His Unwanted Wife, The Nation's Hero
On our wedding anniversary, I came home to find my husband, Jace, celebrating with another woman in our living room.
She was wearing my mother's necklace-the only thing recovered from the explosion that killed my parents. Jace laughed, calling it a "cheap piece of junk," and tried to write me a check to buy a new one.
His family called my parents' ashes "garbage" and "unsanitary." When I confronted them, Jace sided with his mother, ordering me out of the penthouse I secretly owned. He let his friends publicly humiliate me, calling me a gold-digging leech with no background.
But that wasn't the worst of it. When a gunman stormed the restaurant we were in, Jace shoved me directly into the line of fire to shield his mistress.
The shotgun blast tore through my arm. As I lay bleeding on the marble floor, I stared at the man who had just used me as a human shield, his face pale with terror as he protected her.
In that instant, every ounce of love I ever had for him died. The pain in my arm was nothing compared to the cold, hollow void that consumed my heart.
He thought he was sacrificing a quiet, useless wife to secure his future. He had no idea he had just declared war on Captain Cilla Henson, West Point valedictorian and the most lethal operator of the Eagle Task Force.
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Chapter 6
The next morning, Cilla walked into the glass-walled lobby of Hudson Tech.
She wore a sharp, tailored black blazer and trousers. Her posture was flawless.
The receptionist stood up quickly. "Mrs. Hudson, you can't go up without an appointment..."
Cilla didn't even slow down. She shot the receptionist a look so cold and piercing that the woman immediately sat back down, her mouth snapping shut.
Cilla swiped her access card, stepped into the elevator, and rode it to the executive floor.
She pushed open the heavy glass doors of the CEO's office without knocking.
Jace was sitting behind his massive oak desk, reviewing a stack of quarterly reports.
He looked up, his brow furrowing in irritation. "What are you doing here?"
Cilla walked straight to his desk. She pulled a thick manila envelope from her bag and slammed it down onto the polished wood.
The sound made Jace flinch.
"Sign them," Cilla demanded, her voice flat.
Jace looked at the bold letters printed on the top page. Petition for Dissolution of Marriage.
His face darkened instantly. The muscles in his jaw worked furiously.
"Are you serious?" Jace sneered. "Is this your little game? Playing hard to get to make me apologize?"
"I don't want your apology," Cilla said, crossing her arms. "I want your signature. Don't waste my time."
Jace flipped open the document. His eyes scanned the first page, and then he stopped.
His head snapped up. "You want half of my company shares?"
"They are marital assets," Cilla replied smoothly.
"You greedy, bloodsucking leech!" Jace yelled, slamming his hand on the desk. "You didn't build this company! I did!"
Cilla let out a dry, mocking laugh. "Really? Do you really think this company was built by you alone? Jace, without my 'contributions' behind the scenes, Hudson Tech wouldn't have even secured its first round of funding. You'd better pray my lawyers don't start digging into the intellectual property assignments to see who actually did the heavy lifting."
Jace rolled his eyes, his lip curling in disgust. "You're a glorified technician. You sit in a lab and type code. You think you're an expert? The engineering team did the real work."
Cilla didn't bother arguing. His arrogance was a terminal disease.
"Sign the papers, Jace. Or my lawyers will see you in court."
Jace pushed his chair back violently. He stood up and walked around the desk, using his height to tower over her.
He leaned in close, his voice dropping to a menacing whisper. "If you leave me, you will have nothing. You are a nobody without my money."
Cilla didn't step back. She tilted her chin up, staring directly into his eyes with absolute contempt.
Jace saw the defiance in her eyes. His strategy shifted.
He softened his expression, raising his hand to cup her cheek. "Come on, Cilla. Stop this nonsense. Just admit you overreacted, and we can go back to normal."
Cilla felt her stomach churn. She slapped his hand away so hard the sound echoed in the room.
"Don't ever touch me again," she hissed.
Jace's face twisted in pure rage.
He grabbed the divorce papers from the desk, gripped them in both hands, and ripped the thick stack of paper straight down the middle.
He threw the torn halves into the metal trash can.
"I am never signing those," Jace said, his chest heaving. "I will drag this out until you are begging me for a dollar."
Cilla smirked. "Tear them up. My lawyer has digital copies."
The office door clicked open.
Carolyn walked in, holding two cups of artisanal coffee.
She saw Cilla and immediately stopped. Her eyes widened, and she bit her lower lip, looking like a frightened deer.
"Oh... Jace, did I interrupt something?" Carolyn asked softly.
Jace immediately walked over to Carolyn, wrapping a protective arm around her waist. "No. She was just leaving."
The smell of Carolyn's floral perfume hit Cilla's nose, making her physically nauseous.
Cilla looked at the two of them. They deserved each other.
She turned and walked toward the door.
"The court summons will be delivered to your house," Cilla said without looking back.
She walked out, leaving Jace standing in his office with a vein throbbing in his forehead.
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8.0
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"And what am I supposed to do when the clock runs out?"
He's the meticulous, sterile CEO destined for a cold corporate marriage. She's the fiery, turpentine-scented artist who lives for chaos. Josh Sterling has been Vivian Rossi's safe harbor and secret heartbreak since they were ten.
But with his wedding just three months away, decades of tension finally explode. Terrified of losing their friendship but helpless against the attraction, they make a devastating bargain: 90 days. Friends with benefits. No feelings. No future
It was supposed to be a temporary goodbye to the 'what-ifs.' But as the days bleed into weeks, their arrangement becomes a seductive torture. Viv is forced to watch the man she loves prepare to marry another, and Josh must confront a terrifying truth, the only person who has ever truly seen him is the one he's set to abandon.
90 days with the man i can't have is a searing, high-emotion contemporary romance. When time runs out, duty and desire will clash, demanding the ultimate sacrifice.
7.6
After an exhausting fourteen-hour flight, Katia returned to her Upper East Side penthouse, expecting the quiet comfort of the life she had built.
Instead, she found a pair of familiar red stilettos in the foyer and her fiancé, Caleb, tangled in their bedsheets with his twenty-two-year-old assistant.
She didn't scream or cry. She simply took off her three-carat engagement ring, threw it at his bare chest, and demanded he buy out her half of the penthouse by Friday.
Seeking to numb the sickening disgust, she got blackout drunk and crashed at a luxury hotel, accidentally stumbling into the wrong suite.
Thinking the imposing man inside was a high-end escort hired by her friend, she threw him over her shoulder and spent a wild night with him.
The next morning, she left five thousand dollars on his nightstand with a lipstick-stained note.
"Good Job."
For six years, she had funded Caleb's dreams and built his startup from the ground up, only to be treated like a lifeless ATM.
With ruthless precision, she spent the next two months systematically bankrupting his company, cutting off his venture capital, and erasing his life's work.
She felt no heartbreak, only a cold, calculating need to cleanse herself of his betrayal.
But when Katia finally returned to corporate headquarters to co-lead a massive merger, she literally crashed into the new Vice President.
Strong arms caught her waist, and the sharp scent of cedarwood and whiskey hit her like a freight train.
"You came back," Jackson whispered, his eyes burning as he stared at the woman who had treated him like a cheap gigolo.
9.8
Blurb (Synopsis)
Outspoken florist Elara Vance thought she was storming a billionaire's empire to reclaim her mother's stolen legacy. Instead, she walked into a trap-and walked out bound by a marriage contract.
As Elara and the cold, calculated Julian Vane clash in a world of opulence and deceit, a dangerous attraction ignites. But in the Vane family, secrets are deadlier than scandals. When the price of honor becomes their very survival, Elara must decide if the man she's forced to marry is her greatest enemy-or her only hope.
7.5
Five years ago, Alisson Ford's adoptive family drugged her and offered her to a repulsive old investor to save their failing company.
She escaped the trap, only to accidentally stumble into the bed of Jake Yates, the most terrifying and powerful billionaire in the city.
Months later, while she was painfully giving birth to triplets in a freezing basement, her adoptive sister Bella tracked her down. Bella violently snatched Alisson's firstborn son to pass off as her own ticket into the Yates family. Then, Bella smiled as her men poured gasoline over the mattress and set the room on fire, leaving Alisson and her two remaining newborns to burn alive.
Shielding her fragile babies with her own blistering skin in the roaring inferno, Alisson's despair turned into absolute, blood-soaked hatred. She couldn't fathom how the family she had trusted for years could steal her flesh and blood and condemn her to such a horrific death.
Five years later, Alisson returns to the city as a powerful trauma specialist. She steps right into Jake and Bella's grand engagement banquet, watching coldly as her five-year-old daughter runs straight up to the untouchable billionaire and hugs his leg.
"You are a bad daddy! You abandoned Mommy and us, and now you are going to marry an ugly old witch!"
8.0
Tim Mercer has always been alone.
Awkward in conversation and uncomfortable in crowds, he spends most nights inside his small apartment with only his cat and the glow of a television for company.
Until the night the power goes out. Bored and curious, Tim pulls an old Ouija board from a dusty closet and asks the darkness if anyone is there.
Something answers. She calls herself Serenity, a beautiful woman trapped between worlds. At first, she is gentle. Comforting. Everything Tim has ever wished someone could be, but every night she visits, Tim grows weaker.
Serenity isn't looking for love, she's feeding.
7.5
I had been a "decoration piece" for Kenton Parker for three years, a contract wife bought to pay off my father's gambling debts. I lived in a cold penthouse, making his coffee and answering his phones, while he treated me with the clinical indifference of a stranger.
On our third anniversary, I waited alone at the city's most exclusive restaurant, only to see a news alert flash on my phone. Kenton wasn't coming. He was caught on camera at a hospital, looking at his "friend," ballerina Blanca Donovan, with a raw, frantic worry he had never once shown me, not even when I fell down a flight of stairs.
I finally snapped and filed for divorce, citing his "irreversible erectile dysfunction" just to destroy his massive ego. I thought I was free, but Kenton retaliated with a cruelty that left me breathless. He froze every bank account I owned and had his secretary smash the last photo I had of my mother. He reminded me of the five-million-dollar penalty in my contract-money I didn't have.
"You don't get to leave until I say so," he roared, dragging me into his office. He used my father's life as a leash, forcing me to play the part of a doting wife at his family's Hamptons estate to please his sick mother. He wanted to starve me out until I crawled back to his side.
I couldn't understand how a man could be so heartless. He didn't want my heart, yet he refused to let me go, treating my life like a line item in a corporate merger. He wanted to keep me as his prisoner while he spent his nights with another woman.
But Kenton made one fatal mistake. He thought I was just a broke, submissive secretary with nowhere to turn. He didn't know that I was "Vee," a world-renowned art restorer with a secret legacy and a six-figure commission waiting for me.
As we shared a bed in the Hamptons and he pulled me against his chest, whispering that I was "his," I didn't feel comfort. I felt the cold, hard spark of a woman who was finally ready to burn his contract to the ground.