Santa Clara Remote Appearances Novels & Stories

It has been fifty-five days since my fiancé cut me off. I called off the wedding I'd waited eight long years for. All while he was caring for his childhood sweetheart, who was battling depression and seeking peace at a remote retreat. He even had the historic chapel—a local landmark called the Aethelred Sanctuary—closed to the public for six months because of her. And me? I was left to face the swarming reporters, hounded from one place to the next until I had nowhere left to hide—all because he disappeared without a word. Out of options, I went to the retreat to find him. But he turned me away, saying I would disturb the quiet and sanctity of the place. In the bitter cold of deep winter, I collapsed outside the gates, barely holding on. When I woke, I saw him—Jonathan—planting an entire garden of roses on the grounds, every bloom a declaration of love. Six months later, he finally left and returned home with his childhood sweetheart. The roses they had planted now filled what was supposed to be our wedding venue, from floor to ceiling. I watched them, cold and unmoved. What he didn't know was this—I was already engaged to someone else.

"I celebrated my divorce with a party. I ended the night in my ex-husband’s bed. Now, I’m carrying a secret he’ll never let me escape." Seraphina Rossi is finally free. After three years of being the "invisible wife" to the cold and powerful Dominic Thorne, the divorce papers are signed. To celebrate, Seraphina throws a "Good Riddance" party, intent on dancing her way into a new life. But Dominic doesn’t like a spectacle. When he crashes the party to drag her home, the argument turns into a night of regrettable, white-hot passion. One "mistaken" night later, Seraphina wakes up to a cold shoulder and a legal document—Dominic wants to make sure their "lapse in judgment" doesn't cost him a dime. Hurt and furious, she signs it and flees to a remote villa to start over. But the morning sickness catches up faster than her flight. Now, Seraphina is pregnant with the Thorne heir, and Dominic has just arrived at her doorstep with a terrifying revelation: The divorce was a mistake. The papers have been "lost." And he’s not leaving until he claims every inch of what belongs to him. "You’re still my wife, Seraphina. And I don’t share what’s mine."

Since I can remember, I have been a liar. That is the conclusion my mother made about me. After my twin brother, Daniel Benson, and I are born, she becomes obsessed with a so-called scientific parenting method. So, she puts a lie-detecting collar on each of us. Whenever we lie, the collar lights up in red. The moment it turns red, she presses a remote and shocks me. She says it will help form muscle memory to correct the bad character in me. Daniel's collar is always green. Even when he tears my mom's favorite clothes to shreds and calmly claims a dog does it, the collar still glows green. But I am different. Even if I just say, "Mom, I’m thirsty," The collar would suddenly flash a blinding red light. Then, a current shoots through my neck and into my body, making me tremble in pain. At first, I try to explain. But my mom always says the same thing. "The machine doesn't lie. You have to feel pain to learn. I'm doing this for your own good." After being shocked thousands of times, I slowly start to believe that maybe I am truly born a liar.

Knox Callahan, Crestwood High golden boy and hockey captain… my biggest tormentor. All it had taken was one clumsy spill in biology class to make me his favourite target. And there is no escaping him, no matter how hard I fight back. Then the decision that changed everything came. "Annalise, I got married. We are moving," mom said. And the new house? It turned out to be Knox's. Because somehow, while I was busy surviving him, his father had been out there and managed to steal my mother's heart before secretly marrying her. And now the boy who made my life hell was now my stepbrother but there is nothing remotely brotherly about the way Knox looks at me. Or even the way his hands would slide up my skin each time he was near me. It is quite hard… keeping up appearances and pretending the tension suffocating every room that we both happened to step into doesn't exist. The more we share the same space, the harder it becomes to remember why I should stay the fuck away from my new stepbrother. And Knox? He doesn’t even try.. He corners me and touches me at every opportunity in ways that can never be mistaken for anything innocent. The darkness I once feared resided inside of him begins to feel dangerously like something I really crave. But I am a good girl. And good girls shouldn't want their stepbrothers. Yet I am running out of reasons to resist.

Six years of my life. My time, my trust, my whole heart and Adrian Cross exchanged vows with another woman like I never existed. I had his promises. His plans. The names we picked for children we never got to have. All gone in one day. And if that wasn’t enough, my father was sick and the bills were drowning me. Then his Rival, Jaden Parker, came with an offer. Clear every hospital bill in exchange for two years of marriage. No love. No emotions. Just a deal with an expiration date. I said yes. But no one warned me what two years next to the same man does to a heart that was already broken. Now I’m falling for someone who made me sign a contract that says love isn’t allowed. Do I tell him or do I protect what’s left of myself?

“Stop this God forsaken wedding!!” I boom, my voice resonating through the halls of the church. Murmurs fill the air as eyes turn to me, dressed in nothing but rags. My grip tightens on the bat in my right hand. How dare they? How dare he? My eyes burn as I match forward, my body trembling with rage. “Clara, what–” His words are barely out before I send my hand forward, swinging the bat at him. Thick red blood spurts out as screams fill the air. ~~~~~ Clara Anthony thought it was love when she took the fall for a theft her husband committed just a few weeks after she gave birth. Thought she was doing the right thing for him, for them, but she was wrong because on the day she came out three years later, she found out he was getting married to her best friend of ten years. Her whole world shatters as she watches her best friend take her life, her husband, and her daughter. Left with nothing but pain and a deep ache for revenge. She teams up with the one person she swore never to look at again, the one person everyone thought was dead. Spencer Anthony, twin to her husband and her first love, the same man who left her without a word. Now he is back from the dead, not as the same man she once knew, but a cold, heartless mafia man who wants nothing but destruction. As Spencer offers her a chance to reclaim her life and daughter. Filled with nothing but hate, she takes up the offer, determined to make everyone pay. But what she didn't know when going close to Spencer was that when dining with the devil, you use a long spoon.

"I need you to smile, darling," Adrian whispers, his fingers digging into Isabella's waist as cameras flash. "Your father's business empire depends on it." The champagne in her glass trembles as Isabella forces herself to play the perfect mafia bride. She hasn't told him about the baby yet. Hasn't mentioned the way his eyes linger on the judge's daughter, Elena. Hasn't revealed that she knows about the poison they've planned for her "tragic accident." But Isabella Romano isn't going down without a fight. "Please," she whispers to Santa Muerte as poison burns through her veins. "Give me a chance to make them pay." Death has a price. Isabella awakens in the body of Valentina Salvatore—wife to Adrian's greatest rival and mother to twin girls who somehow see through her deception. She has 150 days to either claim vengeance or find true love. The clock is ticking, and Nicolas Salvatore, her new "husband," is proving dangerously easy to fall for. "You're not really her, are you?" Nicolas murmurs one night, his fingers tracing her jaw. "My Valentina never looked at me the way you do." But as Isabella navigates the deadly waters of rival crime families, she discovers Valentina had secrets of her own—secrets worth dying for. Now, with her father plotting a takeover, Adrian suspicious of her resurrection, and her borrowed body slowly rejecting her soul, Isabella must choose: the revenge she died for, or the love she never expected to find. In this dangerous game of second chances, some fates are worse than death. And some loves are worth dying for twice.

Daisy Brown has one rule about Dexter Hart, stay away from him. He is her best friend’s older brother, a shameless rake who collects women and leaves them without a second thought. Easy enough to avoid. Until a tipsy night during her staycation at Ivy’s apartment lands her in his bed and turns everything upside down. She calls it a mistake. He calls it a beginning. Dexter doesn’t do commitment. He watched his parents’ marriage collapse and decided love was a losing game. But Daisy is different and that terrifies him more than he will ever admit. Now they are living under the same roof, pretending nothing happened, while everything crackles between them. With Casper King steady, warm, and openly pursuing Daisy threatening to make Dexter’s decision for him, and Lily Andrews, Dexter’s scheming ex, working quietly in the background to burn it all down, the pressure builds until something has to give. Daisy walks away first. And for the first time in his life, Dexter Hart chases someone. Some mistakes are worth making twice.

Jaxon Carter has everything a man could want—talent, fame, and a multimillion-dollar contract with the Titans almost within his grasp. The only problem? His reckless lifestyle stands between him and the contract. But his agency has told him that he can salvage the contract by cleaning up his image. Sienna Blake has two things in life she held dear —her ballet career and her house she grew up creating memories in. But when the bank forecloses her house and her ballet career barely covers her bills, she turns to her agency, only to be coldly rejected. When their paths cross at the agency, Jax sees an opportunity. She needs money. He needs stability. The solution? A fake relationship. He offers to clear her debts in exchange for playing the perfect doting girlfriend—just long enough it's beneficial to them. But what starts as a transaction soon spirals into something neither of them expected. Public appearances turn into stolen moments and close proximate intimacy blurs into something more. They find themselves trapped in a dangerous game—one where the greatest risk isn’t losing a contract or a house… but losing their hearts. And just when Sienna is ready to confess the biggest secret of all, Jax's past comes haunting them. Hurt and betrayed, she walks away without a second glance, choosing to protect her heart and her unborn child. Will Jax fight for what they had? Will he risk everything—including his career—to fight for the only thing that ever truly mattered?

Natalie Harper leads a simple life. A trained professional secretary, she had always been diligent, organized, and committed to staying out of trouble. Her uneventful life is upended when her gruff boss, Alexander Hayes-a wealthy CEO-makes her an offer she can't refuse: a marriage contract. Alexander needs a fiancée to save his reputation and to get that crucial business contract, and Natalie fits perfectly. From the beginning, it would seem pretty easy: she gets financial security, and he saves his company. But getting into Alexander's glittering world is far from simple. Thrown into a whirlwind of lavish parties, prying socialites, and Alexander's guarded past, Natalie quickly realizes she is in over her head. Things get even more complicated when Alexander's ex-fiancée resurfaces, determined to wreak havoc. As old secrets start to unravel, Natalie begins to question everything-especially her own feelings. The more time she spends by Alexander's side, the more impossible it is not to feel the emotions she was so determined to keep out of their deal. Is this a game he is playing, or is there really something genuine behind those cold and remote eyes? Can Natalie navigate his world of deceit and power, or will she lose herself in the process?