Is The Virginia Declaration Of Rights Worth Reading Today?

For one year, I believed Matteo De Luca had truly fallen in love with me. Our marriage began as an alliance, but he held me every night, kissed me before council meetings, and fastened the De Luca Donna brooch at my throat as if I already belonged beside him. Then his first love, Vanessa Ashford, came back. Within days, our official ceremony was postponed, her access was added to the Donna wing, and Matteo stopped wearing the family signet he once used to claim me in public. He said it was council business. But council business did not leave amber perfume on his skin. It did not sit beside him on a private jet to Palm Beach. And it certainly did not smile from the Donna’s chair while his friends watched me lose my place. The final humiliation came at a private dinner, when someone asked whether I was Matteo’s wife. He looked at me, then said calmly, “Elena and I have an arrangement.” That night, I stopped waiting to be chosen. Matteo could keep his first love, his title, and the home he let her enter. I packed my passport, my Florence contract, and the prenatal report he had never seen. Then I left New York with his child.

Marry a stranger in thirty days. Stay married for one year. Inherit three billion dollars. Refuse, and lose everything. Elena Castellano is a broke art teacher in a dying Vermont mill town when a letter arrives that changes everything: she's the secret granddaughter of hotel empire matriarch Victoria Ashford. The grandmother she never knew has left her a fortune—with one impossible condition. She must marry Victoria's ruthless CEO grandson, Dominic Ashford, within thirty days. Dominic has spent fifteen years proving he deserves the Ashford legacy. He's built the empire into something even greater, sacrificed everything for the family name, and he's not about to lose it all to some small-town teacher who appeared out of nowhere. But Victoria's will is clear: marry Elena or lose everything. He'll do whatever it takes to secure his inheritance. Even if it means threatening everything Elena loves. Forced into a devil's bargain, Elena and Dominic enter a marriage that's pure warfare. She won't be bought. He won't be beaten. But as they're pulled deeper into the Ashford family's web of secrets and betrayals, the lines between enemy and ally begin to blur. Because Victoria's will wasn't just about money. It was a test. And someone in the family will do anything—including murder—to make sure they both fail. A forced marriage. A billion-dollar inheritance. And one year to survive each other.

Three years ago, billionaire playboy Lucian Velmore and wild, free-spirited heiress Caliste Winslow were forced into a cold, political marriage. They sealed the deal, wore the smiles, signed the papers—and walked away. Separate lives. No questions asked. But now, the elders of both dynasties are calling them back. There's a clause in the marriage contract that demands an heir—and time is running out. What begins as a cold negotiation for a child quickly spirals into a dangerous game of proximity, passion, and buried emotions. Because some contracts are harder to break... especially when hearts are on the line.

Six years ago, tech titan Cassian Vale forced his terrified secretary into marriage after she witnessed him kill a man in his office. He treated her with icy cruelty until the day he discarded her. Now Vale Dynamics is weeks from total collapse. The only person who can save his empire is his ex-wife — Seraphina Laurent — the woman who vanished after signing the divorce papers and quietly built her own rival tech empire worth billions. She holds the capital, the lifesaving technology… and the one eyewitness testimony that could send him to prison. Sera offers him a deal: ninety days as her husband again — in public and in her bed — with zero mercy. This time, she makes the rules. This time, the devil will kneel.

I never thought my last name would cost me my freedom. One scandal. One signature. And now I’m married to a man colder than the vows we exchanged. Koven Elrik Mavros doesn’t believe in love. He believes in control, contracts, and consequences. And I just happened to be the loophole he needed. But I’m not the kind of woman who bows. I bite back even when it hurts. Now, we’re trapped in a marriage meant to break us. But the more he pushes, the more I see the cracks in his armor. This was supposed to end in divorce. So why does it feel like everything's just beginning?

When Elara Vale turns eighteen, strange men begin watching her. She is taken not violently, but carefully into a world she never knew existed. Cassian Dray tells her one truth: “You are not my prisoner. But you are not free.” She learns her mother signed an oath in blood, binding Elara’s future to the Dray Syndicate. The oath says: “As long as the child lives under our shadow, the secret will never be spoken.” But Elara does not know what the secret is. As enemies rise, betrayals spread, and power shifts, Elara must decide: Is she only a key? Or can she become the hand that turns the lock?