Vanity Fair Novel Novels & Stories

Valerie I was no longer interested in Lucas’s story. In tales of the prince, and love between beasts and humans. Vanilla was eager to keep blabbering on about the fairytale she’d painted in her mind, but I paid little attention to it. I was too frightened by the prospect of one day being trapped as a beast’s concubine. Of being slaughtered by his jealous wife.

Evan sighed softly and patted my shoulder, uncertain but determined to comfort me in the only way he knew. … Three days before the wedding, Callum had his assistant deliver my wedding dress. It was white, covered in glittering stones, beautiful in the extravagant, almost gaudy way only money could buy. His assistant looked at it with open envy. "Mrs. Pierce, Mr. Pierce had this custom-made for you. There isn't another one like it in the world. He really does love you." Then she smiled. "You two are going to be so happy." I smiled back. "Just call me Natalie. We're not married yet."

# THE HUSBAND I IMAGINED ## Season Two: The Life We Chose *A steamy contemporary romance novel — sequel season* --- ## Chapter One: The Journalist Vivian Cross had been building her career for fifteen years on exactly one skill: finding the seam in a story that everyone else had already decided was finished.

"I do." My hands weren't quite steady when I took it. The pages smelled like lavender. The handwriting was elegant, quick, the writing of someone who had a lot to say and didn't want to lose any of it. The early entries were ordinary, good ordinary, the kind that made you understand who someone was before you learned what happened to them. Stories about the palace. Four children who tested every limit available to them. Damien refusing vegetables with the specific stubbornness only small children managed. A smile came out of me before I could stop it. Then the entries changed.

She had been born into money but had not simply inherited her position, she had built Salvators Enterprises up from a mid-sized family property firm into a big empire that covered real estate, media, and emerging technology. She had been alone her whole life too. Vivian Salvatore had resources,and a reputation built on being underestimated and then devastating people who had made that mistake. She had been silenced before she could finish what she had started. I was going to finish it for both of us. The morning I was discharged, I stood in the hospital bathroom and looked at her reflection for a long time. I looked at her and she looked at me and somewhere in the space between us, Sandra R

All because I wanted to get the better part of life that I thought was still left for me but where I earth has that gotten me right now? I have as many villas as I can perhaps remember but right now, I am relatively a hopeless nomad simply because I can not dare to pass the night in any of those villas without the truth haunting me for every second of my slumber. The fact that I practically stole someone's money to acquire all of those mansions. Mustafa's money. It only became understandable at the moment that all of the material things I endeavored to acquire was vanity. The Vainest of all Vanities.

One day she was sketching the layout for the autumn reflective, her hands stained with charcoal and her sharp, dark eyes analyzing the weight of a marble base the next, she had vanished off the grid as if she had never drawn a breath in this city. ​I pull my laptop closer, the screen casting a harsh blue glare across the dark wood. My cursor hovers over a digital copy of Domus from two months ago. A glossy double page spread: Adrian, the golden boy of New York real estate and corporate acquisitions, standing beside Vivian at a charity gala. They look like royalty, or at least like people who own the architects who built the kingdom. But if you look closer past the tailored charcoal suit and

“You’re not doing this for revenge. You’re doing this because you want what Arabella has. The man, the money, the perfect family.” “That’s not…” “It is. And you know what? It’s pathetic. Adrian Whitmore would never look at you. You’re nothing compared to Arabella.” Vanessa’s face flushed with rage. “Nothing compared to her? I’m the one who stood by while she had everything handed to her. The inheritance, the company, the attention. Poor orphaned Arabella, so tragic, so brave. Meanwhile my mother and I…” “Were trying to steal from her. Yes, I know the story.”

The title sent a cold shiver down her spine. Vivian stepped out onto the cobblestones, smoothing down the front of her tailored cream trench coat. She had spent the entire night reading Valerie’s meticulously typed journal, memorizing names of socialites, favorite high-end fashion brands, and her sister's specific behavioral quirks. But looking up at this fortress, she realized no amount of notes could prepare her for the reality of living under the same roof as Alexander Vance.

I would have to look into the eyes of the man who destroyed my life, less than forty-eight hours after escaping my cell. "Will he recognize me?" I asked, my voice trembling slightly before I caught myself and forced the Baroness's cold tone back into my words. "He won't," Silas said confidently. "Julian is an arrogant man. In his mind, Vivian Vance is rotting in a maximum-security cell, broken and helpless. He will see a beautiful, incredibly wealthy foreign woman with a hundred million dollars burning a hole in her pocket. He will see a lamb waiting to be slaughtered to save his empire."