My Youth Began With Him

Have you ever had an affair? Because me I did it, I know it's wrong but why can't I forget that night? The way how he claimed me and made me feel even weirder when it came to bed. Athena Escarra is a promising young lawyer who loves her work more than anything. She's been married to her husband, Oliver Smith, for six years and would never indulge in an affair-until she met Alessandro Sinclair. Alessandro Sinclair, a prominent CEO of the Sinclair Company, is your everyday rich man who has casual flings and moves on-until he met Athena Escarra. He found himself irresistibly attracted to her and would do anything to have her again.

After I graduated, I kept hitting walls while job hunting, but my boyfriend landed a position at a big company with ease. My boyfriend of two years voluntarily gave me his salary to comfort me. When I finally found a job, he worried about my long commute and bought me a car. All my friends envied me for having such a thoughtful boyfriend. In order to buy our first house, I secretly transferred my own salary into his account as well. A year later, we decided to get married. He held my hand and said excitedly, “I know you don’t have much saved. I don’t want a single cent from you. All I want is your whole heart.” I was deeply moved by how considerate he was. However, on the day of our engagement, he pulled out photos of me with more than 40 different men and accused me of cheating. I stared at them. I had never even seen these people before. Then, he showed me his card’s transaction history, filled with charges from a place called Sunshine Club. “I trusted you with my card, and you used my money to fool around! I’m not marrying you. Give me back my car and the 800,000 dollars you’ve burned through.” I calmly took out the card he had given me before and sneered, “Sure. Let’s settle the accounts properly.” The moment my attorney revealed the true financial statements, he was completely stunned.

The day Pedro Palmer's mom was supposed to get my kidney, I ghosted. He waited outside the OR for ten hours. What did he get? A death notice. After that, he went full beast mode on his career. Five years later, his company blew up. Media darling. CEO. Power suit. And yeah, he was holding another girl's hand, all smiles for the cameras. "Do you have anything to say to Ruth Rackham? We heard she supported your early days," a reporter asked. Not even a pause. "Yeah. Thanks for vanishing. For letting my mom die with questions. For wrecking me. She taught me not to trust anyone." He stepped in closer, eyes cold. "This is what you wanted, Ruth? Too bad. Love's gone. And you? Not even worth my hate." That's when Nellie Lyon, the reporter, went pale. "Mr. Palmer... Ruth Rackham died five years ago. She was the test subject. She donated her body—before she passed..."

I got back from a six month work trip and found my pet hamster dead. I couldn't just bury it. I wanted to preserve it, keep it whole. But when I carefully opened it up, I went still. Its lungs were pitch black. That kind of damage couldn't happen fast. It meant months of breathing toxic smoke. But my husband and I never smoked. So who'd been living in my house while I was gone?

SYNOPSIS Anna thought she was saving her mother when she agreed to donate a kidney. Instead, she lost everything. Her mother died, and Anna was left with a strange, unnatural heartbeat that no doctor could explain. The hospital insists nothing is wrong, but Anna knows the truth. Something inside her is not human. Across the city, billionaire Adrian Wolfe wakes up with a new heart and a second chance at life. But the heart inside him does not feel like his own. It reacts. It pulls. It leads him to someone he has never met. Anna. When their paths cross, everything begins to unravel. Secrets buried inside hospital walls. A surgery that was never what it seemed. And a truth that changes everything. Anna’s heart was stolen. And it is now beating inside Adrian. As her artificial heart begins to fail, the line between love and survival disappears. Because the only way for Anna to live… is for Adrian to lose everything.

My dad is a fan of tough love parenting. When I was a kid, there was a time when I obtained full marks on two subjects. But he told me, "Your grades don't mean anything in life. If you were a true man, you'd leap down five floors without batting an eyelash." Some time later, I was awarded for my act of bravery. But Dad scoffed in my face. "Not even a hair is harmed on your head. Why should you be awarded anyway?" I thought Dad wanted me to go through more training in life. On Christmas Eve, he ditched me on a snowy mountain under the guise of wanting me to go through more training. He didn't give me a tent or a lighter. Later on, Dad even brags about his parenting method to his relatives and friends. "A real man should survive and thrive in a desperate situation! I told Julian that he can forget about being my son if he can't even make his way back to the summit!" But the red dot on the GPS tracker installed in his phone hasn't moved for the past three hours. The truth is, I've already frozen to death in the mountains. Trapped in my fist is a crumpled, torn scrap of paper. Meanwhile, my soul is currently floating above the dining table while watching Dad brag about his tough love parenting.

THIS BOOK HAS A TOUCH OF DARK ROMANCE AND IS DEFINITELY NOT SUITABLE FOR YOUNG READERS. “Ivan, what are you wearing?” Ruslan growled, his gaze seizing me up. “Clothes, of course,” I replied, trying to sound nonchalant despite my heart thumping rapidly in my ribcage. “I’m leaving for my friend’s birthday party.” “You won’t leave wearing that,” he muttered, his eyes as dark as the night. “Why?” I asked, looking into his eyes and challenging him. “Because no man other than me has the right to see you in that,” he said, his voice low and possessive. ********** I was never supposed to fall for him. He’s my stepbrother, and that’s a line we shouldn't cross. But I couldn’t help myself. He’s a powerful and ruthless man, a Mafia lord with a bad reputation. Yet I’m drawn to him, even though I know I shouldn’t be. As his little sister, I was always off-limits to him, but now, he’s starting to see me in a different way. He looks at me with a hunger that scares me, and I feel like I’m in danger. I’m torn between my loyalty to our family and my desire for him. Our love is forbidden, and it could destroy us both. His world is violent and dark, and I’m not sure I can handle it. Do I follow my heart, or do I walk away from the danger that is him?

In order to raise money for her mother's medical treatment, Heather, framed by her step sister Helena, accidentally had sex with a strange man named Killian and received a reward from him but Heather was too late and her mother died in the hospital. Devastated and heartbroken, she left the country after finding out that she is pregnant for the strange man. Five years later, Heather returned to her home town as a successful wedding dress designer but things got in between her and Killian again. Sex, love, hate and traps became the weakness of Heather, Killian and their suspicious allies.

One week after my death, my husband, Christopher Ford, was making love on our bed with his one true love. His face showed pure satisfaction. "Finally, I don’t have to deal with that bar hostess anymore." Later, he held my belongings, weeping with regret. "Phoebe, why haven’t you come back?" It seemed he had forgotten that he had already pushed me to my death that night. I was forced to donate my bone marrow to his one true love, and I died, along with our unborn child.

In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Helen wakes up one morning with an atomized heart. A week later, she throws herself off a cliff. What caused her heart to self-destruct? Her on-and-off relationship with the odd Tom? The circumstances of a global crisis? Or the alleged accident that killed her neighbour Paul a few days ago?