Palm Beach State Library

Alina Hart, a sharp-tongued high school senior, hides behind sarcasm and wit to mask the pain of fractured family life. Shipped off to a prestigious boarding school by a father who no longer sees her, Alina struggles to find her place in a world of strict rules and academic expectations. Enter Professor Cristiano Wright, a 27-year-old literature teacher whose calm demeanor and sharp intellect make him both an enigma and a fascination. Tasked by Alina’s older brother Ethan to keep an eye on her, Wright finds himself drawn to the complexity beneath her rebellious exterior. In the backdrop of Shakespearean sonnets and Romantic poetry, Alina and Wright navigate an increasingly fraught connection. What begins as reluctant mentorship soon transforms into a tangled web of forbidden emotions, unspoken words, and an undeniable pull that neither can ignore. Set against the bustling corridors of an urban high school and the quiet corners of a library filled with unspoken confessions, Silent Flames, Forbidden Paths explores the fine line between admiration and desire, duty and vulnerability. As Alina and Wright grapple with their feelings, they must confront their moral boundaries and the cost of their choices. Can they maintain the lines they’ve drawn, or will their emotions blur them beyond recognition?

On the last day of the deadline for the loan repayment, I went to Liam Sommer's stepsister, Christine Sommer, to ask for the 300,000 dollars I had lent her. The next day, Liam threw a ledger I had never seen before in front of me. Liam said, "On your birthday last year, I transferred 8,100 dollars to you. On our tenth anniversary, I transferred 108,000 dollars to you. Also, at the beginning of every month, I transfer 20,000 dollars to you for your living expenses. You must pay me back by the end of today." I froze, but Liam smiled without a hint of warmth. "What’s wrong? You can't afford to repay me? Evelyn Lancaster, you shouldn't have given Christy trouble. This is my lesson to you. If you don't pay me back today, let's not meet for the next three years, and don't come looking for me." Over the next three years, I never saw Liam again, nor did I go looking for him. While he and Christine traveled around the world and wore couple rings, I married my childhood friend in front of our family and friends. While he and Christine walked along the beach and kissed, I moved into a new house with my husband, our cat, and our dog. Everything was moving along smoothly, but why was Liam standing under the window of my house in the middle of the night, crying and saying that he was unhappy?

After witnessing the death of her parents at the age of six, the abduction of her sister and surviving a hit-and-run accident during her freshman year, Alyssa Brawns ends up using a walking cane for her entire life. She tries to find meaning in her present but gets involved in something she shouldn't have and now, she is one ticket away from gracing the world with her funeral. Someone is out to kill her and her sole suspect is the leader of one of the biggest mafia organizations in the state who has no plans of leaving her alone. ‎However, everything she believes in goes down the drain when truth resurfaces, but that's not the only thing which does. Warning: This book is a dark romance that contains a lot of violence, use of language, gory details, steamy/sexual scenes and sexual tension. ‎

Michel Adnan Raihan, a man of British-Indonesian, who has many mysteries in his personal life. Nobody knew that he was the biggest mobster in France and the owner of the world's first largest company. "Are you happy to see her smile like that?" "Yes, I really like it. When she smiled, making the new life inside me return to its original state, Edwin. I don't care about people who like her, she is mine. It will stay like that until I die later. No one can take it from my hand. " "What if the enemy finds out about this?" "My principle is kill. No one in this world can take it from me. Moreover, to make him hurt and cry in front of me, I will never hesitate to kill him with my own hands. "

“Show me,” he said, voice low and rough, “how good you're willing to serve me.” I should’ve spat in his face. Except, I nodded…because outside that tent, his men waited. The ones who’d tear me apart piece by piece if I said no. The ones I’d be handed to. I slid my palm between my thighs, breath hitching at my own touch, just a warning stroke and to stay alive. But when I brushed again, deeper this time, I gasped. “Keep going,” Malrik said, leaning back, watching like I was the most fascinating sin he’d ever seen. So I did. With shame thick in my throat and my heart pounding against cracked ribs. I did it for my sister, for survival, for him. *** Kaelith thought being rejected by her mate was the worst thing that could happen but she was wrong. Sold to a rogue warlord as leverage, branded like cattle, and forced into a savage camp where women are broken for sport and pleasure, Kaelith expects to die or worse. But she ends up in the mercy of Malrik Dren, the warlord himself. What happens when a broken girl becomes a weapon, and the monster meant to break her starts to fall?

His hands feel cold against my hot skin and it won’t be wrong to say that he is doing his best to trace my wrists sensually while he removes the handcuff from my right hand. I hold my breath back when his teasing fingers touch my palm in a slow motion. Heat shoots down to my core, making me press my thighs together as he closes the distance between us and whispers in my left ear. “ Why are you squirming, hot lips?” ******** When Valentina Morgan joined hands with the enemy to take down the Mafia of her own boyfriend, little did she know she will be facing the biggest manipulator in all history, Matteo Vitali. He is every bit of the type of controlling men she hates but the six feet four, sex on legs man, can attract even the dead. And soon she falls in line of the people wondering if they should let go of everything and enjoy the nights of passion in the arms of the biggest manipulator_____Matteo Vitali wanted Valentina Morgan, the moment he laid his eyes on her pouty pink lips and when she is in his hands, he will be damned to give up this chance to bend her at his will even if he has a secret which can break her beyong repair, because he admits. “ She's mine ”

  "There is no escape for you. I have waited a long time for you,mate. I will not let you go this time." I gasped and placed my palm over my heart, doubling over. I felt it. Strong and unbreakable, a cord that connected our bodies, minds and souls to each other's. It reached out, connecting me to him, over time, over space, over realms. I felt his power fuse with mine and cuddle around my ice, making me warm. Fire to my ice. Ice to his fire. I didn't need to see him to know it was him. My dragon growled again with mixed emotions coursing through her. I joined in with a snarl and lifted my head, anger of a woman and beast merging into something cataclysmic.      I thrummed my fingers in the air and I raised my head. Our eyes met and I resisted the urge to double over at the sensation in my chest. With Fae vision, he looked even more gorgeous than any being should be. So sensual. So dark. So powerful. My mate. I searched his turquoise depths for answers, hoping I was wrong, but they said it all. He was my mate. And he'd hurt me. I'll kill him.

I was the top bounty thief in the organization. The best they had. After turning in my final score, I announced on the spot that I was done for good. Then, I stood in my studio, blending paint. A single photograph was pinned to the wall before me. Black Viper filled the doorway, the light behind him casting his face in shadow. "What's it like," he asked quietly, "pretending to be an artist?" He stepped further inside. "Does paint smell better than blood?" I placed the palette knife down and wiped my hands slowly. "I'm done. I walked away." "Old Fox didn't approve of it." "That's not my concern." Black Viper crossed the room and tapped the old photograph on the wall. "Are you certain?" I did not want to look. I told myself not to. However, my gaze shifted anyway. A young boy stared back from the photo. "The blind kid?" I had spent ten years searching for him. "Where is he?" I moved toward the wall, reaching to rip the picture down. "One last job," Black Viper said, pressing his palm against the photo. My hand stopped in midair. "What's the target?" "The final lot at next month's auction that the Gilbert Group will be holding. "It's called Mermaid's Tear."

Yselle Morel is watching her family's glassworks collapse—unpaid wages, angry suppliers, a bank ready to shut the gates. When Renaud Valois, a feared billionaire financier, offers a rescue, it comes with a cruel condition: marriage. He says it’s business. His eyes say it’s revenge. In Valois’s riverside estate outside Paris, Yselle plays the obedient wife—smiling, thanking staff, acting harmless. She calls it "wife camouflage." Then she finds a locked room behind the library wall: a war room filled with files, photos, and timelines about her father’s life… and a folder stamped with Yselle’s name. Renaud didn’t choose her. He planned her. As “accidents” start closing in—tampered brakes, poisoned tea, a near fall on a dark stairwell—Yselle realizes the marriage isn’t only punishment. It’s protection. Someone wants her silent before the Day 30 board vote that will decide her family’s future. And the closer she gets to the truth, the more she fears the man who raised her. On the eve of the vote, Yselle opens the last drawer in the war room and finds an envelope addressed to her—in her mother’s handwriting. The ink looks fresh. Then the lights go out, and a voice behind her whispers, “Don’t trust your husband.”

A Shodimu Sophia, Dream_writer11, novel. Diana Kent After the tragic death of her father, she was forced to live with her mother. Depression wasn't the best state for the young widow as she inflicted all the pain on her teenage daughter. She ignored all her duties as a mother and it became the responsibility of the child. Dylan Kings Bluefall's popular prankster and ladies man, Dylan Kings had all every child his age could wish for. Money, looks, luxury. He was popularly known for pulling pranks on people for the sake of fun. After making a huge mistake by pulling a prank on a nerd and hoping to get away with it, she became the first and only person to plot a revenge against him. Two different lives meet for the sake of a prank. Find out in pranking the prank king.