Open When You Need A Hug Novels & Stories

I was getting married, but my boyfriend of five years did not know it yet. Lately, he had been driving a female coworker home every night and coming back late. She had a terrible memory and was always leaving things behind in his car. First it was earrings. Then adhesive bra inserts. Then intimate photos. One night, at midnight, she called to say she had left her allergy medication in his car. My boyfriend pulled his pants back on and rushed out the door to deliver it to her. Because of her, our wedding had already been postponed 19 times. After five years together, I decided to give him one last chance. "Either stop driving her home, or the wedding is off." He stayed silent all night. After that, he actually started coming home on time. I thought things were finally getting better. Then, one week before the wedding, I opened the front door and found half the furniture in our living room gone. The woman next door poked her head out and ran a hand over my washing machine with a smile. "Amanda, we're neighbors now. Ignatius loaned me the money to buy a house. He said I could use some of these old appliances until I get settled." My hands trembled as I opened my banking app. The $300,000 wedding fund we had spent five years saving was gone. Every last cent. This time, I did not even have the strength to argue. Then my mother called. "Sweetheart, how would you feel about moving the wedding to Rose Garden? I think your current venue doesn't do you justice." I looked around the half-empty living room and laughed. "Sure. And while we're at it, let's replace the groom too." After all, my mother had remarried into one of the wealthiest families in the country. My five stepbrothers had been waiting years for me to come home. And among the men around them who wanted to marry me? There was no shortage of candidates.

I got pregnant at the same time as a doctor from another department. But right after my nuchal translucency scan, the charge nurse came to see me. "The hospital is short-staffed. Leadership says only one female employee can be pregnant at a time." "This time, the slot goes to Dr. Valerie Stone. You need to terminate yours." I froze. "Dr. Stone and I aren't even in the same department. Our work doesn't overlap. "And I'm a nurse. She's a doctor. Our schedules are completely different." But the charge nurse only tapped stubbornly on my desk. "This is hospital policy. No one gets to be the exception. "Either you terminate the pregnancy, or you transfer to logistics. Your choice." A transfer to logistics meant my career would be over. No promotions. No clinical path. Just a rock-bottom base salary, barely above minimum wage. My fingers slowly tightened. I had worked at that hospital for eight years. I was one of the hardest-working nurses on the front line, and I won performance awards every year. Yet I was not even allowed to be pregnant. I took a breath and looked calmly at the charge nurse. "I agree to transfer to logistics." Less than a week after I left, the whole department fell apart.

When The Counselor Falling In Love To Mr. Wrong... Zillion Malloy the CEO frustrated at being abandoned by his wife comes to see a beautiful counselor for advice on his tumultuous household. Caroline had never been so furious to a client who was so skeptical and cynical about the advice she could give him for the good of his household. But over time the relationship between the client and the counselor turns into a forbidden love affair which is very exciting for both of them. Caroline, who has been living alone with her adopted daughter, feels Zillion is a different man from her former husbands. Even Zillion slowly started to forget his wife and turned to the beautiful counselor, Ms. Caroline Chauffer

On the day my daughter is discharged from the hospital after recovering from the flu, I run into my ex-husband, Zachary Levine, whom I have been divorced from for seven years. He is there to pick up his wife, who has just given birth. He looks a little surprised as his gaze moves up and down to take in my clothes, which is still stained from my child's vomit. I had no time to change out of it earlier. "Long time no see. How have you been lately?" he asks. I smile and say I am doing fine. As we are about to part, he grabs my arm. "Alyssa, our son misses you a lot. If you are having any difficulties, don't push yourself. The passcode for the house in the north of the city is still your birthday. You can go there anytime." I politely decline, and he lets out a sigh. "After all these years, you are still as stubborn as you were back then. Don't hate me." I smile but say nothing. There needs to be love for there to be hate. But now, he is just a stranger to me.

While they slice me apart, I desperately call my brother, Nathan Slade. He finally picks up as my consciousness starts to slip and answers in an annoyed voice, "What now?" "Nathan, help—" I don't get to finish before he cuts me off. "Can't you ever go a day without drama? Gemma's graduation is at the end of the month. Miss it, and I swear I'll kill you!" Then, he hangs up without a second thought. The agonizing pain swallows me whole, and my eyes close for good, tears still trailing down my cheeks. Well, good news, Nathan… You won't have to kill me because I'm already dead.

When Love Crosses the Line is a contemporary romance novel (complete at 300 chapters) that explores the emotional complexities of love, culture, and self-determination in the British-Nigerian diaspora. Amara Collins, a bright, ambitious young woman raised in the vibrant but tradition-bound Nigerian community of South London, has always walked the line between cultural duty and personal dreams. When she begins university at Kensington Metropolitan, she meets Darren Okafor—handsome, intelligent, and from a family her parents proudly approve of. For a while, everything aligns: faith, tribe, expectations, and a future they can all agree on. But her world shifts when she's posted to Manchester for her youth service year and meets Liam Adeyemi, a gifted artist with a quiet intensity and a radically different outlook on life. He’s not from her tribe, not what her family expected—but he makes her feel truly seen. With Liam, she finds not just love, but freedom, creativity, and a path she never dared to imagine for herself. As pressure mounts from her family to return to the path they’ve chosen for her, Amara must decide: will she sacrifice her heart to please her family or cross the cultural lines drawn around her and fight for a love that could cost her everything?

My father came from Italy to watch my first wedding. He watched Luca Romano let go of my hand ten minutes before the vows, because Celeste called and said she could not breathe. That day, Don Moretti did not scream. “Take the time you need. But when you finally understand he will not choose you at the altar, come home.” I thought he did not understand love. So I stayed in New York. I gave Luca seven weddings. Every time, he came back with flowers, apologies, and a new wedding date. “Elena,” he always said, “this is the last time.” Even his friends had stopped pretending not to laugh. “She won’t leave,” one of them said. “She just wants him to apologize harder.” I would have stayed for real love. I would not stay for a man who only remembered me after choosing someone else. That was when I finally understood. He had mistaken my love for a place he could always return to. On the morning of our eighth wedding, I put my engagement ring into a white velvet box. Just then, my father called. “The helicopter is ready,” he said. At the altar, Luca waited for me with the wedding ring in his hand. This time, I let him wait.

The war between vampires and werewolves has raged for centuries. But Dorian, the most revered vampire prince, shattered every rule and bound himself to me—a werewolf. The Elders punished him for it. For this, he was chained in sacred silver for days on end. Forced to drink the blood of beasts. He nearly died in a baptism of holy water. The pain was absolute. But when he saw me again, his eyes were bloodshot as he kissed my tears away. "The moment we bonded, I made a vow," he whispered. "You are my eternal mate. I will never forsake you." Finally, his family—the Valkyries—agreed. But they had one condition. He could leave the vampire world with me. But first, he had to sleep with Liliana, the pureblood noblewoman. He had to give his family a new, powerful heir. Dorian held me, his voice tight with desperation. "Please, Freya. Just wait a little longer. A few more years, and we can go to the human world. We can have our eternity." I waited. Night after night, he went to her bed. A hundred nights of betrayal passed before she finally conceived. But their daughter, Aria, was born without the proper bloodline mark. She couldn't be the heir. They had to have another. I endured another two hundred nights of their betrayal. Liliana was pregnant again. But on Aria's first birthday, sunlight somehow flooded her room. She was dying. Everyone thought I did it. I was locked in a cellar lined with silver. Dorian's face was a mask of pain and exhaustion as he confronted me. "I told you we could leave after the next child was born. You're the only one here immune to the sun. Why would you hurt my daughter?!" Tears streamed down my swollen face as I tried to deny it, but the silver poison burning in my bones had already stolen my voice. By the time the cellar door opened again, the wolf inside me was fading. I forced myself to my feet and walked toward the Valkyrie Elders. This eternal bond he promised? I was done.

“You've read the contract, I assume?” His tone was soft but firm. His eyes, however, were fixated on her lips. “Every word.” Aurora hesitated, fingers brushing against the folder's edge. Michael furrowed his brows, gauging her expression. “Are you sure you want this? You can say no, and we’ll simply pretend this never happened.” “No,” Aurora said firmly, gripping the edges of her skirt. Her entire body pulsed with need for him, so how could she disagree? “I want this.” She quickly signed the contract. His hands left her jaw, reaching down to pull her up and against his office table. His hands slowly reached under her skirt. “Well, then. Let us begin, shall we?” *** Aurora Lane thought the worst day of her life was catching her boyfriend trying to sneak off on a hotel trip with her best friend, using her money. She was wrong. Booking the suite solo, she never expected to find a stranger already there. Tall, brooding, and infuriatingly magnetic. Michael Carson, a billionaire hotel mogul who lives for control, should’ve thrown her out. Instead, one night of passion turned into something neither could forget. When fate brings them together again, their simmering chemistry becomes impossible to ignore. A secret “no-strings” contract should have kept their hearts safe, but the more they try to resist, the deeper they fall. Then the past returns to destroy everything. A jealous ex. A web of lies. A powerful family that will do anything to keep them apart. And when a shocking betrayal turns deadly, Aurora must decide whether love is worth risking everything for… even her life. In a world of money, manipulation, and impossible love, can two broken hearts rewrite their destiny, or will the secrets between them burn it all down?

When my ex-husband, Hanson Rowse, got remarried, I jumped into the ocean with our ten-year-old daughter, Tess Rowse, in my arms. The police called Hanson and my parents. The wedding reception was cut short, and they all rushed over. My soul hung in the air above it all, watching as Tess was pulled from the water. The sight of her hit like a blade to the chest. At the hospital, my parents looked at her with nothing but cold indifference. My brother, Edward Wells, didn't hesitate. He stepped forward and slapped her hard across the face. "You're just like your mother! Always causing trouble and pulling cheap stunts like this just to get attention." Hanson's fists clenched. He scanned the area, and when he couldn't see me anywhere, anger spilled into his eyes. "Where's Melody? She picked my wedding day to pull this stunt, and now she won't even show her face? If she really wanted to die, why leave behind this burden?" At his words, Tess suddenly moved. She stumbled toward the window, climbed up, and before anyone could react, she jumped. The room went dead silent for a heartbeat. Then, the screaming started. What they didn't know was this: the first thing Tess and I learned at that reform school was obedience.