Empty Smiles

While we're having our dinner on Christmas Eve, my mom suddenly asks me loudly, "Do you have your chastity?" I look confused. "What?" My mom just smiles very smugly. "I knew you were the adventurous type! You must have lost it because of someone else!" After that, she shoots my husband, Louis Hartson, a knowing look. "You don't know about this yet, right? Before Yvonne married you, she was an absolute player in the dating pool. Her father and I couldn't keep her under control at all!" I widen my eyes in shock. "What are you talking about?" My mom is even happier when she sees how angry I am. "Oh? You have the guts to do it, yet you're too cowardly to admit to it?" I can only clench my fists tightly under the table after hearing my mom's slanderous accusations. Since she likes spreading baseless rumors about me this much, I'm not going to keep her secret for her anymore.

Lila only wanted to fit in for this one night and this one party. So she had one fake boyfriend to keep her from feeling invisible in a sea of confident smiles and perfect couples. It was supposed to be simple until her fake date ditched her under the blinding strobe lights, leaving her stranded and humiliated in the middle of the hockey team’s Freshers Welcome Party. But humiliation took an unexpected turn when Ethan, her best friend’s brother, and worse, her brother’s best friend stepped in to save her. That moment should have been the start of something new. Instead, it became the beginning of everything she never saw coming. Because while her heart recognized something in his eyes, his stayed shuttered, cold and unreachable. And just when she thought she was ready to forget, the fake boyfriend returns, this time, asking for something real. Between two hearts that shouldn’t collide and a past that refuses to stay buried, Lila must choose: follow the safety of what she knows, or risk everything for what she can’t seem to let go of?

Ever since my CEO husband returned from his business trip, he's been acting strange. His hugs are stiff, and his kisses are empty. Even when we're intimate, something just feels off. When I ask him why, he just smiles and says he's tired from work. But everything falls into place the moment I see his first love stepping out of his Maybach, her body covered in hickeys. That's when I finally give up. I don't argue or cry. I just smile… and tear up the 99th love coupon. Once, he wrote me a hundred love letters. On our wedding day, we made a promise—those letters would become 100 love coupons. As long as there were coupons left, I'd grant him anything he asked. Over the four years of our marriage, every time he left me for his first love, he'd cash in one. But what he doesn't know is that there are only two left.

For eight years, I was the ghost in Lorenzo Valenti's empire. By day, I was his executive assistant, the engine of his criminal enterprise. By night, I was the most submissive bird in his gilded cage, and the nameless body in his bed. I loved him with a devotion that bordered on madness, a foolish flame I'd nurtured since I was a scholarship student pulled into his orbit. I believed my quiet love could one day melt the ice around his heart. I was wrong. The day his unforgettable first love, Isabella, returned, the man I knew vanished. The rare smiles once reserved for me were now all for her. My presence by his side was erased, replaced by hers. Even when she framed me, he believed her without hesitation. He chose her, again and again. I submitted my resignation. He signed it without looking. He thought I'd crawl back, broken and begging. He was wrong. While he was busy playing house with his "cuore mio", I was quietly packing away my life, preparing to vanish from his world forever.

For the hundredth time, my dad hints at us that he really wants to become a grandfather during New Year Eve's dinner. Lydia Cooper, my wife who has insisted on living a childless life for the past decade, just smiles before placing more food on his plate. After dinner, she ducks out to the balcony and murmurs into her phone, "Be good, now. Mommy will visit you a few days later." I can feel my blood running cold in my veins as I stand in the living room with a glass of water. As I approach Lydia, I do my best to keep my voice light and teasing. "I just heard you say the word 'mommy.' Do you have an illegitimate child out there somewhere?" Lydia rubs her nose, her tone now awkward. "You might be hearing things. It was just my friend's child…" My heart plunges into my stomach pit at her words. I've been in love with Lydia for ten years. It's only natural that I know how she acts whenever she's lying.

Have you ever pain so raw it feels like your hear is being dragged out of your heart? The type that breaks into pieces you could never find because they are lost to the wind of scorn and shame. Cassandra carries her pain like a weight on her shoulder everyday despite her smiles and jokes, too young to remember what it felt like to have parents before she lost hers to an accident her grandparents do not like talking about she is trying to find the little good life has in store for her. But she is given a brutal awakening when the one person she thought would bring her much needed happiness tosses her aside. So Cassandra runs away from it all, she runs far enough to never feel the despair looming behind her. And she runs into the arms of Ray, handsome, cocky, but caring, considerate, and loving. Cassandra is about to find out love works without the mate ties and build bonds with the most unlikely people. Cassandra is about to find the love acceptance she always yearned for in the most unlikely place.

It was a bad idea. She knew it but she had no choice. After finding herself penniless after the death of her parents who nevertheless had a good fortune, Rose had no other idea than to loot the trunk of her old house to pay for her little sister's treatment. Anyway, it wasn't a theft because nobody knows about this safe... The house was empty because it was for sale, she was going to sneak in and she would never set foot there again. It was a perfect idea... When she entered the house, she suspected that there was someone but she persisted and continued... -Who are you? What are you doing at my house? She was so relieved that no one had touched her money so she hadn't even heard the footsteps... She turned to see a man...a man with a mask covering half his face. .. Frightened, she did not expect that this night could change her life... -I'll let you take your trunk and I'll offer you double more so that you serve as my escort, for one night... Rose could not understand such a proposal. However, she had no choice...

For five years, Elara was the "peasant" wife, the woman who gave her kidney to save Shawn’s life, only to be rewarded with his cold indifference and his family’s verbal abuse. She was the dutiful housewife, hiding her true identity as the world’s most feared cybersecurity genius, and the secret heiress to a global empire. She stayed for love. She stayed for the hope of a family. But hope dies in a cold swimming pool. When Shawn pushes a pregnant Elara into the water to save his mistress, he not only breaks her heart, he kills the only thing she had left to love. Waking up in a hospital bed with an empty womb and a frozen heart, Elara is done playing nice. As Shawn prepares to discard her for his mistress, he’s met not with a weeping wife, but with the arrival of five of the most powerful men in the world—Elara’s brothers. Now, the "peasant" is the predator. While Shawn’s empire begins to crumble under a mysterious cyber-attack, he finds himself desperately chasing the woman he once despised. But Elara has already moved on to a man who never had to be taught her value.

My disabled husband, Nico, had lost his will to live. I had to give him a reason to stay—a hope. I had to give him a child. But where was I to find this life for my empty womb? "Lena, how unexpected," my husband’s brother said to me, standing in his penthouse office in the heart of Manhattan. I found myself begging this cruel man—a man who had just left mottled scars on another woman’s skin. I needed him to claim me. I needed him to leave his seed inside me. I needed his child. "If you want to seduce someone," Salvatore said, "you should start by taking off your clothes." I stripped. I held my own breasts and pleasured myself before him, desperate to ignite his desire. But he only shoved his fingers into my mouth, drew his belt, and lashed it across my hips. "Slut," his voice was low and lethal. "You want a child? Then you’d better pray for the moment I finally sink myself into you."

The werewolf lands are the only world Maria has ever known. Lands ruled by packs, bound by tradition, and governed by fate. Born the alpha’s daughter of the Veilwood Pack, Maria grows up among women blessed with extraordinary abilities. Some command the elements. Some read minds. Others glimpse the future. But as her twenty-first birthday approaches, Maria has nothing. No gift. To protect their legacy, her parents arrange her marriage to a stranger. They ignore her pleas and seal her fate with a man she never chose. Desperate to escape, Maria runs, only to stumble into a land that looks different from the world she knows. When escape fails, she is forced back into a marriage empty of love. Betrayal soon follows, shattering what little hope she has left. Seeking solace, Maria flees to a tavern, where fate introduces her to her mate, a man who hesitates. And then there is the rogue. Pulled between an alpha and a rogue, Maria is forced to confront a truth the moon itself cannot change. Fate will never grant her two mates. She must choose. Only one man can claim her. And the choice may cost her everything.