Cicero Library Hours Novels & Stories

Yselle Morel is watching her family's glassworks collapse—unpaid wages, angry suppliers, a bank ready to shut the gates. When Renaud Valois, a feared billionaire financier, offers a rescue, it comes with a cruel condition: marriage. He says it’s business. His eyes say it’s revenge. In Valois’s riverside estate outside Paris, Yselle plays the obedient wife—smiling, thanking staff, acting harmless. She calls it "wife camouflage." Then she finds a locked room behind the library wall: a war room filled with files, photos, and timelines about her father’s life… and a folder stamped with Yselle’s name. Renaud didn’t choose her. He planned her. As “accidents” start closing in—tampered brakes, poisoned tea, a near fall on a dark stairwell—Yselle realizes the marriage isn’t only punishment. It’s protection. Someone wants her silent before the Day 30 board vote that will decide her family’s future. And the closer she gets to the truth, the more she fears the man who raised her. On the eve of the vote, Yselle opens the last drawer in the war room and finds an envelope addressed to her—in her mother’s handwriting. The ink looks fresh. Then the lights go out, and a voice behind her whispers, “Don’t trust your husband.”

At twenty-eight, I held the dubious honor of being the last unmarried socialite on New York's Upper East Side. Everyone around me was growing increasingly anxious about my single status. In my previous life, my mother arranged a matchmaking cocktail party, where I was told to choose a husband from ten handpicked elite bachelors. I bribed the event planner to place Mark West's profile at the very top—and as I had hoped, I chose him. After we married, Mark treated me with what seemed like tender affection. He even bought me an oceanfront villa in the Hamptons, making me believe I had finally found true love. But that illusion shattered the day I was nine months pregnant, just hours away from giving birth. Mark drove a scalpel straight into my abdomen—then, right in front of me, hurled our newborn onto the floor. "If you hadn't forced me into this marriage with your family's power, Sofia wouldn't have been heartbroken enough to go drinking and get drugged and assaulted. This… this is what you owe her!" He tossed the scalpel aside, then calmly let his private doctor pin down my blood-soaked body. I fought through excruciating pain for six agonizing hours, until I finally bled to death. Afterward, Mark dumped my corpse into the Hudson River. But for Sofia, he hosted a grand funeral—funded with my money, under my name—and paraded himself to the world as a grieving, devoted widower. Given a second chance at life, I refused to step foot in that cursed matchmaking event. Instead, I went straight to my mother with a demand: marry me to Robert Black—the most ruthless, cold-blooded titan of Wall Street, whose scarred face was feared by all. In the end, stripped of my financial backing, Mark's hedge fund collapsed. He became a disgraced fraudster, spat on by everyone on Wall Street.

I could see the countdown above a person’s head when they had already decided to leave their partner. The day my father’s countdown hit zero, he slapped a lawyer’s letter on the breakfast table and walked out on my mother and me. The day my best friend’s countdown hit zero, she finally threw her parasite of a boyfriend out of her apartment and changed the locks before sunset. That was why I’d always been terrified of seeing a countdown above my fiancé, Lucian Bellandi. Luckily, for seven years by his side, the space above his head had stayed clean. Lucian was the youngest Don the Bellandi family had ever seen. He owned the docks, the casinos, and half the South Side’s dirty money, yet he saved every soft part of himself for me. Until last month, when he picked me up after a family auction. I looked up and saw blood-red numbers stabbing into my eyes. [702 days, 14 hours, 22 minutes.] Less than two years. My heart tightened like a cold hand had closed around it. I started searching for an answer like a woman losing her mind. Had I done something wrong? Then, during a blizzard by the lake, we ran into Mia Crane at the back entrance of the Bellandi Hotel. Lucian had just brought her into his charity foundation as a new assistant. Snow clung to her hair and lashes. She was shivering from head to toe, but her smile was bright and painfully innocent. Lucian pulled a black silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and handed it to her. His face was calm. There was nothing openly improper in the gesture. But in that exact second, the countdown above his head jumped. [327 days, 4 hours, 47 minutes.] More than three hundred days, gone. And I knew I had found the reason.

Lilith wakes in a river on land she doesn’t recognise. What was her name again? Where did she come from? She walks for hours, hoping to find help and salvation. She does find population, but she had never imagined discovering the secrets of a world she doesn’t remember. Alpha Theodore Moon is a wolf-shifter, and what’s more, he’s one of her fated mates who nurses her back to health and falls profoundly and irrevocably in love with her. But with the other comes sordid secrets that have been hidden. Lilith holds a power like no other werewolf, and she’s being hunted as we speak. Will she uncover her secrets and learn to wield the powers she was given at birth before she is enslaved for them? Come and read with us to find out.

（Alpha Trojan） "Just do it!"My wolf Lupus urged. "You're going to tell to everyone anyway, so just say it now. Tell everyone that Nikita is our Luna." I landed my eyes at Nikita's face. "Do it, Trojan!" My wolf kept prodding me, he couldn't wait to mark our mate. But no, I can't do that... I looked at Nikita's worried eyes. I made up my mind. I’m going to say that… "It’s my sad announcement to tell everyone of you that I haven't found my mate yet." *** (Nikita) A few hours ago, the first sight I saw Alpha Trojan I was sure we were mates. But now, he announced that he had not found mate in front of me...

On my birthday, my eight-year-old stepson dumped the cake I spent twelve hours on straight into the trash. His face twisted. "Smells like cheap frosting." Then he turned and happily dug into the plain pasta my husband's secretary made. I was about to lose it when the familiar floating comments popped up again. [OMG Nico's doing this again. He literally LOVES Reyna's cake every year. Boy just too prideful to admit it LOL.] [Fr fr, he's just using his late mom to test Reyna. Kid's lowkey possessive and messy!] [Alex, HELLO? Your son's jealous af. You not gonna say anything? Oh wait... you jealous too huh? Watching Reyna dote on Nico got you pressed. lol.]

Her downfall came hours after her birthday when she found out that she was the mate of the very monster she hunted.A father, tormented by the grief of the past, could do nothing until he found someone like-minded and formed the Alliance to fight those who took away the love of his life. He fought behind the screen while his daughter did what he never could - she killed the big bad wolf. The years passed, and she followed her father's vision until an ill-advised mission led her to imprisonment under the command of an Alpha. Little did Enya know that misfortune would reveal too many secrets. Will Enya ever find herself in a tangle of lies, or will she perish with those who led her astray?

He divorced her the morning after their wedding night,no warning,no mercy or a chance to explain. Overlooked and ridiculed for her size by her own family, Serenity Grayson never expected billionaire Jason Crane to be the one man who would make her feel seen. But within twenty-four hours of their marriage, he accused her of betrayal and threw her out. What Jason didn't know was that Serenity was carrying his child. Five years later, she returns with the son she raised alone and a truth powerful enough to shake the Crane Empire. Now, Jason wants her back, her sister is desperate to keep old secrets buried, and the family that once looked down on her is forced to face the woman she has become. Because Serenity Grayson is no longer the woman they destroyed. She's the storm they never saw coming.

What happened when the Devil set his eyes on a beautiful innocent Angel? Alexander Grissham is known as the ruthless, cold, dark-soul, leader of the Red Blood gangster in the town. His family practically owned the entire country and he was the next successor of his father's underground business. Aria, is a kind-hearted, beautiful angel in everyone's eyes. But her unfortunate life leading her to lost her parents at such young age. She lives with her very sick grandma and work for hours only to provide her and her grandma’s daily need, and medication. Aria never thought that one day, she would be targeted by the Devil. This cold, heartless creature trapped her and made her his favorite doll. Will she succeed softening his heart? Or is she actually falling deeper into the Devil's trap?

When Michael reluctantly agrees to help the sultry and mysterious Miss Calvin tidy her garden, he expects nothing more than long hours under the scorching summer sun. But as the days heat up, so does the tension between them. Miss Calvin is confident, provocative, and uncomfortably alluring for Michael, who's barely coming into his own as a young adult. What begins as innocent neighborly favors soon spirals into a web of forbidden desire, blurred boundaries, and thrilling fantasies that Michael can’t escape. Navigating his feelings for the unattainable Lucy and the intoxicating Miss Calvin, Michael faces a scorching dilemma between the dreams of youth and the allure of experience. In this tale of seduction, secrets, and irresistible chemistry, every boundary is tested. But will giving in to temptation cost Michael more than just his innocence?