Paid

Elena dreams of becoming a world-class chef. On the day she sets out to pursue her passion, her father, Jon Nolan, sells her in marriage to Brad, who paid off Jon's debts just to have Elena - and win a bet. For two years, she plans her escape from the hellish marriage. Suddenly faced with an external danger that threatened her life and that of her unborn child, she flees prematurely into Boston, carrying a secret that could bring down the most ruthless crime family in Massachusetts and her husband. Now, these men searched the city for her. Elena finds shelter in the Banks’ Family Center, where she hides until her child, Sky is born. Ary Banks, a reclusive billionaire with zero interest in love, walks into Elena's life. The first woman he ever finds intriguing! Ary soon learns that beyond her enchanting laughter is a world of storm, too enormous for her to survive. That same storm now poses a threat to his empire and everyone he cares about. To save his empire, he must protect Elena and Sky. But this means he must be willing to battle not only the external enemies but his estranged mother who has ruthless ambitions and also welcome disruption in his controlled world. Obsessed with controlling his life, Ary's mother will stop at nothing to tear away those closest to him - especially the woman he’s beginning to love - until she is the only anchor he has left, until she could rule his empire and life. Thrusted on each other by fate, Elena and Ary realize their growing connection and dare to trust again. As old wounds resurface, new enemies arise. They must decide if their fragile love is worth the fight - or if it’ll be destroyed before it could ever bloom.

You have been cheating on me?” I whispered as I stared at my husband who was shamelessly hugging my stepsister in my presence. He shrugged. “You don't call it cheating when I never saw you as my wife. Besides, you are barren.”  "I want a divorce." He blurted out coldly without looking at me. I gasped in shock, my heart breaking into a thousand pieces as tears fell down my cheeks. "You want a divorce after everything?" I choked out, "I gave you my love, my kidney, Liam. I risked my life for you. And you know...  you know I can’t conceive because of that surgery.” He didn’t flinch...  He didn’t even look guilty. Instead, he narrowed his eyes and said with cold finality, “And I gave you a luxury life you could never afford. I think that is enough compensation for whatever you think you have done for me.” His voice was ice, no emotion, no remorse. I pressed a hand to my chest as the pain tightened around my heart. God, He just reduced my sacrifices to a transaction… a trade for comfort. So after everything, that’s all I was to him? A debt he paid off with money? ***************************************************** Aliyah lost her womb after giving her kidney to save her husband’s life. Instead of gratitude, he mocked her, called her barren, cheated on her with her stepsister, and forced her to sign divorce papers in shame. But fate took a turn. Aliyah later married a powerful billionaire tycoon. Now, the very people who betrayed her are on their knees, begging for mercy. Will she forgive them or give them the taste of their own medicine?

He knelt down again, his eyes level with her lower lips. He stared at her pussy, remembering how she’d tasted, how she’d felt as she came on his fingers and mouth. He glanced up at her. “Babe, I can’t wait to go down on you again.” He pressed a kiss to her mound, his tongue darting out to give her a teasing lick as he pulled back. “You’re so damn hot, you know that?” “Uh,” she gasped as his fingers slid inside. “Please, Luke…” “Please?” he said, his thumb massaging her throbbing clit even as his fingers moved in and out of her. “Please what?” “Please…” She threw her head back, tried to keep standing. God, the man was going to kill her. “Please go down on me again.” **** Nine weeks ago, Selena Perez chose survival, and paid for it with her breasts. The double mastectomy saved her life, but shattered her sense of femininity. She doesn’t want desire, romance, or complications... especially not from a dark, dangerous man who looks at her like she’s still whole. Luke Rhodes lost his left hand in Afghanistan three years ago. He doesn’t dwell on it. He cooks, he bartends, he lives his life. He has almost everything he wants – except Selena. And wanting her isn’t casual. It’s consuming. Their connection ignites fast and deep, catching them both off guard. Selena gives Luke her body, and her fragile trust. What she doesn’t know is that Luke is hiding someone from her. A secret that threatens to destroy everything she’s begun to believe about him… and herself.

Long long ago... A powerful vampire-witch prince and a royal lycan princess were fated to be mated. At first, the world was stunned. A union so impossible—so unnatural in the eyes of many. But as time passed, their love blossomed so deep into their very being. Against all odds, they made their bond eternal. Centuries later, they were blessed with a little daughter—Taishiri Nefferca. Just like her name, she was unique…incomparable. She was their whole universe. Their reason to exist. Until the day everything collapsed. The lycan princess was lost and the prince, in a desperate act of protection, gave his daughter away—to save her. *** On her 18th birthday, Neffie Hale was meant to reveal a secret she'd buried deep for the past two years. But she wasn’t ready. She didn’t know what would happen if she let it out… or what she’d become once it was no longer hidden. All her life, she’d been labeled a freak. An outcast. It didn’t matter that she had a completely normal twin. Or that she was the royalty. None of it mattered. And when it's time to unveil the secrets, it didn't go as planned. Not even close. Even if the secrets stayed buried—she paid the price. A price that nearly cost her everything… even her life. And just when she thought things couldn’t spiral further—another truth from her forgotten past broke the surface. She didn’t know what to believe anymore… Or where to run… Or who she truly was. But with a newly found mate, an overprotective father returned to her life, and a divine sister by her side—Neffie no longer felt like an outcast. She just didn’t know how to live in the light she’d never been allowed to touch.

"You are mine!" He said with his dominating voice holding my neck, he was choking me, I was frightened to the very core, shaking. "The moment I paid you that huge sum of money, you became an asset to me" he added "You can't back out now. It's too late" he said again, still holding me. "I'm not yours" I managed to say in a cracked voice. "I will never be yours" I replied with a cracked voice trying to breathe." "You are nothing, you are just a mere whore with nothing else but a standing pole, a hoe who spreads her legs for money and  that's all you will ever be. A stripping hoe!" he said, tears rolled down from my cheeks as I began to cry. "If you try to break the deal we have by revealing it to an outsider, you will be dead! And come to think about it, who would believe the words that come from a stripping hoe like yourself? No one, no one will ever believe you! Because you know what you are? A complete Street whore. That's exactly what you are and what you will ever be." "If I'm a complete whore to you. Why did you choose me?" "Because you are nobody. I don't want my family digging into your profile and finding something, so I chose you. You were the perfect match that fit into all of this charade" he said intuitively. "I don't want to do this anymore,  I will wire you back your money first thing tomorrow morning" I said, trying to leave. He drags my hand vigorously. I was scared to the very core, shaking like a drenched rat. "You don't seem to understand the concept of our agreement, you don't seem to understand, Khloe"

I check on family businesses in the countryside with my girlfriend, Mildred McClure, in tow. At noon, we stop by my uncle, Barron Cortez's, place for a simple lunch. Just as we are getting ready to leave, his new wife, whom he married just six months ago, Hilda Ross, rushes out and demands that we settle the bill. "Elden, you two just had the Supreme Farmhouse Set Meal, which is 1,888.80 dollars, and your girlfriend picked three organic, pesticide-free tomatoes in the garden. That's 199.80 dollars. "With an 80% service charge, your total comes to 3,800 dollars." Mildred is stunned. "Elden, do we have to pay to eat at your uncle's place?" I start to feel embarrassed, and my expression darkens as I look at Hilda, my supposed aunt, who's barely any older than me. "I've grown up eating at my uncle's place and never paid a single penny. Besides, your prices are downright outrageous!" Hilda calmly whips out a price menu and righteously declares, "That's all ancient history. Now, we're running a farmhouse business where all prices are clearly marked, so everyone pays the same rate. "Barron said you're some big boss in the city. Surely you're not going to stiff us over a little bill, are you?" She steps in front of the gate to block the exit with her body and shoots me a contemptuous look. "Even family settles their accounts. If you don't pay up today, don't even dream about stepping through this door!" While Mildred panics, I laugh in disbelief before taking out my phone and dialing Barron's number. "Uncle Barron, Hilda wants to settle accounts between family, so don't you think it's time we settled our accounts too?"

In the eighth year of helping Keith Hunter pay off his debts, I was diagnosed with stomach cancer. I tested the waters and asked him, half joking, "If I got cancer, would you save me?" He laughed, saying I was overthinking it. Then he added firmly, "If it ever came to that, I would sell my blood to pay for your treatment." I lay awake all night, tossing and turning, still feeling like I couldn't drag him down with me. Before taking a sleeping pill, a notification popped up on my phone about a social media post. [How do I dump an older woman who paid off my debts for eight years without too much drama?] The profile picture looked eerily like Keith's silhouette from behind. He wrote, [Eight years ago, my family went bankrupt. She stuck with me, living off dry toast and squeezing into a rented apartment. She helped me pay back over 600 thousand dollars in debt. [Back then, I thought she was innocent and cute. Now, I feel like she's just a materialistic woman putting on an act. [Last month, she even asked whether I would save her if she got cancer. How does someone even ask that? [Obviously, she was trying to get money out of me. Good thing I didn't tell her that my family recovered three years ago. [Now, my family has arranged a fiancée for me. She's the daughter of a publicly listed company. [I want to cut things off with my girlfriend, but I'm afraid she'll cling to me. After all, she wasted a lot of her youth on me.] By the time I finished reading, I had crushed the stomach cancer diagnosis in my hand into a wrinkled mess.

I never should have let my mother hold my future hostage. She paid my tuition with his father’s money. Locked my birth certificate, my transcripts, every scrap of paper I need to survive in a safe I’ll never open. And the one thing I had left of my dad, his old watch, she dangled like a noose. Run, and I lose my education. Fight, and I lose the last piece of the man who actually loved me. So I moved into the Hunters’ mansion. Into the lair of the boy who spent years making my life hell. Chase Hunter. Six-foot-five of pure venom wrapped in muscle and money. The senior who cornered me in empty hallways, who whispered filth in my ear just to watch me flinch, who smiled that sharp, cruel smile every time I broke a little more. I thought graduation meant freedom from him. I was wrong. Now he’s my stepbrother. He hates that I’m here. Hates my mother for sinking her claws into his father. Hates me most of all, for breathing his air, for walking his halls, for daring to exist where he can reach me. But hate isn’t clean anymore. It’s tangled up in heat. In the way his grey eyes strip me bare every time they land on me, the way his hand closes around my throat, not to hurt, but to own. In the way he punishes me over his lap, in his car, against walls, until I’m shaking and soaked and furious at myself for wanting more. He calls me Little Lamb, I call him every name I can think of under my breath. How long until we stop fighting the deadly inferno raging between us and finally let it consume us both?

She left cash on his pillow. He's been hunting her for eighteen years. Now they're neighbors—and she's carrying his baby. Evelyn Hart's revenge plan was simple: hire the hottest escort money could buy, have one night of mind-blowing sex, and finally forget her cheating ex-husband exists. What she got instead: Sebastian Creed. Six-foot-four of sinful perfection who made her body sing in ways she didn't know were possible. She left ten thousand dollars on the bed and ran before dawn, convinced she'd never see him again. Six weeks later, reality hits like a freight train. The "escort" is actually a billionaire. He owns the mansion next door. He's been obsessively searching for her since the night he saved her from a car crash when she was fourteen. Oh, and she's pregnant with twins the doctors said she could never have. Sebastian isn't just her neighbor—he's her stalker, her savior, and apparently, her fated mate. Because plot twist: he's a werewolf. And the supernatural bond between them is turning her inconvenient attraction into a soul-deep craving that's impossible to fight. Now he's breaking into her house at 3 a.m., showing up uninvited to her OB appointments, and making it very clear that the one night she paid for was just the beginning of forever. But their twisted love story is about to get deadlier. Sebastian's dying father wants him to claim a werewolf throne. His ex-husband wants her land for a billion-dollar deal. Werewolf royalty wants her dead for contaminating the bloodline. And Evelyn? She just wants to survive pregnancy, figure out how to be a queen in a world that thinks she's prey, and maybe—maybe—learn to trust the alpha who's been obsessed with her since she was a teenager.

Zeus had spent the last twelve years of his life as a substitute for a powerful man, Damon, living a false life of wealth, all in exchange for money. What he hadn’t anticipated that the identity he had assumed would tie him to the most dangerous man of all. Odin Romano. “I am your god, and I am your devil here, Damon.” When Odin’s sister took her own life, she left a note with Damon’s name on it. Odin who was known to exhume graves and crush whatever remained would never let his sister’s “killer” go free. Soon, Zeus found himself kidnapped by a deadly handsome man. “Who… who are you?” Zeus’s face turned white when his eyes met with animalistic yet sexy brown eyes that could not possibly belong to a human. The man tilted his chin up not with his fingers but with his claws, his hot breath brushing against Zeus’ lips, “Call me Alpha.” Zeus was trapped, accused of a crime he didn’t commit, yet trying to convince Odin seemed impossible. At every turn, Odin was prepared to turn Zeus’ life into a living hell. Escape felt impossible, and, against all odds, the allure of his enemy grew more irresistible. Until ever so slowly Zeus becomes Odin’s obsession. “What the hell do you want from me now? Haven’t you had enough of your revenge already? Haven’t I paid enough? Let me go now. My fiance is waiting for me!” Zeus glared at his kidnapper who was pinning him down to his bed. “Your fiance?” Odin chuckled a dark smile tugging at his lips. “Tell her to rest. Your husband is back.” Falling in love with the enemy was unforgivable, but would their hearts follow the rules?