Zadie Smith Novels & Stories

Stacy Smith is a walking disaster. As the clumsy, overworked secretary to the formidable Apollo Savage, she spends her days dodging his icy glares and his frequent threats to fire her. She’s one mistake away from the unemployment line—until the unthinkable happens. In a late-night lapse of judgment, Stacy sends a private, intimate photo intended for her long-distance boyfriend to the wrong contact. She doesn't send it to her lover; she sends it to her cold-blooded, high-society boss. When the photo leaks and the scandal threatens to burn both their reputations to the ground, Apollo does the last thing Stacy expects: he doesn't fire her. Instead, he steps in front of the cameras and claims her as his own. To the world, they are a deeply in love couple. To Apollo’s powerful family, she is the woman he’s breaking his high-profile engagement for. But behind closed doors, it’s a cold-hearted business deal. Apollo needs an out from an arranged marriage, and Stacy needs to reclaim her dignity. The rules are simple: Pretend to be in love. Survive the family dinner. Don't catch feelings.

During a class reunion, a few well-to-do classmates instantly recognize that my branded bag is fake. "How is that possible?" I cry. "This is a new release that my husband got me. Don't you guys know him? He's Tom Smith, Zora Group's CEO." I hand my classmates business cards. The company is one that Tom set up using my name. Naturally, I'm the major stockholder. My classmates look at the business cards doubtfully. One says, "I've never heard of this company." When I get home, I have someone check on Zora Group for me. However, the news I receive is that the company has never existed, much less have a stockholder like me. Tom has another company under his name, but I'm not the stockholder. I drive to the DMV and find out that the car isn't in my name. The company and car are under Tom's name, but someone else owns them with him—his true love, Lauren Rowse.

I had returned to the past with my younger sister, Wendy Anderson. In the past, she had married a CEO. After we returned to the past, she insisted on snatching a security guard from me. My parents favored her, so they almost passed out from anger when they learned that she was marrying a security guard. She said nonchalantly, “Liam will be successful one day. Just you wait and see.” In the first year of marriage, she gave birth to Liam Smith’s son, Charlie Smith. She was very smug about that. She looked down on me, who gave birth to a daughter. “Go away and don’t pass your bad luck to me. I’m planning to give birth to nine more sons for Liam. We’ll be a perfect family of ten sons.” She expected a wealthy life ahead of her. However, she did not know that Liam had a crazy wife back in the countryside. He also had seven difficult older sisters and three mean mothers and aunts that she would have to appease.

While her husband stayed in the hospital beside his mistress, Alessia was in his enemy’s bed—naked, breathless, and moaning his name. Alessia never planned to be the woman who used sex as revenge. But when fate shoved the truth in her face that the man she loved was sharing his heart and bed with someone else, she didn’t cry. Instead she made a plan. She walks into the office of his coldest rival, Miguel Smith, and make him an offer no man expects. “Sleep with me,” Miguel has a rule; no married women. Especially not the wife of the man he hates most. But the moment he sees Alessia, something shifts. She’s fire wrapped in ice, and one night isn’t nearly enough. Now he’s hooked—on her lips, on her body, on ruining her husband, and making her his. Again and again. And when her husband tries to crawl back into her life, Miguel makes one thing crystal clear: Alessia is his now… and he doesn’t share.

My girlfriend, Elsa Smith, always avoided meeting my parents. Yet, she had no trouble turning around and playing the role of her ex-boyfriend Leo Quinn’s fiancée, happily meeting his relatives instead. And the meeting took place in the apartment I had prepared for us to live in after the wedding. What she did not realize was that I happened to be Leo’s distant cousin. She pretended not to know me and clung sweetly to Leo, saying, "This apartment was bought by my hubby, fully paid for." All the relatives were praising them as a loving couple. To keep me from exposing her, Elsa came over to warn me, "I’m just helping a friend deal with marriage pressure. If you mess this up, we’re done." So, I sincerely offered my congratulations. "Since Leo and I seem to have the same taste in houses and women, I’ve got some wedding supplies that I’m sure he’ll like. I’ll gift them to you both." That was when Elsa finally started to panic.

Everyone in the mercenary group knew just how deeply Liam Smith loved me and feared losing me. He even suppressed his dark desires to make sure I felt truly safe. No matter how dangerous the mission, he made sure to check in every single day. Worried for his safety, I hid my identity and secretly became his team’s hacker. However, after one mission, I overheard the others joking over the radio: "Chief was in such a rush to pick that lock and go after Wendy. What's so irresistible about her?" Through an unattended monitor, I caught Liam glancing at the camera with a teasing smile. "Didn't I tell you guys that she nearly wrung me dry the last time we did it?" It felt like I had fallen into an ice-cold abyss. My heart shattered, and I summoned the system. [I want to leave this world.] The cold, mechanical voice replied without delay: [Once you leave, all traces of the host in this world will be erased.] [Starting the countdown: Seven days left.]

Growing up, Avery Smith knew nothing but pains and suffering. Treated badly by the pack members, even her own family treated her as an outcast. Finding solace in only one person, her mate, Julian Styles, only to have her whole world crumbling down when he rejected her and choose her sister over her. “A weak thing like you can never be my mate”, Alpha Julian spat. Humiliated, she fled home, swore to never return. But when tragedy struck and she was forced to return home only to find herself entangled with the fearsome Alpha King. “I don’t want you! Let go of me” Avery yelled, determined to reject the mate bond between them, no matter what. “You’re my mate Avery, you have no choice”, He growled as he hurled her over his shoulders. “You belong to me! You’re mine now” What will happen when the dangerous alpha claims she is his fated mate? Will their love have a chance to blossom? Or will their differences tear them apart?

At my engagement party, a female dog was sitting on my fiancee’s seat. Her guy best friend, Ryan Anderson, was holding the leash. “Bro, don’t take it personally. Your fiancee drank too much the night before at her bachelorette party, that’s why I’m letting her sleep in for a bit longer.” Everyone looked at me mockingly as they laughed. I felt as though someone had slapped me. All the guests had arrived, but Lily Smith showed up late. “It’s our engagement party today. Are you asking me to marry a dog?” I asked as I suppressed my anger. Lily grabbed Ryan’s sleeve and glared at me impatiently. “What are you talking about? Ryan saw that I was too tired, so he let me rest for a bit longer. Are you seriously offended? “As my fiance, you should be more understanding, like him!” It felt ridiculous and wrong to me. My heart sank as I stood up. “Fine, since he treats you so well, you should marry him then!”

Breaking rules had always come naturally to Yvette, the same as breaking someone's heart. She can easily make a man beg for her. She has all the freedom that she has, all thanks to her twin sister, Yvonne. So, on the day Yvette received a call about her twin’s accident, she found out that Yvonne's husband and billionaire, Clyde Smith, had been cheating on her twin. She saw red. With her twin's death comes a vow Yvette made to herself. She will get her revenge while pretending to be her twin. She will seduce him, make him desperately fall in love with her, and then break him like how he broke her twin sister. She'll get her revenge on Clyde and his mistress. Nobody can resist the alluring and seductive Yvette anyway. After all, she was sure she would never lose in this game she started because there was no way she would ever fall in love with her twin's husband. Or so she thought…

Liam Smith, an orphan, has had a dream for years; to become a star of the ever famous Lotus Pond Entertainment company. However, when he meets the famous and attractive CEO of the company, notorious playboy, Kain Jones, things take an unexpected turn. Kain is unfriendly, rude and even rejects Liam’s wishes of joining the company! Kain is not at all what Liam had expected his childhood star to be like at all! Disappointed, but not put off, Liam refuses to give up on his dreams of becoming a star and vows to do anything to get that chance, including doing whatever Kain demands of him, but just how far is Liam willing to go? "Your fervent, misguided sense of entitlement is stunning," Kain snarls at me. His nose twitches in indignation before a slow, cruel smirk crawls over his lips. He mouths the word 'anything', repeating what I had just said before leaning in and taking my chin into his fingers, brushing my lips with his thumb as he says in a low growl, "why don't you show me...”