Thomas Crane Library Hours

Marriage, to me, was a sacred vow - not a business proposition. Yet, that's exactly what Hayes Caldwell, the enigmatic billionaire, offered: $200,000 to wear his ring. Just 24 hours prior, my world crashed down. Fired from my job after pouring years into a project, I sought solace in the bottom of a bottle. That's when our paths crossed, and the night blurred into reckless passion. But morning brought a harsh reality: our intimate encounter had gone viral. Hayes's solution? A contract marriage to salvage our reputations. I hesitated, but desperation won out. Agreeing to his terms, I sealed my fate. Little did I know, the line between pretense and reality would soon blur, threatening to consume us both. Hop into this ride with me… let’s see how the story unfolds.

What happened when the Devil set his eyes on a beautiful innocent Angel? Alexander Grissham is known as the ruthless, cold, dark-soul, leader of the Red Blood gangster in the town. His family practically owned the entire country and he was the next successor of his father's underground business. Aria, is a kind-hearted, beautiful angel in everyone's eyes. But her unfortunate life leading her to lost her parents at such young age. She lives with her very sick grandma and work for hours only to provide her and her grandma’s daily need, and medication. Aria never thought that one day, she would be targeted by the Devil. This cold, heartless creature trapped her and made her his favorite doll. Will she succeed softening his heart? Or is she actually falling deeper into the Devil's trap?

At twenty-eight, I held the dubious honor of being the last unmarried socialite on New York's Upper East Side. Everyone around me was growing increasingly anxious about my single status. In my previous life, my mother arranged a matchmaking cocktail party, where I was told to choose a husband from ten handpicked elite bachelors. I bribed the event planner to place Mark West's profile at the very top—and as I had hoped, I chose him. After we married, Mark treated me with what seemed like tender affection. He even bought me an oceanfront villa in the Hamptons, making me believe I had finally found true love. But that illusion shattered the day I was nine months pregnant, just hours away from giving birth. Mark drove a scalpel straight into my abdomen—then, right in front of me, hurled our newborn onto the floor. "If you hadn't forced me into this marriage with your family's power, Sofia wouldn't have been heartbroken enough to go drinking and get drugged and assaulted. This… this is what you owe her!" He tossed the scalpel aside, then calmly let his private doctor pin down my blood-soaked body. I fought through excruciating pain for six agonizing hours, until I finally bled to death. Afterward, Mark dumped my corpse into the Hudson River. But for Sofia, he hosted a grand funeral—funded with my money, under my name—and paraded himself to the world as a grieving, devoted widower. Given a second chance at life, I refused to step foot in that cursed matchmaking event. Instead, I went straight to my mother with a demand: marry me to Robert Black—the most ruthless, cold-blooded titan of Wall Street, whose scarred face was feared by all. In the end, stripped of my financial backing, Mark's hedge fund collapsed. He became a disgraced fraudster, spat on by everyone on Wall Street.

Harper Thomas loves bad dates. She goes on hundreds of them a year, and then blogs about them online to make her living. When her sister signs her up for a new dating service, Harper's not expecting to find anything other more than ridiculous men. She certainly isn't planning to meet him... Gabe Honors is one of the billionaire owners of Kindling Dating. He also happens to be Miami's most eligible bachelor, but his search for love has never been successful. That is, until he decided to use his own dating service. The first time he meets Harper, he knew that she was the one. However, in order to make sure that it really was love, he kept his identity a secret. He soon finds out, secrets never mix well with love... Can a billionaire CEO finally stump this bad-date-blogger? Can Harper look past the money and find the man? Or will they only be left with memories of their island kisses?

Alina Hart, a sharp-tongued high school senior, hides behind sarcasm and wit to mask the pain of fractured family life. Shipped off to a prestigious boarding school by a father who no longer sees her, Alina struggles to find her place in a world of strict rules and academic expectations. Enter Professor Cristiano Wright, a 27-year-old literature teacher whose calm demeanor and sharp intellect make him both an enigma and a fascination. Tasked by Alina’s older brother Ethan to keep an eye on her, Wright finds himself drawn to the complexity beneath her rebellious exterior. In the backdrop of Shakespearean sonnets and Romantic poetry, Alina and Wright navigate an increasingly fraught connection. What begins as reluctant mentorship soon transforms into a tangled web of forbidden emotions, unspoken words, and an undeniable pull that neither can ignore. Set against the bustling corridors of an urban high school and the quiet corners of a library filled with unspoken confessions, Silent Flames, Forbidden Paths explores the fine line between admiration and desire, duty and vulnerability. As Alina and Wright grapple with their feelings, they must confront their moral boundaries and the cost of their choices. Can they maintain the lines they’ve drawn, or will their emotions blur them beyond recognition?

Thanks to my dad's work, I have to transfer schools. Soon, I go to my new school to register for my enrolment. After submitting my personal information, the teacher in charge shoots me an odd look. "Is your father Mr. Chapman, the new shareholder? His child should have enrolled with us a long time ago. In fact, his daughter is half a year older than you. You're not that person at all…" Stunned, I dig out my phone and show my photo with my dad to the teacher. She glances at the photo before showing me the system window. "Mr. Chapman's daughter has been studying in this school since the first term. He even donated a library to the school recently. This is a photo the school board has taken. You can take a look yourself." In the photo, my dad and an unfamiliar student can be seen standing at the school's bulletin board. That young lady looks as old as I do. Her features are similar to my dad's. In fact, she resembles him more than I do! If they are an actual father and daughter pair, then who am I?

After the death of her mother, Emma, a shy nineteen year old good girl, has to move back to her childhood home to live with her father. As she gets reacquainted with her old life, she joins her childhood best friend Thomas, to hang with a group of kids at a lake. That’s when she met Alex, a secret werewolf living life as a human, and fell in love. Although she saw him as the mysterious bad boy she should avoid, she found herself connected to him through their intimate spark and was hopelessly drawn to him. But as Emma was falling for Alex, he forbade himself from getting too attached. Not knowing about his dangerous werewolf form, Emma’s desire for Alex grew stronger. And his love for her was growing despite knowing that werewolves couldn’t mate with humans. As their two worlds begin to collide, dark secrets begin to reveal itself. Leaving them with secrets and decisions that could end their love for good. But is Emma ready to say goodbye to Alex?

Yselle Morel is watching her family's glassworks collapse—unpaid wages, angry suppliers, a bank ready to shut the gates. When Renaud Valois, a feared billionaire financier, offers a rescue, it comes with a cruel condition: marriage. He says it’s business. His eyes say it’s revenge. In Valois’s riverside estate outside Paris, Yselle plays the obedient wife—smiling, thanking staff, acting harmless. She calls it "wife camouflage." Then she finds a locked room behind the library wall: a war room filled with files, photos, and timelines about her father’s life… and a folder stamped with Yselle’s name. Renaud didn’t choose her. He planned her. As “accidents” start closing in—tampered brakes, poisoned tea, a near fall on a dark stairwell—Yselle realizes the marriage isn’t only punishment. It’s protection. Someone wants her silent before the Day 30 board vote that will decide her family’s future. And the closer she gets to the truth, the more she fears the man who raised her. On the eve of the vote, Yselle opens the last drawer in the war room and finds an envelope addressed to her—in her mother’s handwriting. The ink looks fresh. Then the lights go out, and a voice behind her whispers, “Don’t trust your husband.”

Lilith wakes in a river on land she doesn’t recognise. What was her name again? Where did she come from? She walks for hours, hoping to find help and salvation. She does find population, but she had never imagined discovering the secrets of a world she doesn’t remember. Alpha Theodore Moon is a wolf-shifter, and what’s more, he’s one of her fated mates who nurses her back to health and falls profoundly and irrevocably in love with her. But with the other comes sordid secrets that have been hidden. Lilith holds a power like no other werewolf, and she’s being hunted as we speak. Will she uncover her secrets and learn to wield the powers she was given at birth before she is enslaved for them? Come and read with us to find out.

（Alpha Trojan） "Just do it!"My wolf Lupus urged. "You're going to tell to everyone anyway, so just say it now. Tell everyone that Nikita is our Luna." I landed my eyes at Nikita's face. "Do it, Trojan!" My wolf kept prodding me, he couldn't wait to mark our mate. But no, I can't do that... I looked at Nikita's worried eyes. I made up my mind. I’m going to say that… "It’s my sad announcement to tell everyone of you that I haven't found my mate yet." *** (Nikita) A few hours ago, the first sight I saw Alpha Trojan I was sure we were mates. But now, he announced that he had not found mate in front of me...