Phantomhive Manor

My world ended when my mate’s brother died. Caspian, Alpha of the Shadowmoon Pack, took in the widow, Vivian. He said it was his duty to provide for both households. He sent her son to the elite Lunaris Academy. He sent my son to the toxic Grey Zone, called it "building resilience." He gifted her the Blackwood Manor, bought her armored vehicles. He called me wasteful. He said my child was a burden. He threw us into the Omega slums. My son died fighting for a moldy crust of silver-tainted bread. I died soon after. My skull was cracked open in a dark alley for a few coins. As my spirit faded, I finally saw the truth. Every step of our ruin was her design. I woke up gasping, back in my old bed at the Shadowmoon Packhouse. The moon was high. Tomorrow was my Binding Ceremony to Caspian. This time, I knew what to do.

Jasper Oakley's first love, Pauline Simmons, is about to get married. In order to make her regret her decision, Jasper volunteers to guard the border. In doing so, he chooses to abandon the General's Manor and me, his wife. I've written 99 letters to him, yet I've never received a response from him. On the third year, I don't write any letters anymore. One day, I'm sitting on a chaise lounge while drinking supplements delivered from the palace when Jasper suddenly returns to the manor. As he stares at my pregnancy bump of six months, he gnashes his teeth together angrily. "You never came to the border to visit me in the past three years of our marriage. Whose spawn are you pregnant with?" I remain nonchalant. "Since you refuse to treat your own wife nicely, someone else needs to pick up the slack, right?"

Five years in a coma. That’s how long Ava Jameson’s world was on pause. She woke expecting love and care from her husband, only to find her husband, Ethan, married to her sister Clara and raising a boy. It breaks her heart. She's sent to Blackwell Manor to recover at the mansion of her husband's stepfather, Damian Blackwell, a billionaire CEO with a reputation for ruthlessness. Damian has no interest in messy family drama, until he sees Ava. She awakens something he thought had died with his wife. This is dangerous and their attraction is forbidden. But when Ava is pressured to give up her settlement and is pressured by Ethan to live quietly, Damian offers her a shocking deal, a fake marriage in return for revenge. But now Ethan wants her back, and she finds herself caught between her past and her present, especially her father-in-law makes her feel things, her Ethan never did.

When my stepsister, Kate Lawrence, is poisoned at the full moon ceremony, my father, Jack Blackwood, condemns me at once, convinced that I am the one behind it. He clamps silver chains around me and drags me into the manor's dark underground cell. His eyes burn hatefully as he snarls, "You wretch! How could I have a daughter like you? Rot in here!" I drop to my knees on the cold floor and try to explain, but the sentence he throws over his shoulder as he turns away snuffs out the last of my hope. "Even if she dies in there, no one shall go in! Whoever lets her out will die with her!" The cell severs the mind-link completely, so no one hears me screaming. Seven days later, he finally remembers me, not knowing that I'd already died on the fourth day when the silver burned through to the bone.

I am the wife of Anthony Caster, don of the mafia family in New York. When I was nine months pregnant, he brought a woman named Evelyn Graves into the manor, claiming she’d saved his life. That was the day my nightmare began. She put something in my food. Next thing I knew, I was doubled over in pain. And she had the nerve to blame it on me—said I was being reckless with what I ate. She lost her footing and fell down the stairs, but she told everyone I was the one who shoved her. Every day, she’d cry in front of Anthony about how saving him had left her wounded and unable to bear children, how seeing a pregnant woman broke her heart. But the moment she turned to me, the tears were gone, replaced by a cold smile. “As long as I’m here,” she whispered, “your babies will never be born.” Anthony was convinced I was jealous of her. He locked me away in the abandoned attic of the manor and said, “Reflect on your actions and stop bullying Evelyn.” On the first day they shut me in, the contractions began. I screamed, I begged, I banged on the door. The butler heard me and went to inform Anthony. He said, “Amelia, your due date is three days away. Stop putting on an act. Three days in a snowstorm and you came out fine. This? You can handle this.” On the second day, my water broke. I screamed at the top of my lungs, my fingernails digging into the cracks of the wall, blood spilling all over the floor. The butler went to Anthony again. Evelyn said, “Anthony, she’s making all that noise because she wants you to feel sorry for her and let her out. If you give in now, she’ll only grow more reckless later.” He believed her. On the third day, I stopped screaming. Anthony thought I had finally learned my lesson, unaware that I had already died from the difficult labor. When he finally opened that door, all he would find was my rotting, putrid body.

It had been ten years since Julliane was cast out by the very people she once called family. Her own mother and stepbrother had driven her away from Magnolia Manor-the grand estate owned by the Dankworth family. Now, after a decade of silence, Lance Dankworth, the eldest son of the man her mother had married, stood at her door. He came bearing grim news, her mother had been in a tragic accident. An event serious enough to require Julliane's return to the manor she had long left behind. Julliane couldn't forget how Lance used to see her. He'd branded her a troublemaker, a slut, even when she was just a girl. To him, she had brought nothing but shame and pain to his family. And yet, here he was, asking her to come back with him. She knew he despised her. So why, after all these years, was he suddenly asking her to stay-and worse, to marry him?

Damian was the fearsome don of a mafia family, but I was his sole weakness. In order to marry me, a poor girl from the slums, he was punished by his family sixteen times, and the scars on his back remained terrifying, even to this date. To make me happy, he killed one of the best arms dealers in the world just to get the blue crystal I had mentioned offhandedly once. He built a manor named “One and Only” for me and swore that I was his one and only true love. I had thought that our happiness would last forever, until the day I saw him cradling a pair of twins in another manor. The twins’ mother was my mortal enemy. She had once had someone break my ribs and stuff dirt into my mouth. Hence, on the day of our wedding anniversary, I prepared a grand gift for him: a private jet that exploded and plummeted into the ocean, along with a charred wedding ring. In my world, betrayal never led to forgiveness, only abandonment.

“Pray tell, Emily, what is it you plan to gain from this marriage?” The vehemence of that word—the way it rolled out harshly from his lips—implied she had tricked him, that she had wanted something from him. A belief Emily hadn’t known he held. Her eyes widened in realization, and she sought to correct it at once. Good Lord, was she married to a man who despised her? *** When the earl of Tonfield, Cole Fletcher decided to drop his newly wedded wife at the steps of Blakewood Manor with as much respect as would be given a sack of potatoes, the last thing he expected was for her to move into his ancestral home and do the one thing he rather her not do. As if that wasn't enough, news of his wife's exploits was beginning to circulate around the ton, while Cole wants to keep an eye on his wife and put her firmly in her place. Emily wants her husband to understand she exists. As a wife, as a countess, as a woman! It's a clash of wills!

My husband, Damien Falcone, had 99 lovers. And I was the mafia princess men lined up to die for. The day we got together, everyone in our world took bets. They said we wouldn't last three months. But then , everything changed. For me, he wiped his phone clean, built a rose manor, and got down on one knee. Then, on our wedding night, he told me he wanted an open marriage. "Our bodies can play," he said. "But our loyalty? That's just for us." I agreed. Then came his 100th lover, Sophia Ricci. She betrayed our family in an arms deal. Almost got my father killed. But Damien protected her. He even moved her into our home. So, I did what any heartbroken mafia princess would do. I got drunk and woke up in another man's bed. I just didn't know that man was Damien's uncle.

Vanessa’s life was falling apart. Her marriage has failed, her company made her redundant and the lease on her apartment is up and the landlord plans to sell. Fed up, miserable and alone, she buys a country manor and vows to start a new life. When she arrives, she discovers a house almost in the same condition as her life. The roof needs fixing, the plumbing is older than some countries and the draft blowing up her skirt seems to be the only thing brave enough to go near her lady parts for years. Then comes Clay. Gorgeous with smouldering green eyes and a V that can make any girl forget the rest of the alphabet, but 15 years younger than herself. Clay seems to be the handyman she needs to get everything sorted, including between the sheets. But with the town gossip ladies against them due to the age difference and Vanessa’s ex dead set on destroying her, could handyman Clay be the fresh start her heart desperately craves?