Novel & Cerita No Longer A Stand In

Unforgiving. “When love feels like a battle, don’t run… stand your ground…” I breathed out slowly. I was standing my ground. For her. For us. For the future I hadn’t told her about yet. A future I wasn't even sure about myself. But God… the cost of it. Watching her sit alone… pretending she wasn’t breaking inside. The moment the song ended and applause filled the hall, I knew I couldn’t sit anymore. I stood. Not for the ceremony. Not because tradition demanded it.

The bottle wobbles then points straight at Stan. “Oh boy,” he says, voice smooth. Inker smirks. “Take off your shorts. Boxers stay on,” she says casually. Stan stands, hands hooking into his shorts like it’s nothing and tugs them down. My breath hitches before I can stop it. He’s in nothing but white condom boxers now. My eyes betray me, darting lower. The fabric outlines his dick perfectly, clinging in a way that leaves very little to imagination.

What she was doing now, though, was clearly crossing the line with everyone. Samantha seemed to be oblivious to the way everyone's faces had darkened and kept going. Unfortunately, patience had its limits. Samantha had barely gotten her first word out when the elder in front of me slapped her. "Don't push it, Samantha! You really thought we didn't know? Joseph has been dead for a while. The one standing here is clearly Joshua!" the older woman snapped.

I stand in the middle of the room in a shirt with no jacket and let this happen because I have learned that Tiara in this mode is not an obstacle, she is a force of nature, and force of nature requires weathering not arguing. "Try the grey one," she says. I try the grey one. She looks at it. Soren looks at it. I look at myself in the mirror and think that I have survived eight years of running and this is the thing that might actually do me in. "Better," Tiara says. "Better isn't yes," I reply. "Better is closer to yes," she says. "Stand differently." "How do you want me to stand?" "Like you belong there," she says. "Not like you're ready to leave."

Above us, the future waited unpromising, unfinished, real. We weren’t untouched. But we were unbroken. And for the first time, the price of standing didn’t feel like loss. It felt like ownership.

"Don't be so moody all the time. Look at Rose—she just got here and she's already handling everything. You need to learn to stand on your own two feet." Stand on my own. I picked up the bowl beside me—cold soup, brewed with silverleaf. Bitter enough to numb my tongue. Logan used to make this for me. He knew I couldn't take the bitterness, so he'd always stir in three spoonfuls of honey. Tonight's bowl? Not a single grain of sugar. I set it down and stood. "I'm going to bed." Behind me, the fire crackled. Derek laughed. Logan told Rose, "Don't eat too much spice—bad for your throat." No one called after me.

Introduction Even when Victor Ravelli, the Don, picked out a gift for me, he bought two and let my sister Diana choose first. One was a black diamond signet ring he'd paid a fortune for at an auction in Russia. The other was an obsidian brooch that came free with the diamond. It didn't go with my wedding dress at all. For once, I spoke up, pointing to the black diamond ring before Diana could claim it. "This time, can I choose first?" Victor twisted the family's bone ring around his thumb and ruffled my hair. "Diana's always been competitive. If she can't have her first choice, she doesn't want anything at all. You're just filling in for her. What you wear doesn't matter." I fell silent, sta

There were two laughingstocks in the underworld. One was me, the stand-in bride kept under house arrest at the Santangelo estate. The other was my husband by arranged marriage, Leon Santangelo, a Don who'd lost both his power and the use of his legs. But no one knew my real father headed the Council, which controlled the world's arms trade. My brother led the Assassins' Alliance, and his name struck fear into everyone. Years ago, my father and brother casually mentioned that they needed someone to gather intelligence in Sicily. So I signed a marriage contract and married Leon. After the wedding, I lived in a villa I wasn't allowed to leave. I spent freely on my brother's unlimited black card

he continued “I don’t want you anywhere around me, you are not allowed in the same space as me, your room is the first door on your left thereby you have no goddam business upstairs. Breathe the same air with me and I would make sure you regret every moment of your life” I could feel his hot breath on my face, the vein bulging at the side of his head visible from up close. I noticed how evidently dark his eyes were almost pitch black and it sent cold chills down my spine.

I stood up and went straight to the kitchen. " Sorry, Mrs. Yolanda " I called her not knowing what to call her precisely. " Oh honey, call me Yola" she simply smiled. " Sorry for disturbing Yola, I just wanted some water " " You didn't disturb me at all, here" she said lending me a glass of water and I took a sip. Something caught my attention near the kitchen entrance, a small stand near the door, it has a picture of what it seems like four people. I walked to it and grabbed it, there was a light skin guy hugging Yolanda from the back and two teenagers in front of them. The boy with black hair and green eyes smiled while the girl with the same green eyes and curly black hair looked annoyed.