7861 Book(s) Related to that was then this was now

It's fall break, and Mom and my sister Della Sinclair are visiting me at St. Julian's Academy.

The South Campus Arctic Biome is a landmark the Sinclair family funded years ago. It's filled with the rare arctic flowers Mom and Della have always loved. Every single time they visit, they have to go in.

That's when Kiley Croft, the girl Fletcher Waverly grew up with, pulls what she calls "a little prank." While no one's paying attention, she locks the door from the outside panel and pushes the temperature controls to maximum.

The people inside are trapped. They burn to death.

Kiley runs to Fletcher in tears, and instead of calling 911, he pulls her close and tells her:

"Hey. It's okay. It was an accident. This isn't on you."

He doesn't call me until the fire trucks show up.

"Blythe, the biome caught fire. Your mom and your sister are trapped inside."

I spin around.

Della is right next to me, sniffling and complaining about her cold. Mom is passing her tissues.

They're both completely fine.

Then who the hell is in there?

Tricia Smith is a Werewolf, and on her 18th birthday she lost everything. Her home, her family, her life.
Then it all changes in the blink of an eye when something unexpected happens before a meeting with a neighboring Alpha becomes so much more.
Will she except her fate or will she try to fight it and go through hell to protect whats hers and what she wants in her life.

***Please do not hessitate to leave comments on what you would like to see happen in this book. I would love to be able to incorporate some of your ideas into this creation!!!

Valorn had been planning the war for years.
Their greatest general already knew that Eldara's army could not be defeated on a battlefield — not as long as one man was standing at the front of it. So instead of attacking the wall, they went looking for the crack.
They found it.
His name was Dane.
Recruited when the war begins, Dane becomes, through brutal training and shared missions, the soldier Captain Rhett trusts above all others. His right hand. The one Rhett risks everything to protect when a spy mission behind enemy lines nearly costs them both their lives.
But Dane has been carrying wounds.
Three of them. Each one small. Each one unintentional. Each one left to fester in silence — until Valorn knocked on the door that offense had already unlocked.
He told himself it was justice.
He did not tell himself the truth.
What follows is the story of a nation built from nothing by one ordinary man's extraordinary vision and how that nation was not destroyed by its enemies, but from the inside, by one soldier's unhealed heart.
The enemy that destroyed Eldara never wore Valorn's uniform.
It wore Eldara's own colors. It had Eldara's own name.
It was called offense.

In a city owned by the Four Families, Constable Paix Hanger has advanced as high as he can. A hard-working twenty-year veteran relegated to walking a beat in the worst neighborhood of the worst precinct of the city, he resents the crime family which rules his quadrant, chafing at the restrictions placed on him by his superiors "for his own good". A boy who's a reminder of the son he might never have disappears and those who look for him begin dying. When the incompetent and corrupt detectives assigned to the case are unable or unwilling to act, Constable Hanger takes matters into his own hands. This companion story takes place during the same time frame as The Jacq of Spades: Part 1 of the Red Dog Conspiracy.

My husband used my cottage to cheat on me. Fine. I found out, I drove three hours, and I walked into my own house to find his mistress wearing my dead grandmother's sweater.
She told me to leave.
He showed up, kissed her in front of me, then grabbed my arm and shoved me into the door frame.
That's when I had the asthma attack. He's known about my asthma for five years.
My inhaler rolled across the porch floor. His mistress picked it up, held it out, and told me to sign a statement saying I'd caused all of this. Then she'd give it back.
He looked at me on the ground and said: She's performing.
I'm sitting on the floor of my own grandmother's house, gasping, and my husband is telling the neighbors I'm acting.
Nobody thought to ask whose family manages every property on this coastline.

"I gave you a life… and you took mine with it."

She woke up in a sterile hospital room, her body aching, her womb empty.
The child she carried—gone.
No name. No face. No goodbye.

To him, it was just a transaction. A contract. A child born of benefit.
To her, it was the beginning of everything—and the end of herself.

Years passed. Her heart hardened. But fate, cruel and poetic, dragged him back into her orbit.
Only this time, there are secrets.
And bloodlines.
And a storm of revenge, waiting to unravel them both.

In a world where love is a luxury and hatred is inherited, how do you survive the one man who cost you everything… yet still makes your heart ache?

The night before the SAT, I brought homemade pastries from our bakery to share with the whole class.

The next day, over thirty students collapsed at the testing center. The exam was voided.

I became the target of everyone's rage. My family fell apart. I ended up in a detention cell.

The internet tore me apart. My classmate Lainey Prescott went on camera sobbing, saying all she wanted was for me to own up to what I did.

While I was in detention, I found out my mom had a mental breakdown and jumped off the overpass outside of town.

That same night, I went into the river too. The water was freezing.

When I open my eyes, Lainey is right there. She's holding that same sheet of paper with everyone's signatures, smiling like nothing's wrong, eyes just as calculating as I remember.

I'm back.

And this time, I'm not making anything for anyone.

Sometimes the richest prize isn’t money—it’s the one heart you can’t afford to lose.

Callie Monroe never imagined leaving the wide-open skies of Bandera, Texas. But when tragedy struck her family ranch, her father demanded she marry the wealthy widower next door to pay the bills. Callie refused. Instead, she ran—straight to New York, where she traded sunsets for subway rides and survival meant slinging cocktails in a Brooklyn dive.

She wasn’t looking for love. She was looking for a way out. But a televised dating game with a cash prize too good to ignore was about to change everything.

Grayson Wolfe built his empire with ruthless precision. Billionaire. Innovator. Cold as steel. But his late father’s will forced him into a corner: marry for one year, or lose control of the Wolfe fortune. A man who didn’t believe in love suddenly needed a bride—fast.

So he entered the game show.
Not for money. Not for fame.
For a loophole.

He thought every woman would beg for him.
Until she didn’t.

Callie Monroe, fiery redhead in a red dress, was the only one who told him no. And in that rejection, she became the one prize he couldn’t walk away from.

But when their worlds collide again—this time with him as her boss—the rules of the game change. Desire becomes dangerous. Pride becomes a weapon. And the lines between business and passion blur into obsession.

He had everything…until her.
Now she’s the only prize worth winning.

Three years in a loveless marriage with Leo Cox, Mona thought she could win his heart with her unwavering devotion, but Leo showed no love or concern towards her. Eventually she got tired, filed for divorce and left after founding out Leo was cheating on her— but she was already pregnant for him.

Leo assumed Mona was merely playing hard to get-after all, he bet she'd be back, begging for reconciliation. But no one saw it coming; after the divorce, Mona transformed into a confident woman and Leo is stunned by her transformation.

Now, Leo is drowning in regret, desperately chasing after Mona-but by this time, it was already too late.

He started contemplating every day, wondering if breaking a leg or going bankrupt would be enough to capture her attention.

At my bedside, for what felt like the hundredth time,my family asked me nervously,“Are you still planning to look for Elias?”
I blinked in confusion, asking, “Who is Elias? Why would I look for him?”
And at that moment, the doctors declared me “recovered.”
I was finally allowed to leave the psychiatric clinic that had tormented me for more than a year.
They told me—that Elias never existed, that I had fallen into delusion, loving a man created by my imagination.
I understand that only by obeying them can I regain my freedom.

Twenty-two-year-old Nalira Voss is the best name-weaver in Zephyria, but she hates the Festival of Names. While the city celebrates, she works alone in her workshop, fixing broken names for people who never say thank you. Names are just tools, not miracles.
Then a stranger walks through her door with no name, no past, and no proof he even exists.
His name is Kairos, or at least, that is what she calls him. He is the erased heir of the Aether Consortium, Zephyria’s most ruthless family. They stole his name and scattered it across dimensional temples. Without it, he is slowly disappearing from the world.
"I don't need saving," he tells her.
"Good," she says, reaching for her magic thread. "Because I don't save people. I just fix names."
As Nalira hunts down his stolen name, she starts falling for the boy the world forgot. Then she learns the truth: speaking his name will erase her identity forever.
Now she faces an impossible choice: save him and lose herself, or walk away and lose him forever.
Some names are worth dying for. But is love worth erasing everything you are?

They gave him 24 hours to hand over the girl.
He gave them 30 seconds to regret .

Jack Cole was supposed to be nobody—just another quiet college student.
No records. No past. No trace he ever existed.

But when a powerful family tries to take his cousin as part of a dirty deal…
and a billionaire heiress becomes the target of a professional kill team…

Something buried comes back.

The campus?
Just his cover.

The truth?
He’s a weapon trained for war—
the kind governments deny, and enemies never see coming.

Now the richest family in the city wants him dead.
A private army is moving in.
And a global biotech empire is pulling strings from the shadows.

They think they’re hunting him.

They’re wrong.

Jack isn’t running.
He’s choosing who dies first.

A fallen hockey captain with a shattered reputation. A struggling artist with a dying mother. One fake deal born out of desperation, one that neither of them can afford to lose.

Dean Morgan is one scandal away from losing everything: his career, his team, and the last shred of respect the league still pretends to have for him. Lucius Kemper is out of time, out of money, and out of options as his mother’s life hangs on a surgery he cannot afford.

So when Dean offers Lucius a contract instead of charity, they agree to a lie that looks dangerously real in the eyes of the world.

But behind closed doors, nothing about their arrangement stays simple. Because the more they pretend, the harder it becomes to tell where the act ends… and where something far more dangerous begins.

Sienna Cole has the perfect life.

She is the girl everyone watches and nobody really knows and she has worked very hard to keep it that way.

Until Jax Reeves walks into Westfield High, He doesn't talk much neither does he even try to impress anyone. And he looks at Sienna like he can see every single thing she is hiding behind her perfect smile.

She is not interested. She says so loudly. Multiple times. To anyone who will listen.

So when her best friend Chloe asks permission to pursue him, Sienna says yes without blinking.

It is the worst decision she has ever made.

Because the moment she watches Jax look at Chloe the way Sienna secretly wanted him to look at her, something inside her snaps clean in half. Now she is lying to her boyfriend, sabotaging her best friend's relationship, and slowly falling apart in front of the only six people in the world she truly loves.

The question is will Sienna finally tell the truth before she loses everything?

Catherine accepted her fate as an object of pleasure for the cold Alpha Nathan who had previously rejected her. Her not-so peaceful life is distracted when she found out she's pregnant. She flees to a different pack where she sought new beginnings. A year later, she comes running back to her pack in tears to seek for help.
Just when she thought everything was over, a mystery of her identity comes to light and the pack she once called home, wants her dead! Why did she come back? And why do they want her dead?
Join on this intriguing journey of love, betrayal and emotional roller coasters.

They said I killed them all.

My father. My daughter. My brother's legs. One explosion, one moment of selfishness, and I became the family murderer.

My husband Dominic—the most feared mafia boss in the city—drowned himself in whiskey. I drowned myself in something worse.

Three years on the pole. Three years with strangers' cash stuffed in my bra, their cocks shoved down my throat, their fists in back alleys, their cameras catching every degradation. Three years swallowing cum and shame to scrape together half a million for my brother's surgery.

Then the doctors found the tumor. Three months left.

One last show, I told myself. A blindfolded performance. Enough to pay off Ethan's debt before I died.

That's when someone ripped off my blindfold.

Dominic.

Behind him stood my very-alive father. And Ethan—on two perfect legs, kicking aside an empty wheelchair. And my adopted sister Vanessa, draped over my husband, flashing a diamond ring.

This whole performance? Her birthday present.

"Surprise, sweetheart." Dominic smiled. "The explosion was fake. We just needed to put you in your place."

Ethan laughed. "Three years of stripper money made one hell of a party, sis."

My father still wouldn't look at me. "Learn to treat Vanessa right, or you're no daughter of mine."

The room exploded in laughter.

I stood there, diagnosis crumpled in my fist.

The explosion was fake. The crippled legs were fake. Everything was fake.

But the cancer eating my brain?

That was real.

I mined in a medieval pit, lived on moldy black bread, with whip scars across my back and iron chains around my ankles. The lord treated us like livestock.

I thought that was simply how the world worked—until I forced open a hidden passage and crawled into a white corridor that should not have existed: cold fluorescent lights, metal doors, surveillance cameras, as if the skin of the age had been ripped away in an instant.

That was when I understood: the Middle Ages were only a set, everyone around me was acting, and I was nothing more than a toy for the amusement of the rich.

They cloned the real-life rivals they could never defeat, threw them into different “scenarios,” and tortured them for pleasure.

They thought they could keep me in the dark forever.

What they don’t know is that I’m ready to get out—and tear this entire human-toy industry out by the roots.

Amber was raped by her uncle.

She was an orphan. Her parents died in a road accident.

She was later taken to her grandmother. One day she went to a party.

There she met a rich pervert.

He tried to sexually abuse her there.

Later he forced her to marry him and she had to, due to certain family conditions.

There too rape torturers didn't end for amber.

They both used to hate each other.

Will they ever fall in love or this will end up only being a rape story.....

Let's see.....

Liora Hale was a substitute bride forced to take her stepsister’s place and marry the young master of the Blackwood family, a deformed cripple rumored to have few months left to live.
“Who would have thought that even a sickly wretch like Dominic Blackwood would find himself a bride?”
At the altar, after their vows were spoken, she lifted her veil and knelt before Dominic Blackwood, pressing a hesitant kiss to his lips. The marriage contract was signed. No matter his deformities, he was now her husband.
She wasn’t afraid of the scars that marked his face, nor was she repulsed by the wheelchair that confined him. Every morning, she prepared his breakfast, attended to his needs, and thought of nothing beyond her duties as a wife.
“Young Master Blackwood is a cripple who can’t even perform,” her best friend argued.
“When he dies, you’ll still be untouched. You should aim higher.”
Later in their marriage, Dominic found himself wanting to enjoy his little wife in every way the press of her lips against his, the brush of skin against skin, the intimacy a husband and wife were meant to share.
But Liora refused him, blushing furiously.
“No, we can’t. The doctor said you’re not allowed to exert yourself.”
Desire surged through Dominic, hot and relentless. He cursed inwardly.
I should have gotten rid of that doctor and this wheelchair long ago.
Unable to restrain himself any longer, he finally revealed the truth.
In the blink of an eye, the deformed cripple disappeared, replaced by a powerful man tall, dark, and devastatingly handsome. He silenced Liora’s protests as he leaned over her, caging her against the bed with his arms.
His voice dropped low as he asked,
“What about now"?

Two best friends. One girl. Two sudden rivals.
She never wanted to come between them. But they didn't give her a choice.
One was hopelessly in love. The other just wanted to have a good time.
Until he caught feelings, too.
Now, it was a battle to win her heart.
But there is one who already held her love. Years has past, was it too late to choose?

Tags: MxM, friends with benefits, unrequited love, jealousy, Dl, secret, interracial, first love.

Demi and Alex have been best friends for as long as anyone can remember. They know each other’s habits, flaws, and breaking points. What they don’t know is how to undo the night they crossed a line neither of them saw coming.

Drunk, Curious, Complicated.

Demi is hiding who he is. Alex insists he’s straight. And somehow, they keep ending up in each other’s beds anyway.

They call it friends with benefits, why?, because calling it anything else would force them to face the truth. But feelings don’t follow rules, and denial only works until it doesn’t.

Set in the uneasy final stretch of senior year, this is a story about desire, denial, and the terrifying risk of wanting someone who might never want you back the same way.

Five years ago, Nia Morgan was supposed to die. She had seen something — something the billionaires at Westwood Global couldn’t afford to let her live with. Her own future father-in-law ordered the hit. Her fiancé never came looking.
But the thing about dead girls? Some of them don’t stay buried.
Now, she’s back. New face. New name. New mission. As Elise Ward, she slips quietly into the same empire that tried to erase her. Her heart’s not here for revenge — it’s here for the truth. But if revenge comes with it? She won’t say no.
The problem? Damien Westwood. The man who once held her heart — and unknowingly watched her die.
He’s darker now. Harder. Colder. And when he starts to dig into her past, it’s not just her cover that’s at risk… it’s everything.
Because the deeper she goes, the more bodies start to surface. And someone else knows she’s alive.
Someone who kills just to keep the past buried...

The night my sister, Quinn, got her registered nurse license was supposed to be Jude's big moment—down on one knee, proposing.
Instead, Garrett showed up. The same animal who assaulted Quinn in the redwood forest six years ago and drove our mother to her death in the ocean.
Her future mother-in-law took back the ring on the spot, and her fiancé trailed after her like a kicked puppy.
The entire town of Hawkins went from pity to disgust when they looked at us.
Seven days later, the deputy sheriff stood in my kitchen, staring at the twenty-second batch of bubbling meat sauce...

Five years ago, my sister vanished the night before her wedding. She left behind a crying newborn in a crib and a mafia heir on the verge of losing control.

And I was forced into her place—the temporary bride, the contract wife, the whispered “replacement” in every gilded hallway.

I thought I only had to survive five years. Five years to earn what I was promised, and then walk away from this city of shadows and blood.

I clawed my way through bullets, politics, and betrayal. I earned respect. I gained power.
And somehow... I tasted a tenderness I was never meant to have.

Now, with only ten days left on our marriage contract, I thought everything was finally under control. I thought freedom and power were within reach.

Until she came back—wrapped in grace, dripping secrets, smiling as if she owned the world she abandoned.

She looked at me and said, “Little sister, give me back my life.”

In my past life, I ripped the alien parasite from my brother’s chest to save him. Instead, my family accused me of being jealous of his "god-tier" awakening. They shattered my legs and threw me to a tyrant's mutant hounds.

Reborn on the exact day he fused with that crystal core, I faced my parents who wanted to drain my spinal fluid to "power up" my brother. This time, I just sneered and backed off.

You thought sacrificing me would earn you a god’s blessing? You thought shoving me into the deadly radiation mines would be my end? When I claw my way back to the surface clad in supreme battle armor, I will quietly watch as that monster you worshipped as a god bursts from his chest and chews you all into a bloody pulp, bite by bite!

Five years ago, my ex-boyfriend Jason said coldly when he abandoned me: "Charlotte, you're not worthy of my dreams."

Five years later, when I saw him again, he had become Floreton's tech mogul while I remained a simple sculptor. His new fiancée—a wealthy heiress—sneered at my modest attire: "Someone like you can actually afford to book a top-tier wedding venue?"

She stole my venue, crushed my fingers, and forced me to kneel and apologize: "Say you don't belong here!"

Jason stood by watching coldly, just as indifferent as he was on that rainy night five years ago.

I desperately thought this was my fate, until that familiar, furious voice echoed throughout the entire venue:

"What bastard touched my woman!"

My Bradley had arrived.

This time, I would be the one laughing last.

She called him a shameless con man. She didn't know he was a killer the whole underworld feared.

Elizabeth Williams doesn't trust charming men—especially ones who show up out of nowhere claiming to be her savior. Caesar doesn't care what she thinks. He's not here to charm her. He's here to keep her alive, one way or another.

She sees an arrogant fraud chasing her money.
He sees a woman too stubborn to admit she needs him.

Neither one is ready for what happens when the mask finally comes off.

The year the gas swallowed the world, I helped design and build Dome City with my own hands, keeping the last survivors alive.

I thought I was protecting hope.

Then I stumbled onto the Council’s secret: the poison outside is fading—but they chose to hide it. Worse, they plan to manufacture and release more gas, locking everyone inside forever, under their rule.

Before I could expose the truth, the person I trusted most struck me from behind.

My girlfriend—Vera Walker.

She took my evidence, stripped my access, and traded me for a higher rank.

When I woke up, I was outside the Dome in toxic fog—my identity erased, my lungs burning, my vision slipping.

They dumped me like trash, certain I wouldn’t last the night.

They forgot one thing.

Dome City is my blueprint, my welds, my pipes—my work.

And I’m back.

"She was a ballerina until the stage broke her.
Now she’s spinning in the arms of her brother’s playboy best friend."
After a devastating ankle injury destroys her ballet dreams, 17-year-old Rory Sinclair is forced to try figure skating for recovery at a rundown Brooklyn rink.
The last person she wants to see there is Julian Reyes — her older brother’s dangerously charming best friend, the city’s hottest figure skater, and a notorious playboy who leaves broken hearts everywhere he glides.
When the rink faces closure, Rory and Julian are forced to become partners for a high-stakes mixed pairs competition. Now she must spend every freezing morning wrapped in his strong arms — lifted, spun, and held closer than any ballerina should allow.
As their routine fuses her graceful ballet with his powerful skating, the line between hate and desire begins to blur. But with her protective brother warning her to stay away, Julian’s jealous past flings watching their every move, and both their futures on the line…
Falling for the playboy might be the most dangerous performance of her life.

Blurb
Jeffery Vale has spent his entire life hidden behind his perfect twin brother, Lucien—the future alpha of the powerful Moonfang Pack and the star of their elite hockey team. But when Lucien is suddenly injured before the national championship, Jeffery is forced to take his place, stepping into a dangerous world of fame, rivalry, and secrets that were never meant to be uncovered.
Everything changes when Roland Hayes, the Ruthless alpha captain of rival Northfang Pack, sees through Jeffery’s disguise immediately. Instead of exposing him, Roland keeps quiet and drags Jeffery into a brutal rivalry filled with obsession, forbidden attraction, and a connection that neither of them can escape.
After a violent scandal on the ice threatens both their careers, they are forced into a fake relationship for the public. Still, as buried truths about Lucien’s accident and an ancient prophecy begin to surface, Jeffery realises he was never the weak twin everyone believed he was—he was the one they feared all along.

I was forced by my father to fulfill an arranged engagement with an Alpha I'd never met face-to-face. Pushing open the jewelry store door, I found my fiancé Kane spoiling his childhood sweetheart Briar, who was trying to snatch my mother’s ring. "Security! Get this stray out of here!" Briar screamed, pointing at me. When I revealed my identity, Kane sneered coldly: "What bullshit pact? I would never marry a woman like you." Briar snatched the ring and threw water at my face: "Kneel down and beg me to give it back!" When I fought back, Kane exploded in rage: "How dare you touch my woman? Hold her down!" Four warriors pinned me down as Briar laughed cruelly: "Let everyone see this delusional bitch who doesn't know her place!" They stepped on my hand while Kane watched coldly, even urging her on: "Hurry up, let her learn her lesson." Just as she was about to chop off my finger with a knife, the door suddenly burst open—"Do you have any idea whose daughter you're humiliating?"

My biological parents and younger brother conspired with an adopted outsider to fabricate an elaborate lie about a "super tsunami about to strike." They staged an act together, tricked me onto a cruise ship, and locked me deep in the hold. The moment the hatch closed, I heard their voices through a hidden camera, toasting with glasses:
"Finally got that jinx locked away. From now on, the family fortune is all ours!"
But they didn't know that at that very second, a piercing system alert blared in my mind:
[Super Tsunami Generating. Countdown: 5 days.]
The apocalypse was real after all.
I seized the moment to bind with the Deep-Sea Fortress System, drained the family's entire assets, and went on a manic hoarding spree.
Five days later, hundred-meter-tall waves ripped the coastline apart.
Watching on the monitor as my parents and brother knelt outside the alloy door, tearing at each other, banging their heads bloody as they begged me to open up,
I cut into a perfectly seared, juicy steak and asked softly into the mic:
"Didn't you say the tsunami was a lie? So why are you crying now?"

Elena was a cold-hearted Reaper, a soul-collector who followed the rules. But when she saves Liam, an ordinary boy who wasn’t meant to survive, she breaks everything.

Stripped of her powers, Elena is forced into a human life, tied to a secret love she’s forbidden to have.

Liam’s life is a mystery. His survival was a glitch in fate, and now, his very existence threatens the balance of life and death.

As he and Elena grow closer, sparks fly and so do the dangers. With a jealous rival and a deadly supernatural enforcer on their trail, every moment could be their last.

In a world where love was never meant to exist between them, they’ll risk everything to stay together, but is love worth defying fate?

A sizzling forbidden romance where love is the ultimate rebellion.

My serpent mate has locked me in the castle, nine months pregnant. A dozen serpent guards watch me day and night. I can't even leave the room.

A month ago, his brother died in a hunting accident. He became the serpent clan leader. Then he brought back his brother's widow, the woman he grew up with. His first love.

He said he needed to take care of his brother's widow. He told me we'd all live together in the castle, nice and peaceful.

I said no.

I'm his mate. I'm a beastman. My pride won't let me accept that. And they grew up together, childhood sweethearts. How could I not think about it?

She came to him in tears, heavily pregnant. She said I poisoned her medicine, that I wanted to kill her and the baby.

He believed her.

He decided I was just some rogue beastman with no background, jealous and vicious, only after his title and money. So he locked me in this freezing castle while he camped outside her delivery room.

When labor hit, I screamed for a healer. I swore I never hurt her. I just couldn't live with her under the same roof. I only ever loved him.

He just laughed. "You're good at acting. I don't believe a word out of you. Once she delivers safely, I'll deal with you. Don't think you can trick me into coming back."

But when a trembling guard reported "Your mate and the child... they didn't make it," he lost it completely.

After living in the countryside for eighteen years, Laura's real father came to her. For a moment, the upper class knew that the Taylors had an additional illegitimate daughter of a bumpkin. When she got back to her real family, everyone mocked her for not being as versatile, gentle, and considerate as her older sister.

Her father looked down upon her and warned her to keep her nose clean.

Marcus was the son of the first wife of Mr. Brown. His brothers were all hostile to him, so his aunt want to connect with the Taylors through marriage to crack Marcus down. Laura was forced to marry the sick and unfaithful man, and everyone said that they are a "perfect match".

It didn't take long for Laura's various alias to be dug out, and the members of the Taylors felt regret. All young talents were crazy about her. However, Marcus just laughed out of court and unhesitatingly declared their relationship.

A seventeen years old Sera Calix was never meant to set a foot in Virelade Academy, the country's most prestigious elite all boys school. But a paperwork error gave her a chance to escape a life of serving the masters and she'll do anything to hold onto it. Even if it means disguising herself as a boy!.

The plan was to keep her head down, graduate and disappear but the problem was Kael Ashbourne, her new roommate, her worst nightmare and on top of that he's the son of the president, the same man where her mom works for.

As secrets build, Sera struggles to survive a world that was built to shut her out. But the biggest danger wasn't being caught but it's the way Kael looks at her like he already knows she's lying.

She's living a lie...
And only one person can expose her... Kael Ashbourne!

Grace stepped back in fear when he stepped ahead.
"Do it again and I will break your legs..."
He warned.

Her eyes filled with tears.
"Chief, I am sorry... I didn't wanted to but it happened all of a sudden... I had no idea..."
She sobbed.

Dominick grabbed her chin harshly.
"Open your mouth for only one thing in front of me..."
He gritted and she whimpered and sobbed when he let it go with jerk.

"Please Don't punish me... I am sorry"
She pleaded but her words fell on deaf ears.
"I don't want to do it, chief please... I am scared of this... Please, please..."
She cried.

"Strip..."
He ordered while walking towards the wall.

Her eyes widened when he did that. Grace couldn't think properly. Out of fear she ran towards the door but poor girl didn't know that she can't open it.


Grace is a nice and intelligent girl but her kindness is her enemy. she was living happy and peaceful life until Mob boss knocked on her door.
Grace had to sacrifice herself to the devil for her father's mistakes.

but does this devil have heart? how will Grace deal with this silent and cruel man who doesn't even talk to her? how long she can do it for her father? afterall it's not easy to have sex with mob boss.

My husband pushed me down the stairs when I was three months pregnant.

I thought it was his bipolar disorder acting up again. The doctors said he couldn't control himself. So I forgave him—just like I'd forgiven the cigarette burns, the broken ribs, and all those nights he choked me unconscious.

Then I lost our baby.

And overheard him on the phone: "The bitch deserved it. If she hadn't stopped me three years ago, Elena would be mine."

That's when I realized—he was never sick. He'd been torturing me on purpose for three years.

Punishing me because I "made him lose" the woman he loved.

So I signed the divorce papers and walked away without looking back.

Presley Duval had a nickname for me all through high school. Two-Twenty.
Because at sixteen I weighed 220 pounds.
Thirteen years later she rented out a private beach in Cabo for our class reunion. One rule. Every woman had to show up in a bikini.
She made a point of sending me one.
By the time I got there her phone was already up on a tripod, live. 370,000 people watching.
"She's actually gonna show?" someone asked.
"Why wouldn't she?" Presley smiled into the camera. "I had the hotel set aside an extra-large changing tent just for her. Wouldn't want her scaring the other guests when she takes her clothes off."
Everyone around her cracked up.
"I got her a gift, too."
She lifted a pink bag off her chair and pulled out a neon pink bikini. It took two people, one on each end, just to hold it stretched out.
"3XL. I called the company. That's the biggest they make. If it still snaps, that's not on me."
A row of phones went up.
"Don't laugh." She hung the bikini over the back of the chair. "Two-Twenty's had it rough. If I hadn't stayed on her about her weight back then, who knows if she'd even be able to walk through that door today."
"Oh, and I invited someone from Meridian." She lifted her chin. "So certain people can see what a real body looks like. Instead of copying models online and embarrassing themselves."
What she didn't know was that the big shot she kept name-dropping worked for me.
I walked down the boardwalk and stopped right in front of her.
"Where's the tent?"

The Plan: Travel back in time to high school, identify my insanely intimidating future billionaire boss before he gets rich, and suck up to him so hard I secure a six-figure job for life.
The Execution: Perfect. I brought him coffee, cheered at his games, and basically operated as his unpaid teenage executive assistant. He’s totally buying it.
The Problem: I was trying to network my way into the C-suite. I think I just networked my way into his bed.

⚠MATURE READERS ONLY
I hated him with every fibre of my being. I wanted to take a steak knife and carve his smug, handsome face off. But what I hated most — what made me want to scream into the pillows — was that my body still remembered him.
And God help me, I was so fucking angry that I wanted him to walk through that door right now, just so I could tear him apart with my bare hands.
❖ ❖ ❖
I ran from the monster who sold me to the highest bidder. I didn’t know I was running straight into the arms of another.
For eight months, I buried my past in the quiet suburbs, pretending to be an ordinary innocent, untouched woman. I believed I had escaped the blood-soaked empire I was born into. Then Kaelith Vespero, the ruthless Don of the Vespero Syndicate and my father's deadliest enemy, who saw me as a bargaining chip, dragged me back into the underworld.
I realized my freedom was just a borrowed illusion.
But wars don't always go according to plan.
⚠IMPORTANT — PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU BEGIN ⚠
Before you begin this story, there are a few things I want you to know about what you are about to read. This is a dark romance, and some of the themes and situations in this book may not be for everyone. Please read with an open mind and at your own discretion.
I. This is a dark mafia romance recommended for readers 18 and older. If dark romance is not your cup of tea, please do not force yourself to read it. You have been warned.
II. Expect slow-burn sexual tension throughout the story. The romance is meant to build gradually, so patience will definitely be required.
III. The story contains strong language and carries a gritty, intense, and unapologetic atmosphere.
IV. Reader discretion is advised. This story explores kidnapping, captivity, coercion, family betrayal, emotional abuse, and other difficult situations. If any of these themes are a hard limit for you, please protect your peace and skip this one. There is absolutely no shame in knowing what you can and cannot handle.
One last thing before you continue: I am always open to constructive criticism, however, personal attacks, hateful comments, insults toward me or other readers, and disrespectful comments will not be tolerated.
So, if you're ready for everything waiting inside these pages...
Buckle up.
You've been warned.

The Plan: Travel back in time to high school, identify my insanely intimidating future billionaire boss before he gets rich, and suck up to him so hard I secure a six-figure job for life.
The Execution: Perfect. I brought him coffee, cheered at his games, and basically operated as his unpaid teenage executive assistant. He’s totally buying it.
The Problem: I was trying to network my way into the C-suite. I think I just networked my way into his bed.

The idea came from Cora.
She ran into the kitchen while I was making dinner, wrapped both arms around my waist, and looked up at me.
"Mommy, can we go to Grandma Ellen's? Just us two? Just us girls?"
"Why?" I asked.
She thought about it, very serious. "Because every time I wake up and you're not home, I miss you. Even when Daddy's there, it's different." A pause. "Grandma Ellen probably misses you just as much as I do."
Reid was leaning in the doorway. He smiled at me—that easy, certain smile—and said, "She's not wrong. You've been running on empty for months. Take the trip. I've got everything covered."
The flights were booked before I finished washing the dishes.
I should have noticed how fast that was.
The call I made the night before we flew home changed everything. I thought I'd hung up.
I hadn't.

I was married to Vera for three years.

In those three years, every time we fought, I was the one who backed down first. She got used to being indulged, and she got used to using the silent treatment to make me fold.

Then a blizzard grounded my flight. I didn’t make it back for her birthday. She filed for divorce out of spite and left the country.

Three years ended without dignity.

A year after the divorce, Vera returned with a new jewelry brand and a high-profile comeback. Everyone assumed I was still waiting for her—she assumed it too.

At dinners, she hinted at reconciliation, using our old story to build hype for her brand. The circle started whispering that I’d end up back by her side.

I corrected it, again and again. She ignored every word.

What she didn’t know was that I already had someone new—and we were preparing to get engaged.

When she saw the engagement planning booklet, she convinced herself it was my signal to take her back.

I explained. She insisted.

Until the day of the engagement, when she stormed into the venue…