Tatami Tea Table

As I looked into my daughter's deep blue eyes, I knew I would protect her with everything that I had. Those same eyes were looking at me today over the boardroom table at our finance meeting. It was as if they were looking right through me. And the face that I would never be able to forget... The one I chose from a catalogue to be my sperm donor five years ago...

Lila was just the maid until a contract marriage to billionaire Asher Lancaster changed everything. What began as a deal for money and fame turned into heartbreak, betrayal, and unexpected love. Now, with divorce papers on the table, Asher must face the truth. He realizes the woman he married for show is the one he can't let go. But love doesn't come on a contract and some heartbreaks don't come with a second chance.

Kyle Wilson fell in love with his maid Bella, when he met her for the first time upon his arrival into his country. His friend Theo Walcott was against the whole idea of him loving a maid and helping her gain admission into college, but the table turned when he fell in love with Bella's Best Friend, who also belongs to a lower class family like Bella.

Nicole Evans never asked to be followed. She never asked for eyes in the dark, for a man like Vane to orbit her life with silence and devotion sharp enough to wound. But obsession doesn’t ask permission. It waits. It watches. It becomes inevitable. What began with missing men and shadows on rooftops soon unraveled into something far more intimate—an assassin who couldn’t let go, and a woman who, piece by piece, stopped trying to make him. As friends vanished and her world narrowed, Nicole found herself drawn toward the very thing she feared most—not out of love, but recognition. In his violence, there was something terrifyingly tender. In his silence, something that listened more closely than anyone else ever had. Theirs is not a love story in any ordinary sense. It’s a descent—a long, slow collapse into dependency, into surrender. A story told in bruises and shared tea, in blood and in stillness. A quiet unraveling that doesn’t end in escape, but in a house by the sea, where memory lingers and echoes never fade. Some stories don’t ask to be understood. Only remembered.

Ugly, disguising, repulsing and plain were only a few 'compliments' Adana was accustomed to. Finally deciding she had had enough, she works hard to get the perfect revenge body she wanted and the table seemed to have flipped on her past enemies. The Richard twins. The perfect pair of polar opposite, move to Lakeland falls after escaping a possible death threat. What happens when they both seem pulled towards the melanin goddess in form of Adana Spindly.

I never meant for this to happen, But a dream can change your point of view on everything. One night, one dream about a forbidden love and all bets were off. I tried to stay away, but the long looks he gave me from across the room went unnoticed by everyone but me. I tried to put distance between us, but it’s hard when the object of your desire sits at your family dinner table once a week.

She was sent to kill. Instead, she might be the one destined to end it all. Lea, a top-tier assassin for the secretive High Table, has never missed a mark—until now. What was supposed to be a routine mission turns into a long-term “quest” in the quiet town of Mystique Gore, assisting a cold, commanding man in a mansion older than memory. Strange? Yes. Dangerous? Definitely. But what’s worse? The mission wasn’t for a target... it was for *her*. Marked by a power she doesn’t understand and haunted by dreams that aren’t hers, Lea finds herself entangled in a world she never believed existed—one ruled by vampires, witches, and werewolves hiding in plain sight. And at the center of it all is Ivan, the enigmatic master of the house who knows more than he says... and watches her like she’s already his. As her assassin instincts clash with ancient prophecies, forbidden truths, and a mark that binds her fate to something much bigger, Lea must uncover why the High Table sent her here—and why the supernatural world is afraid of *her*. They say she’s the beginning. They say she’s the end. They say she must die to keep the peace. But Lea doesn’t take orders. She gives them.

Three months after my baby was born, I found out my husband, Joe, was cheating. The other woman? Hailey. Pregnant and smug. Joe actually got on his knees, begging for a divorce. I said yes. Until I could find a place, Joe's mom, Claudia, let me stay at the house. "Hailey," Claudia said, "you'll handle all the household responsibilities now." Hailey, all fake enthusiasm, chirped, "I'll take good care of this family!" Claudia replied, "Great. You'll start your day at five making breakfast. When Luca's hungry, you'll feed him and change his diapers. Once he's down for a nap, clean the house, grocery shop, and prep lunch. Laundry in the afternoon, tea service mid-day, then bathe Luca and cook dinner. After that, you'll put him to bed." Hailey's face? Priceless.

Our seventh wedding anniversary. I sat at the dining table—alone. My phone buzzed, lighting up with two messages. First, from Tom: [Working late at the office tonight.] Second, anonymous: [Tom is incredible. Can you even keep up?] Attached was a picture of him, lips locked with a woman I didn't recognize. I blew out the candles on the anniversary cake. Eyes shut, I typed back: [Let's divorce.]

My wife, Caroline Bailey, was a forensic pathologist. For her first love, Ian Lawson, she was willing to break every rule she held sacred and allowed him into the autopsy room to observe. She even let him throw acid onto a corpse's face. That was, until Caroline took on a new case. As she stood over the disfigured body on her operating table, she began to fall apart. The acid-burned face was starting to look more and more like mine.