Smeraldo Flowers

“Give me one reason, Liv.” He stalked toward me, cornering me against the edge of the desk. “One good reason why I shouldn’t bend you over this desk and fuck you senseless.” My breath caught. “This is wrong, Damon. So wrong.” I pressed my palms flat against his chest, trying to create space. “You’re my brother-in-law…” “Not yet, love,” he whispered, fingers curling around my waist possessively. “You’re still engaged to him, but the man you’ll be getting married to…” Two fingers slipped into my heat, making me gasp. “…is me.” I should’ve walked away. I should’ve resisted. But I couldn't forget what it felt like to be his. * Olivia have the perfect life. The perfect fiancé. Marcus is everything she thought she wanted—sweet, charming, dependable. Safe. She thought she have it all figured out... Until the night of her engagement party, when she comes face-to-face with Damon—her ex. The man who had broken, damaged and left her for ruin, three years ago. The man she’s about to call brother-in-law. Now, old wounds rip open. Feelings she thought she buried, clawed their way back to the surface. And the man she once loved? He isn’t asking this time. Damon wants her back. And he’ll burn every bridge, including the one with his own brother—to make her his again. NOTE TO READERS: This is a dark, emotional, and scorching hot love story. It features a possessive anti-hero, messy family drama, emotional trauma, and morally gray decisions. If you’re looking for a soft romance with flowers and sunshine, this might not be it. But if you crave forbidden passion, flawed characters, and a love story that burns through betrayal and pains… Welcome to Olivia and Damon’s world.

How long does it take to give up on a man you've loved for ten years? It takes me 3 seconds. The first second, I signed my name on the contract to become the chief designer of a renowned studio in Paris. The second second, I lock away ten years of my youth in my heart. The third second, I completely prepare to leave Levi's world. My fiancé Levi is the heir of the Smith Group, the absolute aristocracy. For others, he is untouchable. But for me, he's the childhood sweetheart who, with a crooked paper ring he made himself for the first time in his hand, told me, "You're the only girl I'll ever marry, even if I have to wait a hundred years." From that moment on, the only person I wanted to marry was Levi, and I never doubted that I would eventually marry Levi. But on the day of our engagement, he disappeared. I waited for a whole year, waiting for a message, a phone call, or a knock on the door, but nothing came. Later, he finally appeared. He stood next to a red Ferrari, holding flowers, and said that he still loved me, that he wasn't ready before, and begged me to give him another chance. I almost believed him. But at the same time, I received a provocative message from Levi's first love, Ruby: [Aren't you curious where he went during the time he eloped from your engagement? I'm already pregnant with Levi's child, and he loves kissing my pregnant belly the most.] I wiped away my tears, turned around, and applied to study in the Sorbonne University Faculty of Medicine, leaving only one sentence: "Levi, we're breaking up." Learning that I was leaving, Levi went crazy. He braved the heavy rain and blocked the entrance to my new place, his eyes red, asking me: "Stella, if I make Ruby abort the child, can you come back to me?"

Winifred Jaeger comes from an ordinary family. She meets Timothy Stringer, a rich heir who falls for her at first sight. He immediately starts pursuing her with gusto. Winifred knows they're from different worlds, so she keeps rejecting him. He doesn't give up, though. When she wants to have food from her hometown, he steps into the kitchen for the first time ever. He cooks for her, relishing in it despite getting scalded. When she wants to have candy, he lines up in the dead of winter to get it for her. The iciness and sharp wind don't faze him. She likes fringe tree flowers, so he gets seeds from all over the world. He covers a mountaintop with them for her. She likes making desserts, so he buys ingredients for her from various places. He's more than happy to test her finished products. When she's in a bad mood, he makes sure to cheer her up despite being sick. When Winifred graduates from college, Timothy spreads 99,999 roses on the field to propose to her. She finally realizes she's long since fallen for him, so she says yes. Everyone says she's lucky to have met a man who loves her so and thinks of her as his only one. Yet it's precisely this man who cheats on her when they're about to get married. He tells her he loves her, yet he almost manically tries to have a baby with his mistress. Heartbroken and devastated, Winifred chooses to leave. It's only after she's gone that Timothy searches for her like crazy. When he finds her, he does everything possible to beg her to go back to him. He paces outside her door and begs her incessantly, his eyes red-rimmed. However, she turns him down calmly. "It's too late—you're a closed chapter in my book, and I'm already on a new chapter." Winifred turns to look at a tall, handsome man standing nearby—Timothy's childhood friend, Cyrus Littrell.

The housekeeper’s daughter, Selena Greene, deliberately chose to get married on the same day, at the same hotel as me. When our cars passed each other on the way to our weddings, she rolled down her window and asked to switch my bridal bouquet with hers. My bouquet, however, wasn’t just any bouquet. It was hand-carved from priceless jadeite by my grandfather himself—a one-of-a-kind heirloom and his blessing for my wedding day. “Trish,” she pleaded softly, “please. I’ve sacrificed so much for this wedding. I just want it to be perfect. I’ll give it back to you as soon as we get out of the cars.” My heart softened. Against my better judgment, I handed her my bouquet and took her cheap, plastic flowers instead. However, when we stepped out of our cars, she refused to return it. Worse still, during her ceremony, she tossed my jade bouquet onto the floor, shattering it into countless pieces. That bouquet had been my grandfather’s way of being present at my wedding. It was all I had left of him. Yet, in front of everyone, Selena put on an innocent act and accused me, “Who takes back a bouquet after a switch? A glass bouquet like this is all over online shopping platforms for ten bucks. I’ll just pay you back. Trish, you’ve made my life hard enough on normal days. Do you have to humiliate me on the most important day of my life, too?” Furious, I confronted her, but she ducked behind my fiancé and my brother, wiping at her eyes like the victim. My fiancé immediately went to comfort her, leaving me standing alone at the ceremony, humiliated and ridiculed by everyone. My brother, too, called me cruel and heartless. He cut me off financially and threw me out of the family home. Selena’s husband, having quickly risen to success with the help of powerful backers, unleashed his relentless revenge on the now penniless and alone me. In the dead of winter, hired thugs found me and brutalized me to death. And Selena? She became their princess, adored by all three of them. I sank into darkness, full of rage and regret. However, when I opened my eyes again, I was transported back to the day of the wedding.

Dwyne, a self-supporting medical student, has just joined the hospital as the youngest intern. But she met with an unexpected situation on her first night shift alone--she’s targeted by a handsome man who looked very dangerous. Is he a gangster? Dwyne thought, judging him by his demeanor. He always wore a black suit and sunglasses. Sometimes even at night. And he's got a gunshot wound on his body. A gunshot! It terrified Dwyne.  She wanted nothing more to do with such a dangerous man, but it looked as if the man was haunting her. She began to meet him frequently. Or rather, he was literally everywhere！ The hospital where she works, the coffee shop where she has a part-time job, the bar where she helps out on a temporary basis... And it seemed like everyone knew him. Is he famous?  It's not just outside Dwyne met him everywhere. Her home was no longer a sanctuary for her alone either. The door to her apartment seemed to be a useless decoration to him. She sometimes finds a bouquet of flowers on the coffee table in her house, while a couple of times she's even found himself suddenly showing in her room. Yes, whenever he wanted to see her, he never made an appointment. It absolutely wasn't a funny joke or a pleasant surprise for her. Dwyne was tired of the boring banter, she just wanted to get through her internship and become a qualified doctor, but she was always surrounded by a gang of menacing men in black suits. Annoyed, she blurted out that she didn't have any feelings for him and she didn't want to see him anymore. She didn't expect that, her wish came true. For the next week, month, and then until a year, she never saw the man in her sights again. Her life went back to the way it was. Though, it was ever so slightly boring. Until that day... When they meet again, it's him lying bloody and dying in the operating room. Dwyne realized that she had never forgotten him. During the time she took care of him, she learned his name and got to know him a little more. Geez, it turned out that he's not only a gangster, but a formidable Mafia Boss! However, when Dwyne moved to this town three years ago, she also hid her true identity. This, after all, is not a life that belongs to her...