Thirteen Going On Thirty Novels & Stories

On the day of Claire Brooks, my wife's funeral, a grieving stranger arrived carrying white lilies. After placing them beside her portrait, he walked straight toward me. "I've envied you for thirty years," he said. Confused, I frowned as his eyes lingered on her photograph. "For thirty years, she gave me everything—her love, her time, her money. She never held anything back." He paused before looking at me with quiet resentment. "The only thing she forbade was letting you know I existed." My heart skipped a beat. "What are you talking about?" He let out a bitter chuckle. "It means that while you were married to her for thirty years, she was with me for thirty years too." Then he walked away, leaving me frozen beside her coffin. I stared after him, struggling for breath. Thirty years of betrayal and lies. The shock sent my blood pressure surging, and I collapsed in the middle of the funeral hall. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day Claire and I were supposed to be married. "Nathan Brooks, will you spend the rest of your life with me?" After a long silence, I took the ring from her hand and, without a moment's hesitation, threw it down the drain.

“Tell me to stop,” I whispered, my lips brushing against the heated skin of his neck. “Tell me you don’t want this, and I’ll walk away right now.” Everette’s breath hitched, his body trembling under my touch. “Raze… don’t—” “Say you don’t miss me,” I murmured, my fingers slowly loosening his tie. “Say it, and I’ll go. No games.” “Don’t… stop,” he breathed, eyes dark with conflicted desire. I smiled against his throat. “That’s what I thought.” ……………………………………………………………………………………………………Everette Carrington betrayed Raze Schmidt—the only man he had ever loved….by pushing him out of the company they built together. Now, when that same company faces a devastating PR crisis, the board offers one shocking solution. A public partnership with his ex. Betrayed, cast aside, and left heartbroken, Raze agrees to return with one calculated goal: thirty days to make Everette fall for him again… straight into his arms and into his trap. But as buried family lies, hidden bloodlines, and deadly secrets begin to surface, Raze discovers that revenge might cost him the one thing he never expected to want again—Everette’s heart.

When Ayden Baldwin ignored me, who was stuck in an elevator, freaking out from claustrophobia, just so he could deliver cold medicine to his assistant, I filed for divorce. Ayden signed his name without hesitation and smiled at his friend. "She's just throwing a tantrum. Her parents are gone. I'm all that she's left. She won't leave me. "Besides, isn't there a thirty-day cooling-off period? If she regrets it, I'll be the bigger person and take her back." The next day, he posted a lovey-dovey pic with his assistant, captioned: "Capturing every shy moment of yours." Counting the days, I packed up my belongings and made a phone call. "Uncle, please book me a ticket to Burville."

Thirty days. One month. A single, heartbeat-stopping wager. Benjamin Parker was the sun. A golden-haired scholarship recruit with flour on his hands and a heart that he wore—vulnerable and beating—on his sleeve. He spent weeks chasing the school’s "Ice Prince," offering handmade tarts and a smile that could melt the coldest winter. He thought his persistence finally paid off when Jonathan Hayes—the obsidian-eyed, terrifyingly beautiful heir to a tech empire—pinned him against the school gates and claimed him in front of everyone. But the "Golden Romance" was a lie from the very first kiss. Jonathan didn't choose Benjamin because of his heart; he chose him because he was a convenient target for a cruel poker-room bet. The stakes? A vintage motorcycle. The duration? Thirty days of manufactured affection. Now, the countdown is ticking. Between the silk sheets of Jonathan’s penthouse and the shadows of the St. Jude’s library, the line between the game and reality is blurring. Jonathan is the predator who accidentally caught himself in his own trap, growing addicted to the very light he’s destined to extinguish. Benjamin is the lamb who is slowly realizing the wolf isn't just at the door—he’s in his bed. When the moon turns red and the thirty days are up, the truth will do more than just break Benjamin's heart. It will shatter his soul. One month of sweetness. A lifetime of ruin. In the game of hearts, the house always wins... and Jonathan Hayes never plays fair.

He was a player... the whole school knew She was a heart breaker... no one knew. Willis Reeler was the school's bad boy. The one who bedded girls for fun. The typical high school hottie and egotistical jerk. He was tagged: The Player. Leigh Raeken was a quiet girl newly transferred from another school. Everyone's mistake was not asking why she transferred. She was kind and nice yes, but underneath the disguise awaits a ruthless heart breaker... waiting for her next victim. What happens when a bet and endless ego pushes the Player to bed his latest conquest: the nice new transfer girl... in thirty days? And the ruthless Heart breaker sees another prey about to get his heart broken in all of thirty days? Will the Player succeed in yet adding another reckless play to his name? Will the Heart breaker succeed in crushing another heart and reputation? Will the Player and the Heart breaker both be victims of their deadliest enemy: Love? They've both got Thirty Days... May The Best Player Win.

Natalie Hale spent five years loving a man who never learned to look at her. When Ethan Cole's first love returns and he asks for a divorce, Natalie doesn't beg. She doesn't break. She asks for one month, thirty days for him to fulfill every promise he made and never kept. A candlelit dinner, a drive-in movie, an amusement park in autumn, Small things. The things that were supposed to mean us. He agrees, then he cancels and then he lies. Then she waits alone, again and again, learning in real time what she already knew in her bones, she was never his priority. But something shifts during that month. He begins to see her: her beauty, her grace, the way a room moves when she enters it. Too late, too slow, and far too little. On the thirtieth day, Natalie signs the papers, leaves a cup of coffee on the counter made exactly to his taste, and walks out the door. Three years later, she walks back in not to him, but into the same room. Radiant, accomplished and accompanied by a man who has never once made her wait. And Ethan Cole finally understands the difference between losing someone and letting them go. He let her go. She lost nothing.

On the day of our tenth wedding anniversary, my wife, Cara Dempsey, jumped from ten thousand feet in the air after hearing that her first love's plane had crashed. It was only then that I finally understood the only man she ever truly loved all these years was Luthen Waltz. When we were both sent back in time to relive our teenage years, she wasted no time making a grand, public confession to Luthen, completely cutting ties with me. I just stood there, watching the two of them kiss like they couldn’t bear to be apart, and in that moment, my heart felt nothing. From that day on, we were over, and we lived our separate lives. Ten years later, we crossed paths again at a five-star hotel in Harbor City. She, who had become a celebrity adored by the world, was wearing a gown, laughing in Luthen’s arms. When she saw me wandering through the hotel, searching for someone, she thought I had come looking for her. “George, stop wasting your time! Even in ten years, I will never choose you!” I didn’t respond. Instead, I looked toward the little girl running toward me, calling me Dad, and gave her the warmest smile. Cara’s expression froze. Tears welled in her eyes as she choked out, “You lied to me, didn’t you? You said you hated kids and that you’d only ever love me.”

My grandfather is hit by a car, and his skull is shattered. I take the driver to court. That's when I find out my husband, Stuart Creed, who was supposedly abroad on a business trip, is suddenly at the hospital. He looks at me coldly and snaps, "Do you have any idea how important Maddy’s valedictorian announcement is? Her future can't be ruined by some car accident! Drop the case right now, or I'll cut off all your credit cards and have your grandfather kicked out of the VIP ward!" He slams the door and storms out. Before that, he snarls, "Come home when you agree. Until then, forget about calling yourself Mrs. Creed!" While I'm out desperately trying to gather money for my grandfather's surgery, a team of lawyers contacts me. Turns out the patent my grandfather once authorized to Creed Group has expired. And now, I'm the new legal owner.

Kc Page is a man of law, a brilliant attorney, a trillionaire CEO, and a force to be reckoned with. He spent his entire life upholding justice, for no crime goes unpunished in his view. However, an accident steals away his pregnant fiancée and leaves him drowning in a sea of sorrow. In the aftermath, he lost faith in the law.Court calls it an accident; Kc calls it murder. The culprit? Valeria Jayne, the world's most coveted runway model, a woman with beauty so striking that it blinds the world to her supposed sins. But Kc refuses to be deceived. With his influence and power, he orchestrates her downfall, vowing to make her suffer the way he has. He hunts her, haunts her, ensuring that she will never know peace until something happens that neither of them sees coming. She gets pregnant with his baby. For Valeria, this is not love; it is a curse. But Kc is unstoppable. The minute he finds out that she's playing a game, anger has the best of him. She ran away with his child. She left him running. And now, there isn't any spot in this earth where she'd be able to hide that he wouldn't locate her. But as the layers of deception fall away, Kc finds himself staring into a shocking truth: Valeria is not the villain he had imagined her to be. Instead, there is someone else in the shadows, someone who has played them both like pawns in a ruthless game. Now, Kc is confronted with an impossible decision: to cling to his thirst for revenge or to save the woman whom he once promised to destroy, now that she carries his child? And what revelations will he find as truth finally comes to light?

During a family gathering, my daughter drove her rideable toy car straight into me and shattered my leg because she wanted to stand up for her live-in manny, Wilson Smith. As I lay on the ground in agony, she glared at me and said, "You're not my dad! Wilson takes care of me. He's kind to me. Mom and I both like him!" From where I had fallen, I looked up and saw Wilson standing at the center of the crowd, surrounded by smiles and admiration. At that moment, a bitter realization settled over me. I mattered less than a manny to my own family. I soon filed for divorce. Then, I signed up for a community revitalization initiative and spent the next twenty years helping struggling communities build better lives. My family did not need me, but somewhere else in the world, there were people who did.