Before You Knew My Name

When Stacey’s mom gets transferred — again — Stacey is forced to start over in New York, bitter and lonely in her new high school. After she meets Derrick, the school’s star basketball player, everything changes he becomes her first real friend… and so much more. Family expectations, secrets, and the pressures of chasing big dreams sets in, Stacey and Derrick must make the toughest decision: Can their love survive the challenges that come with growing up? Follow Stacey and Derrick as they chase first love, stumble through heartbreak, and learn that growing up means sometimes letting go. Book 2 — Loading ………..

"If you offend Alpha Carlen, Luna Irene might plead for you. But if you cross Luna Irene, there won't even be a scrap of you left." That's a widely circulated saying in the werewolf upper circles. I'm Irene Chandler. Because of one game, I've decided to dissolve the mate bond with Carlen Alvarado. During the game, he says drunkenly, "I love resting my head on the belly of an expecting she-wolf and listening to the pup's heartbeat." The room falls silent. Every werewolf turns to look at me. There's no surprise in their eyes. What I see is their pity for me, the rightful Luna, and a flicker of panic that their secret has been exposed. At that moment, I understood everything. They all know Carlen has a pup with another woman. They've been helping him hide it from me. That's because they know I'm Carlen's everything. I'll leave him if I ever find out. And if I leave, he'll lose his mind. I have to admit that they know me well. After learning the truth, I plan to do three things. First, I toss the wedding ring Carlen designed for me into the furnace. Second, I save the video of Lily Chalvez flaunting her pregnancy to provoke me onto a flash drive. Third, I submit documents to the Pack Affairs Department, applying to become a researcher on the isolated Icebound Island. The day I leave the pack happens to be our seventh wedding anniversary. I'll vanish from his life like a wisp of smoke.

On the third day of kneeling before the statue of the Moon Goddess and praying for Ryan Summers, a sudden row of glowing text appeared right in front of my eyes. [Ryan really is a piece of trash. His little childhood sweetheart, Rowena Blake, ran off the moment she learned he was going to hold a bonding ceremony, so he actually faked his own death just to chase her.] [Ryan and Rowena are out there whispering sweet nothings to each other under the flowers and moonlight, while Jenna Cuttridge cried her eyes nearly blind over that scumbag.] [Too bad Jenna never finds out that Ryan tricked her. When he comes back from playing dead, she even happily marries him.] So this was the miracle the Moon Goddess had bestowed upon me. Thunderstruck, I grabbed my phone and called my Alpha father, Jake Cuttridge. "Dad, remember that alliance bonding you mentioned last time? I agree to it." Half a month later, the news that I would be entering an alliance bonding with an Alpha from the Northridge Pack spread throughout the entire wolf kingdom. Ryan's friend, Luke Carter, who had been in on his plan, rushed over and demanded, "Ryan just died not long ago, and you're already so eager to find the next guy?" "He's dead. I can't possibly stay single for him my whole life."

Even though I knew cows were sacred to the Indorians, I still supported their biological daughter in her plan to serve beef at the dinner table of Indoria's wealthiest man. In my previous life, the wealthiest man in Indoria had held a nationwide contest to choose a wife. My sister had fought her way to the final round and planned to make a beef and veggie stew for the ultimate cooking challenge. I rushed to stop her, warning that in Indoria's religion, cows were considered holy, and eating beef could have serious legal consequences. However, my sister thought I was deliberately humiliating her for being "uncultured." In a fit of anger, she ran out, only to be struck and killed by a car. My adoptive parents tried to console me, telling me it was not my fault, that it was simply bad luck. Later, thanks to my exceptional cooking skills, I became the wife of Indoria's wealthiest man. Yet on the very day of my wedding, my adoptive parents sold me to the slums. That night, as eight men assaulted me one after another, I cried and demanded to know why. They kicked me viciously and spat: "If you hadn't made things difficult for Janet, she wouldn't have died. You owe her this!" By the end of that night, I had bled to death. Meanwhile, my adoptive parents used the money given by Indoria's wealthiest man to build a lavish tomb for their biological daughter. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day my sister was about to serve her beef and veggie stew to Indoria's wealthiest man.

“I will marry you. I don’t want to marry Camelia. All this time I have only taken advantage of her intelligence.” Those words became a knife that mercilessly tore through her heart. For years, Camelia dedicated her brilliance to building William’s company—saving it from bankruptcy, winning impossible negotiations, and turning failures into success. She believed they were partners in love and ambition. She was wrong. To William, Camelia was not a woman to be loved. She was merely a mind to be exploited. A strategy to be used. A stepping stone toward greater profit.

Her father and stepmother died, leaving her to the brutal hands of her step brother. Her stepbrother is heartless. He treats her as a maid, is it a torture? She however discovers that she has been sold. Sold to a Ruthless Mafia, just to serve as a settlement for her stepbrother's debt. Now she fears her life. Would her life take a turn for the worse or for the best?

Harlequin Frost is in an arranged marriage for two years when she overhears a conversation between her husband, Victor Cross, and his best friend, Liam. Victor admits he is going to ask her for a divorce. When he does tell Harley that he wants a divorce, she is nothing but cold and she lets him see her anger for the first time. Victor starts noticing sides of his wife that he never knew were there. Harley realizes that she has lost everything about herself just trying to be the kind of woman he could love. Victor swears she was hiding her true self while Harley insists, he would have seen these sides to her if he had attempted to get to know her. When his first love comes back to town, Victor tries to bully Harley into making concessions in their divorce agreement to try to hang on to Daya while Harley refuses to budge. When Victor's half-brother comes back from abroad, he takes an interest in Harley while Harley is just trying to concentrate on growing her jewelry design firm. She doesn't even notice that Victor's best friend and his half-brother are trying to get her attention until her best friends notice and point it out to her. Will Harley find love with Liam or Daniel? Or will she and Victor reconnect and try to make their relationship work?

After my ex-husband, Lucaro Ricci, has died, he turns into a ghost. Since then, he has stayed by my side as a shadow. Three years later, I walk into the church, hand-in-hand with Carlo Altieri, the oldest son of Lucaro's arch-nemesis. Everyone in the city chews me out for betraying Lucaro. Even Lucaro curses me out for being a scumbag. But I'm the only one who knows the actual reason. I've already made a wish to God in the church that I'll sacrifice my life in exchange for Lucaro's second chance in life.

When Asher Terrell's family crumbled into bankruptcy, I stood steadfast by his side. We lived in a dank basement, where I toiled through three jobs to help clear their crushing debts. He bounced back and proposed, promising me a true home. Three years into our marriage, I discovered the deed to our house bore the name of his first love. "This is what I owe her," he confessed. Swallowing my pain, I nodded and pushed forward a photo from back when we were crammed in that basement, with a whole table piled high with debt notices. "You've paid your debt to her with our house," I said. "But what about the debt you owe me?"

Juliet Sutton has always been hopelessly devoted. But the day her first love is diagnosed with cancer, she hands me a pill that can make someone forget. She says, "Matthew, Wilson doesn't have much time left. Give me three days. Let me give him the wedding he always dreamed of. "I won't break your heart. This pill only causes temporary memory loss. Once the ceremony is over, you take the antidote, fall in love with me again, and then we'll remarry." Seeing the resolve in her eyes, I take the pill and swallow it without hesitation. What Juliet doesn't know is that I'm the one who developed the pill. There is no antidote. In three days, I'll forget her completely.