Shattered Rose: He Held On Tight

I become paralyzed after trying to save my wife. Seven years later, she holds a knife to our young son's neck and forces me to donate my kidney to her male best friend. She says I'm worthless now that I'm already paralyzed—what does it matter whether or not I have my kidneys? What she doesn't know is that I already lost a kidney many years ago when trying to save her. Now, she's taking away the only one I have left!

Tess let a stranger claim her. He touched her like she was worth everything, then walked away when he learned something about her he swore never to get involved with. Now he's her boss, and he pretends she doesn't exist. Donovan has rules. But Tess almost made him break them. He touched her, almost claimed her, but had to force himself to stop. Now she sits outside his office every day, and he's haunted. He avoids her like a disease, becomes crueller than ever to suppress his own desires. Because if he lets himself feel anything, he won't ever be able to stop. His addiction had a face now, and she's destroying every defense he's built.

He didn’t come to find her. He came to sign a business deal. But fate had other plans — and a pair of familiar eyes waiting to meet his. When billionaire investor Adrian Blackwood visits a local primary school to discuss a scholarship program, he doesn’t expect to play hero. Yet when he sees a little girl being cornered by bullies, something inside him cracks. He steps in — cold, detached as always — until she looks up at him with eyes too familiar to ignore. Eyes that mirror his own. Her name is Aria. Smart, stubborn, and heartbreakingly brave… and she has no father. The connection hits him harder than he wants to admit. What Adrian doesn’t know is that Aria’s mother is Elena Hart, the woman he left behind years ago in college — the only woman he’s ever loved, and the one who still doesn’t know the truth about why he really left. But the past never stays buried. As Adrian starts to piece together the truth — about Elena, about Aria, and about the powerful enemies who forced him to disappear — old secrets resurface with dangerous consequences. Someone has been watching them both, someone who knows what Adrian tried to protect Elena from. And when a buried scandal threatens not just his empire but their child’s safety, Adrian realizes leaving her was his biggest mistake… and coming back might be the one thing that destroys them all.

Nick Horden was the kind of man everyone in New York’s elite circles whispered about. He was rich, reckless, and a little unhinged. But for all his chaos, he only ever cared about one person: Lisa Winters, a girl with nothing to her name, the half-starved homeless girl he once pulled off the streets. From fifteen to twenty-five, he gave her everything. His love, his devotion, and every bit of tenderness a man like him was capable of. Then one day, another woman appeared. Nick said she was different. She had been through hell, fought her way back, and refused to break. And little by little, she took Lisa’s place…

"You can't walk away," he whispered, his breath hot against my ear. "Not now." I never should've followed him. I knew it the second I saw his dark, predatory eyes lock onto mine across the bar. But I couldn't stop myself. I was drawn to him, to the danger simmering beneath his cool, controlled exterior. "One night," I told myself, "just one night." But it wasn't just a night. It was a raw, thrilling ride into darkness, where he took control in ways l'd never imagined. "Do you like it when I make you beg?" he growled, and I did. God, I did. By morning, I was tangled in his sheets, marked by his touch, my body still aching from the things he'd done to me. But when I opened my eyes and saw his face in the cold light of day, reality hit like a punch to the gut. The man l'd spent the night with, the one who made me surrender in every way possible, wasn't just a sexy stranger. He was a mafia kingpin-one of the most feared men in the city. And me? I'm the future district attorney, the one assigned to take him down. "You belong to me now," he said, his voice a deadly promise. And as much as I wanted to deny it, I knew he was right. But what happens when the lines between law and lust blur beyond recognition?

I loved Jason Lacroix for six years, but I never told him. I was his adopted sister. We weren’t related. I was also his assistant, responsible for everything in his life. I did not know who exposed my feelings toward him in public. I could never forget the icy glares in his eyes. “Madeline, you should know your place.” He thought I was mentally unstable. He listened to Camila Fisher, his first love, and sent me to a mental asylum. After I was discharged, he regretted his decision.

When my mother first told me about the arranged marriage, Noah Parker lowered his head and kissed me, pulling me closer as we became tangled together. After a haze of passion, he carried me into the bathroom. Warm water streamed over my skin, but his words sent a chill straight through me, as if I'd fallen into an icy pit. "Go home. And don't come looking for me here again." I thought he'd seen the text and was jealous, so I quickly clung to him and swore, "I won't marry anyone else—" His smile stayed, but the heat in his eyes cooled into something distant. "But I'm getting married." He brushed back my messy hair, ignoring how my body trembled under his touch. "My fiancée is gentle and kind—nothing like you. She’d never throw herself at her foster brother like that. We've already set a date. If you keep clinging to me like this, she'll be upset with me."

Some nights are meant to break you. Others change your life forever. Running from hunger, cruelty, and a past that refused to let her breathe, Ivy thought her life would end on a rain-soaked night. Trapped, terrified, and out of strength, she had nowhere left to go... until he found her. Powerful, emotionally guarded and dangerously composed, he pulled her from the storm and into a world she never belonged to. One night of rescue turns into obsession, protection, and a connection that moves too fast to escape. Who is the man who saved her? And what happens when the night that rescued her becomes the beginning of everything she was never prepared for? One night. One stranger. No turning back.

After my rebirth, I no longer stop my husband, Don Dante Moretti, from taking care of his dead older brother's widow and daughter, Sofia Bianchi and Lucia Moretti. I spent my entire life hoping that he would spare me a glance, after all. Only when I was hugging my son, Leone Moretti's icy corpse while dying in the snow, did I realize just how wrong I'd been. Once I'm reborn, I visit the law firm decisively and turn in my appeal for divorce. "I request to file a divorce with Dante Moretti. I'd like to terminate Leone's and my original identities." A few days later, Leone and I will disappear from Dante's life. Since he wants to stay with Sofia and Lucia, I'll grant his wish.

I'm seven months along with my second pregnancy when a truck almost hits me. My husband threatens the doctor like a maniac. "I'll make all of you retire prematurely if anything goes wrong with my wife!" Before I enter the operating theater, I can't help thinking he's being too anxious. The truck merely brushed past me and made me fall. He doesn't need to be so panicked. However, when I open my eyes again, I find that my belly is flat. I crawl out of bed in a panic and head to the door, where I overhear Lucian Jacobe talking to the doctor. "Mrs. Jacobe wasn't in a major accident, sir. The child could've been saved. Why did you insist on aborting it? It was a baby boy, too." "Jenny will cry if she finds out about me having children with another woman. How can I bear to see her upset? It's not my first time doing something like this, anyway."