Just A Vessel: The Surrogate's Escape
I went to the bank to set up a trust fund for my twins, only to have the manager look at me with pity.
"Mrs. Dunlap, the trust requires the *biological* mother's signature."
I froze. I *was* their mother. Or so I thought.
That day, I learned my husband, the most powerful Mafia Don on the coast, had used his ex-lover’s frozen eggs.
For six years, I wasn't his wife. I was just the incubator.
When his "true love," Iliana, returned from exile, my life disintegrated.
My children, poisoned by her lies, pushed me down the stairs and called me "just the nanny."
Gavyn didn't help me up. He stepped over my bleeding body to take his "real family" out for ice cream.
But the ultimate betrayal happened on a windswept cliff.
Staged by Iliana, we were both tied up, allegedly rigged to explode.
Forced to choose who to save, Gavyn didn't hesitate.
He cut Iliana loose.
"You did this to yourself, Alex," he said, driving away with the children, leaving me to die.
He thought he was leaving behind a corpse.
He didn't know I had skimmed ten million dollars from the household accounts.
"Cut me loose," I told the hitman, transferring the money. "And tell him the ocean took me."
Two years later, the Don is on his knees in my garden, begging for a second chance.
Too bad he has to get through my new fiancé first—the head of the rival cartel.
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Chapter 4
Alex POV
He didn’t break the door down.
Instead, the ultimatum arrived in silence the next morning—a heavy cream envelope slid beneath the wood.
*The Twins' Birthday Gala is Saturday. You will organize it. You will attend. You will smile. If you embarrass me in front of the Families, I will burn that bakery on Elm Street to the ground with you inside it.*
It wasn't a request. It was a royal decree.
I stared at the paper for a long time before I finally turned the handle.
I opened the door.
I emerged, pale and thin, looking like a ghost haunting the corridors of my own life.
And I did as I was told. I organized the Gala.
I ordered the flowers—white lilies, Iliana's favorite, stark and funereal against my own preferences.
I approved the menu. I hired the orchestra.
But then I noticed the date on the invitation.
*Celebrating the 6th Birthday of the Heirs & The Birthday of Iliana Dudley.*
He was combining them.
He was publicly elevating her to the same pedestal as his children. He was placing her on the throne.
The night of the Gala, the estate grounds were transformed into a wonderland of lights and silk, a glittering mask over the brutality beneath.
The entire underworld elite was there. The Russos, the Gambinos, the Yakuza representatives.
I wore a simple black dress. High neck, long sleeves. It was mourning attire in everything but name.
Gavyn stood at the entrance, Iliana on his arm.
She wore red. A plunging neckline, diamonds dripping from her ears. She looked like a queen surveying her conquest.
I stood in the shadows near the kitchen entrance, making myself small while checking the catering staff.
"Champagne, Mrs. Dunlap?" a waiter asked, pity in his eyes.
"Water," I said softly.
I watched from a distance as Iliana held court. She laughed, touching Gavyn's arm, stroking Kennith's hair with a possessiveness that made my stomach turn.
The guests whispered behind raised flutes.
"Is that the ex?"
"She's back in the picture?"
"What about the wife?"
"Look at her. She's fading away. Poor thing."
I felt a hand on my arm.
It was Iliana.
She had cornered me on the lakeside terrace, away from the crowd and the prying eyes.
"You did a wonderful job, Alex," she said, swirling her wine. "The flowers are exquisite. You really do have a talent for... service."
"Enjoy it while it lasts, Iliana," I said quietly.
"Oh, it will last." She stepped closer, her perfume cloying and sweet. "Gavyn is bored of you. You're too... vanilla. He needs a woman who understands the darkness. Like me."
"He needs a therapist," I said. "And you need a conscience."
Her eyes narrowed.
"You think you're clever? You're nothing. You were a rental."
She looked down at her wrist. She was wearing a diamond bracelet Gavyn had given me for our first anniversary. He must have taken it from my jewelry box.
"Nice bracelet," I said, my voice hollow.
Iliana smiled, a wicked, jagged thing.
"Oops," she said.
She unclasped the bracelet and flung it over the stone railing.
It splashed into the dark, freezing water of the lake below.
"My bracelet!" she screamed, her voice shrill and theatrical. "Help! She threw my bracelet!"
The chatter on the lawn stopped instantly.
Gavyn appeared seconds later, flanked by security.
"What happened?" he demanded.
"Alex!" Iliana sobbed, pointing a shaking finger at me. "She ripped it off my wrist! She said if she couldn't have it, no one could! She threw it in the lake!"
I stood still. I didn't defend myself. What was the point?
Gavyn looked at me. His eyes were black holes, void of any recognition.
"Did you do this?"
"Check the cameras," I said.
"I saw it!" Kennith shouted, running up. "I saw Mommy—I mean, Alex—throw it! She's mean!"
"Me too!" Kaelynn chimed in. "She's a witch!"
My own children.
Bearing false witness against me to please the new queen.
Gavyn didn't ask for the security footage.
He looked at the lake, then at me.
"That bracelet cost fifty thousand dollars," he said.
"It was mine," I said. "You gave it to me."
"It belongs to the Family," he corrected icily. "And you just threw Family property away."
He pointed to the lake.
"Get it."
The air went silent.
"Gavyn," I whispered. "It's November. The water is freezing."
"You threw it. You fetch it."
He crossed his arms.
"Go. Or I let the guards throw you in."
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9.0
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She dreams of him every night... without knowing who he is.
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As their connection deepens, strange events begin to blur the line between reality and fantasy. What neither of them knows is that their souls are bound - not just in this life, but in another.
In a parallel world, Leela is a fearless warrior and spy, sworn to protect her people. Jing, the prince of a war-torn kingdom, trusts her with his life... but must never love her. Their bond is dangerous. Forbidden. And yet, undeniable.
Two women. Two men.
Two worlds on the brink of war... and love that defies fate.
When destiny calls across dimensions, will they choose duty - or the one their soul remembers?
7.6
Jocelyn Yang lived in the grand Turner Mansion, not as a guest, but as a prisoner. Ever since her father's death, the ruthless billionaire Elam Turner forced her to atone for sins her father never committed.
On her nineteenth birthday, a male classmate secretly sent her a diamond necklace. Elam, who had flown back from London overnight, flew into a psychotic, jealous rage at the sight of another man's gift.
He mercilessly crushed the delicate necklace into the marble floor with his custom leather shoe.
"Did you forget what you are?" Elam hissed, dragging her into a pitch-black storage room. "You take gifts from other men behind my back?"
He pinned her to the dusty floorboards and violently assaulted her. The next morning, a wire transfer of $500,000 hit her bank account. He had humiliated her, broken her spirit, and was now casually trying to buy her silence. Later, when a broken bike left her walking miles through a freezing rainstorm, he just shoved scalding tea into her bleeding hands.
"Look at you," he sneered. "You look like a stray dog ruining my floors."
Jocelyn curled up in the cold, her lips bleeding and her heart shattered. She couldn't understand his terrifying obsession. If he hated her so much, why did he refuse to let her go? Why did he look at her with such manic hunger while systematically destroying her life?
Staring at the massive sum of hush money on her phone, a desperate spark of vengeance flared in her chest. Jocelyn wired every single cent back to Elam's account. She picked up her charcoal pencil, vowing to win the upcoming art competition and buy her escape from this monster forever.
9.2
Slave to her pack, Delilah Hunt has suffered the worst betrayal from those she considered family. Turning from a Sentinel to a wolfless member of the pack, she has lost all hope. Not until she met General Kane, the executioner.
Kane lost all empathy and developed a stony heart years ago when his birth mother was banished by his father. He never bothered to search for his mate, refusing to love or be loved by anyone. He lived closed off from the rest of the world except a few of his pack members. But an encounter with Delilah Hunt, one of his many prisoners, sets off something in him.
For how long would he be able to resist their bond?
7.5
I run my family's political dynasty with an iron fist. From my father’s Senate votes to my own calculated engagement, every move is mine to control.
Then, in a single evening, my ambitious stepmother made her play. She used our housekeeper as a spy and orchestrated a scandal involving my fiancé and stepsister, designed to shatter my reputation and power.
They thought they could break me. Within twelve hours, the spy was dead on the marble floor of my foyer. My fiancé’s family was blackmailed into silence. My stepsister was exiled to a Swiss boarding school, and I stripped my own father of his authority for his weakness.
As for my stepmother, Bronte, I had her declared mentally unstable and forcibly taken to a remote facility in Montana, completely cut off from the world.
Everyone saw a cold-hearted coup, but they didn't know the secret I held. I had proof that Bronte had systematically orchestrated my brother’s death years ago, all to position her own son to inherit everything. This wasn't about power; it was vengeance.
But winning the war at home has put me on a much deadlier board. Now, I'm preparing for a dinner with Eldridge Marsh—the most dangerous man in Washington—who wants to decide if I'm a player he can use, or a threat he needs to destroy.
9.1
I stood at the altar in a fifty-thousand-dollar custom lace gown, waiting to marry the boy I had loved since I was five.
But Silas didn't say "I do."
He answered a phone call, turned pale, and bolted toward the exit as if the gates of hell had opened, leaving me to face five hundred of New York's most dangerous criminals alone.
He left me for a waitress named Lola.
The humiliation was suffocating. The elite of the Five Families looked at me with pity, a Genovese princess rejected for trash.
When Silas finally returned, he didn't apologize.
He showed up with hickeys on his neck, clinging to Lola, and had the audacity to suggest I become his mistress.
He even demanded I hand over my dowry—millions in weapons and cash—so he could fund their lifestyle and "redecorate" with her.
He thought I was still the innocent girl who would beg for his scraps.
He didn't realize that in the moment he ran, a shadow had stepped forward to fill the void.
Dante Moretti. The Don. Silas's uncle.
The most feared man in the city looked at me with dark, predatory eyes and offered me a choice: be a victim, or be a Queen.
"Since you are to marry a Moretti," Dante said, extending his scarred hand, "why not marry the head of the table?"
I looked at the door where Silas had disappeared, then at the Reaper standing before me.
"I do," I whispered.
Silas thought he had ruined my life, but he only cleared the way for me to marry the monster who would burn the world down for me.
9.4
Her back hit the wall beside her bathroom. Nowhere left to retreat.
"Mom said I should take care of you." I was standing very close to her and staring down at the swell of her breasts from the top of her robe. I reached out and trailed my hand down her neck, through the center until I pulled the string holding the robe together.
"Stop." She whispered but her expression betrayed her.
I leaned forward and whispered in her ear. "Why? Give me one good reason and I might."
I bit the curve of her neck, and she threw her head back.
"Because... ahhh..." she moaned. "This is wrong."
"Says who?" I tugged the string, and the robe fell open, leaving her completely bare before me.
I stepped back slowly, staring at her body.
Shit.
****
contains very explicit details. For readers above eighteen.
Desire doesn't always knock politely. Sometimes, it whispers. Sometimes, it dares.
This is a seductive compilation of stories where longing simmers just beneath the surface and restraint is a fragile illusion.
Each story explores the moment when want outweighs reason, when stolen glances linger too long, when touch becomes inevitable, and when giving in feels both dangerous and delicious. These are tales of chemistry that refuses to be denied, of hearts racing as fast as bodies, and of choices made in the heat of desire.
Indulgent, provocative, and irresistibly addictive, "IRRESISTIBLY SINFUL" invites you to step into a world where wanting is the first sin... and the sweetest one.