Gilded

🔞 🔞🔞This book contains explicit sexual content and is intended for mature readers only. I traded my freedom for a last name. Now, I wear silence like perfume and lies like lipstick. To the world, I’m the elegant wife of Mattio — wealthy, powerful, untouchable. Behind closed doors, I’m his possession. A woman trapped in a gilded cage, drowning in a marriage built on control. Then came him. Maxwell. A stranger who touched me like I mattered — just once. A stolen night that made me feel alive again. But my brief escape shatters when I walk downstairs… and see him smiling in my living room. He’s not a stranger anymore. He’s Mattio’s long-lost stepbrother. Now I’m caught between the man who owns me… And the man who awakened everything I thought I’d lost. Secrets unravel. Desires ignite. And one wrong move could ruin us all. How do you forget the one man who made you feel human again—when he’s now part of your family?

Her name, they say, is Bliss. Silent, radiant, and obedient, she’s the perfect bride for enigmatic billionaire Damon Gibson. Yet Bliss clings to fleeting fragments of a life before the wedding: a dream of red silk, a woman who mirrors her face, a voice whispering warnings in the shadows. Her past is a locked door, and Damon holds the key. When Bliss stumbles into a hidden wing of his sprawling mansion, she finds a room filled with relics of another woman. Photos, perfume, love letters, and a locket engraved with two names reveal a haunting truth. That woman, Ivana, was more than a stranger. She was identical to Bliss. As buried memories surface, the fairy tale Bliss believed in fractures into a web of obsession, deception, and danger. Damon’s charm hides secrets, and the love she thought she knew feels like a gilded cage. To survive, Bliss must unravel the mystery of who she was and what ties her to Ivana. In a world where love can be a trap and truth a weapon, remembering the bride she used to be is her only way out.

---WARNING: Dark Romance. Mature Audience Only. Contains Sexual Content, Dubious Consent, and Intense Situations.--- He watched her from the shadows, a hidden obsession. She fainted at the slightest fear. He was just a boy then, powerless against the campus kingpin who tormented her, a rival heir to a brutal empire. But empires fall. And obsessions, once set, never die. Years later, on a moonlit beach, Seraphina's world shatters. Her boyfriend, a cruel cheat, humiliates her for a bet and leaves her for dead. She awakens to a familiar face—Alessandro Torricelli, now a ruthless Mexican mafia boss who takes what he wants. He’s back to claim what he believes is his: her. He promises freedom in 365 days if she doesn't fall in love. But Alessandro's world is a gilded cage of raw power, inescapable desire, and dangerous games. As Seraphina navigates his opulent fortress, fighting his possessive touch and the unwanted hunger he ignites, their volatile dynamic sparks a dangerous game of seduction. They keep score, each erotic encounter a win or loss, unknowingly binding them closer with every calculated move. Yet, beyond their sensual battle, a chilling reality looms: her old tormentor, Dino Moretti, still stalks the shadows, and this time, he's coming for them both. With a brewing war threatening to consume his empire, Alessandro vows to protect her, even from herself. But can Seraphina survive his love, escape his enemies, and resist the magnetic pull of the man who sees her fragility as a weakness to conquer, and her defiance as a challenge to possess? In this city of shadows, hearts are collateral, and their game of love is the most dangerous score of all.

Blurb: Anna Lancaster was never meant to wear the crown, or the gown. Born as the illegitimate daughter, the family's shame. She grew up hidden in the shadows, while her half sister Lauren shone as the priced Lancaster jewel, adored, protected, celebrated, destined to marry William Fairchild, the enigmatic heir to a billion dollar empire. However on the night of her fairytale wedding, the unthinkable happens. Before she could walk down the aisle, Lauren Lancaster takes her own life. Her priceless gown drenched in blood, her secrets stitched into every crimson stain. To bury the scandal and save their empire, the Lancasters forced Anna into the same bloodied dress… and into Lauren's place as William Fairchild's bride. A marriage that was never meant to be hers to a man that despises her very existence. Inside the gilded walls of the Fairchild mansion. Anna uncovers a world of obsession, betrayal and whispered lies. And she realizes that in this house of secrets, brides don't live happily ever after… they die… Do you desire to uncover the dark, twisted truths that haunt the Fairchild's walls? Step inside the Fairchild mansion if you dare…

Sofia lived a life defined by "shoulds" and "must-nots," bound by the strict doctrines of her religious family. Every choice, every breath, measured against expectations that left her soul aching for release she didn't dare name. Her world was a gilded cage, safe but stifling. Then she met him. Luca De Rossi. A name whispered on the streets, a man carved from danger, power, and forbidden allure. He belonged to a world her family preached against, a world of illicit deals, ruthless loyalty, and raw, unapologetic desire. She should have run. She wanted to run. But his eyes held a challenge, his proximity ignited a fire she never knew existed. Drawn into his orbit by an invisible, irresistible force, Sofia finds herself teetering on the edge of everything forbidden. The rules that once defined her crumble under the passion she never thought possible. Now, caught between sacred duty and carnal obsession, she must choose. Cling to the life that suffocates her or surrender to the darkness that promises both ruin and exquisite, dangerous ecstasy. One path leads to salvation she no longer believes in. The other, to a hell that feels like heaven. She's a good girl in a bad man's world. And once she's in, there's no turning back.

In Catania, beneath the shadow of Mount Etna, the mafia rules with fire and blood. No name carries more fear than the Valerios and no one is more protected than Lucy Valerio, the youngest and only daughter of the ruthless boss, Salvatore. Sheltered by her brothers, especially Vince, the heir to the Valerio name, Lucy lives in a gilded cage where freedom is only a dream. Until one reckless night changes everything. At The Velvet Room, the city’s most dangerous nightclub, Lucy meets Angelo, dark, magnetic, and scarred by secrets. Their chemistry is undeniable, but their love is forbidden. For Angelo is no ordinary man: he is the prodigal son of Giovanni Mancini, Salvatore’s sworn rival. A man who once abandoned the mafia life, only to be pulled back into its shadows. As passion ignites between them, the past resurfaces. Old betrayals, family feuds, and the reappearance of Angelo’s first love turn their bond into a deadly gamble. In a city where love is weakness and betrayal is currency, Lucy must choose: loyalty to her family… or the man who could destroy it.

She sold her soul to save her daughter… but the devil wears a billionaire’s smile. Emily Carter is a desperate mother clawing her way through the filth of New York’s underworld, dancing for dollars in a club that devours women whole. When her baby girl falls deathly ill, she’s forced into an impossible choice: let her child die… or marry a cold-hearted billionaire with a past darker than her own. Alexander Richie doesn’t believe in love but he believes in ownership. His proposal isn’t a lifeline. It’s a leash. Thrust into a mansion of lies, judgment, and cruel stepchildren, Emily trades one nightmare for another. Her new life is gilded in luxury but soaked in venom, and the people inside want to break her. But Emily didn’t survive the streets to become anyone’s victim not even his. Love wasn’t part of the deal. But what happens when the broken start to feel? And how many bodies must fall before the truth is revealed?

Alina Ysabelle Allard has lived her whole life behind gilded walls, the only daughter and heiress of a powerful business tycoon. Raised to be flawless, she knows her worth depends on meeting impossible standards, being the best, never questioning orders, and sacrificing everything for family legacy. When her father arranges her engagement to Lance Villion, the eldest son of another influential family, Alina forces herself to accept what duty demands. Yet buried memories whisper of someone else, a boy she once shared secrets and tears with, though his face feels lost to time. Leon Claude Villion, the younger son, grew up invisible in his father’s eyes. Overshadowed by his brother, Leon’s quiet rebellion was his unspoken devotion to Alina, the girl he once knew beyond the masks wealth and power demand. For years, Leon watched from a distance, unable to speak, unable to forget. When fate brings them together again, Alina doesn’t recognize him. And when Leon learns she’s being forced into marriage with his own brother, the love he hides turns into a burning resolve to change destiny itself. As a contract marriage looms, betrayal reveals itself. Leon must choose between family loyalty and claiming the only woman who ever truly mattered. Alina must decide how far she’ll bend under her father’s shadow and whether it’s worth losing her heart to keep his love. In a world ruled by power, secrets, and blood, how far will they go for love that was never meant to be?

On the day of her wedding, Liliana Crawford’s life shatters when the church doors burst open and Dante Moretti, the ruthless head of the Italian mafia, claims her as his own. What should have been the start of a safe, predictable life with her fiancé turns into a nightmare of blood, betrayal, and chains. Dante doesn’t want her love—he wants her obedience. To him, Liliana is more than just leverage; she’s a weapon, a possession, a doll to break and reshape. But as days in his gilded cage stretch into nights filled with dangerous temptation, Liliana discovers that beneath his cruelty lies a twisted obsession that burns hotter than hatred. Torn between the man she was raised to marry and the devil who stole her, Liliana must survive a world of violence and power games where every touch is a threat, every kiss a battle, and every promise comes drenched in blood. Dark, intoxicating, and dangerously addictive, The Devil’s Claim is a mafia romance where love is war, passion is punishment, and surrender might be the only way to survive.

The betrayal that made him a monster. The lie that could destroy him. Once, Henry was gentle, ruled only by his love for Emalia. Then, he found her with his brother. The kind Alpha heir died that day; the merciless Alpha Henry rose in his place – breathtakingly fierce, chillingly dominant. Eight years of icy hatred later, Emalia reappears, marked for death. Despite his loathing, Henry cannot let her die. He drags her into the gilded cage of Sky Pack, determined to shield her only so he can show her the hollow ruin she left behind. But proximity is poison. The fire between them rages, hotter than hate, deeper than memory. And as they circle each other in a dangerous dance, the shadows stir with the chilling truth: her betrayal wasn't what it seemed. Unearthing it could be the final blow that breaks them both.