Novels by Nita Vale

ElenaElena stood outside Lila’s apartment building at seven in the morning with two suitcases and a backpack, her entire life crammed into luggage she’d packed in twenty minutes while Vivian screamed obscenities from downstairs.Her arm throbbed where Vivian’s claws had torn through skin. She’d wrapped it in gauze from the bathroom cabinet but blood was already seeping through the white fabric, staining it red.Her phone had been buzzing nonstop for the last hour. Calls from Alexander that she couldn’t bring herself to answer. Three voicemails she hadn’t listened to. Text messages that just said Please talk to me and I’m so sorry and Where are you?She’d turned it on silent and shoved it in her pocket.Elena pressed the buzzer for apartment 4B and waited.“Hello?” Lila’s voice crackled through the intercom, groggy with sleep.“It’s me. Can I come up?”Silence. Then: “Elena? What are you doing here at seven in the morning?”“Please. I need somewhere to stay.”The door buzzed and Elena

Elena Elena stood outside Alexander’s office door at midnight with her hand raised to knock, hesitating for the third time in as many minutes. He’d been avoiding her for three days. Ever since the board meeting, he’d barely looked at her. Came home late. Left early. Locked himself in his office or disappeared to the hospital for emergency surgeries that Elena suspected weren’t actually emergencies. She’d texted him twice asking if he was okay. Both times he’d replied with single-word answers that told her nothing. Something was wrong. And whatever it was, she needed to know. Elena knocked softly and heard movement inside, then footsteps approaching. The door opened and Alexander stood there in rumpled clothes, his hair disheveled and his eyes red-rimmed like he hadn’t slept in days. “Elena.” His voice was rough. “What are you doing up?” “Can I come in?” He hesitated, then stepped aside to let her pass. The office was a mess. Papers scattered across the desk. Empty coffee c

Alexander Vivian’s heels clicked against the pavement as she hurried after him. “Don’t walk away from me. We’re not done talking about this.” “Yes, we are.” Alexander pushed through the front door and headed straight for the stairs. “No, we’re not!” Vivian’s voice rose as she followed him into the foyer. “That was everything, Alexander. Everything we’ve worked for. Everything your family built. And you just threw it away like it meant nothing.” Alexander stopped on the third step and turned to face her. “I’ve been saying it for fifteen years. You just never listened.” He continued up the stairs but Vivian grabbed his arm and yanked him back. “Don’t you dare blame this on me. I have supported you through everything. Your career. Your ridiculous need to play hero at that hospital instead of focusing on what actually matters…” “What actually matters?” Alexander pulled his arm free. “You mean money? Status? Impressing people we don’t even like?” “I mean securing our son’s future

AlexanderThe conference room on the forty-second floor of Hale Industries was exactly as Alexander remembered it from the last time he’d been forced to attend a board meeting five years ago all glass and steel and intimidation, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city and a table so polished you could see your reflection in the mahogany surface.Twenty chairs surrounded that table, and nineteen of them were already occupied when Alexander walked in with Vivian at his side.His father sat at the head in a leather chair that looked more like a throne, his silver hair combed back and his suit custom-tailored to hide the way age had started to thin his frame. Richard Hale didn’t smile when his son entered, just gave a curt nod and gestured to the empty seat at his right hand.The seat reserved for the heir.Max sat three chairs down on the opposite side, his expression was neutral but his eyes tracking Alexander’s every movement like a predator watching prey.“Alexander.” Richa

AlexanderThe training yard was quiet that afternoon, just the sound of Elena’s breathing and the scuff of her sneakers against the grass as she moved through the defensive drills Alexander had taught her weeks ago.She was getting better. Faster. Her reflexes had sharpened and her strength had increased in ways that shouldn’t be possible for someone still mostly dormant.The mate bond was changing her. Waking something inside her that had been sleeping.“Again,” Alexander said, watching her reset her stance. “But this time keep your guard higher. You’re leaving your ribs exposed.”Elena nodded and adjusted her position, her arms coming up to protect her torso while she bounced lightly on the balls of her feet.Alexander moved in to test her defense, throwing a slow punch toward her side that she blocked easily. Then another. Then a third that came faster and made her stumble backward when she deflected it.“Better.” He circled her slowly. “But you’re still thinking too much. Let your

Elena woke to sunlight streaming through her window and the heavy warmth of Alexander’s arm draped across her waist.For a moment she just lay there, her back pressed against his chest while his breath stirred the hair at her nape. Safe. Complete. Like this was how mornings were supposed to feel.Then reality crashed back and her eyes flew open.Alexander was still in her bed. The sun was up. People would be awake downstairs.“Alexander.” She shook his shoulder. “Alexander, wake up.”He groaned and pulled her closer, his face burying in her neck. “Five more minutes.”“No. You need to leave. Now. Before someone sees you.”That got through. His eyes opened and he lifted his head, squinting at the brightness flooding the room. “What time is it?”“Almost eight.” Elena rolled over to face him. “Nathaniel’s probably already up. Mrs. Parker too. You have to go.”Alexander scrubbed a hand over his face and sat up, the sheets pooling around his waist. His hair stuck up in directions that would

Clara had been in her room since last night.I left food outside her door before bed and when I woke up the empty plate was back in the corridor. That was enough for now.I pulled into the driveway and looked at Theo in the passenger seat.“You don’t have to do this,” he said.“Get out of the car Theo.”“I can manage…”“You were shot three weeks ago and you live alone.” I looked at him. “Get out of the car.”He gritted his teeth and reached for the door.I grabbed his bag and we went inside and I set it in the spare room and came back to find him lowering himself carefully onto the couch, wincing as his shoulder settled.“She’s upstairs,” I said. “Give her time.”He nodded.Twenty minutes later the footsteps came down the stairs.Clara strode into the living room in an oversized sweatshirt, hair pulled back, and the moment she saw Theo her steps faltered. Just slightly. Just enough.She had seen him before. Plenty of times at the campaign office, across rooms at events, once in a corr

“Dad why would you do that?”Clara’s voice echoed through the entire house, sharp and trembling, all the way from her bedroom. Alfred gritted his teeth and strode down the corridor and stopped outside her door, watching her yank clothes from her wardrobe and shove them into her bag with shaking hands.“Clara calm down!” he barked.“Calm down?” She whirled around and glowered at him, her eyes blazing and wet at the same time. “You filed a court motion about me without telling me. Without even asking me. I had to find out from people at school Dad. People at school!”“It was for your own good…”“Your own good?” She scoffed and turned back to her packing, fuming, pulling things off hangers and folding nothing, just stuffing everything in. “You want to stand there and talk to me about my own good? After everything? After what the whole school is saying?” Her voice cracked but her hands didn’t stop moving. “I know everything now. The lies. The cheating. The other family you were hiding whi

My phone rang the moment my mom’s car roared out of the driveway.I answered after the third ring. It was Forrest, Alfred’s lawyer, and hearing his name flash across my screen at this hour made my stomach lurch before he even opened his mouth.“Mrs Cole,” he said. “I’m calling to inform you of a new development. Mr Cole has decided to accelerate the custody matter. He will be filing an emergency motion tomorrow morning seeking full custody of Clara.”My hand tightened around the phone so hard my knuckles ached.“The hearing has been scheduled for four pm tomorrow.”Four pm. Less than twenty four hours from now.I thanked him and ended the call and sat there with the phone in my lap and stared at the wall. The most awful part wasn’t that Alfred was doing this. The most awful part was being informed this late. Deliberately this late. He had waited until I was emptied out, until my mother’s car had barely left the street, until I had nothing left in me. Alfred had timed it the way he tim

Evelyn I didn’t expect to see her. She was the last person I expected to see. She was sitting on my couch with her handbag on her lap and her coat still on, and when I pushed the door open my heart lurched. “Mom you scared me!” I pressed my hand flat against my chest. “What are you doing here?” She looked up at me. “Theo gave me the address.” I stared at her. “I went to see him at the hospital,” she said. “I needed to see he was alright. He wrote down your address and told me to come.” My chest constricted painfully. I didn’t move from the doorway for a moment, just stood there looking at my mother sitting in my house in her good coat like she wasn’t sure she belonged here, and felt the exhaustion of the day press down on me even harder. I closed the door and sat down across from her. She watched me settle and then she looked down at her handbag and said, “I saw Grace’s interview.” My jaw tightened. “I sat in my living room and watched that woman say those things

I walked in alone. My folder was under my arm, seventeen years of legal training sitting quietly inside it, and I had not brought Margaret or anyone else because this was mine to do and mine alone. Forrest was already seated when I pulled out my chair. Two associates flanked him, both sharp eyed, folders open in front of them. Alfred sat at the far end of the table in a charcoal suit, hands folded, watching me settle into my seat with an expression that gave nothing away. I opened my folder without looking at him. “Whenever you’re ready,” I said. Forrest glanced at Alfred then back at me. “Mrs Cole. We’d like to begin by addressing some concerns that have arisen since our last meeting.” “I assumed as much.” He clasped his hands on the table. “Your decision to broadcast personal allegations on a public social media platform has significantly complicated these proceedings. You named private individuals. You displayed documents of unestablished provenance and made allegations aga

Evelyn I couldn’t back down now. Couldn’t sit in my house drowning in self-pity while Alfred dismantled my life piece by piece. I grabbed my phone and did the one thing Margaret had warned me never to do. I went live. My hands trembled as I opened TikTok, fumbling through the app with fingers that felt clumsy and foreign. Clara had shown me how to use it once, laughing at how long it took me to understand something she did without thinking. I hadn’t paid enough attention then. Now I jabbed at buttons until the camera flipped to face me and a red recording indicator blinked in the corner. Live. I scrutinized my own reflection in the screen for a moment. Dark circles carved beneath my eyes. Hair that hadn’t seen a brush in two days. The face of a woman who had been holding herself together with nothing but sheer stubbornness for longer than she could remember. I squared my shoulders, lifted my chin, and started talking. I told them everything. Every secret I had buried for the sa

Ari’s POV I pushed open the door to the beach house expecting to hear Rhea call out from the kitchen or peek her head from the bedroom, but the entire place sat still in a way that didn’t feel normal. The first thing I noticed was the bed rumpled, warm, and unmistakably missing her. The sight made a heavy ache spread through my chest. She had warned me last night that she would probably leave soon, and I tried to pretend I could ignore that possibility, but seeing the empty room forced the truth into my throat with a kind of weight I couldn’t swallow. I stepped inside slowly, almost afraid of confirming what I already feared. Every part of the house held some trace of her, yet she wasn’t here. I walked toward the kitchen table, hoping she left something behind, maybe a message or a note that explained why she couldn’t wait for me to come back. At first, there was nothing except a chair slightly out of place. Then I saw it a piece of paper sitting near the edge of the table with a p

Ari By the time I reached Rhea’s beach house, the night had settled into something heavy, the kind that makes you feel every step in your chest rather than your legs. Her small place sat near the dunes, soft light leaking through the curtains. I could hear faint movement inside I stopped outside her door for a few seconds, breathing slowly, trying to gather myself. My parents’ faces were still fresh in my mind Dad’s anger, Mom’s fear, the way their voices trembled when they realized who she was. If I stood there long enough, maybe everything would make sense. It didn’t. I lifted my hand and knocked. It took her a moment to answer. I heard her footsteps, hesitant but fast, like she wasn’t sure whether to open the door at all. When she finally pulled it open, she stood there barefoot, dress wrinkled from hours of wearing it, her hair a little undone around her face. Her eyes were red not from crying, but from holding in tears she didn’t want anyone to see. “Ari,” she said qu

Ari’s POV I brought Rhea home that morning even though she wasn’t sure about coming. I could tell from the way she kept glancing over her shoulder, her eyes moving along the quiet path as if she expected someone to step out from behind a tree. I promised her it wouldn’t be awkward, that my parents would want to meet her before she left the island. After a long moment, she finally agreed. She walked beside me in a pale dress, her hair tied up loosely, sketchbook held tight against her chest. Every step she took felt careful, deliberate in a way that made me glance at her more than once. I didn’t tell her she had nothing to be nervous about, because in this house, everything had history. Mom opened the door before my hand even touched it. Her smile came quickly, warm and curious. “You must be Rhea.” Rhea nodded lightly. “Yes, ma’am.” Mom’s smile wavered. Not because she didn’t like her. It was something else. Something she sensed before she could name it. Her eyes narrowed slightl

Ari’s POV I didn’t plan to see her again that night. I walked because the house felt too tight around me after the fight with my father, every room still echoing with what we’d thrown at each other. I needed air, space, distance anything that didn’t sound like his voice in my head. The path that led toward the water gave me all of that. The shoreline shimmered in pale light, and the waves rose and fell with a rhythm that steadied my steps. I kept telling myself I only needed a few minutes to clear the noise in my chest. I didn’t expect to see her there. Rhea sat on the same overturned boat where we’d talked before, knees drawn up, sketchbook abandoned beside her like she’d forgotten she was supposed to be using it. She had her chin tucked down as if she was listening to the sea breathe. The tide kept reaching for her feet, slipping close then pulling back again. She lifted her head the moment I stopped, and the look in her eyes told me she’d felt me coming before she saw me.

Ari’s POV The first thing I noticed when I stepped inside wasn’t any quiet in the house. It was the way both my parents stared at me as if I had walked in carrying something dangerous on my skin. Father was still by the window, sleeves pushed up, his jaw clenched tight. Mom sat at the table with her fingers curled around a mug she hadn’t tasted once. Valeria was perched on the arm of the couch with a book open on her lap, but she hadn’t been turning any pages. Her eyes were fixed on me the whole time. “You’re late,” Father said without raising his voice. I shut the door behind me, feeling more eyes on me than people in the room. “Didn’t know there was a curfew,” I muttered, trying to walk past him, but the way he slowly turned his head told me that whatever he had heard, it wasn’t good. He asked if I wanted to repeat myself, and for a moment I actually considered lying, giving them some easy excuse, anything to avoid this conversation. But the moment our eyes met, everything f

Ari’s POV We stayed near the water after the men were gone. The tide had crept back, slow and heavy, dragging foam across the sand until it touched our feet. Rhea sat a few paces from me, knees pulled to her chest, sketchbook lying closed beside her. Neither of us spoke for a long time. The pier behind us had gone quiet. The fishermen had gone home. Only the sea kept talking. Her hair was still messy from the scuffle, a few strands stuck to her face. I wanted to brush them away, but I didn’t. I just sat there, watching the waves fold over each other, waiting for her to breathe normally again. Finally, she said, “You shouldn’t have done that.” I glanced at her. “I know.” “You could’ve gotten hurt.” “So could you.” “That’s different.” “No,” I said. “It’s not.” Rhea turned her head slowly. “You don’t get it, do you?” “Then make me get it.” Her eyes flicked to the horizon, pale and still. “You asked me who he was. That man at the pier.” “Yeah.” “He works for

ARIA’S POV The Wedding For a second wedding I felt nervous. I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror at first. I stood there in the small room the stylist set up for me, staring at the last details being pinned, smoothed, fixed. My dress wasn’t overly dramatic. It wasn’t loud or heavy or glittery. It felt like me clean lines, soft fabric, elegant but not too much, with a small hand-painted design at the hem that matched one of my favorite patterns from the art pieces Damien always loved watching me create. My mother stood behind me adjusting the last curl of my hair. She had been crying since morning and kept telling everyone she wasn’t crying, even while wiping her face with the corner of her sleeve. My brother kept pacing in the hallway, too excited to sit still. Elma kept peeking into the room, asking if she could come inside again even though she had already come in three times to hug me. Every time I looked at them, something inside my chest filled in a way I didn’t know

Damien’s POV I spent the entire afternoon in the backyard, trying to arrange everything without making it look forced. I wasn’t good at this kind of thing. I knew how to organize men, how to coordinate shipments, how to run operations worth millions, but setting up flowers and lights made me feel like I was handling the most fragile mission of my life. I kept checking the list I made earlier. I had written it at three in the morning when I couldn’t sleep. Every line had one purpose make her smile. Make her feel loved. Make her feel chosen. Not because of promises made under pressure, and not because of chaos that pushed us together. Because I wanted her. Because she deserved a proposal that came from my heart, not from fear or confusion. Mara helped me carry the last crate of candles to the poolside, and even she looked confused at first. She kept glancing at me as if waiting for me to change my mind, but when she saw how serious I was, she stopped asking questions. By seven

Aria Damien told me he was bringing her home. When I finally heard the car pull into the driveway, I stepped outside without realizing I had moved. The light hit the hood of the car as Damien climbed out from the driver’s side, but he didn’t look at me first. He went straight to the back door and opened it like he had carried this moment in his chest for years. My eyes followed his movements, and when he stepped aside, that was when I saw her. She sat with a blanket wrapped gently around her shoulders, her back hunched like she didn’t know how to hold her body anymore. Her hair fell softly over her cheeks, and there was a distant look in her eyes that made something shift inside me. She looked fragile, yes, but not in a weak way. It was the kind of fragility that came from surviving too much, the kind that felt raw and unprotected. Damien reached inside and eased her forward with careful hands. He held her like she belonged nowhere else but in his arms. When he lifted her, h

Aria’s POV I noticed the headlights through the curtains before anyone said a word. My mom had gone to her room to fold laundry and I was pretending to scroll through my phone on the couch, even though my mind had been blank for hours. The moment I realized that car was his, something in my chest tightened, not in the painful dramatic way people describe, but in a way that made me sit up slowly like my body wasn’t sure how to react. He didn’t text. He didn’t call. He simply showed up. I watched him step out of the car through the small gap between the curtains. He stood there for a moment, running a hand over his face like he was trying to gather himself before knocking. When he finally walked toward the door, my mom called my name quietly from the hallway. “He’s here again,” she said. “I know.” I stood up because sitting any longer felt impossible. Before she could say anything else, I walked outside. I didn’t want him inside the house again. I didn’t want my mom watc

Aria I spent the afternoon in the kitchen with my mom, helping her prepare one of her recipes. She moved around the space like she’d been doing it every day for years, and I tried to copy each step she showed me. She passed me a bowl of tomatoes and told me to add them little by little so they wouldn’t ruin the consistency of the sauce. I leaned closer to the pot and sprinkled them cautiously, trying not to make a mess. “You used to stand on a stool beside me and toss everything in at once,” she said with a small smile. “Then you’d laugh when I had to fix it. You were mischievous even as a child.” I smiled back even though I couldn’t fully remember the moment she talked about. Listening to her stories filled a space in me that had been empty for a long time. I stirred the sauce and let the rhythm calm me. My mom moved to the counter and folded a cloth neatly before looking at me again. “Now that you’ve settled in, I want to ask you something important,” she said gently. “Do

Damien’s POV I walked into her room early the next morning because I couldn’t stay away any longer. I didn’t sleep. I barely sat down the whole night. I just kept replaying everything the officer told me, and the look on her face last night when she opened her eyes for those few seconds. I kept thinking maybe she wouldn’t wake up again, or maybe she’d wake up scared and not know where she was. I kept thinking about all the years she spent alone while I was out there searching like a madman. When I stepped inside the room, the first thing I noticed was her eyes were open. Not wide open, but open enough for me to know she was fully awake this time. She looked smaller somehow, tucked into the sheets, her hair a mess across the pillow, her face pale but still carrying that familiar softness I remembered from so long ago. She turned her head slightly when she heard the door. I froze because it felt like a part of my chest pulled tight all at once. “Damien?” Her voice was tiny, r