The Gaze

"Use your words Isabella , I want to hear that sweet voice of yours " His voice dripped with cold menace as his grip on my jaw tightened even more. My lips trembled under his harsh glare. I could barely manage to hold his gaze with my blurry teary ones . "I..I'm sorry A..Ace" I stuttered "You are always sorry, a pathetic cry baby is all you are ever going to be. " He sneered further tightening his grip on my shoulders. I couldn't stop an embarrassing tear that escaped my eyes at his words. "You are so pathetic, I will only hurt you more until you are nothing more than dust beneath my feet " My eyes widened when he inched closer , not knowing what to expect i shut my eyes tightly close . I stopped breathing when his breath fanned against my cheeks. When I opened my eyes he was gone. He used to be my crush and childhood best friend... But now he's my nightmare. He hates me, and he's vowed to make my life a living hell. Because I made a huge mistake. Staying alive when I should have died.

My boyfriend, Simon Hepworth, gets down on one knee for the 66th time. Moved by his persistence, I finally say yes. But on the eve of our wedding, he drops a bombshell on me. He tells me he wants to have a child with his stepsister, Fiona Hepworth. I find it ridiculous and get into a huge fight with him. But I never could've imagined what would come next. On our wedding day, I wait at the altar for three hours, bouquet in my hands, only for him to dismissively tell me that the wedding is postponed. All because he and Fiona have an IVF appointment that very day. "Fiona was abused by her father growing up. She'll never be able to marry," he explains. "I just want to help her fulfill her dream of being a mother. It's just IVF. It's not like we're actually sleeping together. Stop being so sensitive." He then hangs up, leaving me alone at the wedding under the gaze of countless guests and flashing media cameras. The shock sends my father into the ICU. Standing by his bedside, I make a vow. "Dad, you were right. I won't marry Simon. Next week, I'll come home and take over the family business."

Zara Thomas is 23, broke, exhausted, and desperate. A waitress clinging to dead-end shifts and shattered dreams, her world collapses further when her mother is diagnosed with cancer.and the bills are more than she could ever afford. Out of options, out of time, and out of hope, Zara does the unthinkable: she sells one night of herself for money. She walks into a luxury hotel suite expecting shame. she meets Alexander Sterling a dangerously magnetic billionaire who strips her down with his eyes and undoes her with a single touch. One night. No names. No emotions. Just survival. Until fate twists cruelly. A week later, she lands a dream job… as his personal secretary. He’s cold, commanding, and acts like she’s invisible. But his gaze lingers. His touch remembers. And so does hers. What begins as tension spirals into a relationship laced with passion, pain, and everything neither of them expected. But just as Zara starts to believe in something more, a ghost from his past returns, lines blur between duty, desire, and something deeper, past secrets begin to surface, and one devastating truth could change everything. Will love be enough to rebuild the empire they lost or will the weight of their past destroy everything they almost had?

His steely gaze bore into mine, an abyss of emotionless darkness. "Marc-" "SHUT UP!" I flinched, a shudder coursing through me. He came on closer, his fingers tightening around my neck, a cruel parody of a caress. I met his frightening stare, I stared at him breathing heavily. "Just be still." I lowered my face, eyelids fluttering shut, as if seeking solace in the darkness. "I own you." His declaration resounding heavy in the air, an unbreakable chain binding me to this desire’s. In that moment, I knew - there was no escaping the clutches of this man who held me captive, body and soul. **************** In the heart of a city shrouded in shadows and secrets, Elena Santiago's life takes a dangerous plunge. Her father's debts drag them to the doorstep of Don Marco De Luca, an astute and enigmatic mafia overlord, thrusting Elena into a world of scary gambles and lethal allure. Boundaries blur between allegiance and survival as Elena must survive through a web of deception, where every move becomes a battle cry. With her family's future teetering on a razor's edge, she finds herself torn between defying the merciless Don and submitting to a life of total servitude. ******** Will she succumb to his desires… or hers?!

Scarlett Knowles, a single mother, finds herself entangled in a web of love, betrayal, and family drama when she crosses paths with the enigmatic billionaire, Cameron Grayson. Will she be able to navigate the complexities of their relationship and find true love amidst the chaos? *** “Let me at least buy you a drink?” he offered. She turned around to face him squarely, “Are you trying to get me in your bed?” she blurted out. She regretted the words as they left her mouth but there was no taking it back now. She held his gaze, even though she wanted to recoil in shame. Her resolve strengthened when she saw the reaction the words elicited out of him. He almost spat out his drink. The arrogance with which he approached her had depleted, he avoided her gaze. “I thought so…” she turned around and began nursing her drink. She signaled to the bartender for a refill. Suddenly, she felt hot air at the nape of her neck. “Yes, I was hoping to buy you a drink, to lure you to my bed and ruin you in ways you would approve of.” His deep baritone voice sent shivers down her spine. She sucked in her breath. Goosebumps spread all over her skin.

The year my family goes bankrupt, I cling to Ewan Rivera for one last night. When I wake up, I throw my final bit of money at him. "You can go cozy up to some other sugar mommy now. You don't need to degrade yourself by serving an ugly woman like me." I'm kicked out by the people liquidating our assets, and everyone points and laughs at the birthmark on my face. Meanwhile, Ewan's friends are busy celebrating his fresh start. "With a face like yours, tons of wealthy, gorgeous women are lining up for you. Why torture yourself with that ugly chick?" "Now that she's bankrupt, she won't cling to you anymore, right?" Five years later, Ewan has gone from being a broke campus heartthrob to a rising star in business. In the interview room, he flips through my application and pauses on my photo. He asks coolly, "You're 28? You already have a child?" I meet his probing gaze and introduce myself. "Yes. I'm Ingrid Landeau. I'm married with a daughter." I've changed my name and removed the large birthmark on my face. Ewan can't recognize me anymore.

"What do I do, huh?" he nips softly on the skin of my neck as he thrusts in and out of me gently, holding onto me as though I was the most delicate thing in the world. "Tell me how to make it right, baby." He mumbled into my neck, his strokes growing deeper. My eyes met his vulnerable grey ones, and as I looked into the eyes of the man who broke me, I couldn't hold his gaze much longer because of how they seemingly appealed to me and made me waver. Pressing a kiss to his jaw, I whispered, suppressing a moan. "Bandages don't x bullet holes. You cannot x what you have already broken, Sean Wellington, because it's unxable." •••• Sekani Salvador never knew what it felt like to be truly loved, and even when she loved, it had to be a man she wasn't supposed to fall for, Sean Wellington, who happened to be the boyfriend of her twin sister, Simone Salvador, who loathed everything she stood for. Sekani could have sworn that she could never have him but all it took for fate to spin the bottle was one night of vodka and mistakes that she couldn't take back.

Abandoned by her mother and betrayed by her one and only friend. Iasha is sold to a Demon Lord during an auction. As if the moon goddess didn't approve of her birth, she ran into the the Alpha of the BlueMoon pack who wanted her to be his slave by all means. Avarez Dunek is a two centuries old werewolf and the Alpha of the BlueMoon pack. The devil's reincarnation was the notorious name he was known for across the kingdom. He only had one secret in life but she just had to find out about it before anyone else could. He couldn't let her leave, she would either be a slave for him or die by his hands but it looked like fate had other plans for Iasha and Avarez. Would he be able to kill her like he had promised himself and go to the grave with his secret or could there be many truths to the surficial truth he believed he knew? " I could never bite a lowly slave like you and make my pack disappointed in me," Avarez told her but his gaze was still focused on those luscious lips, he had tried to look away countless times but everything led back to those lips... Iasha snorted and looked at him with contempt "You think I want to be mated to a mask-wearing commoner pretending to be an alpha of a pack,"

María López, a twenty-seven-year-old Dominican lawyer, decides that she is not ready to marry, her partner Reed is filled with revenge and hatred towards her and begins to create rumors about alleged bribes accepted by María, bribes of which were even from the defendant for her. After a discussion with the directors of the Buffet, María decides to take a vacation to her homeland on Christmas Eve. On the plane he meets Julio Medina, a man with cinnamon skin, honey-colored eyes and a captivating gaze, who had recently found his wife being unfaithful to him. Julio takes an interest in María and proposes her to a night of sex without commitments. After all, she is no longer engaged to anyone and decides to accept the indecent proposal. Julio is the change she needs in her life, a tender, attentive, romantic man and most importantly ... LOVE COFFEE! Could it be that it is too late when Maria realizes that love at first coffee does exist? Will Julio hold out for Maria to realize that she loves him? Julio is not looking for something temporary, he knew it the moment he saw that woman for the first time. He should make her his, she was perfect for him. Do two souls recognize each other when they belong? Was he wrong? Julio is a man sure of what he wants, and who he wants in his life is that woman so incomprehensible and afraid of falling in love.

Accused of murdering her father, Scarlett is forced into slavery and bought by Alpha Lycan Winter Drayonne, he strips her of rank and pride, reducing the daughter of an Alpha to the lowest Omega in his pack. Her new duty is to tend to his heavily pregnant Luna, his child in her belly, and him who now owns her body but will never touch her soul. Following the death of his mate at childbirth, Winter develops a possessive interest in her, dragging her from the shadows of servitude into the blistering heat of his gaze, deciding the only way to silence his ghosts is to tame her. He will make her kneel. He will make her crave. He will make her his, until the only name she remembers is the one he growls against her throat. Caught between an Alpha who would burn the world to possess her and a forbidden ember reigniting with River Kedalf, the silver-eyed Delta who still tastes her name like forbidden wine and would bleed the world dry to free her, Scarlett must decide: kneel as the Omega he craves… or ride with River to seek her revenge against the people that hurt her. In a court where love is a leash and desire draws blood, only the untamed survive.