Rice Ball Fruits Basket

The boy, George Larson, whom I once saved as a child, when he was struggling with asthma, repaid my kindness by imprisoning me for seven long years. "Luna, you're my everything. I won’t let you out of my sight," he said, his voice filled with obsession. He tied my hands and feet, keeping me bound to the bed like a helpless doll, but I did not love him; I wanted to escape. In his madness, he set fire to my family’s ancestral home. The last traces of the Sachs burned to ashes, disappearing into the wind. He said that since my home was gone, I could just live with him and that it would be my new home. However, because I refused to let him touch me, he found someone else—a girl with a beauty mark under her eye, just like mine. The girl, drunk on his affection, thought I was trying to imitate her by faking the same tear-shaped mark. In a fit of jealousy, she gouged out my eyes. My face was covered with tiny, bleeding holes, blood streaming down my body. When George came home, the girl gleefully stuffed me into a trash bag, proud of her handiwork. “George, look! I caught some trash that broke into the house!” George did not even glance at me. He just loosened his tie, his voice calm and detached. “Just toss it where trash belongs.”

I'm severely allergic to many things, so my husband buys a separate villa for me. It's supposed to be sort of a nursing home. When my future daughter-in-law learns about this, she thinks my son is cheating on her. She breaks my bones to vent her anger. When she finds out I'm her future mother-in-law, she caresses her belly and looks at me smugly. "I'm already pregnant with Shawn's child. Think about whether you want this child to make it into this world." What she doesn't know is that the Ziegler family's fortune belongs to me and that Shawn Ziegler is only my adoptive son.

On the night before the wedding, my fiancé’s female best friend, Marisol Vance, sent me a set of photos. In the photos, she wore the custom haute couture wedding gown I had commissioned, leaning into Lucian Drake’s arms, with a caption meant to provoke me: [Borrowing your groom and your dress for a moment—after all, Lucian said I look better in this than you do.] Soon after, my social feed was flooded with their so-called wedding photos. In the images, the two of them staged a mock kiss, the caption reading: [More than friends, not quite lovers. If we had been born ten years earlier, there would have been no place for anyone else.] I held up the photos and confronted Lucian, yet he played his game indifferently, then tossed his phone aside, his face full of impatience. “I told you, it was just for fun—a way to commemorate our youth. Can you stop acting like a shrew? She was just diagnosed with depression. What’s wrong with me comforting her?” Looking at his self-righteous expression, I smiled. “Fine. Since your bond is so unbreakable, I won’t play the villain.” That very night, I drafted a withdrawal agreement and halted the arrangements I had been making with a top-tier overseas medical team for his mother. “The wedding is off. Don’t expect me to keep patching up your bankrupt company, and don’t expect me to save your mother either. “Your youth is precious—I hope you can afford to pay the price to keep it so.”

Reader Warning: This book contains explicit erotic content, including BDSM elements, power exchange, dominance and submission, rough intimacy, and mature themes. Not suitable for readers under the age of 18. Reader discretion is strongly advised. Blurb When the devil disguised as Tristan Hale offers desperate Andrea a one-year contract to be his, under his rules, in his bed, with no love, no promises, and no future... she accepts, hoping to clear her family’s crushing debt and save her brother’s life. But what happens when pretending starts to feel real, when survival turns into burning desire, and when the man who was never meant to keep her becomes the one she cannot walk away from?

I was the hospital's top surgeon. After three successful surgeries, Medical Affairs decided to reprimand me in front of the whole hospital and canceled my bonus for the month. I argued with the head of Medical Affairs. "I've been working for this place for ten years, and I've always been the first to do everything! I went through five surgeries nonstop last year and had to go through one myself for exhaustion! What did I do to deserve this?" Yes, I was the top surgeon, but the bills were stressing me out, too. My husband had just lost his job, and I had to pay for the car, the mortgage, and our kid's extracurriculars. The burden I had to shoulder wasn't an easy one. So, I was counting on that bonus to get my kid into a basketball club, and now it had been taken away from me. This couldn't be happening! I couldn't believe that they were blaming me for a successful surgery! I was high up in the hierarchy here, so the department head didn't start a fallout right away. Instead, he tried to calm me down. "You drank two bags of IV during the late-night surgery and charged the patients for it. Their family's complaining about unfair fees, and it went viral. We had no choice!" That reminded me. That surgery was a complex one, and it wasn't even supposed to be assigned to me. After all, I'd been working around the operating table for 36 hours prior to that. However, it was the deputy director who came to me and insisted that I take over. I had no choice but to go ahead.

Leo Vance's quiet life as a struggling artist is about to be irrevocably altered. When his mother, Eleanor, announces her engagement to a formidable multi-billionaire, Leo is thrust into the glittering, ruthless world of New York’s elite. Arthur Volkov is a man whose old money Russian empire is vast and feared, and his two identical twin sons, Dmitri and Ivan, are known to be just as dangerous. Weeks before this life-altering news, Leo had a single, unforgettable night with a mysterious stranger. The passion was undeniable, a raw, masculine intensity that left him shaken and ashamed, but he fled, convinced it was a one-time, sinful fantasy. Imagine his horror when he discovers his one-night stand isn't just a celebrity, he's Dmitri Volkov, the cold, calculating heir to Arthur's legacy. The forbidden attraction, further complicated by his own denial of his sexuality and the step-sibling proximity, is instantaneous and potent. But it's not just Dmitri who sees him; his identical twin, Ivan, charming, seductive, and equally possessive, also begins to stake his claim. Leo is terrified of the consequences, knowing that if his mother discovers their affair, it will ruin everything. He desperately wants to reject the life, the lust, and the two men who are dismantling his self-denial. He longs for an escape, but the Volkov twins are unwilling to let him go. They want him all to themselves, a shared obsession that traps him in a gilded cage.

On New Year's Eve, my in-laws, Richard Prescott and Leona Reed, had flown back to have dinner at my place. However, our butler, Rupert Williams, had only prepared two plates of cold lobster rolls even though I had specifically reminded him that Leona was allergic to lobster. Rupert looked at me with his usual stiff expression and said, "Mr. Shaw, I understand that people from your background like to take advantage of situations. Your parents showing up for a free holiday meal doesn't surprise me." He added, "But as Ms. Jaclyn Prescott's most trusted butler, I have a duty to protect the Prescott family assets from being touched by questionable individuals, even if it's just a dinner. That said, I'm not heartless enough to let two elderly people go hungry. "Here are some leftover expired lobster rolls. Your parents can eat them and leave. Ms. Prescott is very busy with work, and I can't have her come home later only to deal with your poor parents." I froze for a moment, then realized he had mistaken Jaclyn's parents for mine. He was deliberately trying to humiliate me like he always did. I was about to explain when Richard and Leona, furious, turned to leave. However, Rupert called for the security guards to block their way. "I can understand that people from rural areas might lack proper manners, but wasting food is still a bad habit. Since the lobster rolls have already been prepared, I insist you finish them before you go."

BLURB Mira, a poor farm girl, felt she was cursed because of the events that happened in her life after her land, the only property left to her by her late father, was forcefully taken 4 years ago. She’s left with nothing to cater for her sick little sister, and is forced to tend to the horses of the same man who took her land and that made her hate him, with everything in her. Jackson, who ran from the flames of an internet scandal against his company in search of answers and solitude, was instead carried away by Mira’s beauty, charm and confidence, and he decided to change her world while being the ruler of it. What happens when a spark is ignited between them? Mira, who loathed her landlord because he was a constant reminder of her lost property, due to unfairness, and Jackson, who only loved power and control.

In the heart of Princeton University, nothing is as it seems. There lies secrets that are just beginning to come to light. Just when I thought that my college life would be a walk in the park for a studious student and werewolf like me, life had more curve balls to hurl at me. I became the target and obsession of a mysterious psychopathic mass murderer known as the Red Ghoul. I am an object he desires and the only thing keeping me safe is the wrath of my football Alpha. Meet Eren Blackwood—tall, dark, undeniably captivating, and Godlike handsome. The guy is the epitome of every girl's dream. He is the football captain and Alpha of the notorious and feared Black Blood pack. He’s every girl's dream and the name that strikes terror into the hearts of his enemies. But for me, he’s something else entirely: he is my protector, my temptation, and ultimately, my NIGHTMARE. Dive into a thrilling and youthful journey of passion and peril where love is a battlefield, and every choice could unleash a dark power neither of us are prepared to face. Get ready for a story that challenges everything you thought you knew about passion, desire, obsession, and danger. This is not just a romance——it's a revelation. ************* "Don't pretend like you don't feel anything" Eren's voice is low, sending shivers down my spine. "What do you mean?" "You know damn well what I mean." "I don't know what you're talking about." I feigned ignorance of what he was talking about, flipping some pages in my textbook. "Come on. I have all these assignments overdue. Aren't you supposed to teach me something tonight?" "It depends on what you want me to teach you, Stoneheart." He smirks, his voice sounding even more dangerous.

Maria Dominic gave her husband everything—her love, her loyalty, her very soul—only to be discarded like yesterday’s news. Betrayed and abandoned, she never expected the man who would put her back together to be Luca Avancii—her late brother’s best friend, a man as lethal as he is untouchable. Luca never forgot the girl who used to chase after him and Johan, nor did he expect to find her on her knees, begging at another man’s feet. Maria was his. She always had been. And now? He’ll make sure she knows it. What starts as a marriage of convenience quickly becomes something much more dangerous. As Maria fights to heal from her past, she finds herself caught in the crossfire of a world ruled by power, secrets, and an ex-husband who refuses to let go. Luca built his empire with blood and fire, and he will burn the world to the ground before he lets anyone take Maria from him. But as old enemies resurface and the past refuses to stay buried, Maria is faced with an impossible choice: save the man who has become her world, or risk losing him to the deadly game of power that threatens to consume them both. A scorching romance filled with passion, betrayal, and ruthless devotion, this is the story of a woman reclaiming her strength and the man who would tear the world apart for her. WARNING: 18+ THREAD CAREFULLY.