Empty Smiles

Amara Blake’s life is simple on paper: double shifts at a café, overdue notices tucked under a refrigerator magnet, a mother who needs more than hope can buy. Then she collides with Damian Cole - ruthless, revered, and impossible to ignore - and is pulled into a world of crystal chandeliers, whispered wars, and rules written by men who never hear the word no. What begins as a temporary job becomes a tightrope walk between pride and survival. With a socialite who smiles like a blade watching for her to fall, and an ex-fiancée returning to reopen old wounds, Amara learns that in Damian’s orbit, truth is currency and secrets are weapons. The closer she gets, the more his polished mask fractures - revealing a man built on control, haunted by betrayal, and drawn to the one thing he can’t command: her honesty. This is a slow-burn, high-stakes romance about power and vulnerability, the cost of desire, and the dangerous mercy of telling the truth - especially to someone who doesn’t know how to receive it. What will Amara sacrifice to keep her dignity - and her heart - intact? Will Damian choose control or the woman who unravels it? Can two people built on opposite truths survive the shadows they create together? Read on to find out.

The Dennis Family is one of the most prestigious political families the world has ever witnessed, with the pride and fortune of a thousand generations, riches beyond comprehension, and a high-class reputation. Their most prized possession is their youngest daughter, Olivia. What the world fails to know about the family is that they come from a lineage of powerful witches and black magic. To the outside world, they are saints. To Olivia, who sees them for who they are, they are vile and sinister. She can’t stand the hypocrisy of her ego-driven and bloodthirsty family who only knows how to put a saint image out to the public, and she seeks freedom. She would rather not be the puppet daughter who wears clothes her family picks, waves at all times and smiles when she isn’t in the mood, just to keep the perfect ‘good girl’ image and appear perfect to the public. One night of tasting freedom, and she gets herself into a one-night stand with the Alpha Nathaniel Gray. The last thing she wants is to let her family find out she is pregnant. Sealing her lips shut and going undercover, she runs away from home. And Olivia thought she had little to nothing to worry about. Until she found herself in captivity of the Alpha, whose child she was to bear.

I'm betrothed to Hylton Miller from the moment I'm born. For as long as I can remember, he protects and loves me like I'm already his wife. Even if I get a tiny splinter on my hand, he holds it carefully as he gently clips it away. That is, until the young woman his family sponsors offends a client and is about to be sent to Zubania. He drugs me with a glass of wine. When I wake up, I'm in a foreign country and trapped in an illegal factory. Here, I endure inhuman abuse, torment, even humiliation... At my lowest, when despair almost swallows me whole, that sponsored young woman appears before me in a pristine, custom-made white gown. She smiles sweetly and presses the play button on a voice recording. And from the speaker comes the voice I long for every day and night. "It's fine. Alina's the young lady of the Winslet family—they won't do anything to her. But Priscilla? She's different. Worst case, I'll make it up to Alina when she gets back…" In that moment, it feels like someone tears my heart open with their bare hands.

Right before my wedding, my fiancé, Benjamin Gray, holds another wedding at an old settlement with his true love, who has lung cancer. He holds Jennifer Robinson close and smiles tenderly at her underneath the starry sky. "According to the local customs here, the woman whose wedding is held first is considered a man's actual wife. I might have already registered my marriage with Samantha, but she's more like my mistress." Everyone cheers and blesses them as they toast each other and enter their room for the night. I witness all of this, but I don't cry or kick up a fuss. Instead, I make an appointment for an abortion. I've loved Benjamin for 15 years, but I still can't compare to Jennifer, who is my stepsister. If that's the case, I'll let him go. Later, I join a geological exploration and research team in the South Isles and am cut off from the world. All I leave behind is a divorce agreement and a divorce gift. Benjamin has never cared for me, so it's odd that he loses his mind overnight after my departure.

Jayden resumed speaking, his voice full of command. "Our new Luna is someone we all know well. A kind, loving, and brave soul—she is the most beautiful woman on this earth." A tint of red crept up my cheeks. I straightened my gown, ready to go up the stage. "It's none other than… Daisy Andre." Immediately I heard those words from him, my shoulders dropped, my face tightened. The smiles that once decorated my face vanished, leaving me with a frown. ****** Ashley gave her heart to Jayden, the Alpha of the Oakwood Pack, believing he was hers forever. But when he chose her best friend, Daisy, as his Luna instead, Ashley was crushed. Banished, humiliated, and rejected, she was left to pick up the shattered pieces of her life. But fate had more in store for her. After a near-fatal car accident, Ashley wakes up to the news that she is pregnant—with triplets. Now, Ashley has to make a choice: to raise her children on her own or go back to the man who broke her heart and demand he take her back. Will she find the courage to forgive Jayden, or will the wounds of the past deny her the future she deserves?

Adrian Vale is powerful, successful, and untouchable. At twenty nine, she is the CEO of Vale Noir Group, admired for her intelligence, respected for her leadership, and protected by a family no one dares to cross. Adrian is kind, warm, and loyal, even as powerful men orbit her world, each drawn to her for different reasons. A brilliant lawyer who challenges her mind and tempts her restraint. A businessman from her past who knows the woman she used to be. A dangerous connection she never fully escaped. But danger does not always arrive openly. Celeste Ashford is charming, helpful, and always close. A friend who smiles easily and listens carefully. When envy turns into entitlement, proximity becomes a weapon, and betrayal sets off a chain of events Adrian never sees coming. Whispers turn into threats. Threats turn into violence. And a reward is placed on Adrian Vale. Forced to confront the cost of being desired and the danger of being known, Adrian must decide who truly deserves her trust and how far she is willing to go to survive. This is not a story about a woman waiting to be saved. It is a story about power, desire, loyalty, and what happens when the wrong person gets too close.

Leah gave him everything, her trust, her heart, even the future she thought they would share. But Shane's smiles always found her sister, Mary, and the man Leah loved never loved her back. Broken and humiliated, she leaves to the ruthless Northwind Pack, determined to bury the past and build a life where no one can make her feel invisible again. What she doesn't expect is Darien. Cold, dangerous, and the Alpha's advisor, Darien is nothing like the wolves she's known. He sees through her walls with unnerving precision, challenges her at every turn, and refuses to let her fade into the background. But Darien carries secrets of his own, and the pull he feels toward Leah doesn't fit into his carefully laid plans. Caught between a bond she never asked for and a destiny she doesn't understand, Leah must decide: will she guard her heart behind the walls she built to keep her safe, or will she embrace the power rising within her and become the wolf she was always meant to be? In the North, not everything is what it seems. The Northwind Pack remembers its legends, and some bloodlines refuse to stay buried.

When 24-year-old Lila Carter returns home for the summer, she expects an empty househer mother is away on a three-month cruise. Instead, she finds Julian Reyes, her mother’s dangerously handsome 39-year-old husband, the man who’s fueled her forbidden fantasies for years. With the house to themselves, the tension that’s been simmering since Julian married her mother finally ignites. Stolen glances turn into midnight swims, whispered touches become breathless, sheet-clenching nights, and every moan is caught on hidden cameras neither of them knew existed. They’re careful. Or so they think. One stormy night changes everything. One secret lens records it all. Soon, a faceless blackmailer has every explicit secondthe pool, the laundry room, the master bedand the price of silence is climbing fast. If Lila and Julian don’t pay, the first clip goes straight to her mother. Caught between scorching desire and the threat of total destruction, they’ll risk everything to keep their darkest fantasy alive… even if it means burning their old lives to the ground. A high-heat, age-gap, forbidden step-romance loaded with sneaking around, possessive passion, heart-pounding close calls, and sex so intense it’ll leave you aching for more.

They say the perfect crime leaves no witnesses. But what happens when the victim refuses to stay dead? On the happiest day of her life, she was betrayed by the only person she trusted. He took her fortune. He erased her name. He watched her burn and toasted to her memory. He thinks he is safe. He thinks the past is buried six feet under. But what if the grave was empty? Three years later, a mysterious woman walks into his life. She is everything he desires: powerful, beautiful, and dangerous. She knows his secrets before he speaks them. She knows his weaknesses before he shows them. He is drawn to her like a moth to a flame, unaware that she is the very fire he tried to extinguish. He thinks he’s found a new partner. He has no idea he is shaking hands with his own executioner. She is standing right in front of him, wearing a stranger’s face but holding a dead woman’s grudge. How long can a murderer look into the eyes of his victim without realizing who she is? And when the mask finally slips... will he have time to scream?

Princess Riley of Avarayne watched merchants with ledger, smooth smiles murder her mother at the docks and cast the queen into the harbour's hungry rip. Days later, her grief-numbed father guided by a new wife with colder hands than the sea stripped Riley's birthright and crowned a newborn son in her place. Hounded by courtly poisons and a stepsister who polishes beauty like a blade, Riley binds her chest, hides her hair beneath a bandana, and vanishes into the night as "Rye." Aboard the infamous Gilded Wraith under Captain Kade Thorne, the Wolf of the Azure. Rye learns knots, storms, and the language of survival. A slow, impossible pull grows between captain and "boy," even as she steers the crew through sea monsters, rival pirates, and raids against the royal fleet hunting them. But when a bounty bearing House Morcant's seal surfaces, Riley glimpses the conspiracy that began the night her mother drowned. Captured and unmasked to save Kade's life, Riley is dragged back to a palace that would sell her in marriage to silence the truth. To free the man who became her compass and claim the justice denied her, she must choose: reclaim a crown salted with blood or burn the lies that built it.