Romans & histoires Esperanza Rising Book Read Online

Jennifer Porter, the icy and untouchable CEO, never imagined that buying a simple jade pendant for her childhood friend would change everything. Because of that pendant, I divorced her and left with our daughter. After all, the jade pendant was my father's keepsake, and her childhood friend smashed it to pieces right in front of me. We met again three years later, at an international jewelry design competition. My ex-wife grabbed my wrist, fury burning in her eyes. "You've been gone for three years. Isn't your tantrum long enough? I'll buy you a hundred jade pendants, just come home with me." The next second, a small hand tugged at her clothes. "Excuse me, could you step aside? My mom needs to talk to my dad."

One night destroyed everything Celine believed in. A single sip of wine at her mother-in-law’s party dragged her from laughter into nightmare. The next moment, she woke up in another man’s room. In his bed. When Adam, her supposed husband, walked in, his voice cut sharper than a blade: “What is this?” “Adam, I don’t know how I got here. I swear—” Her mother-in-law had set her up, ready to destroy whatever that connected her and her son. Before Celine could say another word, two police officers stepped in. “Mrs. Celine Brooks, you are under arrest for conspiracy to commit fraud and embezzlement.” After her release, divorced and sent away, her now ex mother-in-law discovered she was pregnant. She sent a thug after Celine. She was beaten till she lost the baby. Three years later, Celine returns to afflict ten times the pains they caused her. This is a story of love, betrayal and revenge, best served COLD.

As I casually opened the online forum, a trending post at the top caught my eye. [Share the wildest thing you’ve ever done.] I clicked on the second comment, which seemed to contain just one line. [Without a doubt, it was the night before my buddy’s wedding when I had his wife come over for a “quality check.”] However, the poster kept adding to the thread. [That night, the woman tricked that idiot into thinking it was a bachelorette party, but she actually spent the whole night at my place. [She said she didn’t want to sleep with just one man forever and needed one last wild night before tying the knot. [By the end of the night, her throat was nearly raw from all the screaming. [We kept going until sunrise, right there in the wedding car her husband was supposed to pick her up later that day.] [Not only that, but even after they got married, this fool kept bringing his wife over to my place for dinner. [He’d help me in the kitchen while I pinned his wife against the fridge and kissed her. [He’d be glued to the game in the living room while his wife knelt in the bathroom and took care of me. [One time, when he passed out drunk on my couch, his wife and I had our own fun on the carpet beside him. [Every time he rolled over, we’d both jump. It was the thrill of knowing we could get caught at any moment.] The image loaded, revealing the familiar interior of the wedding car. The lucky charm I had given my wife dangled from the rearview mirror. My fingers momentarily stiffened, and I nearly dropped my phone. A wave of nausea rolled in my stomach as a chill crept up my spine. Just then, a hand appeared in my field of vision, waving in front of me. “Calvin, what are you zoning out for? You’re at my place, and you’re still on your phone. Come on. Dig in while it’s hot.” Wyatt Preston, my friend, grinned at me. Yet, his eyes kept straying toward my wife, Queenie Jennings, who was sitting beside me.

They told Rose Evander the Selection was an honour. She knows better. She has seen what happens to girls who enter and do not come home. But when the Alpha King's men arrive at her door with a summons she cannot refuse, Rose has a choice: submit to a fate designed by men who see her as a tool — or walk into the lion's den with her eyes wide open and her secrets buried deep. She does not expect to feel it. That pull. That bone-deep recognition when she stands before not one, but four of the most powerful men in the realm — and every one of them stares at her like she is the answer to a question they have been asking their entire lives. She does not expect the bond to choose all of them. And she does not expect the Alpha King's plan — the one that has nothing to do with heirs and everything to do with keeping power exactly where it is — to put every single one of them in the ground.

You think of my love as a burden and can't see my pain and suffering. Love ensnares them in a world filled with disappointment. What will the female protagonists in the stories do once they've had enough of being let down?

For three months, I’d been in an online romance with a stranger, a werewolf named "Lykos." We were falling hard and fast. Every night, his deep, husky voice and fiery texts made my whole body burn. "I want you, sweetheart." "I can feel it. You're my fated mate." "Dreamt of you again last night. Your scent was everywhere, and you were wrapped around me, begging me to make you mine." Just as I was fantasizing about meeting him, something in one of his daily photos caught my eye: the silver wolf sigil of the Blackwood Pack. And I, a Beta, work for a corporation owned by the Blackwood Pack. I'd been dating a pack member for three months—someone who could be right under my nose! As I frantically tried to guess who he was, I saw it, and my blood ran cold. My boss, the Alpha's brother, Liam, was wearing the black obsidian and silver ring I’d picked out for "Lykos."

Following the success of her two novels, Cela receives an offer for the TV adaptation of her stories but a third story has to be written soon to complete a three-story special. She is not in to the project until she rediscovers the paper bearing the address of the meeting place of her supposed first date with Nate. Now that her mother is no longer around to interfere, she becomes inspired to reunite with him after many years and hopefully write the third novel based on their new story. Unfortunately, he is now about to get married in two months. Disappointed with the turn of events, she decides not to meet him again. She visits their old meeting place and finds it a good place to write but unexpectedly meets him there. They agree not to talk to each other if they meet there again but fate leads them to meet again under different circumstances leaving them no choice but to speak to each other. Suddenly, Nate’s fiancée starts acting weird and suggests that he spend the weekend with Cela while she is away. Although it confuses him, he figures that it is her way of helping him get closure. The two spend one Sunday reminiscing the past expecting a closure in the end but the wonderful moment they share this time only makes it harder to achieve that closure so Cela has to put a stop to it saying, “Please don't think even for a second that there is still something left or something new to explore after everything that happened or did not happen. This is not a novel. This is reality. We don't get sequels or spin-offs in real life. We just continue. We move forward and that's how we get to the ending."

I ordered an incubus online, but when the package arrived, there were two of them. One was gentle and obedient, the other was hot-tempered and unpredictable. I immediately messaged customer service to ask if they'd sent the wrong one—I had only ordered the gentle kind. The reply came cheerfully. "Congratulations, you've unlocked the hidden variant! This model is a bit special—buy one, get one free!" Wait… what? I remembered hearing people say that raising an incubus is like raising a puppy, only better—they keep you warm at night and don't shed. Well, if that's true, whether I had one or two made no difference. So I ended up paying the price of one and getting two—what a steal! Or so I thought… until I went to feed them. That's when I realized I was the cookie in the middle of a sandwich. Apparently, "keeping me warm at night" was a strenuous activity.

Soraia was just an ordinary girl until she found herself the plaything of a vampire and a werewolf, but it was into the dark world of passion and blood of the cruel vampire that she sank-and he only wants her for one purpose, to bring his beloved back from the dead and discover what is so valuable hidden in Soraia's blood. But Augustus, the Alpha of the powerful werewolf pack of Lacrimal city knows that Soraia is his true love and with the help of his mother, a wolf gypsy, he is willing to do anything to protect her. Miranda was brought back from the dead for one purpose only - to protect Soraia from the hands of Julio Cesar, the vampire who killed her in the distant past. Amy was also just an ordinary girl and Soraia's best friend until she was bitten by a vampire, but it was not the bite that transformed her but the fire that is running through her veins. Deaths and attacks by beings until recently only heard in folklore are making the police's hair stand on end, even the skepticism of Police Chief Sergio is getting shaken, not to mention that his investigator is hiding something from him. Malvina is facing frequent vampire attacks, but the hardest part is hiding who she really is from her colleagues and the police chief; Lacrimal city and Palaços are two distinct cities but both are suffering from cruel attacks by beings that until then were only in the popular imagination, but now live among us. And if we don't take a stand, accept them or kill them, they will live on after us.

Arian Smith had one rule which was to keep his head down, work well as the president of the book club, and hold tight to the scholarship that gave him a second chance at life. But when he’s falsely accused of stealing funds from the school’s prestigious Book Club, the orphaned student is thrust into a scandal that threatens everything he’s worked for. Kael Palmer has everything including money, power, and a last name that opens doors. What he doesn’t have is the academic award that stands between him and his graduation. The Book Club was supposed to be his ticket out until Arian’s scandal threatened to shut it down. Desperate to graduate, Kael strikes a risky deal with Arian. “Clear Arian's name to get the best member award”. But as both boys dug deeper, they became closer to the forbidden. What will happen to them since they live in a world where love between boys is forbidden?