That's Not My Neighbor Francis Novels & Stories

It's my third wedding anniversary with Eanes Lambert. However, he and his childhood sweetheart put on a public display of affection on their social media. "My heart beats for you and you only." I like the post and share it, but the original post is immediately deleted. Later, Eanes calls me to tell me off. "I was just comforting her because she was in a bad mood. Do you have to be so petty? What else can you do other than get jealous of others?" The next second, I receive a photo of him and his childhood sweetheart kissing passionately. She's the one who's sent it to me. In the past, I would've stormed over there to kick up a fuss. Now, however, I merely choose to leave Eanes. I'll let him have what he wants.

Ava Reyes has spent four years doing what she does best — keeping her feelings exactly where they cannot do any damage. She is twenty-nine, co-owner of a thriving bakery, and hopelessly in love with the one man she has absolutely no business wanting. Marcus Calloway is her best friend's older brother — steady, brilliant, and infuriatingly easy to be near. When he left for London six years ago, Ava buried her feelings and moved on. Or did a convincing enough impression of it. Then Marcus comes home. Permanently. And he is engaged. His fiancée, Isabelle Ferreira, is a sharp London solicitor who is warm, intelligent, and impossible to resent. She has done nothing wrong. She deserves everything she has. Which makes what Ava is beginning to want all the more dangerous. Because the more Ava finds herself near Marcus — at family dinners, in stolen conversations, in the small accidental moments that keep finding them together — the more she notices things she shouldn't. The way he watches her. The way the air shifts between them when no one else is paying attention. She is not a woman who chases unavailable men. She has a conscience, and it is loud. But she is also a woman who is tired of being careful. What begins as a private war with herself slowly becomes something more deliberate. Ava doesn't set out to destroy anything. She simply sets out to make Marcus Calloway finally see her. What she doesn't account for is how much it will cost — and how deeply she will fall before she understands the difference between wanting someone and deserving them. Some fires don't care how carefully you've been living.

Emily has never known the warmth of a real family. Abandoned before she was born and orphaned young, she was taken in by her best friend’s mother—fed, clothed, and educated, but never truly loved. To them, she was just the charity case they picked up from the streets, tolerated but never chosen. Still, Emily believed in love, she trusted her boyfriend, she trusted her best friend. Until the night she walked in on them together… in his bed. Shattered and drunk, she spent one reckless night with a mysterious stranger, desperate to forget the betrayal. By morning, he was gone, leaving only a name behind. Mr. Harrison Grey. She never expected to see him again, until she returned home and watched her best friend run into the arms of the same man. “Daddy! I missed you!” In that moment, Emily’s world collapsed all over again, because the stranger she spent the night with was her best friend’s father. Now, a dangerous secret is growing inside her, one that could destroy what little stability she has left. As forbidden feelings, jealousy, and buried family secrets surface, Emily must confront a truth she never saw coming. What happens when the man who gave you one night of comfort becomes your forbidden baby daddy?

Oh yeah,” she let out a strangled moan when his girth hit her spot and the sensation almost made her combust on the spot. His hand dug into her hair as he drilled into her repeatedly, letting out muffled grunts with each thrust. As she held onto his rippled muscles on his back, drawing him close, Camille knew she shouldn’t be doing this, letting her best friend’s brother use her as his personal toy when she was right in the next room, asleep and completely unaware of everything going on. *** When Camille’s roommate and best friend Lucia, invites her heartbroken older brother to their apartment for only a month to recuperate, she expects to meet a depressed, quiet and needy ex-lawyer, who lost everything after his heartbreak. However, when Camille meets the drop-dead gorgeous player with a thick British accent when he throws a party at their house, she discovers he is the complete opposite of what she imagined. What happens when Camille finds herself falling hard for the very man she swore to both herself and her best friend, to never feel that way towards. What happens when he makes it extremely difficult for her to resist him and they begin an explicit but forbidden romance without her best friend’s knowledge.

They say betrayal cuts deepest when it comes from the one you love. Larissa learned that the hard way. One slip of the tongue. Four deadly words. “It was an accident.” In a moment of blind trust, Larissa took the fall for a crime she didn’t commit—believing her fiancé would fix it. Instead, he turned his back on her and watched her get locked away. Now out on parole and drowning in shame, Larissa’s last chance at justice comes from the last man she should trust—his brother. Cold. Calculated. Dangerous. Everything about him screams don’t play his game. But he wants revenge just as much as she does. And he has a plan that starts with one forbidden rule: Marry me, and we ruin him together. Trusting a Patterson destroyed her once. Trusting another might cost her more than just her freedom. But this time, Larissa isn’t playing to survive—she’s playing to win. Because love is messy. Loyalty is dead. And revenge? That’s the most forbidden game of all.

On our fifth wedding anniversary, my wife, who had struggled with fertility for years, suddenly felt nauseous. The college student we had been sponsoring panicked and rushed her to the hospital. Half an hour later, she called me. "I'm pregnant." I was thrilled, until her next words froze me in place. "The father's the college student, the one we've been supporting. He got sick that night and I felt bad for him, so I stayed over. I didn't think anything would happen. We have to keep this quiet. He's graduating soon and joining our company. We can't let this mess things up for him. "And you need to quit your job, so he can take your position. I'm going to need you home to take care of me." The sheer audacity left me speechless, but I kept my voice level. "Okay." She hung up, satisfied. What she did not know was that years ago, someone had made me a promise. If I turned 30 years old and still did not have a child, she would give me one. Today was my 30th birthday.

Three days before the wedding, I was cleaning out some old boxes when I remembered the time capsule Natasha Rowe and I buried ten years ago. When I mentioned it, her face stiffened for a moment. She quickly tried to talk me out of going. "It's been so long," she said. "Someone probably dug it up already." I didn't think much of it and went back to our old high school alone. At the spot where we buried it, I started digging. Instead of one box, I pulled out five metal containers of different sizes. Two of them were the ones Natasha and I buried ten years ago, their surfaces rusted and worn. But there were three others. One of them was just as rusted as ours. The other two looked almost brand new. The old extra box had a name scratched into the lid. Vince Houle. On it were the words, [My secret crush was a war I fought alone. Natasha, I hope you're happy.] I remembered him then. He had been a quiet guy who sat behind us in class. The kind of student no one really noticed. The two newer boxes had names carved into them, too. Natasha and Vince. The date etched into both of them was today. On Natasha's box were the words, [The greatest regret of my life is that I couldn't marry you.] On Vince's box were the words, [The greatest regret of my life is that I can't openly congratulate you on getting married.]

As master grabs me by the neck, he pulls me closer and his hand continues to roam around my body. With an angry look hovering over his face, he whispers. “You belong to me, Imogen, No one under the moon is allowed to touch you the way I do”. At this point i didn’t know what to say but my heart is beating fast. When I needed my mate to accept me, all master did was to reject me and now he wants me back after I have made someone else fall in love with me? With a smirk playing across the edge of my lips, i leaned into his embrace and also whispered, “You made me suffer for you, master. Why don’t I have my own bit of cake by seeing you go through what I went through because of you?” I know I am still in love with master because he is my mate, he is my bondage and more than anything, I wanted that bondage to consume me.

My husband, Harry Forger, who couldn’t have kids, got a college girl pregnant. He was thrilled and planned to keep it a secret until the baby was born, but I caught him red-handed at the hospital. I completely lost it and demanded to know how he could betray me after all I had done to land 10-billion-dollar deals for him. He just handed me divorce papers and said coldly, “You can’t give me a child, but Claire is already pregnant and needs someone to take care of her. I’m going to marry her and give her a real family. “Sign the papers. If we end things peacefully, you can still have a spot in the company.” I refused, and that’s when his revenge started. He had me thrown in prison and froze all my assets. In the end, he even tied my parents, who both had heart problems, to a drop tower ride. “Sign the divorce papers, and I’ll let them go. If you don’t sign, then watch them die up there.”

Bonita Clarkson is hurt and betrayed by her mate. She found him in the arms of her sister. Bonita has to escape from him and her sister with the help of her only friend in the pack! However, she lands on his uncle's Packgrounds. Will he help her as he is her second-chance mate, or is she too young for him? Only time will tell if their bond as mates is strong enough to pass the test of the age gap between them. Is she ready to take a second chance at love, or is the scar on her heart too deep to trust again?