Bond

I never meant to fall for Nicholas Cross. He's my best friend's father. A billionaire hotel mogul. He was eighteen years older than me and completely off limits. But when Riley begs me to spend Christmas at their Aspen estate, I can't say no. She needs backup dealing with her nightmare mother and the boy toy fiancé. I tell myself I can handle two weeks of pretending Nick doesn't make my heart race every time he walks into a room. Then a snowstorm traps us together. His ex-wife shows up determined to destroy him. And late one night in his study, Nick looks at me like I'm not just his daughter's friend anymore. Riley gives us her blessing. His mother thinks I'm a gold digger. His ex-wife will use our relationship to take everything from him. The world will judge us. But when Nick looks at me like I'm his whole world, none of that matters. Until Amanda plays her final card. And I have to choose between protecting the man I love or losing him forever. This Christmas, some rules are made to be broken.

After my mom, Margaret Hale, dies of a heart attack, she starts appearing in my sister Claire Dawson's dreams. In a dream, Mom tells Claire to climb Mount Mistwood before sunrise and burn the entrance ticket for her, or the other ghosts will bully her. Claire doesn't tell me anything. She packs a bag in the middle of the night and forces herself to the summit. While she's gasping her way up that mountain, I'm asleep at home when I suddenly go into cardiac arrest. I wake up in the emergency room with doctors shouting over me. I barely survive before Mom appears in Claire's dreams again. This time, she says skydiving is her last wish. If Claire doesn't do it for her, she won't rest in peace. Claire signs up right away, ignoring everything I say. But then, her parachute refuses to open, and she plummets toward the ground. Luckily, she gets snagged in a tree and walks away without a scratch. Meanwhile, I miss a step going downstairs, tumble to the bottom, end up covered in bruises, and break five ribs. While I'm recovering in the hospital, Mom shows up in Claire's dreams again. Now, she wants Claire to go to the South Pole for her, saying she can finally move on and be reincarnated once Claire completes the trip. Claire doesn't hesitate and books a tour on the spot. While she's taking pictures with penguins, I freeze to death back home during a 104-degree heatwave. Only after I die does it finally hit me that Mom's missions for Claire always end with me on death's doorstep. What I don't understand is how Mom keeps shifting the danger meant for Claire onto me instead. The next time I open my eyes, I'm back on the morning after Mom first appeared in Claire's dream.

I have three dads who love and spoil me for fifteen years. Of the three, Maxim Ulfric is the high-ranking and authoritative Alpha of the Cinderhowl pack. The second is Ethan Skoll, the pack's most valiant Beta warrior. The third is Aidan Rafe, the most skilled healer of the whole pack. They're the reason I am the happiest princess of the Cinderhowl pack before turning 15. Everything changes after Raeya Wargan appears. Time and again, she accuses me of leading others to sideline and pick on her. Even my disappointed dads say I'm insensible and give everything I have to her as compensation. From then on, no one believes a word I say. Even the pups of the pack call me a pathological liar. Everything ends when Raeya throws me into a Rogue's den. As a ferocious Rogue hunts me down, I reach out through the mind-link to my dads for help. But none of them believes me. They call me devious and cunning. They say that I'm trying to frame Raeya on purpose. While a wolf pack tears my limbs apart, and my mangled corpse is left abandoned in the forest, my dads are wholeheartedly presiding over Raeya's grand coming-of-age ceremony. They once promised to give me the most unique coming-of-age ceremony, but it's a pity I'll never live to see that day.

My adopted sister, an Omega who has always seemed delicate, harmless, and wolf-less, vanishes the night before full moon. Everyone, including my parents and my mate—the Alpha who's supposed to protect me—blames me for driving her away. They drag me to the Memory Offering altar, bind my wolf in silver chains, and demand the truth from my memories. Little do they know that my body has been laced with 99 silver needles, buried deep under my skin, each one driven in by the hand of the innocent girl they adore the most. The silverbane has seeped through my blood, eating away at my bones and my wolf spirit. I don't have long. So, I seize control. I invoke the oldest rite in the pack, the Memory Offering, to let them see the truth with their own eyes. For three years, I've been the one who was framed, humiliated, and tortured. Meanwhile, my so-called gentle sister is the real monster behind it all. By the time the truth is revealed, the silverbane has devoured my soul. Bathed in the blinding white light of the rite, I die on that cold, stone altar, with a pain that cuts to the bone and a peace that feels almost like freedom.

Maya Anderson, who was later named Mayla, was a girl who met an unfortunate fate of being switched at birth. Things began to sour as her family discovered she was not of their blood or their own. In a quest to find true love later in her life, Mayla ends up having a one-night stand with a man she later finds out is jake. He initially fails to recognize her because of the change in her name. But as time goes on, he begins to fall for her. This sparks jealousy in the eyes of her brother’s real sister, Maria. But a shocking revelation is made concerning Mayla and Maria switching during birth, someone close to them is orchestrating something sinister so they can have the Anderson properties, but who is this? And will they succeed?

I've been overlooked by the Lawson family a hundred times over. On birthdays, they only ever get a cake for my sister, Jocelyn Lawson. When I'm sick, I lie alone in a hospital bed while they fuss around her. I tell myself to tough it out and be a good daughter, but no amount of my endurance ever earns me a drop of their favor. On my wedding day, I think I'll finally get my moment to shine, at least for once. But I'm wrong. My parents, my brother, and even my fiance—Felix Wright, the head of a mafia empire—abandon me to attend Jocelyn's graduation ceremony. They leave me standing alone at the altar, enduring the guests' whispers and pitying glances. But Felix just throws me a cold line. "It's just a wedding. We'll make it up another day." It's not the first time. At our engagement party, Jocelyn whimpers about a stomachache, and he rushes her to the hospital without a flicker of hesitation. I'm left to smile through gritted teeth, making excuses to a room full of guests. That's the moment it hits me. To them, I'll always be the spare. So, I walk away. I pack my bags and carry a secret with me—the child growing inside me. This time, I'm done waiting for their scraps of affection. I'm starting a new chapter in my life, for me and my baby.

Alexander Morrison doesn't love me, nor does he love our daughter. The only person he loves is his first love, Charlotte Clarke. To maintain his perfect image in Charlotte's eyes, he only allows our daughter to call him "Uncle Alex". This continues until Charlotte becomes pregnant and goes abroad to marry someone else. Alexander drinks himself into oblivion and finally decides to marry me. When he comes home, our daughter gives him 100 forgiveness coupons. I tell him that once those 100 coupons are used up, I'll take our daughter and leave him forever. He holds us both tightly in his arms, swearing he will never make us sad again. During the initial few years of our secret marriage, he indeed does exceptionally well, as not a single coupon is used. That is, until Charlotte returns to the country with her daughter. Every time he abandons me and our daughter for Charlotte and her child, I tear off one forgiveness coupon. Now, only three coupons remain.

Lyana Dela Merced grew up with nothing but grit and determination. Life had never been kind to her. From abandoned by her lover, and later losing her only child to illness, she learned the hard way that pain doesn’t pause for anyone. But even when the world kept breaking her heart, she refused to stay down. Her younger brother, who battled mental illness, depended on her strength, and that was enough reason for Lyana to keep fighting. From one side job to another, Lyana took on every decent work she could find just to survive. Cleaning houses, waiting tables, running errands—name it, she’s done it. So when her doctor friend one night offered her a stable job with the wealthy Tejada family, she didn’t think twice. But what she didn’t expect was that the job came with a shocking twist. Instead of being hired as a simple housekeeper, the Tejadas wanted her to be their surrogate mother. They couldn’t have a child of their own, and they wanted Lyana to carry the baby for them. Torn between desperation and morality, she faced an impossible choice: become the billionaire’s baby maker, or walk away from the one chance that could change her family’s life forever. Years later, fate plays its hand again. The widowed Preston Tejada crosses paths with Lyana Dela Merced, the woman who once carried his child. Old secrets resurface, hearts begin to stir, and both must confront a past that refuses to stay buried. Can Lyana right the wrongs she once made with the Tejada family? Or will she find herself falling for the very man she was never meant to love?

While on a business trip, I stumbled into my brother-in-law, Julian Zeller, mid-act with a male colleague in a hotel parking lot. Furious, I blew the lid off his fake marriage and helped my sister, Yvonne Sutton, escape that scumbag. But after the divorce, she lost his financial support. She spiraled, blaming me for destroying her perfect marriage. She even killed me for trying to stop her from going back to him. Then, everything resets. I wake up, and there he is—slipping into the car while hugging the same man. I pocket my phone. This time, I won't ruin Yvonne's happy ending.

I still have a week before my due date when a truck suddenly hits me, sending me flying several feet and leaving me bleeding profusely on the ground. As I lose consciousness, I call my husband, Wallace Brown, begging him to rush over and save our unborn child, only for him to reply coldly, "It's Beth's 18th birthday party today, Meryl. You can't seriously be pulling one of your stunts on a day like this, can you?" In the next instant, I hear my son, Daniel Brown, exclaiming, "You're always using the baby to threaten us, Mommy! I really hate it when you do that!" Wallace stresses the importance of Beth's birthday party again, demands that I attend immediately, and then hangs up on me. With a pool of blood spreading beneath me, I close my eyes, overcome by despair. When I open my eyes again, I am met by the sight of a death certificate. The doctor delivers a crushing pronouncement. "I'm sorry, but if you had gotten here sooner, we might have been able to save the baby's life…" I look at the death certificate, feeling as though my heart died with my baby. I finally decide to leave this family, yet now they're the ones begging me to stay.