Drowning In Heartache Novels & Stories

A bought marriage. An uncontrollable desire. An empire at stake. Lorenzo Moretti doesn’t seduce. He dominates. A billionaire CEO feared across Europe, Lorenzo rules Milan like a modern king: cold, ruthless, untouchable. Until his grandfather’s will traps him with a single humiliating condition, to keep the empire, he must take a wife. No love. No romance. Just strategy. Sofia Duarte is broken. Her family’s studio is drowning in debt, her father is destroyed, and the legacy she swore to protect is about to be erased. When Lorenzo offers an obscene deal, marriage in exchange for salvation, she hates every word… and accepts. A contract. Twelve months. One house. One bed. A perfect image. What Lorenzo buys is a wife. What he gets is a woman who refuses to bow. Between explosive arguments, forced proximity, and power games that turn into seduction, hatred starts to burn. The looks last too long. The touches cross forbidden lines. Breathing changes. And when the tension finally breaks, it isn’t gentle. It’s fire. Because Lorenzo doesn’t know how to love, he knows how to possess. And Sofia doesn’t know how to obey, she challenges, provokes, and ignites him. While enemies close in on the empire and the media hunts for cracks in their perfect lie, the contract becomes a golden cage where desire turns into weapon, weakness, and addiction. He bought her to save his throne. She married him to save her family. Neither of them was ready for what happens when Milan’s most dangerous CEO loses control… in bed, in power, and in his heart. Luxury. Domination. Forced proximity. Contract marriage. Obsessive CEO. Strong heroine. Sexual tension that turns into wildfire. She was an agreement.

Raven Statham has one week left to save her grandmother’s crumbling bakery before her mother sells it. Drowning in debts, rejected by investors, and clinging to the only legacy she has left, she turns to the one corporation known for rescuing failing businesses — D’Angelo Enterprises. What she doesn’t know is that the CEO is not just a businessman. He is Kade D’Angelo, the Reaper of the criminal underworld, a man who kills with the same ease he breathes, a man bound by a vow: marry before thirty-three, or lose his throne to his estranged brother, Damon. When Raven accidentally witnesses Kade murder a man in cold blood, she becomes a liability he cannot ignore. And when she tries to flee, she unknowingly signs the wrong contract — not a business partnership, but the marriage contract prepared for a mafia heiress sharing her surname. By the time she discovers the truth, five black cars are outside her bakery, Kade D’Angelo standing among them like the devil she had met by accident twice already. *** Excerpt from the Book: The door opened. A familiar smell drifted inside before the man did and my stomach twisted. Kade walked into my home, filling the small space with his presence. His eyes found mine immediately, cold, unreadable. Kade's lips tilted, just slightly. "I see you're just finding out about the document you signed, Miss Statham," he said. "What do you mean marr—" I started, clutching the file, eyes wide with disbelief. "Good," he interrupted, his voice leaving no room for argument. "Because we're getting married. Tomorrow.”

Jax couldn’t believe how it felt to finally touch her the way that he wanted to. She was warm and sweet, and her response was incredible. Total surrender; aching want; hot need. He’d never have guessed that Sarah would give over so completely, and he kissed her over and over again, loving how she tasted. He finally pulled back, fighting with himself to do so. He opened his eyes and saw that hers were still closed. Her mouth was swollen and she trembled against him a bit. He ran his fingers through her curls, brushed her hair back from her gorgeous face. “Open your eyes, baby,” he said, his voice deep and husky. “Look at me.” **** Jax Hamill rebuilt his life on grit, dumb luck, and a refusal to look back. The past is buried. The bar is profitable. The house, truck, and bike are his. So is the no-strings sex in a back room he never plans to clean up. Jax lives for now. Everything is temporary.... until she isn’t. Sarah Matthews is drowning in responsibility. Overworked, overstretched, and painfully single, her life is a color-coded calendar of obligation. She doesn’t need romance. She needs escape....just once. Just long enough to remember who she was before life tightened the leash. Their deal is simple: no future, no promises, no feelings. Just heat. Just fun. Just temporary. Then a ghost from Sarah’s past crashes the fantasy – and turns desire into a battlefield. As Sarah fights to reclaim her life, Jax is forced to face the man he used to be, the man he pretends to be, and the man he might become… if he dares to want something real.

Meadow Alvin was just a teenager when her world collapsed.Born into poverty, her parents worked as servants for the powerful billionaire Anderson family. Meadow knew her place in their world, until she fell in love with the one boy she was never meant to touch.Matt Anderson.The boy who whispered promises of love.The boy who stole her innocence.The boy who destroyed her life.After sleeping with her, Matt shared a video of their intimate moment on the school forum and threatened her into silence. If she ever appeared before him again, her parents would be fired and thrown into the streets.Then Meadow discovered she was pregnant.Desperate, terrified, and alone, she begged Matt—the same boy who once swore he loved her—to stand by her.Instead, he called their unborn child a mistake.He ordered her to get rid of the baby.He erased her existence.With the school principal preparing to expose her and her own parents ready to force an abortion, Meadow had only one choice:Run.Seven years later, the broken girl who once cried in empty classrooms no longer exists.Dr. Meadow Enrique is now a world-renowned heart surgeon brilliant, respected, untouchable.She is engaged to Ethan Hawthorne, the man who saved her when she had nothing and became the father her daughter deserved.Meadow never planned to return to the city that shattered her.But fate has other plans.When she is summoned to perform a high-risk surgery on Adam Anderson the father of the man who ruined her life Meadow is forced to face the past she buried.And the man who once called her child a disgrace…Now stands before her drowning in regret.But regret does not erase abandonment.

Kc Page is a man of law, a brilliant attorney, a trillionaire CEO, and a force to be reckoned with. He spent his entire life upholding justice, for no crime goes unpunished in his view. However, an accident steals away his pregnant fiancée and leaves him drowning in a sea of sorrow. In the aftermath, he lost faith in the law.Court calls it an accident; Kc calls it murder. The culprit? Valeria Jayne, the world's most coveted runway model, a woman with beauty so striking that it blinds the world to her supposed sins. But Kc refuses to be deceived. With his influence and power, he orchestrates her downfall, vowing to make her suffer the way he has. He hunts her, haunts her, ensuring that she will never know peace until something happens that neither of them sees coming. She gets pregnant with his baby. For Valeria, this is not love; it is a curse. But Kc is unstoppable. The minute he finds out that she's playing a game, anger has the best of him. She ran away with his child. She left him running. And now, there isn't any spot in this earth where she'd be able to hide that he wouldn't locate her. But as the layers of deception fall away, Kc finds himself staring into a shocking truth: Valeria is not the villain he had imagined her to be. Instead, there is someone else in the shadows, someone who has played them both like pawns in a ruthless game. Now, Kc is confronted with an impossible decision: to cling to his thirst for revenge or to save the woman whom he once promised to destroy, now that she carries his child? And what revelations will he find as truth finally comes to light?

Pretend to be his fiancée. Save her brother’s life. Don’t fall in love with a man who can’t see the truth. Celeste Harper is a master of voices, but her own life is a tragedy. Drowning in the suffocating medical bills for her comatose younger brother, she’s one missed payment away from losing the only family she has left. Until a cold-blooded offer from the city’s most powerful matriarch changes everything. The Task: Step into the designer heels of Vivian Lancaster—the socialite who abandoned her fiancé, Lucian Aldridge, the moment a brutal accident stole his sight. The Target: Lucian. A billionaire CEO turned into a recluse, a man whose bitterness is as sharp as the shards of glass that blinded him. He’s a wounded predator in a gilded cage, and he hates the woman who left him. The Problem: When Celeste speaks, Lucian doesn't just hear his fiancée—he hears the only reason he has left to live. Now, Celeste is trapped in a dangerous game of sensory deception. Every touch is a risk; every whisper is a lie. As she navigates the dark hallways of his estate and the growing, electric tension between them, the lines start to blur. To the world, she’s a gold-digger seeking redemption. To Lucian, she’s the only light in his darkness. But secrets in the Aldridge empire are never buried deep enough. In a world where he can’t see her face, Celeste must decide: how long can she play the role of a ghost before she disappears entirely? Because when the bandages come off and Lucian finally sees the truth—it won’t just be his heart on the line. It will be her life.

The Hook When a desperate woman seeking survival accidentally spills wine on the ruthless billionaire who saved her life fifteen years ago, she has no idea that the childhood pinky promise buried in her diary is about to become her adult reality. The Desperate Heroine Elena Marquez (25) carries the psychological scars of a childhood kidnapping. Her deepest secret is a vow of marriage made to the boy who risked everything for her. Fifteen years later, Elena is drowning in debt, responsible for her younger brother, Lucas, and facing an impossible ultimatum from her hostile aunt. Her prestigious degree is useless against corporate harassment, forcing her into the humiliating service industry to survive. The Ruthless Billionaire Damien Black (27) is the cold, arrogant Chairman of Black Enterprises. Beneath his impenetrable façade, he is consumed by trauma and a secret: he never forgot the kidnapping or the little girl he swore to protect. For fifteen years, while feigning amnesia to shield his unstable older brother, Daniel (30), Damien has secretly searched for Elena, driven by the need to fulfill his youthful vow. The Collision Elena’s desperation leads her to a serving job at an exclusive lounge owned by Damien's company. When a nervous slip ruins his cuff, Damien instantly recognizes the frightened girl he lost. To control her and keep her close, Damien fires Elena immediately. Yet, the very next day, Elena receives an unsolicited, high-paying job offer from Black Enterprises. Now trapped in the ruthless billionaire's orbit, Elena must navigate her terrifying new reality, unaware that the cold man ordering her around is the same boy who promised her everything.

Ava Bennett never imagined that saving her family would cost her freedom. Drowning in debt after her father’s failed business collapses, Ava is desperate to keep the last thing her family owns from being taken away. Just when everything seems lost, a powerful and dangerously private billionaire offers her a deal that could change everything. Ethan Vale, a ruthless CEO known for building empires and destroying rivals, needs a wife. Not for love, but for strategy. A one-year marriage will secure his position in a high-stakes corporate merger and silence the board members who question his leadership. The terms are simple. One year of marriage. Perfect public appearances. No emotional attachments. In return, Ava’s family will be saved. What begins as a cold business arrangement soon becomes far more complicated. Living under the same roof with a man as powerful as Ethan forces Ava into a world of luxury, control, and hidden secrets. Behind Ethan’s icy composure lies a past he refuses to share, and the deeper Ava gets pulled into his life, the more she begins to see the man behind the billionaire mask. But power always comes with enemies. As corporate rivals plot to destroy Ethan’s empire and the media circles like vultures around their unusual marriage, Ava realizes that their contract is far more dangerous than she ever imagined. Feelings begin to grow where rules once stood, and the line between pretending and reality slowly disappears. Now Ava must decide if love is worth risking everything for. Because when the contract ends, she may have to walk away from the only man who has ever truly seen her. And Ethan Vale is not a man who easily lets go.

Three years after my fiancé fell off a cliff while on a sketching trip in the mountains, I walked straight into his solo art exhibition by accident. And there he was, the man I hadn’t been able to forget for a single day, gently adjusting the scarf around a young woman’s neck. Every wall around us was filled with portraits he once promised he would only ever paint for me. Yet now, every single one of them was of her. Beside me, Timothy Hansen, his closest friend, the one who had helped me handle the aftermath back then, grabbed my arm. “Lexie, don’t do anything rash. Ethan had his reasons. He was rescued by Jane after the fall. He hit his head and lost his memory. It wasn’t on purpose that he didn’t come back.” I gave a wry smile. “So he lost his memory. Did you lose yours, too? If Ethan was alive all this time, why didn’t you bring him back? You watched me spend the last three years drowning in pain, surviving on sleeping pills. Was that entertaining for you?” Timothy said nothing. He didn’t even dare to look at me. Meanwhile, the girl—Jane Green—shrank back, hiding behind Ethan like a frightened animal. Then, Ethan finally looked at me, his expression cold and distant. “Ms. William, I didn’t come back because I didn’t want to. Jane is the one I love. As for the past, since I don’t remember it, just think of it as something from a past life.”

One day. That’s all it took for Rivera Summers’ life to completely unravel. Almost sexually assaulted by her disgusting boss, Rivera Summers fought back—and paid the price by losing the job she had worked three years for. But losing her job was only the beginning of her nightmare. That same day, Rivera discovered her father was drowning in a dangerous gambling debt, one that had to be paid within twenty-four hours… or his daughter would be handed over instead. And without hesitation, her own father chose her. Terrified and unprepared for the dark world she was thrown into, Rivera found herself trapped under the control of the cold and dangerous Vespertine De Vil—a man feared by everyone. For Rivera, every passing day only dragged her deeper into a life filled with danger, cruelty, and secrets she was never meant to uncover. Hello to everyone about to embark on this journey with me! Thank you for being here. To me, this isn’t just a book—it is an experience. Content Warnings: Please note that this book will contain heavy and triggering themes. While I'm not yet sure exactly how dark it will get, I'll do my best to put specific trigger warnings at the beginning of any distressing chapters. Pacing & Style: This novel is a slow-burn and may not have the fast pacing of other mafia romances you've read. The characters are also completely unique and won't necessarily resemble those from other books. And that's okay! If this style isn't for you, feel free to drop it. However, I kindly ask that you don't use it as an excuse to leave negative or hateful reviews. Update Schedule: This is an original story, and while I cannot promise daily updates, you can expect a new chapter every two days!