Afford Artinya

Two years into my marriage with Don Dante, my ex came back. Julian, the man who shattered my heart five years ago. He announced he was getting engaged. And he wanted me as his mistress. "I know I hurt you," he said. "My family looks down on mob ties. It was never going to work. But now? I'm marrying Tiffany. I'm taking over the family empire. I can finally afford to keep you." I just sneered at him. "Did it ever occur to you that I might be married?" He scoffed. "What decent family would have you? The daughter of a mob underboss? Don't be ridiculous." His arrogance made me sick. When I refused, he slapped a black card on the table. Told me to buy whatever I wanted. He said he'd pick me up next week. That we could spend every weekend tangled up in his bed. I spat on the floor at his feet. "Get him out," I told my guard. "And take his trash with him." He didn't get it. Not then. But he would. The moment he found out who I married. I didn't just marry anyone. I married the king of the Chicago underworld. A man he could never touch. And when he finally figured it out, he lost his goddamn mind.

Amara Lawson never imagined her life would change because of someone else’s broken promise. One minute, she is living quietly in the shadow of high society. The next, she is standing at the altar as a replacement bride. When a powerful engagement collapses days before a crucial billion-dollar merger, the Harrington family needs a solution—fast. To avoid scandal and financial ruin, they choose Amara. She is suitable. She is convenient. She is expendable. But they underestimate her. Lucas Harrington is cold, calculated, and dangerously controlled. To him, marriage is a contract—nothing more than a strategic move to protect his empire. He makes it clear from the beginning: he did not choose her, and he will not fall for her. Indifference, he believes, is his strongest shield. What he doesn’t expect is Amara’s quiet strength. Behind the polished smiles and grand public appearances lies a marriage filled with tension, unspoken attraction, and emotional warfare. Every cold glance hides curiosity. Every sharp word masks a pull neither of them can ignore. But the truth behind the broken engagement is darker than anyone knows. Secrets begin to surface. Betrayals come to light. And enemies circle, waiting for Lucas to lose everything. As danger closes in, Lucas is forced to confront the one thing he never planned for—his growing feelings for the woman he once saw as nothing more than a substitute. Because sometimes, the wife you never wanted becomes the only woman you cannot afford to lose.

“I won’t be one of your choices, Logan.” A hand around her neck and the other holding her chin up, he declares, “You were never an option, little mouse. It was you from the start.” ----- Hanna Going back home is like visiting a museum of shame. Worse, beyond that ugly feeling are harsh reality checks—parents don’t live forever, Evergreen is in danger, and the man who broke my heart five years ago is offering the position of Luna, co-guardian of the pack, in a silver platter. He’s desperate to tear my walls down even if it means breaking us in the process so he can rebuild us from the dust. But we can’t afford destruction when death tolls are on the rise and the dead starts walking. -- Logan When I learned that she left, I expected a swift return. But her shadow never once graced Evergreen’s borders, until now—when it’s the most dangerous. Her presence is the warmest comfort wrapped in a wall of thorns. I bleed for her with every push and pull, battering it down so I can meet the girl who fell for me at sixteen and start over. But something lurks in the shadows seeking to destroy our lands before we can even begin. As whispers of a curse dance in the hopeless silence, I find salvation in the unlikeliest of places—a journal from my ancestor, and a woman who’s been guarding secrets.

Is it wrong to want your brother's best friend when he still treats you like a child? Averie does not care anymore. When her boyfriend walked away calling her 'too innocent,' Averie decided boring was a choice she was done making. She reinvented every part of herself, which brought her to a night in the club with a masked stranger whose kiss made her feel alive. Too bad that stranger was Jace Carrington – who now has to face the fact that his best friend's little sister isn't so little anymore. Jace is a billionaire hockey star who can't afford mistakes. His team operates on one sacred rule: personal drama kills team chemistry. Crossing lines with his best friend's sister should be unthinkable, but that kiss changed the math on everything. Now Jace can't be in the same room as Averie without his carefully constructed boundaries crumbling. Averie won't let him retreat into treating her like she's still twelve. She's calling him out on every dodge, every deflection, every attempt to pretend nothing shifted between them. Jace can either keep lying to himself or face what acknowledging her could cost him. The brotherhood comes first – it always has. So why can't he stay away?

Luciano moved closer, closing the gap between them. An expressionless glare hardened his features as his rough hand clamped around her jaw, forcing her face up to meet his dreadful gaze. "Your husband sold you to me. I gave you the freedom you always wanted, yet somehow you ended up in my arms again." "I'm not one of those useless women who crawl back to you," she spat, ignoring the way his grip tightened on her jaw. "I despise you with everything inside me." "I bought you for seventy billion dollars," he said coldly. "If you can afford to give me back the money, I'll have no reason to deny you the freedom you want so badly. "But if you can't, you'll continue to serve me—" His lips curved into a cruel smile. "As my personal toy and plaything." \* \* \* Abandoned as a child and raised in an orphanage, she learned early that love never lasted. Years later, the same parents returned — not for her, but for their debt. To settle it, they handed her over to Davin, the man who became her husband. Just when she thought she was finally happy, everything ended. An evening after her birthday, her husband was shot dead. The man who pulled the trigger was her boss — Frederick Hayden. Until she discovered that everything happening to her from the very beginning was tied to him.

I took my parents-in-law, Edmund and Macy Hale, out to a restaurant. When it was time to pay, we ran into my husband’s female assistant, Vera Rhodes. Seeing Mrs. Hale packing up the leftover bouillabaisse she had been drinking, Vera marched over and slapped the takeaway bag out of her hands. The soup splashed all over Mrs. Hale in an instant. "If you can’t afford to eat here, then don’t come," she sneered. "Look at you, reeking of poverty. How do people like you deserve to be Mr. Orion Hale’s in-laws? Don’t embarrass him." I asked the restaurant to prepare a fresh portion of fish soup to go. Before anyone could respond, Vera slapped me to the ground. "This is a members-only restaurant. You’re using Mr. Hale’s card, aren’t you?" she mocked. "Can’t you earn your own money? You need his money to support your hillbilly parents?" Mr. Hale was so enraged that he was rushed to the hospital. I called Orion and asked him to come sign the surgery consent form. He laughed coldly. "Vera already told me everything. Your dad even needs to trick me into paying medical bills now? Has your whole family gone insane from poverty? "If you’re going to die, then hurry up and die. Just don’t die in front of me. It’s bad luck."

She was the good wife now she's the woman they can't control. One marriage, two men and zero rules. Sophia Lancaster was the perfect wife—until betrayal taught her how to burn. She built Lancaster Innovations, but let her husband Daniel Hawthorne wear the crown. She gave him her trust, her body, her future… until she found him in their bed with another woman and a cold smile on his face. His twisted solution? An open marriage. His pleasure? Her silence. What he didn’t expect… was for her to say yes. Trapped by a ruthless prenup and a sick mother she can’t afford to abandon, Sophia plays along but not for him—for herself. Her revenge begins the night she gives her body to Ethan Calder, a billionaire with dangerous eyes and darker appetites. He doesn’t just want her—he wants to ruin every man who’s ever hurt her. And he’s not the only one. As Sophia reclaims her power through seduction, dominance, and a slow-burning hunger for more, Daniel starts to spiral, now he wants his wife back but she’s not his anymore. She belongs to the fire. To pleasure. To men who worship her. One woman. Two men. No rules. And no one’s ready for the woman Sophia’s about to become.

"By day, I'm invisible. By night, I'm his darkest fantasy." Jane Puckett doesn't belong at Riverside Academy; not among the trust fund babies and silver spoon elite. She's the scholarship girl who keeps her head down and her grades up, desperate to survive four years in a world that wants her gone. Until she makes one fatal mistake: crossing Ace Monroe. Gorgeous, dangerous, and untouchable, Ace is campus royalty with a cruel streak and an axe to grind. After Jane tanks his grade on a group project he refused to touch, he makes it his personal mission to destroy her. Every day is a new humiliation. Every class, a fresh hell. But Ace doesn't know Jane's secret. When the sun goes down, Plain Jane becomes Jailbird; the most requested dancer at Fantasy Island, the exclusive club where lustful boys go to indulge their filthiest desires. It's the only way she can afford what her scholarship won't cover. The only way she survives. Then fate—or karma—walks through the door. On his twenty-first birthday, Ace Monroe buys a private dance from the masked siren who's been haunting the patrons of fantasy island. He doesn't recognize she is the girl he's been tormenting by day. But he is about to.

On the last day of the deadline for the loan repayment, I went to Liam Sommer's stepsister, Christine Sommer, to ask for the 300,000 dollars I had lent her. The next day, Liam threw a ledger I had never seen before in front of me. Liam said, "On your birthday last year, I transferred 8,100 dollars to you. On our tenth anniversary, I transferred 108,000 dollars to you. Also, at the beginning of every month, I transfer 20,000 dollars to you for your living expenses. You must pay me back by the end of today." I froze, but Liam smiled without a hint of warmth. "What’s wrong? You can't afford to repay me? Evelyn Lancaster, you shouldn't have given Christy trouble. This is my lesson to you. If you don't pay me back today, let's not meet for the next three years, and don't come looking for me." Over the next three years, I never saw Liam again, nor did I go looking for him. While he and Christine traveled around the world and wore couple rings, I married my childhood friend in front of our family and friends. While he and Christine walked along the beach and kissed, I moved into a new house with my husband, our cat, and our dog. Everything was moving along smoothly, but why was Liam standing under the window of my house in the middle of the night, crying and saying that he was unhappy?

Ophelia Lane, an emerging singer/songwriter who recently relocated to Nashville to pursue her dreams, found herself ghost-singing for Camila to afford her mother's medical treatment. She endured bullying from Camila and others for her mother and willingly hid her own talent until she met Asher, the Ozarks quarterback. Asher encouraged her singing and Ophelia wondered if she’d found true support in the athlete everyone called playboy. At their next concert, Camila humiliated Ophelia once more in front of everyone, and even prompting extreme fans to publicly assault her. "Loser?" Ophelia wondered, who was the real loser here? "I hope you regret messing with me." Soon, she found herself on stage, exposing the falsehood of Camila, being signed by an agent, receiving flowers, applause, and fortune, and trampling on those who once bullied her. On top of all this, Asher wants to take her on a date! But will Ophelia be able to juggle handling her newfound success alongside trusting him? "I like you," Asher said. Ophelia begins to question if their worlds are too vastly different. Asher comes from a completely different background than her own and while their passion is exciting, is it enough? Can they make it through the pressures of fame, career, and jealous ex-girlfriends? The Pop Star and the Playboy Quarterback is created by Cate Mattison, an eGlobal Creative Publishing signed author.