I Can't Run Away Seventeen

After an extended silence, she gathered the courage to speak. “Mum, what do you mean? I have my life in Paris.” she implored, clutching her mother’s hand. Lois diverted her gaze, the moment slipping away. “Refusing my offer means also returning all the assistance I provided when your business was in trouble,” she said, rising to leave. “You have just 48 hours to agree to my terms, and remember, I dislike waiting.” Dianna has always been in love with Clinton Blackwood before he married her twin sister and since then she has despised him. She maintained her distance from her twin sister, Daphne, and her husband enjoying her peaceful and lonely life. Her life took a turn when her sister died. Dianna's mum, Lois Aaron, proposed a new business contract for the Blackwood's, leaving them in a tight corner. She was made to get married to her sister's husband a year after her sister's dismay.

On our sixth wedding anniversary, my cheeks burn as I dodge my husband, Ethan Grant, leaning in for a hungry kiss. I push him toward the nightstand for a rubber. What he doesn't know is that I've tucked a surprise in there, a positive pregnancy test. I can already see it, the way his whole face will light up the second he finds it. But the moment his hand goes for the drawer, his phone goes off. His best friend, Henry Miller, comes on the line in Danish. "Mr. Grant, how was last night? That new love couch our company rolled out is treating you okay?" Ethan lets out a low laugh and answers in Danish, "The massage feature's great. Saves me from having to rub Sandy's back myself." He still has me pulled tight against him, but his eyes look straight through me, like he's seeing someone else. "This stays between us. If my wife ever finds out I slept with her sister, I'm done." It feels like someone just put a knife through my chest. What they don't know is that I minored in Danish in college, so I catch every single word. I force myself to stay calm, but the arms I have looped around Ethan's neck won't stop shaking. At that moment, I stop hesitating and decide I'll take the offer from that international research project. Three days from now, I'll be gone from Ethan's world for good.

She was meant to marry Kaelen, the heir of the white pack, that would unite their clans in peace. But she defiles tradition and enters the Pack tournament as a male and one mistake changes everything. Her mask falls…and her fate is claimed by Draven, the ruthless Alpha heir of Duskbane Pack. Bound by the mate bond she never wanted, Liora finds herself torn between loyalty and desire, between the boy who once promised her forever and the wolf who marks her as his. But her secret hides something far greater than the tournament—inside her lies a dormant power the Moon Goddess herself has kept bound. A power that could cure or destroy. As war brews between packs, betrayals fracture the people she thought she could trust. Liora must decide: follow the path the Goddess carved for her… or burn it all to the ground to claim her own destiny.

When Professor Adrian Hale walks into his first seminar of the semester, he expects the usual—half-awake students, predictable questions, and the comfortable distance that has kept his life quiet and controlled for years. He does not expect her. Eden Marlowe, twenty-two, sharp-minded, quietly bold, and entirely uninterested in hiding the way she looks at him. She’s the kind of student who asks dangerous questions, the kind that sees right through a person’s façade. And Adrian feels himself unravel a little more every time their eyes meet. He knows the rules. He wrote half of them. And Eden is the one person he has no business wanting. But the pull between them is immediate—magnetic, unnerving, impossible to ignore. What begins as lingering glances and charged silences quickly spirals into something neither of them can pretend is innocent. Eden isn’t shy about testing boundaries, and Adrian isn’t nearly as composed as he pretends to be. As lectures blur into tension-filled encounters and office hours turn into moments he can’t forget, the line between professional and forbidden thins… then threatens to disappear entirely. The more Adrian tries to distance himself, the deeper he falls into the gravity of her presence. The more Eden pushes, teases, and challenges him, the faster his restraint cracks. In a world where reputation matters and consequences are real, they have to decide: Is this obsession worth the risk? Or will crossing the line cost them both more than they ever expected?

The girl my family sponsored was a manipulative opportunist. She had my childhood friends wrapped around her finger. I helped her out of pity for her poor background, but she climbed her way up, slowly taking my place. She faked innocence in front of the brothers while sabotaging me behind my back. When they found out, they called me petty rather than blame her. I got fed up, married my college crush, and moved on. But they flew in overnight, begging for forgiveness.

The day he first saw her, one thought consumed him, "I want to fuck her." Their first meeting, which seemed like an unexpected encounter, turned her life upside down. Rainee humiliated him in front of everyone just because Alex bullied her beloved brother. Alex Fraser swore to own her all for himself, to make her beg on her knees until he was satisfied. But their obsession led them to get deceived by their own desire.

On our fifth anniversary, Henry Judd—the guy who once swore he'd propose—rented out an entire mall for Cecilia Cheape's birthday. A diamond the size of a pigeon's egg sparkled on her finger. I'd been dumb enough to think it was meant for me. "Cece, I'm gonna give you a birthday you'll never forget," he announced, loud enough for the whole world to hear. Then he yanked the tab off a soda can and handed it to me. "Lulu, those gaudy things don't suit you. You deserve something unique." He slid the can tab onto my finger—his version of a proposal. Cecilia got the dream birthday. I got a piece of trash and a slap of reality. Later, when he found out I was marrying someone else, he got down on one knee with that same ring and begged me to say yes.

“You call yourself my mate, yet you can't give me a son; an heir to my throne, and for that reason, you don't deserve that title,” He blurted, and I instantly knew what was coming next. **** Astrid thought her life had finally taken a new turn when the doctor told her she was pregnant but getting home to see that her mate was in bed with her best friend broke her totally. Things got worse when her mate rejected her and she was brought down to a slave. With the safety of her baby in mind, she ran away from the pack and found shelter in the arms of an Alpha, who was determined to use her for his own selfish gains. Her mate realizes his mistakes and now he wants her back but she doesn't want him and hides the triplets from him. What happens when this Alpha she thinks cared for her turns against her? Will she be able to cope especially now that her heart was wavering for her ex mate? Truths are about to be unfolded and secrets, exposed. What does fate hold for her?

When a hurricane comes, my husband, the leader of a rescue team, takes away everything we've stored at home so he can save his true love. I plead, "Leave some for me. I'm pregnant." He shakes me off. "How can you be so evil? The windows at Lottie's home have already been blown away. Don't tell me you're going to sit by and watch her die! She's not like you—you're not afraid of everything. The hurricane will be over soon, so you won't need any of this stuff." After that, he leaves without another look back. What he doesn't know is that there's also a crack in our home's windows.

My husband, Ryan Costa, is one of the most renowned scientists in the apocalypse. To retrieve a reagent, he goes deep into the high-risk zone with his secretary, Clara Gibson. I, Alice Ashford, lead an elite squad to protect him all the way. But when a zombie horde besieges us, he refuses to retreat. "With the reagent Clara brings back, I can develop a serum that saves all of humanity! Just ten more minutes! Ten minutes, please!" Ryan insists. I feel torn as I see the zombies closing in. I can't gamble with the lives of my squad on a vague, uncertain sliver of hope. In that split second, I knock Ryan out and drag him onto the helicopter. As a result, Clara dies being torn apart by the zombies. When Ryan wakes up, the first thing he does is slap me hard across the face. He rages, "How can you be so selfish? You've doomed all of humanity!" I am sentenced to be burned at the stake. I die in unbearable pain as the crowd curses me relentlessly. When I open my eyes again, I am back at the moment when Ryan stands in front of the helicopter, blocking our retreat. I am just about to speak when I suddenly hear his inner voice, "Clara should have grabbed her makeup bag by now. Hopefully, she brings something back with her. Otherwise, I'll have a hard time explaining myself to Alice." My mind goes blank, and I stare at him in shock. He smiles at me just like he did in my previous life and asks, "Darling, don't you think we should wait?"