Appalachian Mountains Rules

Feel the fear and marry him anyways.7 years ago Emilia's whole life turned upside down when she got betrothed to a Mafia boss, Adriano Romano.At first she was the one who always kept her head down and acted on the orders of other people. But she never knew that deep inside she had quite a rebellious spirit, that makes it even more difficult for her to survive in a 'male- dominant' world.A world where everything works as per the rules and regulations of her husband, will she be able to get tamed as a grateful obedient wife or will her rebellious spirit stop her from becoming one?

A lie sealed with a kiss.A marriage bound by revenge .the only way out is through fire Two weeks before her fairy-tale society wedding, Ariana Carter, the witty and spirited youngest daughter of the powerful Carter dynasty, catches her fiancé, Simon Vance, in an act of infidelity..Shattered and seeking reckless oblivion, her impulsive escape leads her into a dark city alley and a dangerous confrontation. Only to be saved by Lucas Hill, the enigmatic billionaire CEO who rules the corporate landscape with ruthless efficiency—and who also happens to be her formidable older brother’s closest friend and the man who once coldly rejected her youthful crush. The very next day, the Carter and Hill families, desperate to avert a financial and media catastrophe caused by Simon's calculated actions, orchestrate a shocking solution: an immediate, high-stakes arranged marriage. Ariana is abruptly thrust into wedlock with Lucas, a man who views her not as a wife, but as a critical business asset—a necessary shield against a looming corporate raid orchestrated by her rejected fiancé.The rules are simple public unity an private war. This marriage of convenience is a battleground. Lucas, possessive and ice-cold, demands absolute control, determined to safeguard his own empire and protect Ariana with a dominance that borders on suffocating. Ariana, fiercely independent and newly defiant after betrayal, refuses to be a pawn, challenging his command with sharp wit and unexpected business acumen. As they navigate the world of New York's corporate elite, their forced proximity ignites a slow-burn, fiery passion, forcing Lucas to confront the intense, protective feelings he has long hidden for the bright, chaotic girl. Their union is a ticking clock, set against a backdrop of secrets, media scrutiny, and a vengeful ex-fiancé determined to destroy everything they hold dear.

April Moore’s played by her family’s rules all her life. Now, she’s outlived most of her family and those rules she’s forced to live by have the world seeing her as worthless. April believed she loved David Moore, and she believed he loved her when they married. Soon after the wedding, his sweet compliments, and generous gifts disappeared. Two years later, April said goodbye to her deadbeat husband and enjoyed being challenged by an interesting billionaire. What’s a woman who’s claim to fame’s the yearbook’s ‘Ms. Plain Jane’ going to do with the football captain. Sure, it’s years after graduation but, the things he remembers! Damien Jones is busy pretending to maintain the image of a useless playboy. While he’s stepping in for his father at the new resort because his father wants to hide his slow death. Now corporate sabotage hits the resort during the wedding of a friend Damien is acting as best man for. It becomes complicated. The resort booked for the wedding for the week. The harm came from a guest or staff member. Competition is steep in this town and reputations can die if this leads back to someone. April’s full of talents and secrets. She always was. damien believes he has a chance with April. she’s lost the training wheels and she’s coming out swinging at life. to damien, April’s beautiful in everyway. But will society have something else to say about their relationship through the backdrop of their friends’ wedding and business gone awry? April and Damien will confront social climbing relatives, corporate saboteurs, steamy nights and more. After that, will they find love?

.“You should not look at me like that.”Kate turns, slow, heat sliding under her skin. “Like what.” “Like you already know how this ends.” Her breath stutters. “Then stop standing so close.” “I cannot,” Nathan says. “And you should walk away.” Neither of them moves. Kate Brown lives by rules her mother carved into her bones. Be polite. Be careful. Never want what you cannot have. So when she visits her best friend for the holidays, she expects noise, comfort, safety. She does not expect Nathan Reid. Her best friend’s father. Older. Calm. Watching her like he sees straight through the good girl mask she wears so well. Their first meeting lingers long after the night ends. It steals her sleep. It coils in her thoughts. The more she tries to forget him, the louder her body answers. Something inside her wakes up. Something hungry. Something reckless.Her mind screams no while her body leans closer. Stolen glances turn heavy. Accidental touches last too long. Silence becomes loaded. Want becomes dangerous. Every moment with him feels like standing at the edge of a fall she might enjoy too much. Nathan knows better. He knows the line. Single or not, he is forbidden. And yet Kate is everything he should not crave and everything he cannot stop wanting. Caught between control and desire, Kate must choose what to obey. The rules that shaped her. Or the man who makes her feel alive for the first time.

⚠️ Content Warning ⚠️ This book includes themes of homophobia, including discriminatory language and behavior. These elements are included to reflect certain real-world attitudes and experiences, but they do not reflect the views of the author. Reader discretion is advised. If you find such content distressing, please take care as you proceed. — Gunner took the job thinking it would be easy: keep an eye on the Floros’ only son while his parents were out of the country for a business trip. Follow and carry out the rules the Floros' had given him—watch the kid, keep him out of trouble, and collect a generous paycheck. But Layland Floros is anything but a kid. Beautiful, bold, and entirely too provocative for his own good, Layland isn’t interested in being watched. With a bratty attitude that dares Gunner to break every boundary he’s set for himself when he's on the job, Layland turns a simple assignment into something far more dangerous. Gunner's never been with a man. Never even thought about it—until Layland. Now, every moment in that house is thick with tension, with heat that hums just beneath the surface. The more Gunner tries to keep things professional, the harder it becomes to ignore what he was really feeling towards the young man. Soon, duty gives way to desire, and Gunner finds himself crossing lines he swore he wouldn’t. But when the chemistry between them explodes into something real and raw, he’ll have to face the truth: babysitting Layland and carrying out the young man's parents' rules was never the hard part. Staying away from him is. And if Layland's parents find out what really happened behind the closed doors of their home, Gunner could lose more than just the job.

Even knowing that wailing at an Eravalen aristocratic funeral was considered disrespectful to the deceased, I let my husband's adopted sister make a scene anyway. In my previous life, my husband, Robert Baker, had a distant relative among the Eravalen aristocracy who passed away. A lawyer informed him that he stood to inherit the estate and invited him to attend the funeral. His adopted sister, Mia Carter, insisted on tagging along to see how the privileged few in another country lived. She wanted to rub shoulders with nobles and make herself look important, even planning to wail dramatically in front of everyone. I rushed to stop her. "Public mourning is taboo among Eravalen nobility. Forget inheriting anything. We'll all be thrown out!" Yet she burst into tears, accusing me of looking down on her and thinking she was not good enough to mingle with aristocrats. She stormed out and was killed by street thugs in a random attack. I thought Robert would fall apart, but he stayed silent through the entire funeral and collected his inheritance without a hitch. Six months later, on our wedding anniversary, he took me to the snowy mountains for a photoshoot. The moment we reached the peak, he shoved me into a sleeping bag and tied it shut. "If you hadn't blown everything out of proportion, Mia never would've run off and gotten herself shot." He buried me alive in the snow. I froze to death, and he used that aristocratic fortune to become the CEO of a publicly traded company. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day Mia insisted on wailing at the funeral.

In my past life, I was trafficked and gave birth to a son. When Noah Barrett turns six, I plan to take him and escape from the mountains. On my first attempt, I map out the route in advance and prepare to flee with him. But in the morning, my mother-in-law, Ruth Whitaker, blocks me at the door. She ties me up and locks me inside the shed. Then, she starves me for three days. On my second try, I secretly buy sleeping pills from an unlicensed village doctor and slip them into dinner. At the table, Ruth flips the table without hesitation and beats me until I am half dead. The third time, I take advantage of a village meeting and escape with Noah again. We hide in a concealed mountain cave. Neither of us makes a sound, yet Ruth finds us with ease. I am dragged back and locked away in the pigpen. Ruth takes a shovel and strikes me with it again and again. "You filthy bitch. You dare run off with my precious grandson!" Her eyes are bloodshot. With the final blow, she uses all her strength and smashes the shovel into my head. I collapse to the ground. My consciousness fades. My blood drains away, and I die. When I open my eyes again, I am back on the day I plan to escape the mountains with Noah. Suddenly, I can hear Noah's thoughts, his voice clear and dripping with viciousness. "Mom can't be allowed to run. Grandma says Mom is our family's slave. She's supposed to serve us for her whole life."

To kill is to live. Elena has been living by that principle since she was fifteen, when she was disowned by her parents for the sole reason that she was not a son who could continue their family's legacy. The night she was thrown out, she was chased by a pack of wild hybrid dogs down the woods, and almost died if not for the help of Henry. He brought her to the House of Spades, an infamous guild of the most priced assassins. Even after knowing what place she was into, Elena accepted the offer to be an assassin. She wants to prove to everyone, especially to her parents that as a female, she can be a strong and skilled fighter that could equal a man. Blood flowed from her hands the moment she learned how to use sword. Now that she's nineteen, she's ought to do the biggest mission she ever had: To kill the Raven Pack's Alpha. She had everything planned for the big night. She will kill the Alpha at night of the pack's celebration when everyone is most likely distracted. However, when she went to the Alpha's chamber that night to slaughter him, she was surprised when the Alpha was anticipating her arrival, calmly sitting on the bed, eyes gold and blazing. Elena didn't want love in her life, let alone love. That's why when she wasn't able to resist him on that one night, she's willing to move mountains just to avoid him. They met in the city again, but this time she was filled when regrets when Rage died in front of her. A hundred years later, they were reincarnated as normal people in human world and had completely forgotten about their past life. Will they have their happy ending this time?

Torn between the billionaire who broke her and the mafia prince who’d kill to keep her. Three years ago, Victor Kane—cold, powerful billionaire—shattered Isabella "Bella" Moretti with one cruel sentence: “You’re too fragile for my world.” He walked away, leaving her heartbroken on the marble floors of his Manhattan penthouse. She rebuilt her life in Brooklyn’s shadows, vowing never to return to his glittering, controlling empire. But Victor doesn’t let go so easily. Now he’s back—wealthier, darker, more obsessive. Private jets, diamond collars, whispered commands in the dark: he wants her again. And this time, he’ll chain her to him forever. Then there’s Nico Moretti—her childhood best friend, the dangerously handsome heir to New York’s most feared crime family. The man who’s held her through every storm, buried her secrets, and never once demanded more. Until Victor reappears. Nico’s loyalty ignites into raw possession. His touches burn hotter. His eyes promise violence to anyone who tries to take her. He’s done waiting in the shadows. If she won’t choose him, no one else will have her. Two alphas. One rules boardrooms with ice and billions. The other rules streets with blood and loyalty. Both are dangerously obsessed. Both will destroy everything to claim her body and soul. In a deadly game of jealousy, betrayal, and scorching desire, Bella must decide: Surrender to the ex who once ruined her? Or fall into the arms of the best friend who’ll burn the world to own her? One woman. Two monsters. No safe escape.

My twin sister, wanting to be with her thug boyfriend, secretly planned to apply for a junior college. When I could not talk her out of it, I told our parents and managed to stop her. However, just a month into the new semester, her thug boyfriend cheated on her. She left a suicide note, blaming it all on the long distance between them. She wrote that if she had gone to that junior college, her boyfriend would never have cheated. Grief‑stricken, my parents turned all their rage on me. "You wretched girl, this is all your fault for meddling! What business was it of yours which school your sister went to? Even if she didn't go to college, we could still support her. We didn't need your big mouth!" "If it weren't for your spiteful tongue, your sister wouldn't be dead!" "We were cursed to have a vicious, unfilial daughter like you!" They locked me in her room, ordering me to repent. Then they took her ashes on a trip, saying they wanted her to see the beautiful mountains and rivers she never got to visit in life. A month later, they returned from their travels to find me long dead, starved to a withered husk in front of my sister's photo. Their eyes held no grief, no guilt, only a faint, scornful curl of the lips. In their eyes, my death was nothing more than justice served. My broken soul saw their icy expressions, and despairing tears burned my eyes. Then my sister's familiar voice rang out again: "What business is it of yours which school I go to? You're just jealous that I have a boyfriend, aren't you?"