Quietly Hostile

I'm seven months pregnant when my husband's close female friend, Suzy Ruffalo, invited us to a beach party. The sun is blazing, so I stay tucked under a parasol, quietly scrolling through my phone. Suddenly, Suzy wanders over and swings herself onto my husband's lap. "Hurry up and put the sunscreen on me! Don't just put it on my chest this time. I don't want to wake up tomorrow with my boobs two shades lighter." For a moment, I wonder if I've heard her wrong. My husband, Ted Cohen, casually picks up the sunscreen and starts rubbing it on her chest without hesitation. "Your boobs are tiny to begin with. I'm helping you to make it fairer so that it looks bigger." Suzy slaps his shoulder in annoyance. "How's that your business? You said my bikini area was darker the previous time." The rest of the guys started whistling. When Ted rubs the sunscreen just below her navel, he subconsciously glances at me. However, Suzy grabs his hand and shoves it lower. "Don't worry, Nina. He's touched this area so many times he's immune by now. It's just sunscreen. There's no need to get jealous over this, yeah?" I snort and look away to book a time for the divorce agreement. I will not be jealous, but they're both going to be on the receiving end of my slaps.

The day I go into labor, my husband's student, Yasmin Holden, storms off in a rage. She climbs the mountains alone while heavily pregnant. For the next three days and nights, my husband disappears to look for her. Meanwhile, I suffer a difficult labor and hemorrhage badly. I'm rushed into the ICU. When I finally wake up, the doctor hands my husband a critical condition notice. He hands me divorce papers. "Yasmin is my most promising student. I can't let her do anything foolish. You're about to be a mother, so you need to be strong!" In my last life, I refused to sign. As soon as I left the maternity ward, I reported their affair to the university. Yasmin lost her graduate school recommendation and was torn apart by public scandal. In front of me, she slit her own throat. By the time my husband arrived, Yasmin was already gone—along with the baby. He quietly handled her funeral and said nothing. Then, he returned to me as if nothing had happened. I thought that meant I was finally going to have a happy ending. But one day, he drove our car off a cliff with me and our daughter inside. That day was Yasmin's death anniversary. When I open my eyes again, I'm back on the day I give birth.

After completing my mission, I married the man I had been trying to win over. On our wedding night, I told him that the system had given me ninety-nine regret pills. Whenever he did something that hurt me, I would take one. Once all the pills were gone, I would completely leave his life. He held me close and promised he would never give me a reason to regret being with him. Three months into our marriage, his childhood sweetheart came back from abroad. The first time he stayed out all night, he realized that I would quietly take a pill after just crying once. After that, he began to act without any restraint. Ten years later, on our anniversary, his childhood sweetheart threatened to kill herself again. He left me without hesitation to handle the situation. The next day, he returned with his neck covered in love bites and begged for my forgiveness. I did not cry. I looked at him calmly and asked, “Can I take one of the regret pills?” He shrugged as if it did not matter. “Go ahead. There are plenty left.” I smiled and let him bring her into our home. He did not know that there were only three pills left in the box. Once they were gone, I would leave him for good.

The night before my wedding, I was in a terrible car accident. I fell into a coma, and my body was broken and bruised. While I lay unconscious, my fiancé called off the engagement and married his childhood sweetheart instead. My mother went to demand justice on my behalf—but never made it back. She died in a sudden, brutal accident along the way. In that moment of chaos, it was my childhood friend who stepped in. He knelt on one knee outside the hospital with a wedding gift of a hundred thousand dollars and quietly handled my mother's funeral. I was wheeled into surgery. I lived, but was left with a permanent disability. And still, he promised to stay by my side, for life. I was deeply moved. We got married. But five years later, I overheard him talking to his secretary. "Mr. Davidson, you arranged for someone to hit your wife with a car, just so Lucy could marry the one she loved. Aren't you afraid she'll find out?" "For Lucy, there's nothing I wouldn't do. I've already given Ruby the rest of my life. Isn't that enough?" I covered my mouth, holding back a sob. Only then did I realize—the marriage I believed in had been a lie all along. So be it. I'll disappear and let him be with the woman he truly loves.

Aurelia Ashford lost her parents at sixteen and lost her hearing at twenty. By then, she had learned one painful truth. Love always asked her to sacrifice first. Adopted into the powerful Ashford family, Aurelia grew up loving the one man she was never meant to love. Seth Ashford, her adoptive brother. Kind. Gentle. Unreachable. When she saves his life and loses her hearing in the process, Seth becomes her protector, her anchor, and eventually, her secret husband. Their marriage is hidden from the world. To everyone else, they are still just siblings. To Aurelia, he is her everything. Until he chooses someone else. When Seth files for divorce after his first love returns, Aurelia signs the papers in silence, agreeing to disappear back into the role she knows too well. The sister. Not the wife. Not the woman he chose. Then Zane Ashford comes back. The brother who was exiled. Cold. Dangerous. Unapologetic. A man who does not care about family rules or quiet suffering. A man who sees Aurelia not as fragile or pitiful, but as fire. As secrets threaten to surface and jealousy twists old bonds, Aurelia finds herself standing between two brothers and two very different kinds of love. One that was safe but incomplete. One that is reckless and consuming. And when the silence she lives in begins to break, Aurelia must decide if she will continue to love quietly, or finally choose a love that chooses her back.

Seven years after getting engaged to Leander Beaumont, he inherits everything that once belonged to his late brother—including his brother's wife, Dinah Fowler. Every time Leander sleeps with Dinah, he holds me afterward and whispers, "Jenny, just wait a little longer. We can finally have our wedding once Dinah gets pregnant." It's the only condition the Beaumont family, Westrael’s most powerful mafia clan, sets for Leander to become the next Don. In just half a year after returning home, Leander visits Dinah's room 59 times. He starts from once a month... to nearly every single day. Finally, after the 60th time I watch him leave Dinah's room, the "good news" comes. Dinah is pregnant. And along with it, an announcement—the Beaumont family declares Leander and Dinah are getting married. "Mamma, is someone getting married?" my young son asks, staring at the house now lavishly decorated by a wedding company. I quietly gather him into my arms, my voice cold as I say, "Yes, sweetheart. Your father is marrying the woman he loves. It's time for us to leave." What Leander doesn't know is that the Bellini family, my family, has risen to become a mafia power strong enough to rival the Beaumonts. And me? I'm Jenny Bellini, the most beloved daughter of the Bellini family. I will never be trapped by marriage again.

Commander Samson Gardner was my fiance. In his family was an iron-clad rule—no divorces. Before my brother died, his last wish was for Samson to marry me. So, even after falling in love with his childhood sweetheart, Samson still decided to marry me as promised. However, everything changed the day said childhood sweetheart destroyed the only watch my brother left me. When Samson sided with her again, I didn't argue. I simply reached out to my mentor overseas and started preparing to become a foreign correspondent. Before leaving, I gave myself ten days to put things in order. On the first day, I quietly hid the marriage application I was supposed to submit. On the third day, I turned in my resignation to the military. The day I was to leave, Samson finally remembered the watch and promised to take me to buy a new one on his next day off. Right after that, he ordered me, "Celia is inviting friends over for dinner tonight. Make sure the food is ready before you go." I agreed with a smile—and then never showed up in his world again. Afterward, Samson would stare blankly at the marriage application inside his drawer every time he saw my name in the news. There, within his drawer, were the memories of an autumn not yet fully arrived, the lover he could never win back, and the watch he could never give...

"What the fuck was that?" I wake up to Eya quietly talking to Osric who is laying behind me holding me close with his hand rubbing my belly. "She's a Lycan born under the blood moon who knows where her abilities end," Embry answers from the other side of the room when I barely open my eyes enough to see we are in a room similar to home. "She shouldn't be able to control vampires or do anything like that. Did you watch her aura?" Eya's voice sounds genuinely concerned and shocked. Continue Raven's journey navigating the struggles of being Alpha of Wolf Creek with her mates Osric and Embry at her side. Raven is battling all the obstacles against her to do right by her people and bring her children safely into the world. The constant battle between pack and council members who don't believe in her, vampires who wish to take her power and threats unknown. Watch her take on each challenge with her twin sister Liliana, now the Luna of New Moon, keeping her grounded and focused. Liliana stands beside her mate Ryder to guide their pack forward from dark ages, and prove to not only be good leaders but strong allies to Raven and her mates. With enemies all around them will these twins survive losing again and again? Will the be able to rise and provide for their people or will they crumble and fall? Book one: Raven's Waking Dream Book two: Raven's Agony of Desire Book three: untitled and in the works

"I should f--k your pretty mouth just to make a better use of it. It talks too much..." Would it be a fair revenge or cheap stunt to sleep with my Ex's best friend? ..... "Go easy there..." He stands way too close to me. I glance at him but don't object. "Why do you care? It might serve you some purpose." I say while sipping my drink. He takes a hint and wraps his arm around my waist. "Good point! But I don't like sloppy girls in my bed." That one mistake and Natalie’s life became hell. Now she wants to spend her last year in school quietly with her head down. The past year bought so much drama and pain in her life, she wants to stay invisible and forget everything. Things get stirred up when his hot new neighbor joins her at school. Jacob doesn't like to explain his lack of interest in girls (or boys) to others. Girls hitting on him now and then doesn't help his case either. He knows he is different, but not sure exactly how. Life is about figuring yourself out and it's called a Spectrum for a reason, after all. When his friends were crushing over girls at barely 12-13 years old, He thought his time would come probably a year or later. Just when he lost all his hopes, he finally meets his first crush ever at the sweet age of 17.

Luna never wanted to be special. She only wanted to live quietly with her family, to prove herself at the Moonlight Festival, and to escape the shadow of failure that had haunted her bloodline for generations. But the Goddess chose differently. When she was marked as the Saint of the Moon Goddess, her life ceased to be her own. Saints carry blessings, but they also carry chains—chief among them, the law that a Saint can never claim a mate. That law shatters the moment she meets John. John is the Alpha of the most feared pack in the clan, a man whose crimson eyes strike terror even into his allies. To Luna, he is supposed to be the enemy. Instead, he becomes her savior—rescuing her from hunters, shielding her from danger, and igniting a bond that no divine law can erase. But the Moon Goddess’s blessing is also a curse. Every step closer to John is a step toward rebellion, and the packs are already watching her every move. The Lightning Pack wants her captured. The clan elders want her controlled. And in the shadows, enemies whisper about the Astex Token, an ancient relic tied to Luna’s bloodline that could change the fate of the supernatural world. As battles erupt and loyalties are tested, Luna is forced to choose between duty and desire. Can she obey the Moon Goddess and abandon her mate, or will she risk everything—her title, her family, and her life—for forbidden love? In a world where betrayal waits at every corner and even her destiny is a cage, Luna must decide what it truly means to be the Saint of the Moon Goddess… and whether a heart bound by fate can ever be silenced.