When Will My Reflection Show Who I Am Inside Novels & Stories

Valeria Romano was nineteen when her father was murdered. For five years she trained, sacrificed and bled ... building her entire life around one name. Lorenzo De Luca. The mafia king she believed gave the order. When she finally gets her shot at him, he doesn't run. He sits her down and shows her a photograph. The man responsible for her father's death was never Lorenzo. It was her uncle Marco. The man who handed her the wrong name the morning after the murder and watched her chase the wrong target for five years while he rebuilt his empire on her father's grave. Lorenzo proposes a contract marriage ... a strategic alliance that puts them both inside striking distance of Marco before he buries the truth permanently. Valeria agrees. Not because she trusts him. Because Marco Romano just became her real target. What follows is a race against a closing window. Spies inside the estate. A bought witness. A dead man who turns out to be very much alive. Two people who came together as enemies slowly building something neither of them has a name for. And a summit where Valeria must stand before the five ruling families with five years of truth ... and finally make it count. Marco goes to a cell. The war ends. But war leaves marks. The real question driving this story is never whether Valeria can destroy the man who killed her father. It is whether she can survive who she became in the process ... and whether the man she married to win a war is the same man worth staying for when it is over. Some revenge stories end with justice. This one is just getting started.

My mother hated me, to the point that she wished I were dead. I knew I deserved to die. Sixteen years ago, if I hadn’t insisted on going out, my brother wouldn’t have died while trying to save me. Eventually, both of us got what we wished for. I got brain cancer. She had become a stranger to me as I forgot everything and went to die in blissful ignorance. Then, she went mad.

"Open your mouth," he whispered and I looked at him in confusion. "Open your mouth, Jackie." I swallowed and did as I was told. The heat between my legs heightened when he ran the wet candy over my bottom lip before stuffing it into my mouth. The sweetness expanded on my taste buds and my body heated up at the fact that the lollipop had been in his mouth. There was something erotic about it and it left me accepting the way my body reacted to it. I looked deeper into his eyes and sucked on the lollipop then moaned when he started to move it in and out of my mouth. I wasn't innocent and I knew just what he was doing. "Fuck it," Lucas said and took the lollipop out of his mouth the crashed his lips on mine. °°° Jackie Garner has always been away from the spotlight, not until bad boy, Lucas Hamilton walks into her life after meeting him half naked in the boys' locker room. Since then, Lucas Hamilton has not let her be and wants her at all cost. But when bad boys fall, expect heartbreaks, jealous ex lovers and backstabbers.

My older sister was always kind-hearted, while I was born a natural troublemaker. When the intense heatwave struck, our family stocked up on supplies and stayed indoors. My sister saw a little boy, who seemed about seven or eight years old, crying and asking for help. She decided to take him in. “We’ve plenty of supplies anyway. One more person won’t make much difference. Besides, he’s just a child.” I warned her that the boy looked oddly mature and might not be as innocent as he seemed. I suggested we observe him a bit longer. She said I was a cold-hearted troublemaker by nature. Then, she went and let him in anyway. Not just that, but she also convinced our mother to force me to share a room with the boy. That night, the scheming “little boy” secretly climbed into my bed. I was brutally assaulted. Yet my sister told me to let bygones be bygones and marry him. To force me to obey, she locked me out on the balcony at over 140 °F. Enraged, I set a fire and killed everyone. When I opened my eyes again and saw my sister safe and unharmed, I smiled. This time, I would show them what a troublemaker really was.

In our five years of marriage, I had given in to my husband, John, for a grand total of three times. The first time was during my pregnancy. He had taken his ex-girlfriend Stacy, who had once taken three bullets for him, back home and cared for her. When I became angry, he immediately sent her away once she recovered. The second time was after childbirth, when I was ready to return to work. To repay a favor, he gave the position I had worked years for to Stacy. He said it was so I could rest well. I looked at my son, who needed me, and I conceded. The third time was during our son’s birthday. In front of the entire company, he had announced that Stacy was his wife, all so she could establish herself in the company. I gave him two choices: divorce or send her away. Without hesitation, he chose the latter and immediately sent her abroad. The fourth time was when my father suddenly had a heart attack and urgently needed surgery. He disappeared again. I searched everywhere for him to cover the hospital expenses, and I finally discovered that he had gone to the airport to pick up a pregnant Stacy, who was returning to the country. Because of that, my father missed the best chance for treatment and died. I was done giving in. I disguised the divorce agreement as our son’s medical bill and tricked him into signing it. No compensation or apology would matter. I did not wish to have him near my son or myself again.

All I did was post a photo of the exquisite pink diamond necklace my dad gave me for my birthday. An intern, however, confronted me in front of everyone. “Miss Anderson, why is my necklace with you? Do you think being a manager gives you the right to steal from others?” I calmly explained that it was a birthday gift from my dad, personally purchased at an auction. She didn’t believe me. Instead, she pulled out surveillance footage showing me entering and leaving her office and flat-out accused me of being a thief. “Some people can’t get what they want, so they resort to stealing. Do you honestly think taking a necklace means you can take over someone’s entire life? And you’re actually trying to pass yourself off as the heiress of Anderson Corporation? Isn’t that completely ridiculous?”

After being reborn, the first thing I did was switch my newborn daughter. In my previous life, soon after she was born, a blood test showed her type was AB. But mine was B, and my husband's was O—there was absolutely no way we could have an AB-type child. My husband flew into a rage and demanded a paternity test on the spot. To everyone's shock, the results proved she was biologically related to me, but not to him. He slapped me hard across the face, his voice trembling with disappointment. "I've always treated you well. I only ever loved you—and this is how you repay me?" My mother-in-law wailed and cursed me for cheating, accusing me of bearing another man's child to steal their family fortune. I was completely stunned. I knew better than anyone who the father of my child was—how could she possibly not be my husband's? In no time, everyone turned against me. They called me a cheater, a tramp. My husband divorced me and went online to play the victim, stirring up a storm of hate and harassment that never seemed to end. With nowhere to go and no one left to believe me, I took my baby in my arms and jumped from a building. Even in death, I couldn't make sense of it all. And when I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day my daughter was born.

Grandma lay bedridden, her dementia taking hold as she repeated Scarlett Hayes's name over and over. Tears streamed down my face as I dialed my wife's number. When she picked up, Scarlett sounded irritated. She said she was working late tonight and would call me back when she was free. I could clearly hear the sound of a man's laughter in the background. The moment I hung up, Grandma gasped sharply. She called out my wife's name. It was her last breath. While I sat drowning in grief, Scarlett's male best friend Chase Morrison posted a video update, geotagged at a couples' hotel. In the video, their fingers were laced together. The woman's arm bore a distinctive black mole I recognized instantly. The caption read: "When two hearts become one, why care what anyone else thinks?" In that moment, my heart turned to ash. I gritted my teeth and left a comment. "Let's file for divorce tomorrow. Then you two can be together openly and legally. You'll even save on the hotel fees. Win-win, right?"

"Is there a reason why I shouldn't fuck your brains out right now?" he ask and I shudder. "Nnn... Nooo! I don't have a reason," I stutter. "Good! I am about to forget you are my princess and fuck you like a slut," he promises as he fucks me. "I am a slut, only for you," I murmur. ******* I have always had a crush on my dad's best friend but Jack never saw me as a woman and rather he always referred to me as a child and treated me just like one. Just that, something ws soff in the eau he looked at me and spoke to me from time to time. I could feel the need in his voice and fire in his eyes. So when my parents had to leave for some days and he was asked to take care of me I knew that was the only chance I will ever get at making my feelings known to him and to know whether or not what I saw was real ot if I wasn't Hallucinating. The first few nights were tough and he kept off saying I was off limits to him, but what if I am not and he is only trying to send me away bechause of the lady I saw him kissing the other night?

Every Thanksgiving, my husband, Salvatore, brings home a showgirl from one of his clubs. He makes me kneel and serve them drinks. A lesson, he calls it, in how to please a man. This was the eighth Thanksgiving, and this time, he brought back a girl poured into a tight leather dress. "She doesn't have any decent jewelry," Salvatore announced. "Give her your heirloom diamond ring. Your grandmother's pearl earrings, too. And take off that silk choker for her." He smirked. "And listen, she's young, doesn't know the rules. You'll have to show her the ropes. Especially how to handle a man in bed." Every member of the Genovese family was watching, waiting for my humiliation. I didn't disappoint. I opened my mouth and asked Salvatore for a divorce. Salvatore let out a sharp, ugly laugh, his eyes full of contempt. "Francesca, you pull this same shit every time," he jeered. "Your act is pathetic. Even more dramatic than your performance in bed." He leaned in. "You really want to divorce me? Fine. I'll give you five million in cash if you actually walk out that door." The living room erupted in laughter. They all said I was playing hard to get, that I didn't know my place. But they didn't know. This was the 88th time I had asked for a divorce, and it was the first time I truly meant it.