Novel & Cerita Another Word For Culpable

Before the drop tower started, my best friend gave a look, and my boyfriend, with perfect tacit understanding, suddenly unbuckled his safety harness and ran off with her. I was left completely stunned on the drop tower by myself. My boyfriend stood in the safety zone with a beaming smile. "Freya said you're a scaredy-cat and need to be frightened more to get braver, so you're riding alone." The drop tower started. Looking at my comical appearance when terrified, my best friend held her stomach, laughing uproariously as she took photos. My boyfriend opened his mouth to say something as he helplessly steadied the camera lens for her. I couldn't hear the words he said, but I guessed it must have been: "Once you've laughed enough, don't tease her again. It's bad enough Cleo's so shy." I'm a timid person. Growing up together for twenty years, this was always how they accompanied me to build my bravery. When we were little, my best friend intentionally threw pebbles to draw over stray dogs. Then, he carried her on his back to climb up a wall, leaving me to be chased by the dogs and run all over the courtyard. During high school, in the vaulting class, my best friend suddenly pulled away the mat. He laughed and kicked away the rolling foam pad, watching me receive two bloody gashes from the impact. In college, we went on a night hike together. My best friend intentionally shook me off, and he followed her into the bushes to make noises, leaving me in the dark, so terrified I couldn't catch my breath. Every single time I shook with fear, it was met with a bout of loud laughter from my best friend. And standing behind her, he was forever saying a single phrase: "Don't do it next time." However, each "next time" would turn into a new joke for her happiness. The drop tower climbed to twenty meters, and the sensation of weightlessness pushed right up to the back of my throat. Suddenly, though, I felt there was nothing left to be afraid of. The drop tower reached the ground, and two pairs of hands reached over to support me. I pushed them away. "From now on, I don't need you guys to help me build my courage anymore."

Felix, the youngest son of a billionaire, conducted a secret audition, not to look for talents, but to look for a woman who he can marry on paper. His family pressure him that he should get married in order for him to get what he wants. Meanwhile, Marianne needed a huge amount of money for her mother’s hospital bill. After she heard about the auditioned, she didn’t hesitate to apply without knowing it’s true purpose. Will Marianne’s decision change her life forever as she becomes the “Bride for Rent”?

Protocol for Seduction By Daniel Ejemai In a city where data is more valuable than loyalty and desire is a currency of its own, Julian Vane controls everything—markets, media, and the invisible algorithms that predict human behavior before it happens. As the enigmatic CEO of Vane Industries, he has built an empire on surveillance and precision. Nothing surprises him. Nothing escapes him. Until Elara steps into his tower. Brilliant, defiant, and dangerously curious, Elara seeks access to classified files that could expose the true extent of Vane’s predictive policing system. Julian offers her a deal instead: thirty days under his rules—his proximity, his control, his world—in exchange for the information she wants. What begins as a calculated arrangement quickly ignites into something neither of them can fully command. Power shifts. Boundaries blur. Attraction becomes a weapon—and a weakness. As secrets surface and emotions intensify, Elara must decide whether she’s dismantling a tyrant… or surrendering to the only man capable of matching her fire. In a world wired for control, love may be the one variable no algorithm can predict.

Fawn Jones doesn’t get a chance to resolve the issues with her marriage. No, she gets murdered in her own bathtub. Drowned by the husband she hated after he had moved his mistress into their bed, Fawn’s last lucid thought is a promise before death. "I will not stay weak. I will make you pay. If not in this life, then the next." Then she wakes up. Different room. Different body. Different life. Cassandra Huntington – rich, infamous, beautiful in a way Fawn never had been. Cassie had been in a coma for six months after a car crash. Her billionaire husband, Blake, had just signed the paperwork to turn off her life support when she suddenly started breathing on her own. Now everyone thinks Fawn is Cassandra. The media calls it a miracle. Blake calls it complicated. The woman wearing his wife’s face is softer, sharper, funnier… and so tempting he hates himself for wanting her. Fawn calls it an opportunity for revenge. Her killers are still out there. Her old body is in the ground under a lie. And the only weapons she has now are Cassandra’s money, Cassandra’s reputation… and Cassandra’s husband. So, she plays the role. Learns to walk in six-inch heels. Smiles for the cameras. Seduces a man who once couldn’t stand his wife and now can’t seem to stay away from her. While she quietly buys into the company that ruined her old life. While she gets close enough to the man who killed her to watch him crack. They drowned the wrong woman. Now she’s awake. And she’s not done.

"I've got a proposal for you," he responds. "What proposal?" I ask, raising an eyebrow. He gazes at me silently, as if weighing his words. Then, with confidence, he closes the distance between us and says, "Marry me." Sarah was faced with the opportunity of finally saving her mother's life from the shackles of death, but it came at the cost of marrying a man she was not in love with. She had to believe that John had good intentions. But as she spent time with John, she found out that he was a ruthless and arrogant man, a sadist as well. But Sarah could not go back from her decision. It was too late.

When it was time for Amelia Stone to begin her own family, the worst happened and she lost everything she owned. She finds life useless and meaningless. Her beloved parents rejected and turned their back on her and she felt cheated out of life. On the verge of ending her life, distraught and depressed, a beautiful stranger, Ethan Blackwood stopped her before she could kill herself and promised to hand her everything she lost back with a side of revenge on a very tricky condition. A contract marriage. A revenge plan and a partnership is born. Will this blossom into love? Will she continue on her quest for revenge or will she forgive her sister and parents?

Felicity McCarthy and orphan young girl who was raised by her aunt after the loss of her parents and was pampered and loved by her. But due to the shock she sustained in the accident, she was like a child even at twenty four years. Raymond Baldwin, a cold, rich, self centered aloof businessman who cares about nothing but his business and anything that will give him more money. Unfortunately, things got difficult when his grandparents refused to handover their multi billion dollar company to him unless he finds a bride. Raymond decided to rent a bride for a year in order to win them over. What will happen when a cute, childish bride marries a cold aloof groom?

Bain and Gia met in Sizzling Strip, a pub along Times Square where Gia works. Bain is hunting for the perfect woman to propose a deal to—be his girlfriend and convince his mother he is in love with another woman so she will help extricate him from an arranged engagement with a socialite he wanted to back out of. Gia can’t believe the exorbitant fee she is going to get paid with, until he informed her there will be—possibly—a marriage contract should it come to it. And the reason she was qualified for the job? Not only did he like her, he feels she is attracted to him, too. But Gia has important reasons to accept the proposal--her mother has cancer and needed money for treatment, they're going to lose their house and her nanny, and she is a semester away from graduating college. It isn't like it’s going to be hard pretending to be the girlfriend of a wealthy, hot and sexy businessman. So the contract is signed and all and she is set to follow her boyfriend to Texas to start the game and meet with his mother. Whatever else could go wrong?

My sister-in-law, Sabine Vire, deliberately swapped my prenatal medication with abortion pills. As a result, my eight-month-old baby was gone. As I cried until I nearly collapsed from grief, my husband, Cassian Thorne, held me tightly and murmured, "Don’t worry. You’ll have another child." Three months later, I became pregnant again—this time with triplets. Overwhelmed with joy, I was just about to share the wonderful news with Cassian when I overheard a conversation between him and his friends. "All five of you didn’t use protection, right? I want to see how many brats her belly can carry. The wager is $50 million." "I bet three." "I bet one." Cassian burst into laughter. "If we’re betting, then we’re going big. I bet six. Who told her to slap my precious Sabine? If she can pop out a few brats to make Sabine happy, that’s her blessing." Sabine, the very woman who had fed me the abortion pills, was Cassian's beloved.

Suzy’s life changed because of an unexpected event—one that caused a life to be lost. She was once a young woman filled with love, finding comfort in the warmth of her neighbor and in Alexander, the grandson who had returned from America. What started as simple, innocent admiration slowly ignited like fire, growing into something deeper. But all of it was taken from her because of a single incident. Now, Suzy lives haunted by memories she cannot escape. The warmth in Alexander is gone, replaced by cold hatred. In his eyes, she is the reason a life was lost. Desperate for forgiveness, she kneels before him—unaware that it is the wrong move. Alexander wanted to marry her, not to love or cherish her, but to slowly destroy her and she agreed, thirsty for forgiveness and love. After claiming her in a moment of weakness, he leaves for America—returning to the woman he truly loves. She thought she could endure everything. Until she discovered that another life was growing inside her. Terrified that her child would grow up surrounded by hatred… afraid that the little one would suffer for sins it did not commit, Suzy makes a heartbreaking choice. She runs. Because sometimes loving someone means protecting them— Even if it means disappearing from the man she loves.