Novel & Cerita The Contracted Hearts

She married him for safety. He married her for strategy. Neither expected obsession. Valeria Torres is a woman with no past-because she buried it. But when her fake identity lands her in the arms of Dante Romano, billionaire mafia heir and the man everyone fears, the game changes. He offers her a deal: a two-year marriage to clean up his image and silence his enemies. She agrees-until the ghosts she ran from reappear and force her back into the life she burned to escape. Now, she has to outwit killers, deceive her husband, and survive the one thing she never planned for-falling for him.

"I'd always find you, Clara," he says, love and hatred burning brightly in his eyes. "There's nowhere you could hide from me. I'd find you anywhere, even in Hell." *** Clara Morelli is the youngest daughter of Nicólo Morelli, one of the most powerful men in the New York mafia. All her life she's been told that she would be auctioned to a strong and rich Italian family, and she believed it to be the highest privilege. She is hated by her mother and older brothers as she is her father's favourite, and so she never got along with them. On the day of her auction, her mother gives her a cryptic message that instills fear in her, but it is too late to turn back. Igor Makárov is one of the richest men in the Russian mafia, and when he shows up at the auction, his presence is unexpected. When he sees the gorgeous Clara on stage, he bids the highest price for her, starting a war between the Russians and Italians. Upon buying her, he makes her sign a bridal agreement where she vows to marry him and swear fealty to him and his family. Their relationship is rocky and explosive at best. She hates him and could never love him as he is cruel and vicious, but that all changes one fateful day. However, things go astray when she uncovers a horrible secret, one that forces her to leave everything behind and carry a secret of her own with her. Igor is not the man she thinks he is. He is much, much worse.

“What’s the point of keeping a woman who can’t have children? Mom refuses to adopt a grandchild from an orphanage, Julian.” *** Adeline Fathia gave everything—five years of her life, her unwavering love, and even her innocence—only to be discarded in a single night because of a medical verdict. As her world crumbled and she stood alone to bury her father, who died in the depths of sorrow, Julian Sterling turned away without a shred of remorse, obeying his mother’s command to find a “worthy” replacement. Adeline was broken, but she was not finished. Standing beneath the drenching rain at her father’s grave, she realized one chilling truth: she was carrying the child of the man who had destroyed her. The child that should have been a testament to their love was now her greatest weapon for revenge. She will no longer beg. She will return to that house not to ask for mercy, but to reclaim the dignity they trampled upon. There is only one way: to approach Axel Sterling, Julian’s elder brother—the dark shadow of the family. One marriage contract. One dark secret within her womb. Adeline is ready to tear the Sterling family apart from the inside, right before the eyes of Julian and his mother.

At first it was a contract, made to meet two ends but when she gets booted out by surprise, the best thing to do is to get a divorce, right? Wrong! Drake doesn’t want her gone, doesn’t want the baby and doesn’t want the divorce and yet doesn’t want to love her, so what can Valerie do? And when she tries to impose the divorce, he cruelly threatens the one thing that she cares about, a secret she thought she had hidden so well… if he can go to such lengths, what would he do when he finds out about a baby that wasn’t supposed to happen.

On her husband’s 34th birthday, Marie and their young son planned a surprise visit to his company, excited to celebrate. However, their joy quickly turned to shock and humiliation when they discovered that Marie was not recognized as the CEO’s wife. Her husband had been publicly presenting another woman as his wife, leaving Marie devastated and embarrassed. Weeks later, her ex-boyfriend returned, only to learn that Marie no longer owned the company he had helped build before he left. As her ex-boyfriend contemplated seeking revenge on her husband, Marie’s young son, Simeon, gave him an unexpected ultimatum: either seek revenge and walk away, or marry his mother and leave the past behind.

They planned to break her. She planned to burn them all down. Orphaned at 12. Abused for 11 years. Julia’s uncle promised to guard her inheritance… then decided he’d rather steal it. As long as she lived, he couldn’t touch a cent. So he broke her, beat her, and set her up to run. She didn’t. When his debts dragged him to bankruptcy, he sold her off—trading Julia for her cousin in a marriage to Arthur Fletcher, heir to a billion-dollar empire. To Julia, it looked like an escape. To her uncle, it was the perfect setup. To Arthur, she was just a pawn in a bigger game. What none of them knew? Julia was done being the victim. The moment she learned their lies, their plots, and the truth they buried with her parents, something in her snapped. Heartbroken? Yes. Broken? Never. She’ll use Arthur’s name, Arthur’s power, Arthur’s rage… And when she’s done, the people who tried to bury her will wish she’d run away that night. Because the girl they called weak is about to become their worst nightmare.

Lila only wanted to fit in for this one night and this one party. So she had one fake boyfriend to keep her from feeling invisible in a sea of confident smiles and perfect couples. It was supposed to be simple until her fake date ditched her under the blinding strobe lights, leaving her stranded and humiliated in the middle of the hockey team’s Freshers Welcome Party. But humiliation took an unexpected turn when Ethan, her best friend’s brother, and worse, her brother’s best friend stepped in to save her. That moment should have been the start of something new. Instead, it became the beginning of everything she never saw coming. Because while her heart recognized something in his eyes, his stayed shuttered, cold and unreachable. And just when she thought she was ready to forget, the fake boyfriend returns, this time, asking for something real. Between two hearts that shouldn’t collide and a past that refuses to stay buried, Lila must choose: follow the safety of what she knows, or risk everything for what she can’t seem to let go of?

By six, Amelia had whipped up a six-dish dinner with soup—Chad Felton's favorites, of course. By seven, she'd prepped his bath, complete with rose petals and candles. By eight, his slippers were perfectly lined up by the door. At nine, Chad finally strolled in. Amelia stepped up, taking his suit jacket. "Eat first or bathe?" she asked, setting the slippers in front of him and hanging the jacket. "Bathe," he muttered, eyes glued to his phone.

The day Jessica Smith and I went to pick out our wedding rings, her long-lost first love unexpectedly returned to town. When we went to pick him up from the airport, she introduced me to him, saying, "This is Sebastian Grant, a friend." Jessica made it clear that I wasn't her fiancé. She even went a step further and called off our engagement party scheduled for the next day. Just when she thought I would fight and insist on marrying her, I suddenly said in relief, "Your best friend previously wanted to hook up with me, you know? And honestly, I was kind of interested."

BLURB Maya Rossi was the "Ice Princess" until a bone-shattering fall turned her into a punchline. Now, the only way to keep her scholarship is to survive a forced partnership with Julian Thorne—the hockey team’s most violent enforcer. He’s a storm of aggression and secrets; she’s a hollow shell of her former self. But as the fake smiles they put on for the cameras start to feel real, a devastating secret threatens to crack the very ice they’re standing on. When the spotlight returns, will Julian be the one to catch her, or is he the one who’s been waiting for her to fall?