Mark & Alex
Mark Windsor, Australia's most feared and respected CEO, has built walls as high as his empire. After losing his parents, the only warmth left in his life comes from Mary Smith, the woman who cooks his meals and feels more like home than family ever did.
When Mary's son Alex visits the estate, Mark doesn't expect the sharp-tongued, smiling graduate to unsettle him. Alex doesn't expect to fall for the man who owns the house he lives in or the company he refuses to work for.
Forced proximity, secret glances, late-night conversations, and quiet meals slowly turn into something dangerous. When Alex finally joins Mark's company on his own merit, love becomes a risk neither of them can afford.
In a world where reputation matters more than truth, Mark and Alex must decide if love is worth the fall.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 2
Mark's POV
I told myself not to look back.
I made it as far as the hallway before I stopped, fingers tightening briefly around the folder in my hand. The house was quiet again, too quiet, the way it always was but something had shifted. A disturbance in the carefully controlled rhythm of my life.
Alex Smith.
Mary's son.
I hadn't planned to be home this early. My schedule rarely allowed it. But the board meeting had ended faster than expected, and instinct not logic had brought me back to the estate before sunset.
I hadn't expected him.
I closed the door to my study and leaned against it for a moment, exhaling slowly. The room smelled faintly of leather and cedar, familiar and grounding. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the back garden, but I didn't look outside. My thoughts were still in the kitchen.
The way he stood there comfortable, unafraid. The way he spoke without hesitation, sarcasm threaded through confidence. Most people either bowed or bristled when they met me. Alex did neither.
That alone should have been enough to unsettle me.
I pushed away from the door and crossed to my desk, setting the folder down without opening it. Work usually anchored me. Numbers. Strategy. Control.
None of it was working.
You're family. Of course it's okay.
I hadn't planned to say that either.
Mary had looked at me then surprised, touched, knowing. She'd been in my life long enough to recognize when I spoke from somewhere deeper than reason. She was the only person I allowed that closeness from. The only one who ever crossed the invisible line without consequence.
Until today.
I straightened my cuffs and forced my attention back to the documents in front of me. Alex was staying. Temporarily. That was all. A graduate finding his footing. Mary's son.
Nothing more.
The problem was, my mind refused to treat him like nothing.
---
Dinner came sooner than I expected.
I heard movement downstairs, soft footsteps, the clink of dishes. Familiar sounds. Comforting ones. I changed out of my work shirt and into something more casual, then paused.
Why?
I never changed for dinner.
Annoyed with myself, I went anyway.
The dining room was set neatly, warm light filling the space. Mary stood at the head of the table, adjusting a napkin. Alex was carrying dishes from the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, expression relaxed.
He looked like he belonged.
The thought irritated me.
"You didn't have to help," Mary said when she noticed me.
"He offered," Alex replied easily. "I like knowing where things are."
I took my seat, watching him without meaning to. He moved with confidence, no hesitation, no awkwardness. Not like someone intimidated by wealth or space. He set a plate in front of me.
"I hope you're not picky," he said. "I might've tweaked Mum's recipe a little."
Mary shot him a warning look. "Alex."
I lifted my fork. "I trust your judgment."
His lips curved into a small, pleased smile. Not cocky. Just... warm.
The food was excellent. Better than usual, somehow. Rich, balanced, thoughtful.
"This is good," I said quietly.
Alex shrugged. "Told you. I don't poison people."
Mary laughed, clearly pleased. "He's always been like this. Cooking relaxes him."
I glanced at him. "What doesn't?"
He considered that. "Uncertainty."
The answer was honest. Too honest.
Something in my chest tightened.
---
Conversation flowed more easily than I expected. Alex spoke about university, about applying for jobs, about not wanting shortcuts. He spoke with conviction, but without arrogance. When I asked questions, he answered directly. When I pressed, he didn't fold.
He challenged me once politely, but firmly on a business decision he'd read about online. He wasn't wrong.
That earned my attention fully.
"You read financial reports for fun?" I asked.
He grinned. "I'm unemployed. I get bored."
Mary excused herself partway through the meal, claiming she needed to check on something in the kitchen. I knew that trick. She was giving us space.
The silence that followed wasn't uncomfortable.
"Why business?" I asked.
Alex met my gaze. He didn't look away. "Because I like understanding how things work. Systems. People. And because I don't want to depend on anyone else to survive."
I nodded slowly. "Independence matters to you."
"It has to," he said. "I don't want to owe my life to someone else's name."
The implication hung between us.
Yours.
I respected him for it. I hated that I did.
---
After dinner, he helped clear the table. I remained seated, watching him move through the room like he'd always been there. I shouldn't have noticed the way his smile softened when Mary praised him. Or the way his shoulders squared when he spoke about his plans.
I stood abruptly.
"I'll be working late," I said. "Don't wait up."
Alex looked at me, something curious flickering in his eyes. "You always work late?"
"Yes."
"That sounds exhausting."
"It's necessary."
"Maybe," he said. "Doesn't mean it's healthy."
I should've shut that down.
Instead, I found myself saying, "You're not wrong."
His eyebrows lifted slightly, clearly surprised.
So was I.
---
Later that night, I stood at the top of the stairs, looking down toward the ground floor. A faint light glowed beneath Alex's door.
He was awake.
The knowledge settled into me uncomfortably. I didn't know why I cared.
You shouldn't, I told myself.
He was Mary's son. He was living under my roof. There were boundaries, professional, personal, moral that existed for a reason.
I turned away and went to my room, closing the door firmly behind me.
But as I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, one thought refused to leave.
Alex Smith wasn't just passing through my life.
He had stepped into it.
And for the first time in three years, I wasn't sure I wanted the door closed.
You may also like
7.0
Eight years ago, Alaina forced herself to say the most vicious, heartless things to break up with her fiercely loyal college boyfriend, protecting him from his billionaire family's wrath.
Now, she is a top maxillofacial surgeon, and Jarred Mcknight has returned as the ruthless CEO of Wall Street's most powerful corporation.
Their worlds collide in the ER, but Jarred isn't alone. He is accompanying his rumored heiress fiancée.
His eyes are pure ice. He treats Alaina with a suffocating, clinical detachment, fiercely protecting the heiress from Alaina's medical examination. The professional slap in the face shatters Alaina's heart all over again.
Later, at an exclusive restaurant, Jarred catches Alaina on a miserable, forced blind date. Still believing she left him for money and status, he publicly mocks her for working herself to the bone just to climb the ladder.
Her sleazy date, humiliated by the billionaire's sheer dominance, turns his bruised ego on Alaina. On the dark street outside, the lawyer aggressively grabs her arm, trying to force himself on her.
Alaina thought Jarred despised her. She thought he had completely moved on, leaving her to drown in the memories of the future they never had.
But why did Jarred suddenly explode from the shadows like a lethal predator, brutally snapping the lawyer's wrist just for touching her?
Pinning her trapped against the cold brick wall, Jarred's dark eyes burn with a terrifying, unhinged possessiveness.
"Is this the kind of garbage you date now?"
The eight years of separation mean nothing. The billionaire hasn't let her go, and this time, there is no escape.
7.1
"When she no longer believed in promises or happy endings, love crossed entire worlds to show her that magic still existed." Laura C.
Unexpected designs... Or simply capricious games of fate. A human who thinks she has lost all reason to live plunges into a world of fantasies and fangs that make her be born again. A story full of passion, fantasy, vampires, and other species that will make you shudder... Read with me and let your imagination reach wherever Valentin will take you.
8.4
I was the "diamond" of the Sargent Foundation, a perfect orphan polished for the cameras and high-society galas. But beneath the glittering chandeliers, I was suffocating. When the pressure finally broke me and I tried to flee the Sargent Gala, I wasn't met with comfort. I was hunted down by security and dragged into a sterile, white-hot spotlight in a room I was never allowed to enter.
Adrien Sargent, the cold-blooded CEO who controlled my every move, didn't want to help me. He wanted to devour me. He presented a legal cage: sign over my voting shares for his unethical hostile takeover, or he would have my only friend—the elderly butler who raised me—killed in his nursing home bed.
I became a prisoner in the East Wing, stripped of my phone and watched by hidden cameras. During a midnight storm, I tried to steal a security card to escape, but Adrien caught me in his study. Reeking of whiskey and corporate rage, he didn't just stop me. He pinned me to his desk and branded my neck with a bite so deep it bruised, treating me like a thief who deserved to be claimed.
The next morning, the house turned into a battlefield of lies. His PR consultant tried to claim she was the one in his bed, but Adrien found a pearl button from my pajamas under his desk. He didn't feel guilt; he felt violated. He accused me of orchestrating the entire encounter to blackmail him, his eyes filled with a terrifying, possessive fury.
When his grandmother caught us, she didn't see a victim; she saw a liability. To save the family stock price, she gave us an ultimatum: marriage.
"I’ll do it," I said, looking at the massive diamond ring that felt more like a shackle. Adrien thought he had finally broken me, but he didn't know about the encrypted file I just received. The corporate crisis he’s fighting was an inside job, and the trail leads straight to his own front door.
I looked at my new husband on our wedding night and let my silk dress hit the floor. He thinks he’s trapped a rabbit, but I’ve just gained total access to his world. I will sleep with the enemy, learn every dark secret he’s hiding, and then I am going to burn his empire to the ground.
7.1
Warning: R18+
His pierced cock thrust deep, the metal barbell dragging along my G-spot with every relentless stroke, sending shockwaves that made me scream his name. I came again hard, squirting around him while he growled "mine" and filled me bare, hot pulses claiming every inch inside me.
Thirty minutes earlier I'd been drowning in heartbreak and gin at a Mayfair club.
Now I was unraveling in a billionaire's penthouse, owned by a stranger whose name I still didn't know.
One forbidden night.
No names. No promises.
Or so I thought.
One reckless night with a stranger ignites a billionaire's obsession.
Elara thought it was over at dawn.
Damian Blackwood doesn't let go.
When her world crumbles, he offers salvation-with strings: Become his contract wife.
One forbidden night becomes a lifetime of possession...
8.9
BLURB
Lena Hale thought heartbreak couldn't get worse until she walked into a luxury restaurant with a Christmas gift in her hand and found her boyfriend on a date with another girl. Broken and humiliated, she flees home for the holidays, hoping her mother's new marriage will give her a quiet place to recover.
Instead, she walks straight into a nightmare.
Her cheating ex, Bryce Carter, is waiting at the mansion...
as the beloved nephew of her new stepfather.
And her new stepbrother, Cassian Ward, the cold, quiet son who sees too much and says too little can't seem to look away from her.
Trapped together for Christmas, Lena is forced to face the boy who broke her and the man who's slowly undoing her in ways she doesn't understand. Bryce wants her back. Cassian wants her safe. And Lena wants to forget she still feels anything at all.
But secrets run deep in the Ward family...
and desire runs deeper.
And this Christmas, falling for the wrong brother might be the most dangerous mistake she's ever made.
9.0
For a whole year, April believed her billionaire husband, Bartholomew, abandoned her in Europe the day after their arranged wedding. She hated him so much she drunkenly prayed for his death at a club.
But he suddenly returned that very night, catching her red-handed. Instead of a divorce, he trapped her, threatening to bankrupt her bloodsucking family unless she moved into his penthouse to play the devoted wife.
Forced to comply, she attended a dinner with her toxic family. Her stepmother deliberately served her lobster—knowing April had a fatal allergy.
"Eat up, darling. I know hospital food is dreadful."
When April refused and exposed their massive gambling debts, her furious father raised his hand to strike her across the face.
But it was Bartholomew, the ruthless tyrant she despised, who caught her father's arm and snapped his wrist.
"If you ever try to touch my wife again, I will erase your family by sunrise."
April was completely stunned. Why was he defending her with such murderous rage? And why did he keep a cheap paper airplane she had made at age six preserved under a glass dome in his study?
The answer came that night. When Bartholomew stepped out of the shower, April saw the massive, jagged surgical scar sliced directly over his heart. He hadn't run away; he had been fighting for his life on an operating table. Staring at the man who had silently survived just to come back to her, April made her choice. She was going to uncover the truth behind his surgery and their past.