New York Public Library Desk Reference 5th Edition Novels & Stories

At the Colonetti family banquet in New York, I stood in the center of the grand hall with more than a dozen girls from different families, all of us waiting to be chosen. Victor, the heir of the Colonetti family, was supposed to announce his fiancée tonight. Along with that announcement, he would present her with the family heirloom, a lily brooch. As an illegitimate daughter of the family, I understood that if I didn’t receive that brooch tonight, it meant I would be sent to Chicago for an arranged marriage. Victor, who had once promised to marry me, changed his mind without warning. With a smile, he pinned the lily brooch onto the chest of the woman standing beside me instead. Then, he leaned close to my ear and whispered, “Let your sister Emily have her moment today. She’s also an illegitimate daughter like you, and she’s also never been valued growing up. Don’t worry. With me here, no one will force you into an arranged marriage.” Even as I looked at him with pleading eyes, he reached out and let Emily take his arm. “Emily is kind and gracious,” he said. “She deserves the lily brooch.” Those words—kind and gracious—turned me into the joke of the entire evening. The next day, I boarded a flight to Chicago alone, but Victor panicked. He used every connection he had and managed to ground every flight heading to Chicago.

Warning: 18+, strong mature, and sexual content. Sneak peek: "I don't believe in God, Hailey," he murmured, as his firm hands settled on my hips and lifted me from his lap, placing me onto his desk, "But... if I did, I would have thanked him for making you." A soft gasp escaped my lips as his hands slid under my college skirt, his fingers brushing on my pussy over my panties. "Damien, you are my brother..." I managed to whisper amid overwhelming desires. This felt so wrong. He emitted a husky chuckle, leaning closer to my ear, his lips brushing against my earlobe. "Correction-Stepbrother." "But-" Before I could utter a word, his hand swiftly slipped down inside my panties, his fingers landing on my bare, wet heat and just when a moan could escape my lips, his mouth forcefully met mine swallowing the scream of pain as well pleasure when two of his fingers thrust into my pussy just like I'd felt them in my dreams... *** When I was dragged across the country to Los Angeles to live with my mom's new husband and his son, the last thing I expected was for my stepbrother to be off-limits. Least of all, I never imagined I'd find myself tempted by the forbidden. Damien Black: sinfully attractive, irrefutably irresistible, and seemingly devoid of warmth. Emotions meant nothing to him; girls were mere toys for him to have in bed. And there came my biggest mistake-believing I could be more than just a toy for him...maybe more than just another conquest in his collection. I was his dirty little secret, one that he wouldn't let go of, accept, shatter entirely, or mend. I was his toy; Well....his favorite one.

During a company dinner, I overindulged in alcohol and mistakenly addressed my boss, Brogan Sheppard, as "husband" in front of everyone. My coworkers laughed it off. "She’s gone crazy trying to chase the boss." Brogan shot me a cold look. "If you can’t control your mouth, maybe you shouldn’t be drinking." In the brief silence that followed, the most difficult client in the room, Leon Williamson, let out a low, mocking laugh. "She was calling me. So why are you getting so worked up?"

After I, Wynn Jaffe, the Chief Forensic Pathologist, submitted my request to transfer into a clerical position, everyone in the department lit up with joy and approved it unanimously. Everyone except my boyfriend’s childhood friend, Yvette Hans, the rookie forensic doctor who called herself the ‘corpse whisperer,’ completely broke down. She burst into my office, grabbed onto my white coat with both hands with reddened eyes. “Senior, your skills may be outdated, but I truly hope you’ll stay and keep speaking up for the victims!” I coldly shrugged off her hand, packed my things, and walked away. In my previous life, she claimed herself as the ‘corpse whisperer,’ someone who could commune with the dead, hear their murmurs, and know what happened to them before they died. I worked tirelessly on every autopsy, dissecting, analyzing, and revising my reports. She only needed a single glance at the body to recite my entire report word-for-word. The victims’ families treated her like a saint, while they sneered at me, accusing me of disrespecting the dead. I could not accept it. I poured everything I had into every examination, but she always beat me to it, revealing the truth before I could. In the end, an extreme group of grieving family members, convinced I desecrated a corpse, kidnapped me, dismembered me, and dumped my remains in the wilderness. When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn back to the very day Yvette first claimed she was a corpse whisperer.

When Deanna finds out that she has to do one more thing to graduate she is taken by surprise. She has to go to the one professor she had a crush on years before and see if he will take her on as a TA. Max looks up to see the one student he wanted in the five years he had been teaching standing there asking for a job. After his internal debate he accepts but he finds he has certain conditions. Everything around the two starts to fall apart as they grow together. The three book series is now complete.

Vorian Rex is the inaccessible elite CEO of NexusVibe, a tech empire that controls the international stage. Affluent beyond extent and submitting to no one, he’s created a lifestyle of authority and confidentiality, concealing his truth: he’s gay, and he’s never permitted anyone near enough to question his dominance. That is, till Zephyr Cole, his new secretary, walks into his office with keen intelligence, subtle resistance, and an aura which dismantles Vorian’s impenetrable barriers. Zephyr is driven, insightful, and seductively enticing; a man who equals Vorian’s intensity. One late-night encounter triggers a bond that could consume them both. However, with a cruel adversary scheming to take NexusVibe, a family heritage at stake, and Zephyr’s own hidden truths threatening to emerge, their forbidden romance becomes an intense game. When a company scheme reveals their truth, Vorian must choose: safeguard his kingdom or fight for the man who’s proven to him what it means to be liberated.

I knew there was no escaping it. My father’s sins would be my undoing. He was a wicked man, feared and hated by many, and now that he was dead, the weight of his crimes had fallen squarely on me. I didn’t even have the chance to grieve—or to breathe—before his Beta dragged me away from the south, from everything I’d ever known. I was supposed to be their Alpha. That was my birthright. But it didn’t matter. The pack had other plans for me, and being their leader wasn’t one of them. My father’s Beta delivered me to the northern Alphas, the very men who despised my father the most. And that’s when I learned the cruelest truth: they were my mates. But they didn’t want me. Warning: This is a reverse harem mild dark romance filled with intense emotions and themes that are not for the faint of heart. Read at your own risk. (This is an edited, well-structured version of the First Edition Scarlett) *******

"Max, I'm so itchy down there. Could you use your stick to scratch it for me?" Beneath the desk, my boss's daughter was perched on my lap, her round little bottom in the air. I was in the middle of a project meeting with my team, a whole group of them standing in front of my desk. She was driving me crazy. My hardness was itching and swelling by the second. I was about to lose it.

During the summer break, I took my daughter, Stella Quinton, to a private beach that I own for some fun and some scuba diving. That's when Felicity Portman, a famous actress, barges into the beach with a group flocking behind her. "This is a private beach that Micah has given me permission to entertain VIP clients at! Hurry up and get lost, you filthy commoners!" The arrogant Felicity has the gall to bring up my husband, Micah Morrison, just to threaten me. When she finds out about my identity, she even makes fun of me for being a useless woman who relies on him for survival. I'm furious, to say the least. As the heiress to the richest family in Seacrest City, how am I a useless woman who relies on men for survival? Also, I'm the one who gave Micah his movie company and all of his resources! But when Micah reaches the beach, he works with Felicity to coerce my darling Stella into putting on a diving performance for a lecherous investor. With a sneer on my face, I summon the Seashark Special Forces, who only take orders from the most elite members of Seacrest City. "Seashark Special Forces, come to Moonrise Bay right now and clear out the area!"

“Beta Andre is my mate?… Oh moon goddess why?” Lillian is a Doctor who had left the pack when she was fifteen. An high school student who was opportune to be in the same institution with the sons of the Alpha and beta—Drake and Andre, with their best friend, Lucas. Despite their social class and untouchable status, she found herself falling deeper and deeper for Drake—the son of the Alpha, which led her to make an unbelievable mistake that made her life in the school and pack so unbearable that she had to relocate to a faraway pack to start her life anew. After some time, she was required to return to where it all started, back to the nightmare she had been running from all her life and had intended to do so quietly until everything came crashing down when she stumbled on her fated mate and she was then torn between the one her heart truly desires and the one meant for her heart. But fate and matters of the heart may be delayed, but can never be denied. This is a story of passion and intense emotions…of pain and regret…..of pure love and patience interwoven in every word, sentences and character and a question boldly hanging over it; Can one successfully decides one’s fate, not minding the one destined for him?