Eight Hundred Grapes Novels & Stories

No one knows that Ingrid Steele, the CEO who's currently talking about how her company bans office romances on the podium, has begged me to do it with her eight times in a row last night. Her secretary leans in and murmurs into my ear, "I heard that our cold and aloof CEO has plans to reveal her husband's identity recently. Rumors say that she even plans on throwing him an extremely grand wedding just to make it up to him." Warmth floods my heart at that moment. It's then I decide to make the great news of me winning a billion dollars in the lottery a wedding gift for Ingrid. Our daughter, Gaby Newman, no longer has to hide anymore in life. The three of us can publicly spend time together as a family now! The next day, I put on the suit that Ingrid has given me eight years ago. Then, I enter the wedding venue. As soon as I open the door, I see Ingrid leading her first love, Hank Conley, up the stage. After they exchange rings with each other, they share a sweet kiss in front of everyone in a tight embrace. In the end, Ingrid tosses her wedding bouquet at the guests. Coincidentally, it lands right in my hands. Someone next to me gives me a light shove. "What are you waiting for? Give them your blessings already!" I just clap for the newlyweds while walking toward them. "Congratulations, you two! I hope that you can live happily ever after and that you'll have a bundle of joy soon! No, make it 108 babies, how about that?" As soon as my words fall, I turn on my heel and stride away. As expected, Ingrid doesn't chase after me. She doesn't even bother calling me nor explaining everything to me.

Born into a blended family, Chantelle grew up on the sidelines, raised with love by her grandmother after her mother's death. Shut out by her father Gérard, dominated by his new wife Rhonda, and relegated to the background behind her pretentious stepsister Mégane, she learned to survive in silence. When her grandmother is diagnosed with a terminal illness, Chantelle's world crumbles. With no family support and overwhelmed by medical bills, she accepts a desperate proposition: one hundred nights for one million euros, with a wealthy man whose identity she will never know. The rules are simple. A blindfold over her eyes, a stranger's touch, and silence. He never speaks. She never sees. He leaves her with anonymous bank transfers... and the haunting scent of his perfume as her only memory. Twelve nights pass. Then, forced by her father to attend a family dinner, Chantelle comes face to face with Mégane's fiancé: Collen Wilkerson—the cold, unapproachable CEO of the powerful corporation where she works as a simple employee. He is a man she knows only from a distance. Arrogant. Untouchable. But when he steps closer, a familiar scent wraps around her, and the world stops. It's his perfume. The same as the masked man. She has already spent twelve nights in his arms. And there are still eighty-eight to go.

At the Mercer family's annual dinner, I accidentally wore a couture gown that belonged to Lucian's late wife. The eight-year-old boy I had raised myself, in front of every key member of the Family, threw a glass of expensive red wine all over my pure white dress. He just stood there, his cold, condescending expression a mirror of his father's. "Don't think you can become the mistress of this house just by dressing like my Mamma." "I swear, when I'm old enough to take over the family business, I'll make you disappear for good!" The cold liquid soaked through the fabric, clinging to my skin. But I felt nothing. My heart had frozen solid the moment I signed my life away eight years ago. I looked at the child I had raised as my own for eight years. There was no anger. The faintest smile touched my lips. I leaned down and whispered in his ear, "You won't have to wait that long, my little lion. I'm leaving, and it will be very soon."

To Rosetta, life was way too short to be lived within strict rules. The night before she turned 18, Rosetta signed up to be a one-time stripper at a private bar, and she ends up in the bed of a mysterious stranger who takes her to heaven and back. The following morning, he leaves before she awakens, making her to wonder if he was ever real. When her mother remarries for the third time, Rosetta is forced to relocate to Los Angeles with her, and her world falls apart when she realizes that her mother's new husband is the same man she had met weeks earlier at the club. Damon Brooks is her latest stepfather! Now, she has to fight her growing feelings for the only man who makes her mother happy, and risk losing a chance with him. Does it get better or worse when she finds out that Damon is falling, even harder for her, right under the nose of her mother? What happens when her step father gives her 100 days to enjoy their dirty little game, after which everything must end. Can Rosette handle the pain of what happens after? There's only one way to find out. Read this book, Now!

"Be my wife for eight months and I will save you from this hell. But if you fall in love with me? I will destroy you." She wasn't sold for a price. She was lost in a bet. A dark deal made in the shadows between a father who sold his own daughter without thinking twice and the man who runs the Blackwood empire. The CEO who doesn't just own money. He owns the city. He owns the law. He owns the men and their fates. She was just a normal designer until she became his wife on paper. A wife to a man who knows no mercy. A man who never loses a deal. A man who refuses to let the woman carrying his name be weak. Eight months. A marriage with no love. Strict rules. Forbidden feelings. But what happens when the deal turns into a deep hunger? What happens when the contract becomes a cage? What happens when she finds out that running away from her father put her in the trap of a man who is a thousand times more dangerous? Her father sold her in a bet. And her only escape was the man who owns the city.

I’m about to enter a blood bond with another vampire lord. But my partner of a century, Kaelan, has no idea. He’s too busy getting cozy with his new human assistant, Sylvia. They spend entire nights in his office, under the guise of “researching synthetic blood.” He even turned our centennial anniversary into her birthday party. In front of everyone, Kaelan presented her with a Black Forest cake decorated with Silver Bells. They laughed, smearing frosting on each other. They forgot the flowers are a deadly poison to me. My power shattered. Agony ripped through me as shadows lashed out, uncontrollable. My family’s guards had to drag my convulsing body away. And while I recovered alone in the cold, dark vault, Kaelan was still at the party, bathing in the cheers for him and Sylvia. The blood in my veins turned to ice. A century of love and hope burned to ash. In that moment, I agreed to my family's arrangement. Without hesitation. A union with the lord of the Obsidian Throne—a vampire they say is power incarnate.

My best friend called me sobbing at two in the morning, saying she owed three hundred thousand dollars in online loans and was begging me to save her life. I told her I'd help cover half. She grabbed my phone and transferred all three hundred thousand. "It's just money—why are you being so stingy? You make six figures. Helping me out shouldn't be a big deal." I swallowed it. A month later, she posted Maldives vacation photos on Instagram. When I asked when she planned to pay me back, she replied—right there in the comments, where every mutual friend could see— "God, stop nagging. Maybe spend that energy making more money instead, you cheapskate. So annoying." I screenshotted everything. Then I opened the civil complaint I'd already drafted. This kind of best friend? We could catch up in court.

I'm the second child of the family. Because of that, I'm also the one everyone neglects by nature. The birthdays of my older brother, Joe Thompson, and my younger sister, Lyra Thompson, are jotted down on the calendar by my parents. But they always fail to remember my own birthday. Joe and Lyra often have new clothes to wear, whereas my parents keep forgetting to buy new clothes for me. Heck, Joe and Lyra often receive holiday gifts! Meanwhile, my parents never bother giving me anything during the holidays. In fact, when we're traveling back to our hometown, my parents end up ditching me at a deserted highway rest stop when the temperature is extremely low…

At the award-giving ceremony of the end-of-the-year gala, my boss, George White, suddenly announces that he will be adding a bonus round on a whim. "This is the annual department evaluation! The department that comes last shall come onto the stage and receive a tiny encouragement from me!" The huge screen lights up at that moment. The sales achievements accumulated by all departments are being shown in a ranking system. The sales department is ranked first. The operations department comes second, and the marketing department gets third place. As for the administrative department, the sales achievements shown on the screen are none. After all, that department has no KPI to achieve at all. George beams at us from the administrative department. "Everyone from the administrative department, come on up and receive your prize!" Two people can be seen carrying a basket of brooms up the stage. Everyone bursts into laughter instantly. "Come now, sweep away your bad luck with the brooms! Try not to come up as the bottom-ranked department again next year!" George personally thrusts the brooms into our hands. Camera flashes go off beneath the stage—people are clearly taking photos of us. The people from the sales department are the ones laughing the hardest. "Finally, the peeps from the administrative department are getting the recognition they deserve!"

Eight years after I married that award-winning actor, he publicly declared he was dating the top starlet, Celine James. He even posted a picture of the two of them celebrating their adopted “baby’s” birthday. I did not call him to interrogate him as usual. Instead, he hurriedly explained, “It’s just a pet we adopted. As its ‘dad’, I have to be there for its birthday.” I said calmly, “Rather than adopting a furbaby, why don’t we get a divorce? Then you can have an actual baby with her.”