Best Romance Novels

My husband, the ruthless Underboss of the Ewing crime family, was terrified of one thing: his dead fiancée’s memory. Or rather, her living sister, Ivana, who used that memory to turn my life into a living hell. To "apologize" for humiliating me at a gala, Corbett brought me a peace offering: a green macaron. "Pistachio," he promised. "Your favorite." I took one bite, and my throat instantly seized. It felt like barbed wire tightening around my windpipe. It wasn't pistachio. It was almond paste. Corbett knew I was deadly allergic. He used to carry my EpiPen on our first dates. As I collapsed to the floor, wheezing and clawing at my neck, a scream ripped from the guest wing. "Corbett! Help! They're posting mean comments about me again!" Ivana. Corbett looked down at me, his dying wife, and then looked toward the hallway where Ivana was crying over Instagram. He hesitated for only a second. Then he pulled his leg away from my grasping hand. "I'll be right back," he said, turning his back on me. "Just... use your pen." He ran to comfort a healthy woman while I crawled across the carpet, vision tunneling, forcing the needle into my own thigh to restart my heart. As I lay there shaking, listening to him soothe her, the last thread of love snapped. I didn't call an ambulance. I pulled a burner phone from behind the vanity mirror and texted the one man Corbett feared more than death—his rival, Don Kain Solomon. "I accept. Get me out."

I was securing the diamond clasp of my necklace when the security monitor blinked to life, revealing my husband burying his face between his assistant's thighs. Just an hour later, Dante Moretti stood by my side at the Gala, playing the part of the devoted Capo, while his mistress smirked at me from across the room in a dress that screamed for attention. I wanted to leave. I had packed my bags, ready to disappear. But then the doctor told me the news: I was six weeks pregnant with the Vitiello-Moretti heir. I thought the baby might save us. I thought it would stop the madness. I was wrong. When his mistress accused me of betrayal to cover her own tracks, Dante didn't listen to his wife. He listened to the woman warming his bed. In a blind rage, the man who swore to protect me struck me down. I felt the sharp, tearing pain in my abdomen before I even hit the stone floor. As blood stained my pristine white dress, I realized he hadn't just broken his vows. He had killed our unborn son. So, when the opportunity came to detonate the gas line and fake my own death, I didn't hesitate. I let the world believe Seraphina Moretti died in that explosion. Ten years later, I returned to a city that thought I was a ghost. I dismantled his supply lines, froze his assets, and watched his empire crumble piece by piece. And when he was finally on his knees in the rain, broken and destitute, I stepped out of the shadows. I didn't come back for his money. I came back to hand him the ultrasound photo of the child he murdered. "Hello, Dante."

My fiancée sacrificed five years of her life to save my family, falling into a deep coma. But when she finally woke up, I didn't greet her with love. I greeted her with pure hatred. Convinced by my mistress, Hailie, that Ericka was a traitor faking her illness for sympathy, I became her tormentor. When she told me she had stage four cancer, I laughed and accused her of manipulation. I locked her in a freezing safe house. I forced her into a sauna until her skin blistered, then doused her failing lungs with ice water. I dragged her out of the hospital to kneel in the rain until she collapsed. Even when she fell from a balcony, broken and bleeding, I let my men beat her. I watched her waste away, believing every one of Hailie's lies over Ericka's desperate truths. It wasn't until I saw her cold, blue body on the rocks below the cliffs that the truth finally shattered me. The autopsy confirmed the cancer I mocked was real. A hidden recording revealed Hailie had framed her all along, admitting she treated me like a dog on a leash. I realized I had tortured the woman who saved my life until she bought her own grave just to escape me. I burned Hailie alive at Ericka's funeral, but death was too easy a punishment. I lived in agony, a scarred monster praying for the end. But when I finally closed my eyes in the fire, I didn't die. I heard a beep. I opened my eyes, and the date on my phone was three years ago. The day Ericka woke up.

I went to the City Clerk's office to update my passport, desperate to feel alive again after losing my ability to draw. Instead, the clerk handed me a reality that killed me. "Mrs. Crosby," she whispered, her face drained of color. "You aren't married to Bennet. The divorce was finalized three years ago. On October 12th." The date hit me harder than a physical blow. October 12th was the day my right hand was crushed. The day Gianna Skinner, a woman obsessed with my husband, shattered twenty-seven bones in my drawing hand with a marble bust. Bennet, the most ruthless Don in New York, had promised me justice. He swore he locked Gianna in a dungeon to rot for hurting his "Angel." But the screen in front of me told a different story. He had married Gianna the very same day he divorced me. I drove to the Lake House where she was supposed to be suffering. I didn't find a prison; I found a modern glass palace. There they were, sitting on a swing set I had designed. Gianna wasn't rotting. She was laughing in his lap, wearing a silk robe. "She is so pathetic," Gianna purred, tracing his jaw. "Five years and she still thinks she is the Lady of the house." Bennet chuckled, the sound dark and terrifying. "She is broken, Gianna. A bird with no wings. She has no value to the Family anymore, except as a trophy on my shelf. She is my pet. You are my fire." My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from Bennet. "Happy Anniversary, my Angel. Tonight, I give you the world." He wasn't giving me the world. He was building a cage out of lies. Through a bugged ring, I later heard his endgame: he planned to institutionalize me for "mental instability" so he could bring Gianna into the light. I didn't go home to cry. I went to my office and opened a secure browser on the dark web. *Subject: Protocol Erasure.* *Target: Harper Cline.* *Execution: Immediate.* Bennet thought he had broken his pet. He was about to realize he had just unleashed a lioness.

I was staring at the two pink lines on the plastic stick, trembling with the terrifying joy of carrying the heir to the New York underworld’s most ruthless faction. Then the intercom buzzed, and a voice splintered my world. "The little art student actually thinks I'm going to marry her? It was just a game to pass the time while you were in Europe, Estella." I froze. My boyfriend, Holden, was in the next room, laughing with the daughter of his rival. He explained that I was just a "clean civilian image" he needed to secure a business deal. Now that the deal was signed, he was dumping the "stray" to marry the "Queen." I tried to run, but freedom only lasted forty-eight hours. Holden didn't just break my heart; he turned my terror into content. He kidnapped me, tied me to a chair at the edge of a cliff, and forced me to choose between my life and his new fiancée's. Then, he pushed me off the edge. As gravity snatched me, I heard him laughing. I landed on a stunt airbag. It was just a "social experiment." A sick prank for his amusement. "Don't be so dramatic, Kenia," he called down. "It's just a game." He thought I was broken. He thought I was just a prop in his life. But he forgot that I knew his secrets. I dragged my injured body to a payphone and dialed the one number Holden told me to fear—the rival Don, Gael Simpson. "It's Kenia," I whispered, clutching the receiver like a lifeline. "I'm calling in the debt."

When powerless, unfavoured Princess Soleia was arranged to marry the newly titled Duke Orion Elsher, she assumed they would find love eventually. Who knew that her father would send off her husband mere hours later to fight a war? Soleia was left alone to deal with an impoverished fief, a crumbling estate, and spiteful, vindictive relatives of the Duke who all wished to see her gone. She couldn't leave― there was nowhere else to go. Soleia desperately wanted her husband to return so he could offer her a helping hand. However, when he did, he returned with Elowyn, a woman he claimed was his true love. A woman hellbent on taking her place as the rightful Duchess, no matter what she had to do to get Soleia out of the way. Mistreated, misunderstood, and miserable, Soleia was eventually thrown out of the estate she helped build. Fortunately, when one door closes, another one opens. Unknown to Soleia, a man more powerful than her husband had been watching her, waiting for the right time to snatch her into his gilded cage. Duke Elsher had been foolish to let go― but the crown prince of Raxuvia wouldn't make the same mistake. *** [Excerpt] After two long years, Soleia's husband had finally returned home. But he was not alone. "Your Grace," Soleia said, trying her best to maintain a calm tone, "welcome home. How were your travels?" The man remained silent as he stared at her. "Oh," the woman that Soleia's husband had brought back said. "I was just wondering where the servants were. No one has come to greet you since your return. Could you please help us bring―" Orion tugged the woman back, protectively holding her in his embrace. His eyebrows furrowed as he glared at Soleia, his sudden action causing the woman to look confused at him. "Orion?" she asked, her hands on his chest to steady herself. "What's the matter?" "That's not a servant." In one swift motion, he threw the sword out at Soleia, only to be stopped by a flash of scarlet and the coppery scent of blood. *** Prequel to Stolen by the Rebel King.