Duke Library Hours Novels & Stories

‎"You're my sister's best friend." ‎ ‎"I know." ‎ ‎"Nothing about this is smart." ‎ ‎"Kiss me again." ‎ ‎He did. I lost track of time. Minutes or hours, I couldn't tell. All I knew was his mouth and his hands and the solid warmth of him pressed against me. When we finally broke apart, both of us breathing hard, his forehead rested against mine. ‎✓✓ ‎Lucy has spent years secretly crushing on her best friend's older brother, Mason. ‎When she loses her apartment, she has no choice but to move into Mason's guest house. ‎He still sees her as the annoying girl who used to follow them around. ‎At least that's what she thinks. ‎Until Lucy overhears Mason telling someone, "If I don't get away from her soon, I'm going to ruin everything."

Madelyn Hills didn’t plan to walk out on her crumbling marriage the same day her best friend was getting married to a billionaire groom she'd never met. When Ava begs her to fill in for her for only a few hours, Madelyn reluctantly agrees. After all, it’s just until Ava returns from a last goodbye with her lover. Except… Ava never comes back. Now Madelyn finds herself on a honeymoon with Dominic Blackwell; a powerful billionaire who has secrets of his own and a family desperate to keep up the charade. What was supposed to be a harmless swap quickly spirals into a rollercoaster of luxury, lies, and one very real marriage to a man she was never supposed to meet. Madelyn tries to keep up the act, but that soon becomes hard when strings get attached. Would Madelyn and Dominic be able to save their marriage when their secrets are revealed? Or had this fairytale marriage be doomed from the start?

Dr. Elena Russo’s life shatters when her father is assassinated and she discovers he was a mafia Don. As the last Russo heir, she must claim her father’s throne or watch three hundred people die. But the Five Families won’t accept an inexperienced woman, and they’re already attacking. Damien Cross, a ruthless rival underboss, offers a deal: marry him in a contract alliance and merge their territories, or lose everything. With enemies closing in and forty-eight hours to decide, Elena signs her life away to a dangerous stranger. Their marriage is warfare. Every negotiation tests loyalty, every touch sparks unwanted desire. As Elena transforms from doctor to Donna, learning to kill alongside Damien, the hatred between them ignites into something far more dangerous. In the mafia, love is the deadliest weapon, and trust might get them both killed. Tags: Mafia, CEO, Dominant, Contract Marriage, Betrayal, Hate to Love

Aria Vale was meant to walk down the aisle until three hours before her wedding, she walks in on her fiancé with her best friend and disappears without being seen, leaving her entire future behind. Romano Ciel, heir to one of Europe’s most powerful cartel empires, is given an ultimatum: marry within thirty days or lose his place as successor to his long time enemy. Marriage is the last thing he wants until a chance encounter puts a runaway bride in his path. As Aria struggles to rebuild her life, disturbing secrets begin to surface. Her apartment is searched, anonymous warnings appear, and every attempt to uncover the truth about her past leads to another dead end. One needs protection. The other needs a wife. What begins as a temporary arrangement soon pulls them into a dangerous web of lies, betrayal, and a decades-old secret powerful enough to destroy both their families.

He's an arrogant billionaire who knows the ways of the world, she's knee-deep in debt, will money help these two find their happy-ever-after? Everette Fischer is a young twenty-two year old woman fending her way through her life by waitressing on the weekends and working as a lowly marketing assistant for long hours during the week. When her parents suddenly pass away during a tragic road accident, she has to become the legal guardian for her younger brother and keep sending him to the private boarding school he's used to to achieve some sense of normalcy. When she happens upon the advertisement that the CEO of the company wants to put in the paper and she's in charge to design it, she happens to answer it under an alias. There starts a string of lies, running around loopholes to save her reputation and her assistant job at the company, while falling for her icy boss. Will Everett be able to stop herself from falling for Waylon Thorne?

The Godfather, Matteo Cross, loved me like I was his whole world. However, he had once cheated on me with a college student. To make it up to me, Matteo pushed aside all family business affairs and stayed by my side for eight straight months, the kind where we were together twenty-four hours a day, never apart for even a second. I thought he had finally changed until last night, when I woke from a nightmare and went looking for my medication. As I passed the study, I heard Matteo speaking softly and affectionately into his phone. “Baby, you’re so tempting… Just hang in there a little longer. Once you give birth to the child, I’ll stay with you.” It took me only three seconds to accept the truth: the man who once swore he loved me was completely gone. With that, I decided then and there to immigrate to Atlantica with my grandfather.

Thya, the daughter of Duke D'Arcy, has the cursed power of being able to see others people's deaths by looking at them in the eye. After all the disgrace that happened to the people around her, she sees her best frien, Avyanna, the next Queen of the Maximillian Kingdom's dying because of a uncurable disease, but she can't tell that to anyone. When her best friend ends up dying a year after that, her brother, Daisuke, ascends to the throne as the new Crown Prince and is set to get his revenge on Thya for hiding his sister's disease from everyone and 'causing' her death. But Thya refuses to interact with anyone for years, blaming herself for having such ability. Later on when the Crown Princess Trials are announced, Daisuke made his parents summon Thya so she is obligated to participate. But afraid that she might end up dying while spending a year in the Imperial Palace, she decides to look at herself in the mirror and confront her fear. To her dismay, she saw her dying by Daisuke's dagger two years from that moment. And that puts her on edge. After all her efforts to runaway go to waste, she has to go and face her best friend's brother and sworn enemy. But little did they know that hatred is the closest feeling to love.

Morrigan is the adopted daughter of the Fae King and Queen, Leonard and Raya. She was found on the doorstep of their castle on the night of the Winter Solstice only hours after her birth. It is unknown to them as to what Morrigan is; they don't sense magic and they don't sense any shifter blood. So what exactly is she? On her twentieth birthday, Morrigan finds her mate, the Supreme Alpha Rian O'Connor and shifts for the first time under the Solstice moon. It is only after her shift does her family and mate realize that she isn't an ordinary wolf, she's a tribrid. In the dark recesses of the spell caster kingdom and Fae kingdom the dark Fae and spell caster's have plans for an uprising, to bring their kind back into power and into the light. Their success hinges on Morrigan NOT harnessing her powers or finding her mate, but what happens when that comes to fruition? Will their uprising see success in bringing the darkness back or will it be all for nothing, to be defeated by Morrigan and her Alpha?

As if her world hadn't crumbled enough, Kendall got drunk and had a one-night stand with a stranger, hours after being diagnosed with stage 3 Ovarian cancer. Told that she may never get pregnant, and she spent her lifesaving on IVF. Luckily, she got a job as a PA to the CEO, Jason. On her first day, she made him her enemy, and to redeem herself, she had to be his girlfriend for the weekend. Things got complicated when Jason’s mother planned an impromptu wedding, forcing Jason to get into a contract marriage with Kendall. She framed Jason, pinning the pregnancy on him. Gradually, Jason began to fall in love with her, only for chaos to visit, Jason’s stepbrother, Thane’s sperm was used for Kendall's IVF. Desperate for revenge, Thane would do anything to ruin the couple. Caught in the web of family feud and drama, will Kendall be able to save their union, even though she has to put everything at stake?

Claire finally signed the divorce papers to escape a marriage that was already dead. But hours later, a devastating car crash wipes the last five years from her ruthless billionaire husband's mind. When Raphael wakes up, he doesn't remember the coldness. He doesn't remember the tragic miscarriage that shattered them. And he certainly doesn't remember the divorce. He only remembers being fiercely, desperately in love with his wife. Suddenly, the emotionally absent CEO is gone, replaced by the affectionate, protective man Claire thought she lost forever. He looks at her like she is his entire world. But for Claire, every sweet touch is a ghost, and every perfect promise is built on forgotten pain. Raphael is finally the husband she always begged him to be. But how do you love a man who only wants you because he forgot how he broke you?