fiancé's votes for me: Zero.
My own brother's votes for me: Zero.
 
I finally realized this game was rigged from the start. I didn’t say a word. I just packed my bags.
Let them play their little voting game without me.

I only gave him one night. One night to prove I wasn't just the human maid cleaning his mansion floors.
And by dawn, the Alpha shattered me. He rejected me, humiliated me, and chose another to wear the crown at his side.
He never knew that night left me with more than scars. It left me with a son.
Two years later, I'm not the weak girl who cried when he cast me aside. And I'm back not for him, but for my child.
Kael thinks he can ignore the past. He thinks he can demand my forgiveness. But I don't care about his crown, or his throne, or the Luna who clings to him like she's untouchable.
All I care about is protecting my son.
And if the Alpha thinks he can claim us now... he'll learn that nothing is fiercer than a mother who refuses to be erased.

My grandfather was a thief.

He did not steal money.

He stole my grandmother's name, her return papers, and the life that should have carried her out of the mountains.

Fifty years later, his granddaughter sat across from me in a law firm interview and smiled like the world already belonged to her.

I opened her file, saw the family name, and closed the folder.

"You didn't pass."

Three years ago, the night before my wedding, I was kidnapped and nearly killed.

When I woke up, Julian was crying over me. "The kidnappers hurt you so badly, Elsie. The doctors—they had to remove your uterus to save you. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

My world shattered.

I cried for a week straight. Cried until I had no voice left, until my eyes couldn't open from the swelling. I'd lost everything—my chance at motherhood, my chance at being whole.

But Julian squeezed my hand. "I love you, Elsie. You're all I need."

He married me anyway. Against his family's wishes, he married this broken woman.

For three years, he was perfect. Gentle. Loving. I thought I was the luckiest woman alive.

Until today.

Today, I learned the truth—

There was no kidnapping. No random attack.

It was all planned. Orchestrated by Julian himself.

For one reason only—to give my uterus to Chloe, my sister who was born unable to have children.

On my first day at St. Clair University, my roommate Lysandra laughed at me in French.

Wrapped in designer logos, she called me a nobody who did not even recognize luxury perfume.

She thought I could not understand her.

She was wrong. French was my first language.

I was also Iris Russell, the hidden heir to the Russell Group.

But I kept that to myself.

Then Lysandra set me up at a Michelin-starred restaurant. With the manager's help, she placed a fake $450,000 bill in front of me and demanded humiliating photos to erase the debt.

They expected me to break.

Instead, I opened my phone and started a livestream.

By the time Lysandra learned who I was, the whole internet had seen her trap.

"Sign the Brooklyn house over to Isla. I'll cover your tuition next semester."

Gabriel didn't look up. Just sat there in his leather chair like he was doing me a favor.

My mother grabbed my sleeve. "She has depression, Rachel. She just needs a studio. Why are you making this so hard?"

I looked at her, then at him. That house was the only thing my father left me when he died. The only thing. And my stepbrother was sitting in his leather chair, offering me a trade like it was nothing.

"That house is the only thing my father left me," I said. "You know that."

Gabriel finally looked up. "I know. Sign anyway."

My mother tightened her grip on my sleeve. I shook her off.

"Give me the pen."

I signed. Grabbed my suitcase — packed for three days — and walked out.

I had nowhere to go. I didn't care.

Kael Varez spent his entire life being treated like dirt, mocked for being poor, humiliated for being fatherless and discarded by the woman he loved the moment a richer man appeared.

But on the night his dying mother whispers a terrifying secret, Kael’s world changes forever because the assassins hunting him believed that he is the missing heir to a brutal underground empire built on blood, power and fear.

Now, trapped in a deadly world where loyalty is bought and betrayal hides behind every smile, Kael must survive ruthless enemies, dangerous alliances and a family that wants him erased before he can uncover the truth about who he really is but the deeper he falls into the darkness, the more he begins to change.

So when the bastard everyone once despised finally rises, will he destroy the empire or become something even worse than the men hunting him?

In a world ruled by powerful werewolf bloodlines, one name was never meant to exist again.

Elias Ashford.

Born during the terrifying Blood Moon Eclipse, Elias was feared from the moment he took his first breath. Whispers followed him his entire life cursed child, monster, omen of destruction. Even his own father, the ruthless Alpha Darius Ashford, hid dark secrets about the night Elias was born.

But everything changes when Elias meets Vivienne Silvercrest the daughter of a rival bloodline and the girl tied to him by a forbidden bond older than history itself What begins as a dangerous mate connection soon awakens something ancient buried deep beneath the werewolf world.

An ancient kingdom erased from history A forgotten throne A power capable of destroying gods As mysterious enemies known as the Black Moon Order rise from the shadows, Elias discovers the horrifying truth:

He is not just a cursed Alpha.

He is the reincarnation of the First Alpha the legendary King of the Void, a being so powerful the Moon Goddess herself betrayed and sealed him centuries ago Now the seals are breaking Monsters buried beneath the earth are awakening Ancient prophecies are coming alive.

And Vivienne may be the only person capable of either saving Elias or destroying him forever.

Bound by love, hunted by fate, and surrounded by betrayal, Elias and Vivienne must uncover the truth behind the curse before the world falls into darkness again.

But some curses were never meant to be broken.

And some kings were never meant to return.

Aria lost her ten fingers and her entire future to a pair of fake lovers in her past life. Reborn before the crucial music competition, she abandons her role as a shadow pianist and picks up her abandoned violin again. With bleeding fingers and a death wish for revenge, she teams up with Adrian, the ruthless piano tyrant of Juilliard Prep. They burn down the perfect reputation of the hypocritical genius who once ruined her. Broken strings can be re-tuned. Broken talent always plays louder than lies.

They built a hundred-year name on a scholarship they stole from a dead girl.

This morning that name landed on my desk. Brooke Hale, applicant. One signature away from the federal clerkship her family has won, somehow, in every generation since 1962.

I'm the one who signs.

I wrote three words instead. Recommend denial. Then I sat with my hands flat on the file so they'd stop shaking.

The Hales think it's a cold case. A girl named Iris, ruled ineligible sixty years ago, gone quiet, gone poor, gone.

They don't know Iris was my great-grandmother.

They don't know I kept the letter.

Torn between the man she loves, and the man who loves her....

Cordia has always been strong-willed, but she knows her family expects her to accept the hand of her childhood friend, Jaris, in marriage. As the conflict continues to escalate, Cordia hopes it will last long enough for her to find a way to free herself without breaking her friend’s heart.

On the eve of war, Cordia meets a mysterious newcomer. There’s just something about Will that she finds both intriguing and dangerous. She makes a plan to write to him. Perhaps by the time the war is over, Will’s feelings for Cordia will have blossomed into love.

But by the time war begins to wind its way through Missouri, one of these men will be dead, and Cordia will find herself betrothed to a man she loathes. Will she have the courage to follow her heart, or will she do as she is told and acquiesce to a loveless marriage to a heartless traitor?

Bonus story Cordia's Hope!

Forbidden love on the frontier....
Hope is content staying in her hometown of Lamar, Missouri, focusing on her life as a schoolteacher instead of finding love. But when she hears the truth about her parents' romance during the Civil War, how her mother Cordia set out to find her father Will after a deadly battle, Hope is determined to have that sort of adventure as well.

Accepting a teaching position in a frontier town in Texas isn't quite what she was expecting--there are no marauders or gunslingers--but there is one man with a shady past, and when the entire town tells her to stay away from Judah Lawless, Hope finds herself drawn to him.

Is Judah dangerous, or will Hope finally find the romance she's been looking for?

Rhye Gosling demanded she marry him after their accidental nerve-wracking one-night stand. Little did she know, he was the most powerful Alpha in the werewolf community, a world she thought only existed in the book. How hard could it be? Yet, the handsome and demanding Alpha would change her life to the full extent, bringing her laughter and tears, hatred and love, and into the chaotic world of magic and wonder where werewolves and demons existed and would do everything to bring the Alpha to his knees.

Racked by confusion and changes in her body, Diana found herself irresistibly drawn to Andrew. Passion ignited and threatened to consume them both. However, she was unprepared for the reason he had sought her out and the danger that lay ahead. Regardless, sharing a love of conquering their goals, this unlikely pair began to form an unexpected bond that led them to a place neither of them ever expected to be.

“You can stand there and deny it all you want,” he said huskily in my ear. “But I know how drenched you were that night. Your tight little p*ssy? It was calling my name, baby.”

“You’re insane! I never wanted you!” I gritted out, hating how weak I sounded. Hating how my arms suddenly didn’t have the strength to push him away.

How there was a part of me that truly wanted him, despite everything.

“Keep denying it,” he murmured, eyes darkening. “It just makes me more eager to bend you over my desk and f*ck that attitude right out of you.”


When executive assistant Alice Rhodes sent her arrogant and insufferable boss, Theodore Linden-Hawthorne, a sext during the company’s New Year’s party, her life turned completely upside down.

She lost everything: her fiancé, her family, and her best friend, all because of one embarrassing mistake. To make matters worse, Theodore seemed incapable of staying away from her, and Alice was horrified to realize that the feeling was slowly starting to become mutual.

But this attraction between them came at a price. Alice and Theodore came from two completely different worlds. Their attraction was forbidden and frowned upon by everyone around them. Would their love survive vengeful exes, juicy scandals, hidden secrets, and unexpected surprises?

When Travis, Serena's mate, picked her sister over her, she couldn't help but think her fear had come true.

She was denied by her mate.

Choosing the easy way out of the heartbreak, she ran away with no intention of going back. But, it wasn't that easy when her older brother managed to track her down and demanded for her to come home.

And when she does, secrets will pop out and she will find herself in a situation that she never thought would end up in.

I pursued Kaelzen, Alpha of the Frostfang Tribe, for four years and was about to marry him, only to expose his deception shortly before the wedding. A serious head injury erased all my memories of him. My family arranged a new marriage with the Duskthorn Tribe heir, and I agreed, planning to leave once the Ash Gate opens in seven days. Unaware of my memory loss, Kaelzen still treats me arrogantly, yet he is just a stranger to me now.

When Alpha Alex chose to abandon our biological son Lucas in the fire and instead saved the son of Omega Isabella, my world shattered.

In an instant, I became a pitiful creature crushed under their feet.
Isabella humiliated me—forced me to lick the dirt off her shoes like I was nothing.

Lucas died in agony, and I wasn’t even allowed to attend his funeral.

But as the truth slowly began to unravel, I realized with horror that behind all this suffering…
lay a secret powerful enough to destroy me.

What should I do now?

Can anyone tell me—
how do I escape a fate that feels like a nightmare I can’t wake from?

Isabella Monte is distraught when her family loses everything. Determined not to lose her parents, she swore on her father's hospital bed to get back all they had lost.
However her father told her that it was futile as their suffering was caused by Angelo Flores, the wealthiest bachelor in Panama.
Angelo would stop at nothing to completely get rid of the Monte's as he blames them for the death of his parents and sister. While at the hospital with her father, Isabella is visited by none other than Angelo and a deal is placed before her.
"Marry me and I will let your family go." Against her father's will, Isabella agrees to Angelo's demands. Her hatred for him is stronger than ever as she vows to make him pay for her family's suffering.
But, what happens when Isabella finds herself falling for the enemy?
WARNING: MATURE CONTENT

After being murdered in an arson attack, I was reborn to the moment right after marrying Charles.
This time, all I want is to fight for my daughter's future and my career.
But just when the divorce papers are ready, the always cold and distant Charles suddenly begs me to stay.
——
I hesitated...

Blurb:

“Did the condom really break all those years back or did you just want to baby trap me, Varian?”

He looked at me, eyes freezing over, “I just did what time you would make sure you would never leave my side,”

•••••••••••••

Varian and Thalia had been childhood sweethearts ever since they were little. He was the alpha son and she came from the Beta line, there's seemed like a perfect love story just waiting for its happy ending. That was until Thalia got a scholarship to go to Crescent University and pursue her dream of becoming a professional healer, it was supposed to mark the end of their relationship until another curveball was thrown at them–Thalia’s pregnancy.

Her dream was eventually flushed down the toilet, exchanged for being an underappreciated glorified housewife with the title of Luna slapped across it. Varian had become distant over the years then the straw that broke the camel's back was when she found out that he had been cheating with her best friend, devastation claimed her. She demanded for a divorce and as if to punish her he made sure she was left with nothing more than the clothes on her back.

One night she disappeared with her twins, and years passed. Varian came face-to-face with her again. The only woman who could cure a plague unlike any seen in a hundred years. He tried to win her back but now saw that their twins was calling another man ‘Daddy’

In my previous life, I married the old-money aristocrat Charles for the sake of so-called love, only to exhaust my heart and soul enduring his mother's torment and his own spineless cowardice.

I eventually left that marriage with nothing but scars.
 
Meanwhile, my gentle and kind-hearted sister, Chloe, married the self-made shipping magnate Alexander.

Yet, she was relentlessly tormented by the so-called "comrade's sister" he kept in his mansion, ultimately slitting her wrists in a bathtub in utter despair.
 
Now, I was back to the exact moment we were about to sign our prenuptial agreements.
 
The second our eyes met, Chloe and I recognized the shared, unspoken resolve in each other's gaze—we had both been reborn.

When the apocalyptic red rain fell, my brother and I both awakened spatial abilities.

He awakened a space as vast as a mansion and was hailed by the entire family as their savior.

While I only awakened a "suitcase" and was ruthlessly drained of all my assets by my parents to support my brother, then kicked out of the house.

They mocked me cruelly: "We don't keep deadweights. Go wait for death in the 70-degree furnace outside!"

What they didn't know was that my brother's space had no preservation function—his stockpile of premium ingredients would soon rot into a pile of maggot-infested meat.

But my suitcase had upgrade attributes!

While they fought each other over a sip of putrid green water in the 200-degree hellscape,

I sat in the "Eden" I had created, watching herds of cattle and sheep, drinking ice-cold fresh milk.

Marriage is meant to be a dream come true, but Isolde Conklin’s marriage is the complete opposite. Sold to a cruel Alpha by her parents, she endures three agonizing years of constant assault.

During one cold night, she’s had enough of the humiliation and constant harassment. So she does something insane—she kills her own husband.

Soaked in his blood, she runs as bullets fly over her head, but she’s eventually saved by Alpha Ryder of the Redblood pack.

But Ryder didn’t save her because he cares. He saved her because he wants to avenge his mother’s death. Now trapped in a pack full of secrets, enemies, and men who would do anything to claim her, Isolde must survive or risk losing everything…..including her life.

“You Killed my father and brought down his empire, cheated on me with my best friend and humiliated me, now watch as I do the same to you!”

The infamous Mafia Mistress.

After a long time of trying to discover the identity of the mafia mistress everyone in Palermo had gossiped about, Giovanni Moretti, the mafia Don was shocked to find his ex wife standing before him.

And she was spilling threats!

Now Giovanni needed not only to reclaim the new version of Maya he had found but also the hidden heir he discovered he had.

His return is fueled by a single desire: to reclaim Maya and his son, Dante, as his own.

Maya had found solace in the hands of Carlo, a rival Mafia boss who vowed to give her the revenge she so badly wanted. And soon it's not just about revenge but about a struggle to love and to be loved.

Caught between her duty to Carlo and the ghost of her past, Maya must now confront a love triangle that could either solidify her power or tear her world apart. As spies infiltrate, and enemies close in, Maya must decide whether to seek revenge or redemption. Will her burning desire to destroy Giovanni cost her everything she’s fought for, or will it be the key to finally setting herself free?

Two weeks before my due date, my husband Ethan is racing out the door into a stormy night.

All because his childhood friend Scarlett's apartment lost power, and she says her claustrophobia is kicking in.

I'm clutching my belly, telling him my water broke, begging him to look at the blood on the floor.

"You pulling this again? Last week wasn't enough? Scarlett's actually in danger."

He shakes off my hand. The door slams shut.

I'm standing in a pool of blood, watching his taillights disappear into the rain.

My baby won't have a father anymore.

I am the leader of the world's largest mercenary group. After retiring, I went to work as a bodyguard at the home of the woman who saved my life.
I hid my identity, wanting only to protect the woman who had saved me — until one day, her family fell into crisis. Everyone came to bully her, take everything she had, and even force her out onto the streets.
I stopped hiding and stepped forward. Anyone who dares to harm her will pay the price!

I was in love with Ethan Black, a brilliant man with big dreams. I gave him my twenties, my body, my loyalty. I worked three jobs while he chased his startup dreams. And when he finally made it, he became a stranger.
Then I found out he got another woman pregnant, the same woman who dumped him in college when his family lost everything. That nearly destroyed me. But I stayed. I told myself love was worth it.
But nothing could prepare me for the day he left our four-year-old daughter home alone… to go see her. And our little girl died.
I buried my child and with her, the woman I used to be.
Now, I live for one thing only: Revenge.
He took everything from me. Now I’ll take everything from him.
He doesn’t know it yet… but I’m not the same woman he left behind. And by the time I’m done, he’ll wish he never met me.

I’m Molly Johnson. At my own engagement party, I witnessed my fiancé’s betrayal with my stepsister right before my eyes. Devastated, I turned around and married Edward Howard—a wealthy heir rumored to be terminally ill, with not much time left to live.
Everyone laughed, saying I was in a hurry to become a widow. But little did they know, I leaned close to his ear, my breath warm and teasing: “Since you don’t have much time left, why not play a little game with me?”
I flirted with him, tempted him, watched as his indifference slowly melted into a blush at the tips of his ears.
Until one day, he cornered me against the wall, his eyes burning with longing. “Molly… tease me again. Please.”

A substitute, huh?

She met him out of luck, and out of the blue, he proposed something to her that she couldn't possibly refuse.

To become his wife.

But unknown to her, she was just a substitute to him, all because she resembled his beloved ex.

And when his ex returned, she was something he could easily discard.

Heartbroken, betrayed, and called a golddigger, she left with her little brother and her mother, who was recovering from a dangerous illness.

Only to return 7 years later as a completely different person with pride.

What happens when they cross paths with each other? Especially when he saw a young child beside her who looked just like his childhood pictures? But most especially, what would happen when he discovered just how much he was hated by the child, since his mother had filled his mind with something beyond saying.

He was supposed to be my way out, but he was the one who pushed me into the pit all along.
I used to think Carter was the one good thing in this hellhole of a high school. He'd stand up for me when the whole class mocked my stutter. He'd hand me a clean jacket when my locker got stuffed with dead rats.
For him, I gave up my Ivy League dreams, willingly settling for some mediocre state university.
Until that Friday outside the locker room, when I heard him brag to his teammates and the head cheerleader—the same girl who'd led the charge in tormenting me—about his "conquest" in the most casual tone imaginable.
Turns out, I was just the prize in their sick bet.
In that moment, everything I'd believed in shattered.
I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I just quietly changed my college application, and then, at the height of their triumph, I watched with cold eyes as they destroyed themselves.

"You'll regret this," he said, certain I was only bluffing.
I still signed the divorce papers—without asking for a single extra dollar.
For three years, I was the wife who left a light on for him, who knew exactly how warm he liked his water, how strong his coffee should be, even what his silence meant. He never once asked what I wanted.
"I can't live without you," he now begs, kneeling in the rain outside my building.
Some men only learn to bow their heads after they've already lost everything worth keeping.

Be careful what you wish for … After eleven years trapped in the Spadros crime syndicate, 23-year-old private eye Jacqueline Spadros is an independent woman, free to run her investigation business. But her problems are only beginning. Deeply in debt, Jacqui is in danger from both the rogue Spadros men calling themselves “The Ten of Spades” and the ruthless Red Dog Gang — who may be one and the same. Jacqui is determined to find Black Maria, the key to the identity of the Red Dog Gang’s secretive leader. To survive long enough to do that, Jacqui needs a paying case. The one she's offered may put her in the most danger of all … The Ten of Spades is part 5 of a 13-part serial novel - please begin with The Jacq of Spades or the Red Dog Conspiracy Act 1 box set.

"I want to go back to London."
"No," he says simply, his voice low and commanding. "You're not going anywhere."
"Why not?"
"Because, unlike that worthless nephew of mine, I actually care about you."
Lyla Rose thought she had it all—love, power, a secure future. But a single medical report changes everything: she's infertile, and her ruthless husband, Vincent Ricci, discards her without hesitation.
He replaces her with another woman and locks Lyla away, believing he's done with her. But Carter Ricci, Vincent's cold and calculating uncle, rescues her. He offers protection, passion, and promises he's nothing like the man who destroyed her.
Yet Carter's care is suffocating. Locked doors, watching eyes, and a hunger that feels more like possession than love. When the truth about her infertility surfaces, Lyla realizes she may have traded one prison for another.
Caught between the husband who shattered her and the man who claimed her, Lyla must decide: can she ever be free when love itself has become a cage?

"Time's up, sir. That's enough."
I've said it so many times I've gone numb to it. In this brothel, I'm nothing but a body with a price tag.
Then an old man froze in the doorway, his eyes reddening. "My God... Miss Isabella, what happened to you?"
Isabella. Somewhere in my shattered memory, that name still carries a weight I can't explain.
"I'm Antonio," he wept. "Alessandro sent me to find you."
A name both familiar and foreign. Salvation—or just the door to a darker room?

She came to seduce a monster. She didn't expect to fall for one.
Elena Heart is a liar, a spy, assassin and the last ghost of a murdered noble house. To break the curse of monsters plaguing her land, she accepts a deadly mission: infiltrate the court of King Xavier Drakes, the tyrant who rules with iron and shadow, and seduce him into ruin.
But the king is not the beast she imagined.
Xavier has spent a decade chained to a monster inside his own soul, forged by betrayal and a childhood spent in darkness. He sees Elena’s ruse from her first treacherous smile. Yet he doesn't kill her. He plays along. Because a woman brave enough to lie to a tyrant might be brave enough to help him burn the real conspiracy down.
As lies entangle into truth and hatred twists into obsession, Elena discovers the greatest danger isn't the monsters at the border, it's the man who knows her every secret and surrenders anyway.
In a game of power and poison, the last move is always love. Or murder.
They’re not sure which yet.