In the arms of two sins
His tie hung loose, his eyes darker than sin. The scent of whiskey lingered on his breath as he leaned closer.
"Tell me to stop," he murmured, the words brushing against my skin like a dare.
"You're drunk," I said, staring into those grey eyes as my heartbeat filled the silence.
He smiled faintly, his gaze trailing from my hair until it fell on my lips.
"Drunk," he whispered, his thumb grazing my mouth as if testing how soft it was, "but not blind. You want this as much as I do."
After her husband's mysterious death, Mara Lawson becomes the center of a scandal threatening to destroy the powerful Lawson empire. Elias Lawson, her late husband's twin, is everything she should resist-dangerous, magnetic, and forbidden. David Hale, her ex-lover, the man who walked away once and now wants forgiveness... and another chance.
Between the man who broke her and the one who could ruin her, Mara is caught in a web of passion, guilt, and secrets that could shatter them all.
Because in the Lawson world, love is never pure-it's just another sin waiting to be punished.
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Chapter 4
By dawn, my eyes burned from staying awake after the nightmare.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Philip's head hitting the table. I saw my own hands pushing him. Whether it was really my memory or madness, I couldn't tell.
I dressed slowly, still thinking of it. I needed to work myself out in the company to forget the thoughts.
Outside, the driver opened the car door for me. I slid in, waiting for Elias to join.
He didn't.
After a few seconds, I leaned forward. "Where's Elias?"
"He left very early this morning, ma'am."
I sat back, unsettled. What business did he have before sunrise?
The ride to Lawson Corporation was quiet, but my mind never was. I kept replaying the dream, the push, the possibility... the fear.
When I reached the office floor, my steps slowed.
Elias's voice drifted from his office.
His door was slightly open.
"Traces of arsenic poisoning were found in my brother's system. There should be something you can do."
My blood turned cold.
Arsenic.
He's investigating Philip's death?
I stepped closer to hear more.
"I want his medical report file" he continued. "i need it soon. so get it ready."
I forced myself to walk past as if I hadn't heard anything, but the sudden sharp pain tore through my abdomen again. This time, worse.
I tried to keep walking.
Another cramp hit, violent and sudden.
My knees wobbled. I fumbled for the pill Clara prescribed, pulling one out with trembling fingers, but my vision blurred
and everything went blank.
I woke up to white lights and cold air.
I was in the hospital.
My head felt heavy, but the pain had finally eased.
A nurse approached. "You're awake. How do you feel now, Miss?"
I sat up, touching my head.
"I'm... better," I whispered, though the weakness in my voice betrayed me. "Wh... who brought me here?"
"The doctor asked to speak with him," she said. "I can direct you to the doctor's office if you're fit to walk."
"I'm okay now. Thank you."
I pushed myself up, legs shaky, and followed her down the hall. When I pushed the doctor's door open. I froze.
Elias was inside.
Sitting.
His eyes locked onto me instantly.
The doctor cleared his throat. "Mrs. Lawson, you may join us."
I sat beside Elias.
"How are you feeling?" the doctor asked.
"I'm okay now."
He turned to Elias.
"It seems your wife is stable now."
My eyes widened, but he continued, "She needs more rest. I'll prescribe additional medication."
I felt a wave of embarrassment. I wanted to correct him, we weren't married, but no words came out. Elias said nothing either.
When we were done, I followed Elias out.
He didn't look at me.
He didn't speak.
Not in the hallway.
Not in the elevator.
Not even in the car.
The ride back to the Lawson mansion was suffocating. I kept forcing myself to say thank you, but the words stuck to my throat.
Finally, when the car stopped, I whispered, "Thank you... for taking me to the hospital."
He said nothing.
The car drove off before I could close the door.
"So rude," I muttered. "He could've nodded at least."
I sighed and headed to my room.
But when I entered, I froze.
David was inside.
"What are you doing here?"
He flinched and turned toward me.
"Mara..."
"What are you doing in my room?"
He stepped forward, closing the space between us, and I instinctively moved back, but he caught my face and kissed me. For a few seconds, shock rooted me in place before I pushed him off.
"David, stop." I shoved him away, wiping my lips, "What are you doing?"
He let out a frustrated sigh. "Mara, please"
"If we're caught together..." I began, but he cut in.
"I miss you, Mara."
My entire body went still. I didn't know what to say. I couldn't even process his words.
"This isn't the time," I said quietly. "And you shouldn't be in my room. Please leave."
"Just hear me out, Mara," he tried, stepping forward again, but froze when I backed away.
"Leave my room," I warned, final and firm.
He obeyed at last.
The moment he stepped out, I exhaled shakily. He shouldn't be doing this. He's engaged. I'm married.
Dinner arrived before I had even recovered from everything that happened earlier. I kept my gaze fixed on my plate, refusing to look in David's direction.
I heard Camille talk "Elias," she said brightly, "I thought about something. Maybe you can put David somewhere in the company. He'll soon be family or he's already family. He can start at the company with you, maybe you can help him".
God, no. The last thing I needed was David hovering around the company after what happened in my room.
Camille kept rambling on, but Elias remained silent. When I risked a glance at him, he was already staring at me-intensely. My pulse jumped. I quickly lowered my eyes again.
Once Camille finished, Elias placed his cutlery down with a harsh clatter that echoed through the dining room. Everyone instantly went quiet.
His gaze never left me.
"Mara," he said, and a chill ran down my spine. "Tell everyone why you lied about your miscarriage and hid your abortion."
Camille and Andrea both gasped.
"Wait– abortion?" Andrea repeated, voice full of disgust.
Before I could even breathe, something smacked lightly against my cheek and dropped onto my plate.
My medical report.
My whole body went cold. How did he even get it? I told Clara to keep it hidden.
Camille grabbed the paper from the table, scanned through it, and her expression shifted immediately-anger, disappointment, accusation.
My throat felt tight, my hands shaking uncontrollably.
Every pair of eyes in the room was on me.
Without another word, Elias pushed back his chair and walked upstairs without another word.
I sat there, frozen, unable to explain, unable to defend myself, unable to form a single word.
Tears gathered in my eyes.
Why here?
Why like this?
In front of everyone?
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7.6
On Christmas eve, I had prepared a surprise gift for my boyfriend of five years, but I was surprised instead... He had been seeing another woman. Worse still, I walked in on him, banging her.
Broken, I left in the middle of the night, but what I didn't know was that I would run into a scary creature that night that changed my life forever.
Alpha Kael... The man whom even his presence carries a strong intimidating aura, yet pulls me in. The man who makes me feel safe, yet torments me.
Watch him burn the world for me...
9.3
Chandler was the secret wife of Avery Osborn, a powerful media heir who kept their marriage hidden to avoid the scandal of her illegitimate birth.
After catching him openly flirting with a rival at a gala, Avery mocked her low status and told her she was nothing without his money.
Instead of crying, Chandler immediately signed a zero-payout divorce agreement, left her wedding ring on his glass table, and walked out.
To numb the pain of her shattered life, she went to a notorious underground club.
Drugged by a bartender, she lost her mind and ended up having a wild night with a handsome stranger she mistook for a high-end male escort.
Panicking the next morning, Chandler transferred her entire life savings of $50,000 to the man to buy his silence, then fled to her corporate job.
But at the afternoon executive meeting, her blood ran cold.
The man she had paid off was standing at the head of the boardroom table. He wasn't a gigolo. He was Brennan George, the ruthless new COO of her company.
Cornering her in the women's restroom, Brennan held up a printed copy of her $50,000 wire transfer.
"Wiring a massive sum of cash to your direct superior after a night together is classified as commercial bribery and solicitation," he whispered dangerously.
Chandler was terrified, realizing she had handed him the exact evidence needed to destroy her career and sue her into bankruptcy.
"Marry me," Brennan demanded coldly. "It's the only way to make this HR problem disappear."
8.5
🔞Explicit Content🔞
"Suck my c^ck, Rosabella. That's all you're good at. A hopeless orphan can only dream of luxury. Keep your filthy mouth out of my affair...use it only to make me cum."
******
Bella Hale has known suffering her entire life. Orphaned at sixteen, she survives on scraps and desperation. She does whatever it takes not to starve with only little dignity intact.
She envies the rich-people who seem immune to hardship and pain. Yet she promised herself that if she ever got her hands on one of them, she would never let go. She was done suffering.
Lucian Rodriguez is everything she should despise.
A cold, selfish, ruthless billionaire with little conscience and no mercy...
a man who knows how to smile for the world while keeping his darkness well hidden.
Their worlds collide when Lucian's four-month-old daughter goes missing... and Bella finds her.
Lucian offers no gratitude...and Bella refuses to let the opportunity slip. She demands compensation. Not just money, but security. A lifetime guarantee that she will never be poor again. In return, she will do whatever he wants. Her body. Her life. He can have it all.
Bella is taken into his world-strictly as a deal.
What she doesn't realize is that when you make a deal with the devil, you should never expect it to be fair.
And she will learn too late that being poor was far better than belonging to Lucian Rodriguez.
A deal turns into obsession.
Survival into desire.
Desire into Hate.
Hate into Love.
That love and commitment becomes the biggest and worst mistake.
Will Bella's desperate deal destroy her?
Or Will she become Lucian's destruction?
9.1
When she's preparing dinner for him, he's out there dating;
When she's drinking with men to get a business deal for him, he is announcing to be single for the price of his stock;
When she drags herself to the hospital in high fever, he's at the same hospital, taking care of his ex girl friend.
She loved him for ten years. She did everything for him and gave him everything she had. She thought their love can never die, yet it did.
She doesn't hate him. She's just tired.
She turns and left him, only to see that there was a firm chest that has been waiting for her all this time. She is also the one adored in another man's eyes, and when she finally gets a taste of being loved, she realize--
He has never loved her.
That day he gets back home, only to be shocked that the woman who has always been there for him was gone.
Regret taking over him as he chases after her, only to see another man saying the scared oath on the alter with their hands holding together.
That was when he realized--
The innocent girl who loved him, the most precious treasure that he as ever got in his life, is gone.
He lost the best thing that has ever been his.
Two broken hearts. One fake marriage. A thousand buried secrets.
Eva thought love would be enough to keep them together. Ten years loving Stephan. Five years married to him. And one tragic accident that shattered everything they ever were, she's left with a stranger wearing her husband's face.
Until the day she finally walks away.
And that's when she meets Micah, her ex-husband's enemy, the man who once set her marriage on fire just by existing.
He proposes to her a dangerous deal: a one-year marriage that will make Stephan regret ever letting her go.
But what starts as a game to wound her ex soon spirals into something raw, tender, and terrifyingly real.
Only, Micah isn't what he seems. Behind his easy smile are secrets she was never meant to find, secrets that could destroy them both.
And when the truth comes out, love might not be enough to save anyone.
When the lies unravel... will her heart choose forgiveness - or freedom?
7.3
Seraphina's late mother's business of housing seniors is now in control of her wicked stepfather, Silas Creed. With her loved ones under his hostile care, she is eager to obey his demands to keep them safe. Including acting as a spy in the Thorne Corporation for intel that will dismantle his rival's empire.
But, entangling herself with the stoic, brooding, and infamous billionaire, Jaxon Thorne, throws a wrench in her plan. Intrigued by his ruthless desire for her and knowing lies being his arch enemy, the threat of her stepfather becomes vague in her mind. With Seraphina deeply involved with Thorne, she risks far more than she had expected.
Love. Loyalty. And lives.
9.3
I walked into my apartment dripping wet from the rain, only to hear a guttural moan coming from the bedroom. I told myself it was just the TV, but my shaking hands could barely fit the key into the lock.
When the door swung open, I saw a pair of red stilettos on the floor and my fiancé's favorite silk tie discarded like trash. I pushed the bedroom door open to find Javon in our bed with another woman, the sheets I had just washed two days ago tangled around them.
Instead of apologizing, Javon looked at me with a sneer and barked, "You don't know how to knock?" He claimed he paid the bills, even though I worked double shifts just to keep the lights on while he chased a promotion he'd never get.
When I slapped him, he didn't show remorse-he called me a "stupid bitch" and lunged at me with a look of pure malice. My life was a total wreck; my fiancé was a cheater, and my grandmother was about to be kicked out of her nursing home because I was forty dollars short of the payment.
I felt like I was falling off a cliff with no one to catch me. Why was the man I loved treating me like a cockroach in my own home? Just as Javon moved to strike me, a shadow fell over the room. A man in an expensive black trench coat stood in the doorway, his presence sucking the oxygen out of the room.
It was Carmine Wilkinson, a man I had never met but whose terrifying calm made my heart stop. He didn't look at the trash on the bed; he only looked at me. He handed me a monogrammed handkerchief and asked one simple, brutal question.
"Do you want revenge?"
I nodded, desperate for any lifeline in the middle of my imploding world. He didn't offer me a shoulder to cry on; he looked me in the eye and gave me an ultimatum that would change my life forever.
"Good. Get your ID. We're going to City Hall."