Underneath The Surface Encanto

Ruth’s life shatters on Valentine’s Day when she walks in on her boyfriend in bed with her sister . Heartbroken and humiliated she cried so bitterly,Promising never to love again. Months later, billionaire Leonard Williams cold, powerful, and untouchable is drugged at a business gala and wakes beside a stranger with no memory of the night. The scandal threatens to destroy his empire, and his search for the truth leads him straight to Ruth the quiet woman whose name is tangled in the mystery. But as they dig deeper, it becomes clear they were both set up. Someone wants them ruined… or dead. Bound together by danger, suspicion, and a night neither can remember, Ruth and Leonard are forced into a reluctant alliance that quickly becomes something more. Just as the truth begins to surface, Ruth collapses revealing a secret that change everything. She carrying his child.

Hermione Windsor was supposed to be a bride until she discovered her fiancé’s betrayal on the night before their wedding. With her future on the line and her father’s arranged marriage looming, Hermione accepts the only escape offered to her: marriage to Rhys Huxley, the man she has hated since high school after an incident. Cold. Ruthless. A billionaire who believes she once ruined his life and betrayed his trust. Their marriage is not a contract. There are no conditions. No escape. To Rhys, marrying Hermione is punishment. To Hermione, it is survival. But as resentment turns to desire and buried truths begin to surface, Hermuone realizes the most dangerous thing about her husband isn't his power, it’s the feelings he never meant to have. When love begins as spite, can it survive the truth?

In a kingdom ruled by a brutal king, Thalia Blackwood, an infamous assassin, is given a choice: fight for her freedom or remain a prisoner in the deadly salt mines of Karnak. Selected to compete against ruthless criminals in a contest to become the King’s Champion, Thalia soon finds herself entangled in dark court politics, where enemies lurk in the shadows, and nothing is as it seems. But as she navigates this treacherous competition, sinister forces far beyond the throne emerge, and Thalia must confront a hidden magic, long thought lost, that could destroy everything. With her deadly skills and a mysterious past that threatens to surface, she must outwit her rivals and face dangers both human and magical. Freedom comes at a price—and Thalia will pay it in blood if she has to. Will she win her freedom, or will the darkness of her past consume her first?

Celine Galvez, a graduating law student and a famous man hater from the University of the Philippines, dedicated her life to fulfill her promise to give justice to her father's death. She pledged to make her family her greatest priority in everything, until she met Lorenzo, the notorious playboy and star of Ateneo Medicine, who slowly wrecked her principles in a way that she surprisingly found pleasuring. Will she be able to keep both her promise and Loren whom she learned to love, when all the hindrances are starting to surface against them? How can she forget him when he left a beating heart that reminds her of him every day? Should Celine just move on and live alone with their child, or will she risk it all to find the star that once fell for her?

Pearl Augustus never knew being rebellious at home would lead her into the arms of the notorious psycho named Lucas Anderson and not only did he manage to frustrate her but he also got into her heart before he disappeared from the surface of the world. Seven years later, he's rumored to have returned to town and now, Lucas Anderson, ruthless, domineering, and powerful never expected Pearl to seek a job in his company but once she did, he knew his obsession just included one. Now he wants more than money, influence, and power as he also wants Pearl Augustus at all costs. This book transcends between the past and the present, narrating the tale of two lives that got intertwined more than a time but for almost three decades. Update is thrice a week. (hopefully)

Dr. Dianne Cruz lives a flawless life—too flawless for Rafael Aragon, a mafia leader who trusts patterns more than people. After secretly investigating her and finding nothing, he approaches her out of calculated curiosity… only to become dangerously obsessed. But when sealed archives tied to his father’s assassination resurface, a hidden file appears alongside it: The Cruz Incident — Protected Witness. Now encrypted messages, secret investigations, and buried conspiracies begin to surface, and Rafael realizes Dianne may not be an accident in his life. What he doesn’t know? Dianne entered his world on purpose. To uncover the truth behind her parents’ death. But the closer she stays to Rafael, the more dangerous the truth becomes—because their pasts may be connected to the same mastermind. And obsession was never part of her plan.

Temptation slips past every boundary and takes what it wants. What looks controlled, familiar, and respectable on the surface is only a mask. Beneath it, hearts are pulled toward desires they should never indulge—Dangerous. Intoxicating. Forbidden. Inside this collection, you will find stories like these: A lonely wife slipping into the arms of the one man she was never meant to touch… her bodyguard. A woman drawn to her husband’s brother, a quiet, brooding presence who has always wanted her too much. A young female employee unraveled by her CEO A student entangled in a consuming attraction with a professor twice her age And many more tales where lines are crossed and dangerous obsessions shimmers Every story is a sin. Beautiful. Addictive, and impossible to forget. Several forbidden passions. One unforgettable collection. Indulge… if you dare.

"I thought you were the man who saved me. I didn't know you were the one who set the fire." The day my father gambled away my life was the day I learned that some monsters don't have claws—they wear tailored suits and drink vintage scotch. To the world, Abram is a philanthropist, a billionaire, and the undisputed King of the Lycan Underground. To me, he is the man who bought my freedom for the price of a debt he secretly engineered. He calls me his "Little Wolf." He dresses me in diamonds that feel like cold chains and keeps me in a soundproof penthouse where my screams are just background music to his obsession. He is the Gentle Gaslighter. He whispers that he loves me while he wipes the blood of my past from his hands. He tells me I have nowhere else to go, forgetting that he was the one who burned every bridge behind me. But Abram made one fatal mistake: He taught me how to survive him. Underneath my silk gowns and practiced smiles, the girl he "broke" is dead. In her place is a master manipulator who has learned to weaponize his own obsession against him. I will let him mark me. I will let him believe he won. And when he is at his highest, I will show him that a velvet noose still strangles just as surely as a hemp one. He told me I was his entire world. Now, I’m going to end it. Tropes: * Mafia Alpha x Captive Omega * Age Gap (42 & 20) * He Falls First (Obsession) * Vengeance/Revenge Rebirth * Betrayal & Tragic Twist

“The Rossellinis are to the Mahonnas what the Montagues are to the Capulets, sworn enemies bound by years of feud that fuels hatred and bitter rivalry. In summary, the man standing beside me, the man who I just said my vows to, is my father’s archenemy.” *** When Marco Rossellini, a ruthless Mafia boss, feared and respected in the underground world kidnaps Vienna’s husband-to-be on her wedding day, and forces her to marry him as an act of revenge against her father, she is trapped under the painful existence of being married to a man as cold as ice. As they navigate through the stormy waters of hate and the treacherous landscape of mafia politics, Vienna is torn between loyalty to her father and the growing feelings for the man who married her as an act of revenge. But can she trust Marco, or will his vendetta against her family shatter her into a thousand broken pieces beyond repair? *** All his life, Marco has only wanted one thing - vengeance against the man who wronged his family. What better way to get back at Daniello Mahonnas than taking away his most prized treasure, right underneath his nose in one calculated move? Marriage to the beautiful Vienna was supposed to be an act of revenge, a genius move that will bring the Mahonnas down on their knees, pleading for his mercy. But with every banter, with every smile she sends his way, every heated kiss and stolen passion, she chips away at his icy exterior, leaving him bare, vulnerable and worst – in love. Will he be able to move past his vendetta and love her the way his heart wants or will those eyes staring back at him remind him more of his past than he ever wanted?

They were supposed to be on the same team. Santos Khyle arrived in Seattle as the Soul Reapers' most anticipated rookie in years, a natural-born scorer with something to prove and a chip on his shoulder the size of a regulation puck. Gunner Jäger had been tearing up the ice as the team's feared enforcer for two seasons, and he had zero interest in sharing his spotlight with some orange-haired twenty-one year old who looked at him like he was a problem to be managed. From the moment they met, it was war. On the ice, they were a disaster. Off it, they were worse. Screaming matches in corridors. Fists through locker room walls. A live on-air brawl that made every highlight reel in North America and earned them both a suspension, a lecture from their furious coach, and the undivided attention of the entire hockey world. Nobody could stand to watch them together. Nobody could look away either. Because underneath the fury and the bruises and the months of spectacular mutual destruction, something else was building. Something neither of them had language for yet. Something that felt uncomfortably like the only fight either of them was actually afraid to lose. The Soul Reapers are one playoff run away from everything. Gunner and Khyle are one honest conversation away from falling apart completely. Or maybe, just maybe, from finally figuring out what they are to each other. Pucking Up the Ice is a slow burn MM romance set in the brutal and beautiful world of professional hockey. It contains explicit language, on-ice violence, emotional gut punches, two men who are absolutely terrible at feelings, and a love story that had to break everything before it could build something worth keeping.