Holding Hands Aesthetic Novels & Stories

At another Sunday dinner at the Bellandi estate, Luca Bellandi's assistant, Ava Marino, was sitting in my seat. It was the first chair to Luca's right at the long walnut table, the seat everyone in Chicago's underworld knew belonged to Mrs. Bellandi. Ava sat there as if she had been born into it, her pale wrist brushing Luca's sleeve while she poured his wine. I stood in the doorway and looked at him. "She's in my seat. You don't have anything to say?" Luca raised his eyes. "You were late. Don't blame someone else for sitting down first. There are empty chairs over there. Sit if you want. If not, get out." The dining room went dead quiet, and before I could answer, his thoughts slipped into my ears. [Vivi, don't go. Come sit beside me. Tell them it's your seat. Tell me you still want to be my wife.] [Please get mad. Please care. Say you need me, and I'll give you the whole world.] In the past, those soft, trembling thoughts would have been enough. I would've swallowed the insult and stayed beside him like a loyal dog that didn't know when to leave. This time, I didn't. I slipped the wedding ring off my finger and laid it on the table. "If the Bellandi family can't even keep a wife's seat for me, then I guess this family doesn't need a wife anymore. Luca, let's get divorced."

Right before the SAT, our scatterbrained airheaded group favourite, the school belle, Priscilla Ashford, volunteers herself to safeguard everyone's admission tickets. My firm refusal of her offer earns me the displeasure of my childhood sweetheart, Justin Kylemark. "You're picking on her again," he says. I ignore his rebuke. On the exam day itself, I personally double-checked every single admission ticket to make sure nothing could go wrong. However, the moment Priscilla gets hers from me, she burst into tears, claiming that I lost her ticket. Justin snatched my admission ticket and tore it to shreds. I run until my legs give out, barely managing to get it reissued before the bus leaves. However, my classmates all kicked me off the bus together. "You lost Priscilla's admission ticket. Do you think you deserve to sit for the exam?" They carry with them the exam prediction I had prepared for them. Thanks to that, they each achieve excellent scores. I have no choice but to repeat the year and become the top scorer. By then, Justin and my other classmates, who are already in prestigious universities and colleges, all return together. They produce fake evidence, accusing me of cheating in the exam. Unable to defend myself, a candidate who flunked the exam poured gasoline on me and set me on fire. When I open my eyes once more, I see myself handing the admission tickets over to Priscilla… except for my own.

During a critical heart transplant, my doctor husband insisted his intern assist despite her garish nail art compromising the sterile field. When I called her out, he abandoned the patient mid-surgery to comfort her. I begged him to return, but he snapped, "Giselle is upset. Can't you wait? This is nothing compared to her feelings." 40 minutes later, the patient bled out and died. Later, they discovered that he was our highly respected mayor and placed the blame on me. "If it weren't for you causing a scene and kicking us out of the operating room, the mayor wouldn't have bled to death. This is all your fault!" Defenseless, I was sentenced to life in prison, tortured, and died in agony. My husband and his intern walked down the aisle, enjoying their happy life. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of that fateful surgery.

My mother is a hospital director. To give my brother, an intern doctor, more hands-on experience, she assigns him as the lead surgeon for my brain tumor operation. I beg her to let someone else do it and tell her it's my only chance at survival. But she slaps me hard across the face and screams, "How did I raise such a selfish, ungrateful child? Your brother has just started his internship—can't you help him improve his skills? Is that too much to ask?" Later, the surgery fails. I die on the operating table. And my mother seems to have aged decades overnight.

Kenneth Parker, my childhood friend—and the person I've secretly had a crush on—isn't into men. In the end, I find myself wandering into one of those shops out of sheer loneliness and buying myself a toy. That night, just as I'm about to follow the instructions to use it, someone suddenly opens the bedroom door. Kenneth stands in the doorway, his face frozen in complete and utter shock as he stares at me. Blushing furiously, I try to pull the blanket and cover myself, but Kenneth rushes in and takes the toy from my hand. He says, "It's alright, Xavier. I'll show you how to use it."

My parents' enemy kidnaps me and livestreams chopping off my fingers just to force them to show up. For a time, the entire Internet searches for my parents. But what they don't know is that the captain who appeared in the livestream is my biological father. At that moment, he's on a beach in Hashford, setting off magnificent fireworks for his adopted daughter. And on their barbecue table, the livestream of my fingers being severed is playing. Later on, when I survive long enough to be rescued, I reach out my mangled hand to touch my parents. They recoil in disgust and leave without looking back, taking the adopted daughter out for Wersole food. But they don't know that the thing hidden within my mangled palm will make them regret their actions beyond measure.

The day my husband, Lucas Maxwell, helps his childhood sweetheart—Cecilia Brown, who has cancer—lose her virginity, I leave behind a divorce agreement and walk away. Before I leave, I drop a comment beneath a photo of them on his social media. Their fingers are tightly interlocked in the photo. "Let's get divorced. I wish you both a lifetime of happiness." A minute later, he calls me. "How did I end up marrying someone as selfish as you, Fiona Sinclair? Do you really have the heart to let her die without leaving anything behind?" I sneer, "You're no longer my husband. How is that my problem?" That's when he panics.

My husband, Don Damiano Caruso's adopted sister, Caterina Caruso, has gone missing when she's three months pregnant. The security footage shows that I'm the last person she's met before her disappearance. The family elders request me to provide them with clues of Caterina's whereabouts. Damiano's mother, Teresa Bellandi, even gets down on her knees to plead with me to help find the missing Caterina. Still, my only answer is silence. I initially thought that Damiano would get a divorce from me out of disappointment. But he still continues to love and dote on me, as though nothing has happened. When I first get pregnant, the R&D team that Damiano has invested an astronomical amount of money into has finally invented a device that can extract memories from human brains. Damiano lures me to the council hall of the Caruso family. There, he extracts my memories in front of the entire family. I keep begging him to change his mind by explaining that this device will hurt our unborn child. But Damiano merely replies icily, "Bianca, the medical team has already conducted a check-up on you. You're in top health this whole time. I can't believe you're capable of lying about your pregnancy just to hide the truth! "I will uncover the truth no matter what!" But once everyone digs up the truth from my memories, Damiano and the entire Caruso family go insane.

I bought my daughter Aria an island when her wolf spirit awakened. My mate, Alpha Kael, was supposed to come with me. We were going to hold our daughter’s coming-of-age ceremony on her new island. But he never showed. And he took half the Pack’s guards with him. I had no choice. I took Aria to the island myself. Just as we were about to land, we were attacked by rogues. A silver bullet tore through my daughter. She collapsed in my arms, screaming in pain. I screamed for Kael through our mind link. I called his phone. Nothing. My daughter died. I collapsed into Kael's arms when he finally showed up, sobbing. His eyes were red. "A Pack emergency held me up… I'm so sorry…" I thought he was grieving with me. Until I found his first love, Isabella, curled up in his arms. "You're so clever, Kael," she purred. "Since you never made Selena the official Luna, she had no authority over the guards. She couldn't protect that powerful daughter of hers." Kael kissed her forehead. He soothed her. "Aria's powerful wolf will cure the sickness in your son Leo's spirit. Her death was worth it. And this island… now that Aria's gone, it's the perfect recovery gift for Leo." My wolf howled in grief. My legs gave out. Tears streamed down my face. It was all a plan. He’d planned it all for his first love. I turned my back on him. I severed our mate bond. But then? He dropped to his knees, begging me to forgive him. Fine. I'll forgive him when he brings my poor Aria back. Can he do that?

Angelicca is a female warrior whose duty is to eliminate werewolves that roam the region. In one particularly violent and blood-soaked battle against the infamous Wulfnox Pack, she killed a beta-ranked werewolf, one of the pack’s elite fighters. It was during that battle that she was captured and brought into the enemy territory. She was originally sentenced to death for killing one of their ranked members. However, everything changed when the Alpha Lord discovered that Angelicca belonged to the Severia Clan. A legendary bloodline descended from powerful warriors whose strength and speed are said to rival those of even the highest-ranking werewolves. This revelation piqued the Alpha Lord’s interest. He chose to change her punishment. Instead of execution, Lord Drakkon declared that Angelicca was to mate with his son, Alpha Zarkus, with the goal of producing a strong hybrid offspring. Once the child was born, she would be banished from the pack. Eventually, Angelicca gave birth to twin boys. She believed that by fulfilling the decree, bearing the children, and submitting to her fate, she had repaid her crime. But she was wrong. Alpha Zarkus was not finished with her yet. What awaited her next were punishments far crueler than anything she had endured. ~~~~~ Get ready for an intense werewolf breathtaking romance that will set your heart on fire! ​