What Happens At The Ending Of Gargantua And Pantagruel, Book 1?

The night before my victory gala, I heard my husband, Matteo Bellandi, promise my credit to his mistress. "Vivian, I'll put Sofia's project credit under your name. Consider it an early second-birthday gift for our son." Vivian laughed softly. "Will Sofia agree to that?" Matteo sounded bored. "She has the title of Mrs. Bellandi. That's enough." I thought I had misheard him. But the next night, my award was given to Vivian, and Matteo personally walked her onto the stage. "Young talent needs room to grow," he told the room. "From now on, Vivian will lead this project." The gala went silent. Everyone tried not to look at me. I sat in the corner Vivian had arranged for me and finally understood. Matteo had kept the title for me, then given the credit, the money, and his future to his mistress and their son. Fine. I left the ballroom without looking back. I was done being Mrs. Bellandi. From now on, I was Sofia Valenti again, the princess of Chicago’s most feared family.

I clutch the face basin, the cool ceramic easing the warmth that's spreading from my sweaty palms to the rest of my body. My body freezes when I feel his weight against my front. His knee directly pressing against my heated crotch, it isn't ungentlemanly, he's doing it in a way that seems like he's unaware that he is doing it — if that makes sense. “I'm talking about this, Principessa," he whispers, and I gasp. His eyes hold my gaze so intensely, it doesn't matter how much my rational self is telling me to look away. Fuck, it's screaming; Danger and heartbreak alert, but my inner slut and greedy pussy are up for the challenge. “So is it as tight as I'm imagining?" He presses against my crotch a little harder. ************ Kevah Pierce is a talented, sexy, and confident 300lbs beauty. Her mother loves her, but she believes Kevah will never discover love because of her weight. After she meets Trevor Munro, the local weather reporter at a restaurant. They can't deny their undeniable sexual tension. They move on to dating for two years, but when her family brings up the question of marriage, things start to become sour in their once peaceful relationship. Trevor goes on to reveal a shocking secret to Kevah which causes her heart to shatter to pieces. Unable to bear the heartache, she flees to a small city called Fertopia in Italy, where she reunites with her older brother's friend Emanuele Ferrero whom she was briefly married to a few years ago. She finds out he's keeping not 1, but 4 secrets from her. The 1st one is that he owns the building she is contracted to decorate. Will the two be able to put aside their disputes to work simultaneously?

Every Christmas Eve in Port Saint Giovanni, the Camerlano family hosts the Claiming Rite at Saint Giovanni Manor. Twelve girls stand in a line. Whoever receives the white-gold signet pin becomes the heir’s publicly acknowledged bride candidate. I am Grace Sorrento, the bastard daughter of the Sorrento family. If I do not receive that signet tonight, by sunrise I will be put on a plane to Chicago and married off to a Rizzo, a man rumored to have killed two former fiancées. Adrian Camerlano, the boy I grew up with, swore to me in blood three days ago that the signet would be mine. But when the moment came, his hand turned. With a smile, he pinned it on Lucia, the orphan his family had sponsored. Then he leaned close to my ear. "Let Lucia have her moment. No one has ever really looked at her before. Don’t worry. This is my estate. No one will dare arrange your marriage without my say." I grabbed his sleeve, but he removed my fingers one by one. "Lucia has no roots and no last name. Tonight is all she has. But you are a Sorrento. Even without the signet, no one will touch you." That phrase, no last name, drew every gaze in the ballroom toward me, full of pity and quiet mockery. The next morning, I boarded a flight to Chicago. When Adrian heard, he made one call to Port Saint Giovanni Air Control. "Ground every plane. Nothing leaves today!"

When I took a bullet for Theo Moretti, the bullet grazed my temple, compressing the optic nerve and causing blindness in both my eyes. He kneeled by my hospital bed, pressed the family crest to his chest, and swore: “Sophie, I will be your eyes for life. If I break this oath, may I die a horrendous death.” I believed him. However, the day my sight returned, I saw Theo through the bedroom door, naked on our marital bed with the maid, Isabella. He gripped her waist and thrust violently, his voice hoarse in a way I had never heard, growling, “Bella… you really are the most seductive woman in all of Sicily…” “Theo, who else besides me could satisfy you like this in bed? Divorce that blind woman already!” Isabella nibbled his earlobe. “After all, I’m the one who truly understands you.” “Wait a little longer,” Theo panted. “I need time… Don Lucas just handed me control of the docks. If I divorce now, I’ll be left with nothing.” Rare snowflakes rained down outside. I walked barefoot out of the estate in a thin nightgown and sent an encrypted message to my father. “Father, send someone to pick me up in three days. I’m coming home.” Don Lucas, my father, never expected that the boss he had personally promoted would dare betray his daughter. He replied with a single sentence: “For daring to betray you, Theo’s dead.” What I did not know was that this message would ignite a storm that would sweep across all of Sicily. In three days, Theo Moretti, the man I had risked my life for and I had personally helped rise to power, would lose everything he held dear, including me.

Even though I knew cows were sacred to the Indorians, I still supported their biological daughter in her plan to serve beef at the dinner table of Indoria's wealthiest man. In my previous life, the wealthiest man in Indoria had held a nationwide contest to choose a wife. My sister had fought her way to the final round and planned to make a beef and veggie stew for the ultimate cooking challenge. I rushed to stop her, warning that in Indoria's religion, cows were considered holy, and eating beef could have serious legal consequences. However, my sister thought I was deliberately humiliating her for being "uncultured." In a fit of anger, she ran out, only to be struck and killed by a car. My adoptive parents tried to console me, telling me it was not my fault, that it was simply bad luck. Later, thanks to my exceptional cooking skills, I became the wife of Indoria's wealthiest man. Yet on the very day of my wedding, my adoptive parents sold me to the slums. That night, as eight men assaulted me one after another, I cried and demanded to know why. They kicked me viciously and spat: "If you hadn't made things difficult for Janet, she wouldn't have died. You owe her this!" By the end of that night, I had bled to death. Meanwhile, my adoptive parents used the money given by Indoria's wealthiest man to build a lavish tomb for their biological daughter. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day my sister was about to serve her beef and veggie stew to Indoria's wealthiest man.

My best friend and I were pulled together into a steamy dark-fantasy romance novel, where we became the Demon King's newest sacrificial consorts. As someone who had actually read the original book, Elodie went pale. After all, this was the raunchiest, most over-the-top novel the two of us had ever read. She grabbed my hand, trembling. "Camille, if I'd known, I never would have wished on my birthday a few days ago to die of pleasure in some gorgeous man's bed. Now it looks like that dream is actually coming true—except the price is my life..." What she didn't notice was the drool sliding down the corner of my mouth. As the highest-ranking succubus, I'd spent years disguised as a human in the modern world, starved of nourishment and all but withering away. Now I'd crossed into a world with no morals and no rules to hold me back. It suited me perfectly. So the moment I laid eyes on the Demon King in front of me—blisteringly hot to the touch and devastatingly handsome—I didn't hesitate for a second. I lunged forward and sank my mouth into his veined, muscled chest. "Sorry, Elodie. A blessing like this, I'm claiming for myself!"