Always Us Never Them Meaning Novels & Stories

Three years after a painful divorce, Ava Blackwood returns to the city she once fled from and this time as a mother carrying a secret that could destroy the fragile peace she built. Her son, Leo, is the living proof of a love that once consumed her and the one truth she swore she would never reveal to her ex-husband. Ethan Blackwood is no longer the man Ava left behind. At thirty-three, he is a ruthless billionaire whose name commands respect and fear. He was cold and emotionally guarded, Ethan believes the past is buried until he crosses paths with Ava again and then he sees the child. Leo’s resemblance is impossible to ignore. As Ethan begins to suspect the truth, Ava fights desperately to protect her son from a world of wealth, power and emotional chaos. She remembers the man Ethan used to be, very distant, proud and incapable of choosing her when it mattered most. She refuses to let Leo become collateral damage in Ethan’s life but secrets have a way of unraveling with Sienna, Ethan’s current partner, watching closely and stirring conflict, tension rises and then wounds reopen, accusations fly and finally love and resentment collide. When the truth finally comes out that Leo is Ethan’s son, the fallout is explosive. Ethan is forced to confront the consequences of his past choices and the years he lost as a father. Ava must decide whether she can trust the man who once broke her heart not just with her love again but with their child. Caught between regret and redemption, pride and vulnerability, Ava and Ethan must face the question neither of them can escape: Can love survive the lies that once tore it apart when a child stands between them?

Bruises. That’s all Louis has ever known. At twenty-seven, you’d think he’d have escaped the violent grip of his abusive father—but breaking free from the man who raised you, no matter how monstrous, is never simple. Life has never gone easy on Louis, and now, he carries a secret that’ll finally get him killed by his father: his sexuality. He hides it, suffocates it, tries to erase it—but it never leaves him. All he needs is a savior. Someone to pull him from the dark hole he’s sinking in. But hope has never been more than a cruel fantasy—and he’s long since stopped believing in rescue. Then comes Elias Montgomery. The most feared and ruthless Don in the Midwest. Silent. Disciplined. Calculating. And utterly alone. No one dares cross Elias. He keeps his enemies close, and the traitors? Six feet under. Love has never been part of the equation, not after what happened the last time. So, what happens when, against all odds, Elias crosses paths with Louis? Will he bury the tension—and the dangerous spark between them—for the sake of his image and empire. Or will he risk it all for a boy who’s known nothing but pain?

His hot breath fanned my ear and I nearly died the moment the straps of my dress fell away. Revealing a part of myself that left me vulnerable to his hungry gaze that moved over me. I pride myself on decency, to always be appropriate but the way he clenched his jaw and ran his large hands on my thighs made me go. . . to hell with decency. Reaching out, the need to touch him no longer bearable, I traced the outline of his torso through the fabric of his shirt. But even that wasn't enough as my hands moved underneath the fabric to trace the muscles there. He shifted slightly away triggering a fear in me that I had done something wrong. However, the fear diminished when he removed the fabric- granting my eyes the chance to feast on seeing more of his skin. He moved forward peppering light kisses all over my neck and torso only to latch onto my nipple tugging gently on the hard nub. I cried out at the movement of his teeth and tongue as his hands kept me close hindering any chance to reduce the contact to damn near impossible. Reducing the contact was the last thing I wanted, especially considering how far we had come. . .

Mia, a beautiful and innocent girl, is running away from someone. When she stumbles upon a city, she's determined to have a fresh start. But it isn't as peaceful as it seems to be, as mysteries and murder lurk just beneath the surface. Even more so when she becomes entangled with two men, both hiding something. When the bodies begin piling up, who is to blame? It would seem Mia has never gotten away at all.

One impulsive kiss to hide from an ex. One desperate contract to save a child. After a double betrayal by her boyfriend and best friend, Lyra impulsively kisses a handsome stranger in a grocery store to avoid being seen weak.That stranger turns out to be Lucas Thorne, a cold tech billionaire whose traumatized nephew Leo, has been silent since an accident. When Lyra is hired as Leo's specialist, the boy forms an unbreakable bond with her the only person who can bring back his voice. To ensure his son's recovery, Lucas proposes a one year marriage contract. But as Leo begins to speak and the fake family starts feeling real, Lyra and Lucas must decide if their marriage ends when the contract does, or if they're ready to admit that the healing wasn't just for the child it was for them too.

Five years ago, Selena suffered a miscarriage and was told that having children would be impossible naturally. She trusted the diagnosis. She agreed to a surrogate. She raised a child she believed wasn’t hers. Until a medical summit in Geneva exposes altered lab results—and her husband’s signature authorizing the change. As she digs deeper with the one doctor who once tried to expose the fraud, Selena uncovers a devastating truth: her infertility was fabricated. Her hormones were manipulated. And the child she’s been raising? Interestingly, the child was hers. Marcus didn’t just lie. He took her egg without asking, made a child in secret, and built an empire on the same experimental protocol that ruined her pregnancy. Now pregnant again, Selena files for divorce, starting a custody war, a corporate investigation, and a public reckoning that could destroy everything Marcus built. He wanted control. She wants the truth. Only one of them will walk away with the empire.

When Alex takes a high-paying job under the notoriously controlling CEO, Rowan Vale, they know the environment will be intensebut nothing prepares them for the psychological grip Rowan holds over every employee. Rules are absolute. Loyalty is demanded. Escape is impossible. Alex quickly becomes a target of Rowan’s attention, pulled into a dangerous dynamic where power is constantly tested and boundaries are deliberately broken. What begins as manipulation turns into a volatile push-and-pull, charged with tension neither of them can ignore. But beneath Rowan’s cold dominance lies something fractured something eerily familiar to Alex. As secrets unravel, Alex discovers that Rowan is just as trapped as everyone else, bound by expectations, past trauma, and a system they didn’t create but now control. Their connection deepens into something raw and consuming, forcing both of them to confront their own cages emotional, psychological, and physical. Together, they begin to push against the walls that confine them, but freedom comes at a price. Because breaking out might mean destroying everything Rowan has built… and risking the fragile bond forming between them. In the end, they must choose: remain prisoners of their pasts or burn the entire system down to finally be free.

Zara Mitchell built her life on one belief that she was chosen. For five years, she loved Caleb Stone—powerful, distant, and impossible to fully reach—while quietly losing pieces of herself in a marriage that demanded silence over truth. Then came the night he didn’t show up. What begins as a missed anniversary unravels into something far darker. A hidden affair. A carefully orchestrated betrayal. A husband who didn’t just lie—but planned every move, from rekindling old flames to protecting his fortune at her expense. And just when Zara thinks she’s uncovered the worst, a shocking truth emerges—one that proves her marriage was never what it seemed. Now pregnant and standing at the edge of everything she once believed in, Zara is forced to make a choice: stay and be broken or walk away and risk losing more than just love. But Caleb isn’t ready to let her go. And as secrets continue to surface, one question remains— If he was capable of this much deception what else is he hiding? Because the deeper Zara digs, the more dangerous the truth becomes and this time, it might cost her everything.

I'm the second child of the family. Because of that, I'm also the one everyone neglects by nature. The birthdays of my older brother, Joe Thompson, and my younger sister, Lyra Thompson, are jotted down on the calendar by my parents. But they always fail to remember my own birthday. Joe and Lyra often have new clothes to wear, whereas my parents keep forgetting to buy new clothes for me. Heck, Joe and Lyra often receive holiday gifts! Meanwhile, my parents never bother giving me anything during the holidays. In fact, when we're traveling back to our hometown, my parents end up ditching me at a deserted highway rest stop when the temperature is extremely low…

I was the real daughter of the Sinclair family, yet I was the one abandoned when their fake daughter and I were kidnapped and taken to the top of a building. They were given a choice between the two of us, and they chose to save the fake daughter, letting me be pushed off from the eighteenth-floor balcony. Even though I survived, I was completely disappointed in them. Then, their attitudes changed overnight. My parents, who despised me, started asking me about my likes and dislikes. My brother who wished me dead, started suddenly giving me precious jewelry. Even my fiancé, who always claimed I was nothing compared to the fake daughter, started to prepare for our wedding. To say I was confused was an understatement.