Thomas Crane Library Hours Novels & Stories

Community Service. Two words I should be thankful for, but I’m not. I resent the hours it’s away from building my business. When they push the little girl into the room, her crazy curls barely held back by the barrette in her hair, and studious glasses on her face, I can tell she’s scared. Something inside of me breaks, and I want this girl to feel wanted again. What I’m unprepared for is meeting her mom. The second our hands touch, there are fireworks, bright lights, and a picture of the future I could one day have. The future I’ve never allowed myself to wish for. Community service becomes more than a chore. In the months that follow, I realize they’re just like me: they’ve been abandoned, left behind by the world, forgotten by those who should love them. Thanks to the one last hope in both our lives - we found the light in the darkness we’d been searching for.Trick is created by Laramie Briscoe, an eGlobal Creative Publishing author.

When my family went bankrupt, I was drugged and sent to the bed of my childhood sweetheart, Craig Kennedy. From that night, he brought women home every evening, tossing a divorce agreement in my face. "Beg me, and I won't leave you." He stood above me, watching as I humbled myself to dust, pleading to preserve our marriage. He even ordered me to kneel in his office and massage the feet of his secretary, Lucia Langston. On the day the Moore Group needed ten million to survive, she blocked all my desperate calls for help. I waited 24 hours, watching my family's legacy collapse and my parents take their lives. Craig, with Lucia at his side, entered the house and threw the signed divorce agreement at me again. "You wanted money to save your family, didn't you? Beg me, and as long as I don't divorce you, no one will touch them." But I signed it with calm despair. "Don't bother. We no longer need your help."

Welcome to Blackwood University, where the tuition costs a fortune, but the secrets cost your life. I thought a scholarship to the country’s most elite university was my ticket out of the shadows. I was wrong. I didn’t just walk into a school; I walked into a lion’s den. And sitting on the throne is Niccolò De Luca. Nico is beautiful, brilliant, and brutal. He is the heir to the most powerful crime syndicate on the East Coast, and he runs this campus like his personal kingdom. He breaks hearts, he breaks bones, and now, he’s decided to break me. Not because I’m the scholarship case. But because he knows who I really am. I am the daughter of the man who stole millions from the De Luca family and vanished. Nico intends to use me to lure my father out of hiding. His plan is simple: torment me until I break, make my life a living hell, and keep me under his thumb until the debt is paid in blood. But the line between hate and obsession is razor-thin. When his torment turns into possessiveness, and his taunts turn into touches I can’t refuse, the game changes. I was supposed to be his pawn, but I’m becoming his weakness. Now, with a rival family closing in on campus and my father’s enemies circling, Nico has to make a choice: Hand me over to settle the score... or burn the world down to keep me. "You think you can hide from me in the library, little mouse?" Nico whispered, his breath hot against the shell of my ear as he pinned me against the stacks. "You are living on borrowed time. And unfortunately for you, I’m the one collecting the interest."

Giordano Pellegrini, my Underboss husband, is swamped with work every day. In order to make sure that he can attend my birthday party, I've pre-booked two hours of his time half a year in advance. But the moment Giordano arrives at the party venue, he receives a message on his communicator. "Honey, someone has blocked a shipment of firearms. I need to deal with that matter right now. Next time, I'll celebrate your birthday properly with you." Our son, Fabiano Pellegrini, follows Giordano out of the venue as well. "Dad and I will deal with this matter. We'll also make it up to you with another birthday gift next time." Despite feeling a little disappointed, the emergency did come all of a sudden, so I can only nod in acceptance. But once Giordano and Fabiano leave, I secretly stalk them. I'd like to see which idiot dares to block the ship owned by me, the Donna of this mafia family. Also, I'm interested to see what sort of solution Giordano and Fabiano can come up with. After all, Giordano is only an Underboss in name.

June died the night her husband betrayed her. She came home pregnant to find him in bed with her stepbrother. Hours later, a bullet tore through her in a random shooting. She felt her baby slip away. She should have died. Instead, she woke up in someone else’s body. The face in the mirror wasn’t hers. Everyone called her Chloe. And the man who shot her? Nikolai, who was cold and ruthless. Their marriage was a business transaction. He used her body without tenderness, spoke to her with cruelty, and made it clear she meant nothing. He was still mourning his dead fiancée. He had no idea his wife wasn’t Chloe at all. Trapped in a stranger’s life, June had to survive in a world of wealth and secrets. She had to find her real body. She had to pretend. But things got complicated. Because secrets don’t stay buried, allies become lovers, and the man who destroyed her life is about to discover exactly who’s been sleeping in his bed.

My husband Bill and his beautiful assistant Doris are laughing and eating like they're on a first date. But the joke is on me... I'm here, Bill's wife, watching them from across the room, tending to my flat belly where a little life is now living. Of course, Bill doesn’t know about the baby yet. The news is still fresh in my mind, barely a few hours old. It is supposed to be a family dinner gathering, but I'm never the welcome one but an outsider. Watching Bill take the steak cut and handed over by Doris, his young age best friend who knows him the best, I guess I'm spoiling their fun by telling them now that I'm having a baby. Three years of marriage, and his frequent absences from the family left me feeling overwhelmed and alone. I've even forgotten the reason we got married. Maybe it was a mistake to begin with. Finally, I made a decision. Divorce. But a man came along and shifted things dramatically. And it didn't occur to me that this man was still deeply connected to bill's family. He was Bill's uncle.

"You are just a golden cage ornament, Celestine. Two years. No touch, no real feelings, and never enter my room. I bought your freedom, so you owe me your life." ​To save her sick father from a lifetime behind bars, Celestine Aragon commits the ultimate sacrifice: she sells her freedom to Cyrus Valdemor—the ruthless, cold-hearted billionaire CEO who rules the city's corporate empire with an iron fist. ​The rules of their marriage contract were simple, practical, and completely devoid of warmth: Maintain a flawless public image, smile for the cameras, and remain absolute strangers behind closed doors. Celestine expects a lonely prison, but she doesn’t expect the strange, suffocating tension that ignites every time Cyrus is near. Nor does she expect the fierce, alpha protectiveness he unleashes whenever the world tries to tear her down. ​But one forbidden, alcohol-fueled night in his private library shatters all their rules. A dangerous passion breaks through Cyrus’s icy defense, leaving them breathless and bound by a desire neither can deny. ​Just as the lines between their fake marriage and real feelings begin to blur, a dark secret from the past comes to light. Cyrus discovers that Celestine's family is tied to the tragic accident that killed his parents decades ago. Stricken by guilt and targeted by his sudden, icy hatred, Celestine is cruelly cast out into the freezing rain—shattered, helpless, and carrying a secret of her own. ​She is pregnant with the billionaire's heir. ​When the truth finally unravels and the ruthless CEO realizes he banished the only woman he ever loved, will it be too late? Can a marriage built on vengeance and secrets survive the ultimate betrayal?

"I can't be with you. You have to let me go." "It's a little too late for that, honey, you're mine." Storm Princeton has always been the odd man out. She was the only one in her pack who didn't have a wolf then she became the only one who didn't have a mate, the rejection and reproach from her pack caused her to run away and live in the human world. Storm was now living in the human world in peace until, tall, dark, and handsome Noah Salem blazed into her small quiet life and turned it upside down. Storm went from being mateless to being fully mated in hours, but Noah isn't all that he seems, she never expected him to be a Lycan, not only is he a Lycan, he is an Alpha, she didn't even believe lycans existed and now she was mated to one. She wants out of their mate bond but Noah was refusing to let her go. She is forced to move in with him and meet his people and become their Luna. Storm will do everything she can to be free but will it be worth losing the love that was destined for her?

(CAUTION: MATURE CONTENT.) PLEASS DO NOT READ THIS BOOK IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE STEAMY CONTENT (IT CONTAINS MULTIPLE EROTIC SCENES).   "Who thought I could find my lover on Facebook, of all places?" Joyce thought to herself with a brightened smile after just saying goodnight at 4:30 AM to her naughty Facebook lover in the early hours of Monday. Joyce is a 23-year old young woman and a student at Darlington University. Due to the stress and boring life that she faces on campus, she wanted a distraction from it all once in a while. Now she had gotten addicted to sex chatting with her Facebook lover every single day at any given time, and she didn't quite know how she got wet easily by the romantic words of Finn, whom she only had a picture of.   Would they eventually meet up in person and take things from there? Would they leave things as they are on Facebook and continue sex chatting? Or would they break up sooner than we thought? Find out in this novel called My Naughty Facebook Lover. (Warning: Mature content)

"Part OneTracie Hill thought she’d died and gone to heaven when she discovered the stranger who showed up at her office after hours and engaged her in a night of hot sex was none other than her new boss, J. P. ”Pete” Montgomery. Not only that, but he set some very specific rules for her office attire – skirts only and no underwear.Part TwoFor Zane the storm was a reflection of his emotions and the messy condition of his life. He relished the isolation until he had to rescue Zara from the stormy sea. Then the storm reached full level in the cabin.Part ThreeZana and Dara settle into the beginnings of a permanent relationship and she thinks she’s finally found happiness and security. Then her past comes back to smack her in the face. Part FourDealing with a messy and humiliating breakup with her Dom, Bree Donovan welcomed the invitation to leave Chicago for meeting with a potential client in Texas. An impulsive attendance at a private BDSM gathering wiped all other thoughts from her mind the moment Rafe Morales claimed her as his for the evening. The Pleasure Principle is created by Desiree Holt, an EGlobal Creative Publishing signed author."