Roses Without Thorns

When the lights came on at the end of the graduation party, the spotlight suddenly shifted and froze on a young couple kissing passionately at the back of the auditorium. The young man held up a bouquet of roses and shouted to the crowd, “Sophie, be my girlfriend!” The moment the girl covered her face and nodded, the cheers in the hall nearly lifted the roof. Amid the thunderous applause, my hand trembled around my phone. The screen still showed the message he had sent half an hour earlier. Rowan: [Wait for me. I’ll come to you right away.] After the party, I took off the couple’s bracelet from my wrist and threw it into the gutter, along with four years of love.

If you ask Olivia Marshall, she would tell you that being a billionaire's wife is not always as it seems, especially when your husband is toxic and abusive.      Olivia stays married to her first love, Sebastian Gilbert, through his abuse and infidelity for the sake of their daughter. All that changes when she hooks up with a stranger after discovering her husband's mistress.      To her greatest surprise, the stranger is no ordinary man. He is Desmond Wrightwood, a tech billionaire, and her husband's greatest rival. Desmond is charming, a good father figure and most importantly, madly in love with Olivia. What started as a one-night stand slowly blossoms into a love like nothing Olivia had ever experienced before. The new, passion filled relationship prompts Olivia to finally divorce Sebastian.      It is clear to Olivia that Desmond loves her and her daughter more than Sebastian ever did. But roses do not come without thorns. Olivia is shattered by a shocking discovery about the man who made her give love a second chance. Her hero, her daughter's new father figure, her Desmond. Olivia is terrible at letting go, but she cannot be with a man she distrusts.      Soon, Olivia suffers a great loss, leaving her shattered and depressed. Sebastian returns a changed man, begging for her forgiveness but Desmond refuses to leave her side. Olivia must choose between the man who hurt her for years, and the man who came into her life with deceit. The man she loved first and the man she loved last. To make it worse, she's choosing between brothers.     

***This book contains strong language, explicit scenes, extremely detailed sex scenes. Proceed at your discretion*** Ellie loses her brother to ‘mysterious’ consequences and her life is turned upside down the second she learns of it. A man obsessed with control. A man consumed by the need to always win. A man with nothing left to lose. In the streets of Milan, they're known as The Black Rose but to Ellie, they're the thorns that will puncture the bubble that was once her normal life. Lorenzo, Noir and Silas will become Ellie's worst nightmare as well as her greatest desire. When they claim her as theirs to protect, theirs to own, she realizes that her old life is gone and that there's no such thing as normal when it comes to these men. Not when The Black Rose wants her. Not when they will burn the world down just to keep her by their sides. They will have her. And she will break them.

I've been mated to Alpha Alaric Goremane for five years, and I'm still a virgin. On the night he claims me, I stand before him, naked. With my heart pounding against my chest, I muster the courage to step forward and wrap my arms around him. But he pulls away, and then comes the words that lingered in my head for years like a devil's whisper. "I'm sorry, Kyna. I have severe germaphobia and can't handle physical intimacy. Please give me some time." In that moment, my heart plunges into the abyss. But when I see the torment in his eyes, I convince myself that he doesn't love me any less. He's just sick, and all I have to do is wait. So, I wait for five long years. On our fifth mating anniversary, I cross thousands of miles in a raging storm just to see the look of delight on his face when I surprise him. Sure enough, I see the warmth in his eyes and gentleness in his expression. But what a pity… it isn't for me. The Alpha, who claims to be an obsessive clean freak, is on one knee before his childhood sweetheart. He gently slips off her rain-soaked heels, dries her feet, and warms her cold toes with the heat of his palm. It's as if that's the most natural thing in the world, and as if his world holds no one else. He sighs. "Serene, how many times have I told you that you'll catch a cold? What would you do without me?" In that instant, the last of my delusions shatters. I finally realize that his germaphobia is selective, and I'm simply the one he can't bear to touch. Instead of making a fuss, I slip off the ring I've worn for five years and walk into the storm without looking back. Later, I hear he tries to win me back with the most expensive roses in the city. But the Kyna Lupen who loves him is long gone.

Fresh out of the National Research Institute, I loaded up on my wife's favorite snacks and ordered a vibrant bouquet of roses, eager to surprise her. I stashed the treats in her office, then stepped out to grab the flowers. But in those fleeting minutes, a stranger had ripped open every package and devoured everything. I glared at him. "Who gave you permission to touch those?" He shot me a look of pure disdain. "Buzz off, flower boy. Drop your crap and scram!" The secretary at the door snickered. "You heard the man. He's Ms. Bowman's husband. Better run before he leaves a bad review." I pulled out my phone and called my wife. "Who is this guy in your office?"

He was consumed by hate, while love ripped through me like a storm. We were like two thorns, trapped in a prickly embrace with no escape. We exchanged vows soaked in blood, sealed with a brutal kiss, and bound by bloodied rings, with no happily ever after on the horizon. Marco Costello, my so-called prince, shackled me as his wife, but he was no savior. I used to imagine what our life would have been like if I had said yes all those years ago instead of running away. I'd play Juliette to his brooding Romeo. But fate had a different script for me, casting me as the antagonist, trapped in a cycle of resentment and sadness, like a lost soul wandering through the shadows, unseen and unappreciated. “Till death do us part...” It wasn't a promise of forever, but a sentence to endless torment.

On our tenth anniversary, I came home with roses and the biggest deal of my career. I expected celebration. Instead, I found my husband in bed with my cousin. They looked at me like I was the one who had interrupted something that mattered. That night, I walked away from the man I thought loved me and the company I built. They thought I vanished. They rebranded everything in my absence, twisted the story, and erased my name from what I created. But I did not disappear. I became Juliana Cross. And I am not here to beg for what was mine. I am here to take it all back.

Roses are red. His love I dread. He owns me. And my body too. Daddy's little princess, mummy's favorite but the mafia lord's little toy. He bought me, claimed me, made me his; body and soul. He tainted me. I'm now his obsession too. I belong to him. And he never let me forget. I'm his prisoner, his medicine and pain. The thirst to escape runs through me like a wild fire. But the toxicity of his voice tattooed in my mind and his touch imprinted on my soul kept me grounded. I'm addicted. But with him, it was something dark and crazy.

The only rose among the thorns ang peg ni Eclair Lockwood-- Limang magkakaibigan ngunit nag-iisang babae. Madalas na tuksuin at husgahan ng nakararami dahil sa kilos at kanyang pananamit. Alam ni Eclair na wala siyang kontrol sa iniisip ng iba pero hindi iyon ang kumukuha sa atensiyon niya... ...Eclair made a vow with her four best friends that they won't ever fall in love with her and they will stay as COMPANIONS. However, this oath is meant to be broken by Kyle-- who confessed his feelings towards her that made everything changed.  Dumagdag lang iyon nang malaman niyang may lihim ding hindi mailabas-labas si Vince, Arvin, at Richard.  How will she choose a guy if she doesn't want to open her heart to anyone else? Does she have to choose? Who will she choose? Paano na ang kasunduan nila?

When blood betrays blood of course it would hurt. But what do you expect from a deceitful, thieving, manipulative twin sister? Life, of course, will never be a bed of roses for Melanie Martinez, a pole dancer who got sold into prostitution by her twin sister when the going got tough. Well, it was during one of her performance on stage while pole dancing before she would be given to the highest bidder for the night, that Melanie Martinez was stolen away by a demon king who had come in form of a human. What happens when,not only the demon king but also arch nemesis of the demon king falls in love with melanie? Disaster strikes in the demon realm! Is this her protection or her doom?!