Booth Library Hours Novels & Stories

My boyfriend had just gotten home from a long day at the construction site when I demanded that he go out in the pouring rain and buy me a box of premium cherries. His voice was tired. "We're running low on money. Rent's due tomorrow. How about strawberries instead?" I grabbed a throw pillow and hurled it at him. "Get out, you loser!" After throwing him out, I curled up on the couch and sulked. Then a stream of floating comments suddenly appeared before my eyes. [This woman has no idea she's calling a billionaire heir a loser! He only ended up working construction because he lost his memory after being set up!] [His fiancée will find him soon. Once he regains his memories, he'll discover this woman has been lying to him all along!] [This spoiled brat is already pregnant. Later she'll use the baby to cause trouble, but she'll be killed right after giving birth, and the child will be abused too!] I froze. My hand instinctively moved to my stomach. Pregnant? At that moment, the front door opened. Landon Pierce stepped inside, soaked from head to toe, a box of premium cherries clutched in one hand. He looked at me nervously and spoke with careful hesitation. "I spent the last two hours delivering food orders so I could afford the box of premium cherries." He held it out to me. "Please don't make me leave, okay?"

Eight years ago, my daughter, Joey Porter, was stuck in the desert of death. Her GPS had blinked out, and she ran out of supplies. She kept calling for me for over a dozen hours over the walkie-talkie. The only rescue team was an hour's flight away from her, only to get intercepted halfway there. Later on, I found out that my wife, Ruby Shaw, spent 800 thousand dollars bribing the dispatch center, rerouting the rescue team's flight route just so they could save Ruby's younger brother, Howard Shaw, instead. Howard had had too much to drink at that time, causing him to lose his way outside the resort that was located at the edge of the desert. When he was found, it turned out that he was about a mile away from the resort. But the rescue team never came for Joey, who waited for them till she was dehydrated and, later on, died in the desert. Since then, I've quit my job and made this living hell my new home. For the next eight years, I work as a desert guide, ultimately saving over 100 people. Every inch of the dunes and the hidden sand currents are engraved into my mind. Today, my partner decides to give me a rescue order that's worth an astronomical amount. He urges me to pack my things and set off immediately. I glance at the photo, only to see a familiar face. That's when I turn off my walkie-talkie and get up to my feet before heading outside. "I can't save this person."

I spent decades taking care of my kid and the elderly. I ignored my stomach pain until it turned into cancer. By the end, it had eaten me alive. Before I died, I went back to my old family home to sort through my stuff. That's when I found Danny's diary. My dead husband's diary. Hidden for fifteen years. I carefully flipped through it until I reached the last page. [Some loves are worth dying for. Alicia, I'm coming with you.] The diary never mentioned me. Not once. Page after page, it was all Alicia. That was when I learned Danny hadn't died in an accident. He and Alicia Doyle—the woman he never got over—had chosen to die together. I sank onto a chair and stared at his framed photo. "Danny Caldwell, if you loved her that much, did you regret marrying me?" Blood filled my throat. I threw his picture to the floor. "Because I regret marrying you." When I opened my eyes again, I was back in the past. This time, I refused to rot in a loveless marriage. I walked out and never looked back. He smirked and told his friends, "She'll crawl back. Bet she won't last three hours." But three hours passed. Then three days. Then three months. I never came back. Later, he asked when I'd return to him. My answer was simple. "Never."

Today is Morgan Franklin's 30th birthday. It also marks the day he brings up divorce in front of me for the 99th time. He doesn't sound guilty and tentative anymore, unlike his demeanor when he mentioned divorce for the first time. Instead, he has a cigarette dangling between his lips while looking at me mockingly. "I've already called the ambulance for you, Milana. Have you thought about how you're going to commit suicide this time? Are you slitting your wrist or overdosing on pills?" Everyone in the private room bursts out laughing. "I bet she's going down the sleeping pill route! She did that the last time, and she had to get her stomach pumped for three hours!" "Hell no! She's definitely jumping off a building this time! But she'll just wait for the firemen to lay out the safety mat before pretending to jump! She's not going to die at all!" "Nah… Ms. Brook is very creative when it comes to suicide. Every time she commits suicide, she always uses a different method!" Everyone is curious as to which suicide method I will use in order to get Morgan to stay this time. But when I notice the smiles on everyone's faces, I suddenly feel exhaustion weighing down on my soul. The anger that has been sustaining me for so long finally dissipates. I lower my gaze before stating calmly, "I'm not doing any of that. This time, I shall grant you your freedom."

I paid the ultimate price in my last life for being too polite to refuse others. During a summer vacation, four children ended my life. "Talia, we’re already on the way to your place. We should be there in about two hours. No need to prepare anything special. Just keep things the way you normally do. Don’t fuss." I stared blankly as the voice came through my phone. The agony of my skin being scalded raw by boiling-hot stew was still vivid in my mind. When I had struggled and begged for help, those children had dragged me back together. In the chaos, I had fallen from the seventh floor and died with my eyes wide open. I glanced at the calendar on the wall. I had been reborn. In my previous life, my sister-in-law, Vanessa Mercer, had dumped her four kids at my home for the summer and left. I was forced to care for six children alone and was pushed to the brink of collapse. Simply because I wouldn’t let my nephew, Jaxon Mercer, play on his tablet for hours on end, and because I told him not to wander around the house in nothing but his underwear, the conflict escalated until it led to that horrifying death. My whole body trembled at the memory. I rushed into the bedroom, grabbed my identification documents, and fled toward the high-speed rail station with my two daughters, Kaia and Nova Mercer. "Mom, where are we going?" "I'm taking you on a trip. We’re going to have as much fun as we want!"

04:00 AM. JFK International Airport. I switched off airplane mode, and my phone lit up. The first notification was an Instagram story from my husband, Donovan Valentino, Don of the Valentino family, posted at 3:30 AM: a photo of Seraphina Moretti’s back, captioned, “Run 50 completed. Package delivered safe.” An hour before that, my flight had hit catastrophic clear-air turbulence, dropping two thousand feet in seconds. I’d clung to my seatbelt until my knuckles turned white, the crumpled threat letter from a rival crew pressed like a blade against my ribs. In those blind, falling seconds, one thought burned through the panic: If I live through this—if Donovan is waiting at arrivals—I’ll tear up my transfer papers to Dubai and stay. But there were no missed calls. No messages. He’d been too busy collecting Seraphina. He knew my flight details. He just didn’t care. Four years of marriage. 50 fully armed security details for Seraphina. For my 112 long-haul flights over those same four years? The most I ever got was a driver in an unmarked sedan. Even the night Gambino’s crew tailed me from Manhattan, and I spent six hours locked in a diner bathroom. He didn’t pick up until dawn, after the twelfth try. My transfer to Dubai was confirmed. The signed divorce settlement was in my bag. This was the last time I’d ever come back for him.

I never broke eye contact as he slicked his already hard cock up with it. It never did take him long to get hard in my presence, especially after working me open when we had stood under the stream of the shower. Shuffling his ass forward just a little, he pulled me close to help me slowly sink onto his cock. Once my ass was flushed against his lap and he was to the hilt, he sighed, and I could see the exact moment that all the stress left his body. “Thank you.” He whispered. ______ I got pregnant after a sizzling one-night stand. I didn’t know then he was the son of a billionaire mafia Don. That night, he walked over to me with powerful strides that announced to the world, that he owned it. The dim light dancing over his sculptured face, Teased me with a glimpse of perfection. His deep baritone voice vibrated thru my core, and before I knew it, we were back at my place, thrusting into ecstasy. For hours he took me to heaven and back, But on earth, he became cold as ice. Then, without so much as a name, He walked out the door and out of my life. I tried to forget him, Until I got unexpected news from my doctor weeks later. and before I had time to digest the information, I was snatched by two men. Now I’m in the presence of the Don of all Dons, congratulating me on my pregnancy. And the man that took me to heaven, is now tasked to keep me in hell.

For eight years, Elara Voss was the perfect ghost. She scrubbed floors, cooked silent meals, and endured the biting scorns of her husband, Ryan, and their eldest daughter, Chloe. To them, she was a boring housewife. A servant. An embarrassment to Ryan’s rising social status. They had no idea that the woman they belittled was Elara Hamilton, the reclusive titan behind Hamilton Global, the world’s most powerful tech empire. She had traded her throne for a marriage she thought was built on love. She was wrong. The breaking point comes at a high-society gala. In front of the city’s elite, Ryan publicly discards her, calling her a worthless weight around his neck. He thinks he is finally free. He doesn't realize he just declared war on the woman who secretly funded his entire life. That night, the housewife vanished. The CEO returns. Within forty-eight hours, Ryan’s world implodes. His contracts are canceled, his bank accounts are drained, and his reputation is in ashes. As the global markets reel from the return of the "Iron Queen," Ryan is forced to face a terrifying truth: he didn't just lose a wife. He lost the only person keeping him relevant. Now, Ryan is a man with nothing, chasing a woman who has everything. From the neon lights of Tokyo to the boardrooms of Manhattan, he must grovel at the feet of the woman he once stepped on. But Elara is no longer the devoted wife who stayed for the sake of the family. She is a queen reclaiming her crown, and this time, Ryan will have to prove he is finally worthy of the woman who no longer needs him to survive.

On the flight home, the plane starts shaking violently. Certain I'm about to die, I call my husband, Rhys Callahan, to say my last words. He hangs up on me, and his auto-reply flashes on the screen. "Driving. On my way to pick up Daphne." I've taken 86 flights in our five years of marriage. Every time I'm about to land, I ask him to come get me, and every time, the answer is the same. "Daphne's getting in too. I have to pick her up." He picks up Daphne Langston all 86 times. The lowest point comes during a rainstorm. I drag my suitcase through the downpour outside the terminal for two hours, unable to get a ride. When I call him, Daphne's voice comes through, laughing. "Oh, Rhys is helping me with my luggage right now. He can't come to the phone." Now the cabin fills with screaming and sobbing. The plane spirals out of control at cruising altitude, the left wing shearing away as flames light up the windows. My phone buzzes with a message from him. "Just picked Daphne up. What time do you land? I'll come get you." I stare at the screen and let out a bitter laugh. After five years, he's finally offering to pick me up. But fire swallows the plane as it plunges toward the ground. He doesn't know I'm no longer coming home.

They say the Moon Goddess doesn't make mistakes. They lied. Kira should have been happy. She had everything a wolf could want: a handsome Alpha mate, a powerful pack alliance, a baby on the way. The Oracle had confirmed it—Asher was her fated mate, chosen by the Moon Goddess herself. But mate bonds don't burn like brands. They don't make your wolf go silent. And they definitely don't fail when you're bleeding out from a miscarriage at five months pregnant. As Kira was dying on her bedroom floor, the truth finally broke through the magic that had blinded her: the bond was fake. A witch had cursed her father into silence, manipulated an Oracle, and crafted a false mate bond to drain Kira's life force—all for a ritual that required her death. And in her final moments, Kira felt it: the REAL bond. A pull she'd never felt with Asher, calling to her from across the territory. Too late to save her. Then she woke up. Two years earlier. The day before her mating ceremony. Now Kira has twenty-four hours to stop a wedding that will kill her, save a father who physically cannot warn her, and somehow find the mate she's actually bonded to—an Alpha who's supposed to be her pack's enemy. But the witch is watching. One wrong move and her father dies. The false ceremony happens tomorrow. And Asher? He's starting to suspect the bond isn't real either.