Bittersweet Candy Bowl

When I was seven years old, my younger brother went into anaphylactic shock after sneaking a handful of peanuts. Outside the emergency room, my mother slammed my head against the wall over and over, her face twisted with rage. "If you had been watching him like you were supposed to be, this never would have happened! You should be the one with a ruptured stomach, not him!" After that, whenever my brother so much as caught a cold, my mother forced me to eat spoiled leftovers as punishment. I once prepared an elaborate feast. She flipped the entire table and made me crawl on the floor to lick it clean. When I said I wanted to study culinary arts, she poured hot oil over my hands. My father wanted to send me to vocational school to learn a trade, but my mother clutched my brother to her chest and wailed. "She destroyed her brother's health! She owes him a lifetime of service!" When I was fifteen, my brother's gluttony cost my father an important business deal. I took the blame without even being asked, and the furious client forced me to drink more than half a gallon of hard liquor. By the time I was sent home with a bleeding stomach, my father had already scolded my brother. My mother took out her anger on me instead, slapping me so hard my ears rang and my vision went dark at the edges. "You useless thing! You should’ve choked to death at that table! I get sick just looking at you!" I coughed up black blood. From my pocket, I pulled out a piece of sour candy that had gone soft and sticky. It was the only treat my mother had ever given me with a smile, back before my brother's allergic reaction. I put the candy in my mouth and swallowed it down with the taste of stomach acid. The candy was so sour it made my throat burn. Whatever came next, I just hoped I would not have to be my family’s garbage disposal again.

One kiss saved his life. Another might destroy them both. Camilla, a talented pastry chef with a troubled past, never imagined that a chance encounter at a costume party would entangle her with Alessandro, the city's most feared mafia boss. As their worlds collide over cupcakes and gunshots, they find themselves drawn into a dangerous dance of secrets and desire. But when Alessandro chooses love over family legacy, the delicate balance of power in the criminal underworld begins to crumble. Now, with enemies closing in from all sides, Camilla must decide: Will she betray the man she's grown to love, or risk everything to save him in a world where trust comes at a deadly price?

“Stop this God forsaken wedding!!” I boom, my voice resonating through the halls of the church. Murmurs fill the air as eyes turn to me, dressed in nothing but rags. My grip tightens on the bat in my right hand. How dare they? How dare he? My eyes burn as I match forward, my body trembling with rage. “Clara, what–” His words are barely out before I send my hand forward, swinging the bat at him. Thick red blood spurts out as screams fill the air. ~~~~~ Clara Anthony thought it was love when she took the fall for a theft her husband committed just a few weeks after she gave birth. Thought she was doing the right thing for him, for them, but she was wrong because on the day she came out three years later, she found out he was getting married to her best friend of ten years. Her whole world shatters as she watches her best friend take her life, her husband, and her daughter. Left with nothing but pain and a deep ache for revenge. She teams up with the one person she swore never to look at again, the one person everyone thought was dead. Spencer Anthony, twin to her husband and her first love, the same man who left her without a word. Now he is back from the dead, not as the same man she once knew, but a cold, heartless mafia man who wants nothing but destruction. As Spencer offers her a chance to reclaim her life and daughter. Filled with nothing but hate, she takes up the offer, determined to make everyone pay. But what she didn't know when going close to Spencer was that when dining with the devil, you use a long spoon.

This is a sequel to my book Sweet Chocolate Alaina now has a higher self esteem and better confidence; she also has Cam and her best friend Roxy things are better than ever. But will it stay that way?? Disclaimer -I do not own the cover photo-

When Ethan was at his poorest, he came home drunk after negotiating a deal with a client. He could not even stand straight when he reached home, but he desperately pulled out two pieces of melting chocolate from his pocket. “Honey, for you! Your favorite!” During those endless days of arguments that followed, I always thought back to those two pieces of chocolate. They were the reason I compromised with him, fell pregnant for him, even miscarried for him. It all ended just now, when he forgot to log out of his WhatsApp on his computer. His friend messaged him. [Hey, your wife doesn’t know Anna joined your company yet, does she?] [Back when she was about to leave the country, you searched the whole city for her favorite chocolate, but you still couldn’t convince her to stay. After that, you got dead drunk and cried the entire way home.] [That was when I knew you would never get over her.]

“I bought you to be my whore.”Hendrix Parker lost it all four years ago. Angry at the world, he's become an asshole—a bitter shell of the man his family once loved. A recluse, he’s now forced to leave his sanctuary in the Florida Keys and become an active member of the real estate development community he now dominates.Problem is he's all alone and needs a buffer. Someone to draw attention away from him...Beau Carter is young, beautiful, and with a bright future ahead of her. Her dreams of becoming the first woman in her family to graduate from college are just within grasp, when the financial aid runs out. Up to her eyeballs in debt, she works night and day to make ends meet, but even that can only last for so long.A contract. Six Months. The catch?I'll become the sugar baby to a very rich man. Someone I find myself wanting to punch in the face and throw myself at, on the same breath.Craving Sugar was created by Elena M. Reyes, an eGlobal Creative Publishing author.