Betrayal

The second the graduation ceremony ended, my parents took us all to the nicest restaurant in town.

They said they wanted to properly celebrate having "two graduates" in the family.

Pierce, my boyfriend of four years, showed up last with a huge bouquet of champagne roses in his arms.

I'd just gotten up from my chair when he walked right past me and handed the whole bouquet to my friend Brooke. "...

Nathan Cole had been overseas on business for two weeks.

The night he came back, he kept me in bed until well past midnight.

Afterward, I could barely lift an arm. It took a while before I noticed the empty box on the nightstand. The last one.

I reached for my phone to order more condoms. I always bought them. Nathan never bothered with it.

This time, just as I was about to pay, he took the ph...

"What if she finds out the baby she suffered so much to conceive is actually ours? Will she lose her mind?"

My stepsister giggled, snuggling into my husband’s embrace.

I stood outside the cracked door, completely frozen.

My husband was holding her tight, enthusiastically picking out names for the baby growing in my belly.

My own mother scoffed from the side. "Relax. That idiot will never f...

On my due date, my husband Matteo locked me in an underground freezer at minus ten degrees.

The Torrino family's unbreakable rule: the first-born male inherits the entire mafia empire. My sister-in-law Jennifer and I were both pregnant, our due dates only one day apart. To ensure his brother's child was born first, Matteo made this insane decision.

"My brother and Jennifer's baby has to come fir...

My boss sucks me masterfully. I can feel his tongue penetrating me, he alternates between his fingers and tongue as he makes me hornier and wetter.


I sit on his lap with my legs spread around his hips and our kiss becomes more intense and my intimate area throbs with excitement. I can feel his completely hard member next to me, right next to my completely soaked intimate area.

During the k...

After the woman Adrian Cole had always loved pushed her out of a helicopter as it lifted off, Summer Bennett handed in her notice.
She remained the most dependable assistant in Cole Group's executive office. But everyone noticed small changes.
She no longer carried Adrian's coffee into his office herself. Lunch came from the company cafeteria instead of the private chef who had prepared his carefu...

The night of my coming-of-age ceremony, Elodie asked us to sit around the bonfire and talk.

Elodie was my adoptive parents' real daughter. They had brought her home three months ago.

She smiled at me across the fire. "Wren, which academy are you choosing?"

Before I could answer, the four boys I grew up with spoke first.

One by one, they held up acceptance receipts. All four said Silverhaven.

...

Nico Castellano knelt in front of thirty made men to save my life. Everyone in Chicago knows the Don’s son would die for his wife.

So nobody thought to tell me about the girl in the apartment on Lake Shore Drive.

They talked about her right in front of me. In Italian. They were sure I’d never understand a word.

They were wrong.

I didn’t scream. I didn’t make a scene. I paid a man on Halsted to...

At my wedding, I stood up to tell my groom how much I loved him.
I didn't even get through the first line.
He grabbed the cake beside him and smashed it into my face.
My ex-boyfriend stood up in the audience, clapping. "Cut! That's a wrap!"
Then he grinned at me. "Hazel, you actually bought it?"

"I need you to erase Elena Cavalli completely," I said, sliding an untraceable check across the table.

People say my husband Vito Cavalli broke every mafia code for me. The heir who knelt before all five family bosses and named an ordinary woman his godmother.

For three years, he convinced the world we were in love. He told the press I was why he went legitimate, why he gave up the gun.

But dev...

For five years, my crime boss husband made me take off my wedding ring nine times—all for his precious damsel in distress.
When we first married, he promised me: "From now on, you're my queen, the queen of New Orleans."
But whenever Odette came crying for help, he'd change his tune: "Mr. Laurent saved my life, Cordelia. I owe his family everything."
And like a fool, I believed him eight times.
Eig...

On the day of my marking ceremony, my mate, Ryan Mercer, is caught kissing my sister, Paige Frost, in the dressing room. The whole pack gets to laugh at my humiliation.

Then Alpha Ethan Vale steps forward. With everyone watching, he gives me his mark.

Once we're married, Ethan couldn't be kinder to me. But we can't conceive a pup. At last, I try IVF, and I finally get pregnant.

He becomes even ...

When I was eight, my older sister pointed a finger in my face and told me I'd been adopted out of foster care.

I went crying to our parents. With their arms around her, they nodded.

“Yes. Your real parents didn't want you.”

After that, I stopped competing with her for affection. I didn't dare ask for new clothes. I took over the housework and fought for the highest grades in my class, terrified...

My attempts to marry Ethan Ward had been derailed exactly seven times.
The first time, Peyton threw him a "surprise" party, and he was too hungover to make our City Hall appointment. 
The second time, she got into a minor fender bender and hysterically convinced him her neck was broken. He rode with her in the ambulance. 
The third time, right as we were signing the papers, she swallowed a bottle ...

They played ninety-nine pranks on me to break my brother. For the ninety-ninth, I gave them a corpse.

For three years, I was the secret girlfriend of Damien, heir to the Bloodmoon Pack and my brother’s sworn enemy. For three years, I was his hidden toy, and I sat through ninety-eight cruel “pranks” without ever knowing they were pranks.

When they planned the last one, locking me alone in a conde...

I sat alone at our engagement dinner, having waited for eight long hours.

When my phone finally buzzed, Jasper sounded rushed.

"Lira? I'm so sorry. Things went sideways on my end. Your parents didn't stick around, did they?"

I stared at the melted ice in the champagne bucket.

"No," I said, my voice hollow.

He sighed. "Let's push it to next week, alright? I'll call your parents tomorrow and ex...

Out on a pack hunting run, a grizzly mauled me, and I was rushed straight to the infirmary.
The last thing I remembered clearly was the scent of pine and blood before everything went dark.
Now I was awake, bandaged, and staring at a man who looked ready to fall apart.
Watching my boyfriend Ryan spiral into a blind panic beside my hospital bed, a mischievous thought popped into my head. I'd play a ...

Draven Hale had always loved me like drowning — total, breathless, nothing held back.
But the day Lenora Veyra's oncologist stamped terminal across her diagnostic dossier, that devotion changed direction.
He reached into his coat pocket and pressed a capsule into my palm.
A targeted memory-suppressant serum.
"Three days, Vesper," he said. "Lenora's dying. Let me give her a wedding. That's all she ...

“Poppy, I want you to stage a private jet crash for me. That way I can get away from Elias for good.”
When my best friend Poppy heard my request, her jaw nearly hit the floor. She wondered if she’d misheard.
"Are you out of your fucking mind, Molly?" she deadpanned.
"I’m entirely serious." I said, keeping my voice dead flat.
"Molly, you're married to Elias Blackwood." Poppy stood up, running a h...

"The Draganovs are moving on Celeste tonight. I'm taking her to the safe house. We'll do the claiming after this, Orla. I promise."
That's what my husband said the seventh time he chose Celeste over me.
Celeste. The girl he'd loved since before he had a wife to ignore.
The first time, she heard footsteps outside her window at two in the morning. Rafael sent his whole detail to sit on her house and...