Cornered

Adelaine Montclair has built her entire life on perfection — the perfect daughter, the perfect fiancée, the perfect public image. But when she discovers her secret fiancé, Zain, tangled in the arms of her best friend on the night of her lavish engagement party, perfection shatters. Cornered in front of two hundred influential guests, Adelaine makes a reckless move: she introduces a mysterious stranger, Dante Moreau, as her real fiancé. What begins as a desperate lie spirals into a dangerous game of appearances. Dante, cold and enigmatic, has his own reasons for playing along, reasons tied to the Montclair empire and the father who controls it. Together, Adelaine and Dante navigate staged kisses, relentless media attention, and family pressure to wed quickly. But the line between fake and real blurs, forcing Adelaine to question whether Dante is her salvation or her downfall. As old betrayals resurface and hidden family secrets threaten to destroy everything, Adelaine must choose: keep playing the role others wrote for her, or reclaim her own story, even if it means falling for the man who vowed never to love her.

Six years earlier, Avery Walters relentlessly pursued the law school heartthrob, Lucien Holmes. After three months of dating, she brushed him off with a careless line—“I got bored of sleeping with you”—and ended things without a shred of hesitation. Six years after the breakup, the two met again. The once-privileged heiress and the penniless man she once knew had completely traded places in life. He rose to the top as a powerhouse at an elite law firm, while she was burdened with debt, raising a daughter, and trapped in an abusive marriage. Lucien appeared as her divorce attorney, his gaze toward her filled with open mockery. “This is all your own doing.” Avery knew that Lucien hated her to the bone. She deliberately avoided any further entanglement with Lucien. On the day she left, she smiled and wished him a happy marriage. Yet this man crossed mountains and long roads just to find her. At a small-town inn, he cornered her in a dimly lit room, his eyes red as he pulled her into a tight embrace. “Do you really have the heart to abandon me again?”

Aurora Gabriel is an emerging actress, impressing many people with her overwhelming beauty and personality. Unfortunately, her father was suddenly arrested and convicted of illegal business. Cornered, Aurora has to sell herself and sleep with wealthy investors in the hope that her family will escape bankruptcy and be evicted. At the meeting place with investors, Aurora accidentally meets Phelan and develops a sexual relationship with this mysterious man. Aurora is disappointed that the plan falls through, and Phelan develops an interest in her. After that fateful night, all luck seemed to be on Aurora's side. Her role was not stolen, her family was not evicted, the company went bankrupt and stabilized... All of these "accidental" events were helped by Phelan. However, Phelan did not help Aurora for free. Phelan wants Aurora to be his secret lover. He wants Aurora's body, wants her heart, wants her mind to remember only him. However, the constant troublemakers appeared, causing the relationship between the two of them to become more and more complicated. Did the love between Phelan and Aurora finally come to a happy ending? What is the mystery of Aurora's father's wrongful conviction? Who is really standing in the dark harming Aurora?

She was a kidnapped heiress, taken from her real family on purpose. He was a legendary tycoon, feared and admired across the business world. At a lavish party, she was set up by her adoptive mother—and unexpectedly became his cure. Months later, he received a mysterious package. Opening it, he was stunned to find... a mini version of himself. Furious, he roared: “Woman, you’d better pray I never find you!” Six years later, she returned, vowing to take revenge and reclaim her son. Armed with brilliance and unshakable resolve, she tore through scheming rivals, crushed manipulative socialites, and built her own empire along the way. But one day, the cold-blooded CEO cornered her against a wall: “We already have a child—give me the title of husband too.” She flashed a bewitching smile: “Sorry. The kid’s father? I’ve got someone else in mind.” Just then, three cheeky little munchkins popped out, grinning from ear to ear: “Daddy, give me a sister with Mommy, and she’s all yours!” In that moment, her mind went blank. Betrayed... by her own sons!

Hazel Skai didn’t marry into the powerful Varyn family for love. She married to survive… and to find the mother who abandoned her. But one year later, her marriage to Kaden Varyn is nothing but silence and cold distance. No heir. No affection. And no sign that things will ever change. Desperate and cornered, Hazel makes a reckless decision at the Varyn family ball. In the dark of a stranger’s room, she finally gives in to the one thing her husband has never given her. The next morning, she sees the truth. The man she spent the night with has a dragon tattoo across his chest. Kaden Varyn hates tattoos. Which means the man in her bed was never her husband. Nikolai Varyn left Sky Shade City years ago, carrying nothing but grief and a promise to a woman who died too soon. He returned only to settle unfinished business—not to get involved with anyone. Especially not his brother’s wife. But Hazel Skai was never supposed to matter to him. Now she’s under his skin in ways he can’t ignore. And the most dangerous part? Hazel might not want him to stop.

My sister had just left for her night shift when Ethan cornered me in the hallway, voice low and rough: “You’ve been teasing me for weeks. Stop pretending you don’t want this.” I meant to push him away. Instead I whispered, “Then take it.” Seconds later he pinned me against the wall, shoved my panties aside, and drove his thick cock deep into my dripping pussy in one brutal thrust. As he pounded into me, the filthy realization slammed through my mind — I never knew my sister’s husband’s cock was this fucking good… ughh. My pussy clenched hard around him, wetness flooding down his shaft. Guilt tried to hit, but I only rolled my hips faster, moaning shamelessly as I took every inch like the forbidden slut I had just become. That was the night I let my sister’s husband fuck me senseless. Now I crave the man I’m not supposed to touch… and I don’t know how to stop.

Aria's mother died while giving birth to her which led her father to hate her. She's to work for herself and the fact that she is wolfless makes him hate her more while everyone at school bullies her. Aria has accepted the life of a loser. She thinks that's how she's always going to live— alone and bullied. But one day, she’s cornered by the future Beta of the pack in the restaurant where she works, and seethes at her, "How can you be my mate? You're a loser!" Heartbroken and emotional, Aria runs away from there... Only to bump into the Alpha Male, who catches her in his arms and smirks at her flirtatiously, "Ah, Aria, we meet again?" While her mate and the Beta hate her and want to reject her, the Alpha wants to date her. But there's a problem!— They both are enemies! Now Aria is caught in a foreboding situation. Should she reject her mate, the Beta, and give the Alpha a chance? Or... Should she ignore them both and get on with her life as associating with either can lead to dire consequences for her?

When Victoria Hale catches her fiancé kissing her cousin at their engagement party, the betrayal is only the beginning. In front of her entire family, he announces he never loved her and publicly humiliates her as delusional and desperate. Cornered and broken, Victoria makes an impulsive lie: she already has someone else. The problem? She points to Simon Reed, the mysterious homeless man she's been feeding at the local shelter. The bigger problem? Simon plays along. What Victoria doesn't know is that Simon Reed doesn't exist. He's actually Simon Savage, billionaire CEO hiding from a corporate betrayal that nearly destroyed him. Their courthouse wedding was supposed to be temporary, a favor to help her save face. But fake vows start feeling real. Protective touches linger too long. And Victoria's vengeful ex is digging into Simon's past, getting dangerously close to the truth. When Simon's identity explodes at a charity gala, Victoria realizes she hasn't just married a stranger. She's married one of the most powerful men in the world. And he might be the only man who's ever truly seen her.

For three years, Laurie Rayne lived as the perfect wife. She was silent, devoted, and invisible in the shadow of the Voss empire. Every bestselling creation credited to the Voss name bore her fingerprints, but none bore her name. And Zane Voss, her cold, distant husband, never once gave her his heart. Now his first love is back, and Laurie is nothing more than a forgotten pawn; discarded, humiliated, and blamed for everything that went wrong. But when her younger brother's life is on the line, Laurie begs Zane for help… only to be spat on and called a leech. Cornered by desperation, Laurie does the unthinkable… She auctions herself off to the highest bidder. Theron Blackmoor: ruthless billionaire, feared businessman, and the man who buys her at a price that shocks the world. He makes her his possession, but promises her power in return. Anything she wants: except her freedom. As Laurie experiences the dark, seductive world of Theron, she uncovers secrets that were never meant to surface. Zane is not done with her. And the past she thought she left behind may be the key to taking everything back. Love was never part of the deal. But is it? Revenge? That was always the plan. ♠

Eidolon Avenue: Where the secretly guilty go to die. One building. Five floors. Five doors per floor. Twenty-five nightmares feeding the hunger lurking between the bricks and waiting beneath the boards. The sequel to Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast (“a great read...powerful and jarring” - Cemetery Dance) returns to the voracious Eidolon as it savors The Second Feast. A narcoleptic man in apartment 2A battles a vengeful past determined to rob him of everything as he runs from the barbaric disaster of a delusional love. A woman in 2B, reinventing herself to please a callous boyfriend, discovers the horrors that wait in the shadows of her self-renovation. The man in 2C, a teacher at the nearby Catholic girl’s school, collapses beneath the brutal consequences of his lecherous desires. An older woman in 2D, after decades dedicated to the church, is cornered at last by the grisly carnage beating at the hollow center of her faith. And a college student in 2E, hungry to escape an ignored life of invisible anonymity, finds herself captured between the pages of a ravenous book. All thrown into their own private hell as every cruel choice, every drop of spilled blood, every silent, complicit moment of cowardice is remembered, resurrected and relived to feed the ancient evil that lives on Eidolon Avenue. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing