The Innocent Mother

Zina thought seeing her boyfriend with his ex in his room was painful. Little did she know that seeing the man she had almost given her virginity to just last night engage and marry her mom would shatter her world. They both try to act like the line they tried to cross was invisible. But emotions can’t hide. Alex begins to break his well built wall of defenses and discipline while Zina’s love for him begins to grow. But he is her stepfather, and what they have is forbidden.

Lily Peterson's childhood sweetheart, Sean Clements, ran over my 70-year-old mother in his car while he was drunk-driving. Because of that, Mom died on the spot. But Lily insisted on signing the letter of forgiveness for Sean. "My mother-in-law had planned on scamming Sean for more money, so she lay beneath the wheels on purpose. She should be the one taking on the entire responsibility." Not only did Sean get released as an innocent man, but he also received the ten-million-dollar payment given by the insurance company as compensation for his emotional distress. "Honey, I grew up with Sean since we were kids. I can't just sit by and watch his life get ruined by imprisonment! Can't you be more gracious and stop bringing this issue up?" After leaving the police station, Sean uploads a post on his social media feed in a high-profile manner. "Lily looks so gorgeous when she defends me in front of others! Childhood sweethearts will always be the closest people in life!" Lily leaves a like on Sean's post right in front of me. I remain eerily calm. "Let's get a divorce, Lily." She huffs coldly in return. "You just want me to console you, right? Tristin Foley, you're already 30 years old. Can you stop being childish?" I've already brought up divorce multiple times in the past. That's why Lily refuses to believe that I will leave her for real. But what she doesn't know is that I've snuck in a divorce agreement into the documents meant for the case closure registration, and she has personally left her signature there.

The top-tier charity auction in Manhattan is about to begin when my boyfriend’s stepsister spots a pearl necklace she likes. Wanting to buy it as her birthday gift, my boyfriend reserves a bidding seat. But due to a mistake by the organizers, the seat had actually been reserved by someone else before he booked it. An elderly lady dressed plainly says the seat is hers, yet they show no intention of yielding. I force my boyfriend to give the seat back to the woman. But Amy storms out in a fit of anger. That night, gunshots echo through the neighborhood. A stray bullet hits her, and she bleeds out on the spot. He calmly arranges her funeral, yet still keeps his promise and marries me. Soon after, my father dies in what is ruled an accident. On the day of my father’s funeral, he storms into the church with his men. Looking at me kneeling before the coffin, he smiles arrogantly. “Olivia, this is what you owe Amy! If you hadn’t stopped me that day, the seat would’ve been hers! She wouldn’t have run out in anger, and she wouldn’t have been shot! Let me tell you something—your father was killed by me. And now it’s your turn!” Right in front of everyone, he shoots my younger brother—who had been kneeling beside me, begging for mercy—dead with a single bullet. His bodyguards pin me down and drag me out of the church as I watch helplessly, his blood pooling before my father’s coffin. When I open my eyes again, my boyfriend is glaring angrily at the waiter, about to explode. What he doesn’t know is that the plainly dressed old woman in sunglasses is the mother of the current Don of the most powerful Mafia family in New York—the Morretti family. And that Don is famously devoted to his mother.

In my previous life, my three sons told me they wanted to set up a Family Bond Fund for me. Each of them would deposit three thousand dollars every month. I cried with gratitude, truly believing that decades of sacrifice had finally paid off. One of them even said, "Mom, you've given us so much. It's our turn to take care of you now." However, eight years later, I was told I have uremia. That was when I discover that the bank card, which supposedly held the fund, couldn't even cover the dialysis deposit. Soon after, my eldest son video-called me. He said he wanted to buy a better apartment in a good school district. He was short of 150 thousand dollars for the down payment and asked if I could lend it to him first. My second son came to the hospital with his wife and daughter. He didn't ask about my condition at all. Instead, he kept showing off his daughter's piano competition trophy, hinting that he needed 50 thousand dollars to enroll her in a prestigious international piano program. My youngest son was even more straightforward. He said he had his eye on a limited-edition pair of sneakers and wanted me to pay 30 thousand dollars for them as a birthday gift. The moment they realized the bank account didn't have enough money, their faces fell. "We each put in three thousand dollars every month. Over eight years, that's at least eight hundred thousand dollars. Mom, are you hiding the money from us?" To force me to reveal my savings, they took turns pressuring me, switching between sweet talk and threats. They even told relatives that I had dementia and had been scammed out of my money. Unable to take it anymore, I yanked out my IV late one night and walked out of the hospital, only to be hit by a car, dying instantly. When I open my eyes again, I find myself back on the day of my hospital checkup.

He was her stepfather. He made her breakfast every Sunday while her mother was still alive. He was at her graduation. He kept a careful distance that Aurora noticed — and never examined. When her mother died, Aurora left and spent two years telling herself she had processed everything properly. She had not. Now her grandmother has handed her a red envelope with one name inside it. The same name. Aurora holds the note for a long time before she gets on the bus. Julian Oswald is forty years old. Cedar Falls knows him as a quiet widowed chef raising his daughter alone. What Cedar Falls does not know — what the entire culinary world has been trying to discover for years — is that Julian is the Ghost Chef. The anonymous billionaire behind the world's largest culinary empire. A face no one has ever photographed. His five-year-old daughter Lily has not spoken a full sentence since her mother died. She has not eaten voluntarily. Not for anyone. Until Aurora walks through the door. Lily says one word after two years of silence — a name she should not still remember — and Julian goes completely still on the porch. That is when Aurora understands she is not walking into a contract. She is walking back into the most dangerous kitchen she has ever been in. The one where everything between them has always been unspoken. The one where he still knows her breakfast order without asking. He was supposed to be off-limits. He was. He memorized her breakfast order anyway.

For Maya Bennett, a one-night stand was supposed to be just that—one night. But when she walks into her mother’s house and finds the man from that unforgettable night standing there as her mother’s new boyfriend, her world tilts on its axis. Daniel Hayes is everything Maya swore to avoid—powerful, devastatingly handsome, and emotionally unavailable. But the sparks that ignited between them can’t be extinguished, no matter how wrong it feels. At first, they promise to leave what happened between them in the past in order not to hurt Helen, but then when the small marketing firm Maya works for is acquired by Daniel’s company she is sent over to the executive department as part of the transitioning team. Things start to get heated and they eventually start to cave into their desires. Can love survive when it was never meant to exist? Or will it destroy everything in its wake?

Darlene is a woman rediscovered. After the dust of a divorce settled, she found herself trapped in a quiet house with a growing, restless hunger. What began as a fleeting, forbidden thought soon spiraled into an all-consuming obsession centered on the one person who was strictly off-limits: her son, Leo. What starts with stolen glances and secret thrills evolves into a high-stakes game of cat and mouse. From provocative signals in the hallway to the ultimate crossing of lines, Darlene and Leo navigate a dangerous path of mutual discovery. As they shed the traditional roles of mother and son, they replace them with a bond that is as intense as it is taboo. But a secret this heavy cannot stay contained forever. Between the looming threat of discovery by neighbors, the interference of old flames, and the life-altering reality of a pregnancy that binds them forever, their unconventional relationship is tested at every turn.

If it was my sister being bullied, Mom and Dad would have believed her right away and fought for her without a second thought. However, it did not matter anymore. In my next life, I would pick parents who really cared about me.

In order to protect my father, I was tortured for ten hours, but my father was busy celebrating his adopted daughter’s eighteenth birthday. With my dying breath, I called my father and said, “Dad, it’s my birthday today. Could you wish me a happy birthday?” “You crazy monster! You got your mother killed in order to celebrate your birthday! How could you still ask me to celebrate your birthday? You should just die!” With that said, he hung up. The next day, my corpse was placed in different flower pots and put in front of a police station. My father was in charge of inspecting my corpse, and he could immediately tell that the murderer did this for revenge. What they did to me was cruel and made a mockery of the police’s authority. But he did not manage to tell that the deceased was the daughter he hated.

Maddy thought marrying her fated mate and flying to Greece to start a new life would fix everything. All she wanted was a perfect life with De-Shawn—far away from Alpha Rowan J. Grey, the man she discovered was also her mate. That was impossible. A werewolf could only have one fated mate—unless one died. Second-chance mates don't happen while both are still alive. Yet here she was. Both of her mates are alive. “Let’s go to Greece,” De-Shawn said the night he slid the ring onto her finger. Maddy wasn’t sure, but running felt safer than staying. Because Rowan couldn’t be her mate. He was married. He had children. Worse—he was her godmother’s husband. She escaped to Greece, hoping distance would weaken the bond forming between her and Rowan. Hoping marriage would save her. But It didn’t. Her fated mate destroyed her life; he killed their unborn pup, stripping her of everything she owned, and forcing her into a conservatorship. Left with nothing and on the verge of spending six years in rehab as a mentally ill patient, she turns to one person. One person she shouldn’t turn to, one person from whom she should stay far away.