How Old Was Finnick When He Won Novels & Stories

By my third month on the job, I discovered that my coworkers had been calling me "the old crow" behind my back. The nickname came from none other than Jace's condescending secretary—because at 32, I was still clutching onto an eight-year relationship that hadn't ended in marriage. I confronted Jace. "Do you know your employees have been calling me the old crow?" He didn't even bother to look up. "That's just Sadie—she speaks her mind and means no harm. You're 32; why get so worked up over what a young girl says?" Then he gave me a faint, mocking smile. "Though honestly, it's a pretty fitting nickname." It felt like a cold hand had wrapped around my heart. So that was it—eight years of my youth, nothing more than a joke to him. I turned and walked away, handed in my resignation, and blocked every way he could reach me. But for the first time, the man who had always seemed so calm and untouchable finally panicked. "Elara," he pleaded, "please come back."

I was three months pregnant when our enemies ambushed me on a private drive in Manhattan’s East Side. A bullet punched through the window. Glass buried itself in my shoulder. With the last bit of strength I had, I hit the Moretti family’s encrypted distress signal and called my husband, Adrian Moretti, for help. He didn’t come. Later, I found out he had pulled the Moretti family’s best trauma surgeon and security detail away that night to stay with his old flame, Evelyn Langdon. She had just lost her husband. She was carrying his child. She said a nightmare had left her gasping for air. I lost our baby in the emergency room. When I woke up, the first thing I saw was Evelyn’s new post. [Some people don’t need to ask. He’ll still drop everything and come running. Thank you, A. You always know what I need most.] In the photo, Adrian was kneeling by her bed, fastening the ruby necklace around her throat. The same necklace he had promised me for our tenth anniversary. I didn’t cry. I didn’t make a scene. I called Professor Clark. “Professor, I’ll take the classified seat at the Artemis Northern Institute. Start the Black Ice Protocol. Wipe my public identity as soon as possible.”

Violetta was supposed to be the other woman in her own life. After discovering her husband, Mark, in an unforgivable betrayal with the one person she trusted most, her world fell apart. But what started as the end of a relationship became the beginning of something she never saw coming. In a world where she was once discarded, Violetta discovers that the sweetest revenge isn't just about moving on but it’s about moving up. When she crosses paths with a man who sees her worth, she finds herself playing a game that Mark never intended. Now, she’s not just moving on; she’s rewriting the rules of the family that once tried to break her.

Thirteen years of my life were given to Ethan Cross. I believed in his music before anyone else did, stayed through the long nights when success was only a dream, and held on to every promise that I would be the woman by his side when it all finally came true. After eight years as his girlfriend and four more wearing his ring, he walked away. Seven months later, an invitation arrived. Ethan is getting married. And not to me. He is marrying my cousin sister. The wedding is set on a two week getaway meant for couples only. Ethan may think I will stay behind, broken and forgotten, but he is wrong. I will not be showing up alone. My date is Adrian Cole, Ethan’s powerful boss in the music industry, the man who holds his career in his hands and the one rival he never wanted near me. Ethan thought he left me behind. But this time I am not the girl he abandoned. I am stronger, I have found my own rhythm, and I am walking back into his world with the one man who can break him the way he broke me.

Before our wedding, my fiancé, Carlo Vitale—the youngest Don on the East Coast—held a church ceremony with my stepsister. He said, "According to Mafia rules, only the woman who completes the wedding ceremony with me and receives the blessing of all the family is my true wife. "So even if your sister Elena is carrying my child, she's nothing more than a mistress." After the priest's blessing, they exchanged rings. I stood outside the church, watching through a curtain of rain as he kissed another woman. My face was white. I had loved Carlo for twelve years, from the ages of sixteen to twenty-eight. However, he had only ever had my stepsister, Sophia, not me, in his heart. I chose to let him go. Later, I left for Europe. All I left Carlo was a notice of our broken engagement and a parting gift. For some reason, the man who had always treated me with indifference seemed to have aged ten years overnight.

She was a receptionist in one of her friend's luxurious hotels when he walked there to destroy the complete hotel. She remembers him as she knows him well since high school but he doesn't remember her because she is no more the fatty girl which she was back in her high school time. To save her friend's hotel she stood before him and he abduct her from the place. He manipulates her to become his girlfriend. Few months after he forced her into contract marriage. Several exposures exposed in her life and love blooms between them.

“I need to teach you a lesson for defying me,” Beau says, and in an instant, my leg drops down. He puts his other hand on my waist and lifts me off my chair. Landing perfectly on him, my eyes widen once I feel him against me. “Yes, darlin’, you are the reason for it. And tonight, you are going to satisfy it.” He holds me down, hunger in his eyes. “I’ll do no such thing,” I say, resisting the urge to grind my hips against him. My already is pressed against his hard length, and I find myself wanting to pull it out so he can fill me up to the hilt and make all my dreams a reality. “Oh, you will, and you are going to enjoy it.” **** Delilah Stephen is a young architect trying to make a name for herself without Daddy’s help. She is so close to achieving her goal when something unexpected happens. The investor meant to make her dreams a reality turns out to be someone Delilah wishes never to see again, Beau Williams. He is a handsome billionaire with a dangerous family. He broke Delilah’s heart seven years ago and is now back to win her. Delilah passionately hates Beau, so he has his work cut out for him. She refuses to forget the past, but Beau doesn’t give up. He will stop at nothing to make Delilah feel something for him after so many years. But for how long can he keep trying, and will he ever succeed?

I loved Killian Joe for ten years. I married him when he was nothing—fought for him, covered his mistakes, and built his empire beside him. But he repaid me with betrayal: a mistress, a child, and silence when I begged him to choose me. Now he wants me to stay. But I didn’t walk away to be begged. I walked away to win. I’m not the girl who cried behind closed doors anymore. I’m the woman who owns the building. And the man I once loved? He’ll have to watch me become the thing he fears most— Untouchable.

Evelyn — They said the mate bond was sacred. That he'd protect me. Cherish me. Stay. But while I was screaming in a hospital bed, bringing his child into the world— he was in hers. Now I carry more than his baby. I carry the truth no one wants to say out loud. And I’m done pretending I wasn’t the one left bleeding.

Anica Faith Mendez, a certified secret man-hater but a player during her teenage days, who believes that a man can cheat on his wife, a boyfriend can hook with other girls while winning the heart of his girl with sweet lines and a boy can always consider a girl as their toy. Waking up one day realizing that the world believed she's pregnant- a fake news that spread and caused her to seal the deal of making it real with... Caspian Alexander Arevalo- a certified secret playboy and a black sheep to his noble family's name. Upon knowing the man she seal deal with, it lights the fuse of her teenage days motto. "If he's a player, then I'll give him a game to remember." What if the playboy met someone who is secretly an expert on the field of 'playing hearts'. Will they be able to provide a family for their child? Or will they kept on playing on each other's heart.