When You Were Mine Novel

On the day Winter Everhart suffers a miscarriage, her husband, Joshua Stroud, and their son, Terence, are out with his beloved Jessica Lynch. They watch the very performance Winter has always loved. "You're just so unreasonable. What's the point of all this?" "Dad, can you get me a new mom? She's so annoying!" On Winter's birthday, she returns from the hospital only to find Joshua celebrating Jessica's instead. Even Terence, the child she nearly gave her life to bring into the world, pledges to protect the woman who has stolen everything from her. Tears glisten in Winter's eyes as she smiles. Then, with quiet resolve, she walks away from the cage of a marriage that has bound her for five years. Joshua and Terence believe she won't survive without the Stroud family. What they don't expect is that she rises so high that they can no longer reach her. "Mr. Stroud! Mrs. Stroud's car design is now number one nationwide—Stroud Group has been completely outshone!" "Mr. Stroud! Mrs. Stroud has just won the World Championship in Artificial Intelligence Design!" "Mr. Stroud! Mrs. Stroud has been invited by a foreign president to attend a state banquet!" Regret tears Joshua apart. Dragging Terence with him, he kneels before Winter and pleads, "Honey, please give me another chance! If being your servant is what it takes, I'll do it!" But just beyond the door, a strikingly handsome man kneels on one knee, a leather collar fastened around his neck. Twining a diamond leash around Winter's palm, he vows with his gaze burning with feverish devotion, "My master, from this moment on, I bow to no one but you. Please, take me in."

“Come back to me, Ivy,” the man whom she used to love with all her heart said. “No, no,” Ivy shook her head and backed away from him. Her body trembled as fear consumed her whole being. He was the reason her baby was gone! He was the reason for all her suffering! ---------------------------- Ivy thought she was the luckiest woman in the world - she was married to the man of her dream. But that was just her illusion. On the day she received her pregnancy report, she found her husband in bed with his best friend. Before she had the chance to tell him about her pregnancy, she was forced to divorce and her family was driven to bankruptcy by that one man she loved. Since then, her life went south. She married a governor in another country whom everyone thought was a gentleman. Everyone envied her, but no one knew he was a sadist who loved to abuse her. Five years later, the man she used to love met her by chance and begged her to come back. But would she be able to give her heart again, when all she felt toward him was fear and hatred? Knowing that he was the sole reason her life had turned to be what it was today with endless suffering? Cover art by Rainygraphic.

THIS STORY CONTAINS EXPLICIT SEX SCENES. READER DISCRETION ADVISED. I Was Never Yours is an emotional romance story about love, power, and emotional survival in a world where affection can feel like control. Amara once believed in love with her whole heart. She believed in promises made under soft lights, in quiet conversations that felt like forever, and in a future she thought was guaranteed by a man who made her feel deeply chosen, until he didn’t. Julian is a man shaped by control, success, and emotional distance. To him, vulnerability is weakness, and love is something he can manage rather than surrender to. Years ago, Amara and Julian shared something intense but undefined, a relationship built on emotional closeness without public labels or clear promises. It was passionate, quiet, and dangerously addictive in its secrecy. Then Julian walked away without explanation. Not with betrayal. Not with arguments. Just silence. Years later, fate forces them back into each other’s world when Amara becomes an employee in his powerful company. But time has changed everything. The girl who once waited quietly is gone. In her place stands a woman who understands emotional survival, boundaries, and self-worth. Now the power has shifted. Julian wants her back, not just as a lover, but as someone he can emotionally possess again. He begins careful, strategic moves to stay close to her, protect her, and slowly pull her back into his emotional orbit. But Amara has learned something dangerous from heartbreak. She can love him… but she refuses to belong to him. As emotions resurface, both must confront healing, obsession, pride, and the question of whether love is about holding on or choosing each other again every day.

"You can't walk away," he whispered, his breath hot against my ear. "Not now." I never should've followed him. I knew it the second I saw his dark, predatory eyes lock onto mine across the bar. But I couldn't stop myself. I was drawn to him, to the danger simmering beneath his cool, controlled exterior. "One night," I told myself, "just one night." But it wasn't just a night. It was a raw, thrilling ride into darkness, where he took control in ways l'd never imagined. "Do you like it when I make you beg?" he growled, and I did. God, I did. By morning, I was tangled in his sheets, marked by his touch, my body still aching from the things he'd done to me. But when I opened my eyes and saw his face in the cold light of day, reality hit like a punch to the gut. The man l'd spent the night with, the one who made me surrender in every way possible, wasn't just a sexy stranger. He was a mafia kingpin-one of the most feared men in the city. And me? I'm the future district attorney, the one assigned to take him down. "You belong to me now," he said, his voice a deadly promise. And as much as I wanted to deny it, I knew he was right. But what happens when the lines between law and lust blur beyond recognition?

In the quiet, watchful town of Willow Creek, nineteen-year-old Rihanna has learned that loving too loudly is dangerous. Once betrayed by her first love and turned into a subject of gossip, she has spent a year and a half building walls around her heart. She is vibrant, outspoken, and endlessly warm—but in a town that mistakes kindness for weakness, she is labeled as someone unworthy of being chosen. When a pandemic lockdown brings an unexpected message from Dennis, the wealthy boy she has admired from afar her entire life, Rihanna allows herself to hope again. What begins as playful late-night conversations and secret meetings soon grows into something far more fragile and intense. Dennis sees her in ways no one ever has—but he is also bound by fear, reputation, and a need for control that clashes with Rihanna’s free-spirited nature. As their connection deepens, Rihanna is forced into her own survival game: choosing between shrinking herself to fit someone else’s expectations or standing fully in who she is, even if it means losing love. When Dennis offers her only something casual, she must confront the truth about what she deserves—and whether she is willing to risk her heart again. *Almost Yours* is a story about emotional survival, self-worth, and the courage it takes to grow beyond heartbreak. In a world that demands women make themselves smaller to be loved, Rihanna’s journey asks a powerful question: when love returns, will she choose it—or herself?

I thought my past was buried. I was wrong. On the eve of my wedding, anonymous messages began to haunt me—warnings that some things never stay buried. I ignored them. I had moved on. I was happy. I was marrying a good man. Until he walked into my wedding. Eden Blackwood—my first love, my deepest wound, now the untouchable billionaire CEO everyone worships. Seven years ago, he vanished without explanation. Now he’s back, looking at me like I still belong to him. I am married to another man. He refuses to accept that. I escaped him once. But this time… he came for me.