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.
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Chapter 3
Alex's POV
I didn't sleep. Not really.
I lay on my back, staring at the unfamiliar ceiling, listening to a house that breathed differently at night. It wasn't loud. It wasn't empty either. Just... watchful. Like it knew who belonged and who didn't.
And I was still figuring out where I fit.
Mark Windsor's words from dinner replayed in my head not the obvious ones, but the pauses. The way his gaze lingered a second too long. The way his voice softened when he wasn't issuing commands or talking numbers.
You're family. Of course it's okay.
That shouldn't have mattered to me.
But it did.
I rolled onto my side and groaned quietly, pressing my face into the pillow. This was ridiculous. He was my mum's boss. He owned the house I was sleeping in. He was intimidating, older, and completely out of my league in ways I didn't even want to list.
And yet...
There it was again. That pull. Subtle. Uninvited.
I checked my phone. Past midnight.
Eventually, hunger or maybe restlessness won. I slipped out of bed, pulling on a hoodie and stepping quietly into the hallway. The lights were dimmed, but the kitchen glow was still on. Mum must've left it that way out of habit.
I padded down the stairs, bare feet silent on polished wood.
The kitchen felt different at night. Softer. Less like a workplace and more like a shared secret. I poured myself a glass of water, leaning against the counter as I drank.
"You're up late."
I nearly choked.
I turned sharply.
Mark stood in the doorway, hair slightly disheveled now, suit replaced with a dark T-shirt and lounge pants. He looked... human. Less CEO. More man.
"Sorry," I said quickly. "Didn't mean to disturb anything."
"You didn't," he replied. "I couldn't sleep."
Of course he couldn't.
I gestured weakly to the glass in my hand. "Water run."
He nodded, stepping further inside. "Mind if I join you?"
"It's your kitchen," I said. "I'm the guest."
"You live here now," he said calmly. "That makes it ours."
There it was again. That careful inclusion. It unsettled me more than distance ever could.
He leaned against the opposite counter, arms loosely crossed. The silence stretched but not awkwardly. More like both of us were deciding whether to fill it.
"So," I said, because I couldn't help myself. "Do you always stalk the kitchen at night?"
His mouth curved faintly. "Only when I suspect culinary crimes."
"Disappointed?" I asked.
"I haven't tasted anything yet."
I scoffed. "Rude."
He chuckled. Actually chuckled. The sound was low, brief but real. It hit me straight in the chest.
Oh. That's dangerous.
"Can't sleep?" I asked, softer now.
"No," he admitted. "My mind doesn't shut off easily."
"Work?"
"Life," he corrected.
I nodded. I understood that kind of exhaustion.
"I get that," I said. "After graduation, everything went quiet. Too quiet. Like... now what?"
He studied me then. Not assessing. Observing.
"You don't strike me as someone who stays still for long," he said.
"I don't like feeling useless."
"You're not," he said immediately.
The speed of the response caught us both off guard.
He cleared his throat. "Based on what I've seen."
"Which is... one meal and a debate about corporate ethics?"
"Enough to know potential when I see it."
My pulse jumped. "Careful. Compliments from you might go to my head."
He met my eyes. "You already have confidence. That's different."
Something shifted in the air.
I looked away first.
"Anyway," I said lightly, pushing off the counter. "I should go back before Mum wakes up and thinks I'm planning a midnight feast."
He nodded. "Goodnight, Alex."
"Goodnight, Mark."
I took two steps then hesitated.
"Hey," I added, glancing back. "Thanks. For earlier. For... welcoming me."
He didn't smile this time. His expression softened instead. "You're welcome."
I went back upstairs with my heart racing far too fast for a glass of water.
---
The next morning came too quickly.
I helped Mum prep breakfast like nothing had changed, but everything had. Mark joined us briefly before leaving for work, suit back in place, mask firmly on. If I didn't know better, I'd think the night before hadn't happened.
Except he paused at the door.
"Alex," he said.
I looked up. "Yeah?"
"Feel free to use the kitchen anytime."
Mum hid a smile.
"Careful," I replied. "You might regret that."
"I doubt it," he said and then he was gone.
I stood there longer than necessary, staring at the empty doorway.
I didn't know what this was.
But I knew one thing for sure.
Mark Windsor hadn't ordered that smile from me.
And yet he'd earned it.
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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.