Zen Design Garden

After I, Rosalie Ricci, was stood up 17 times, the mafia don, Daniel Marino, finally holds the perfect engagement banquet for me. In our second year together, we are ready to get married. But every single time, he has an excuse to hold our engagement off. He says he's busy with work, the timing isn't right yet, or that he isn't quite ready. I never blame him because I love him. I have loved him since our school days. In fact, I have loved him for seven whole years. This is the 18th time. I stand in the banquet hall wearing the gown he personally chose for me and watch as he slips the ring onto my finger. He kisses me with a passionate intensity he has never shown me before. At that moment, I believe that I have finally secured my perfect happiness after waiting seven long years. My happiness only lasts until the guests leave. As I step into the back garden, I see Daniel holding my twin sister, Leah Ricci, in his arms. He says in a hushed voice, "I announced my engagement to Rosalie 18 times. This time, you're finally back." That's when I realize that the engagement banquet that I have longed for is nothing more than a ploy by Daniel to draw Leah back to him. But when I decided to let them be together, Daniel panics.

Harlequin Frost is in an arranged marriage for two years when she overhears a conversation between her husband, Victor Cross, and his best friend, Liam. Victor admits he is going to ask her for a divorce. When he does tell Harley that he wants a divorce, she is nothing but cold and she lets him see her anger for the first time. Victor starts noticing sides of his wife that he never knew were there. Harley realizes that she has lost everything about herself just trying to be the kind of woman he could love. Victor swears she was hiding her true self while Harley insists, he would have seen these sides to her if he had attempted to get to know her. When his first love comes back to town, Victor tries to bully Harley into making concessions in their divorce agreement to try to hang on to Daya while Harley refuses to budge. When Victor's half-brother comes back from abroad, he takes an interest in Harley while Harley is just trying to concentrate on growing her jewelry design firm. She doesn't even notice that Victor's best friend and his half-brother are trying to get her attention until her best friends notice and point it out to her. Will Harley find love with Liam or Daniel? Or will she and Victor reconnect and try to make their relationship work?

"Part One: TakenJessie Coford had a plan: work hard, save money, open her own restaurant. She sacrificed her relationship with the man of her dreams to get it. Then, in the blink of an eye, she lost her job and her apartment and her life crashed around her. Until a letter taking her to Fort Mavis, Texas, and an unexpected windfall.Part Two: TamedShea Prescott was astonished when million Cruz Castillo chose her to design his new home on his ranch. They hardly traveled in the same circles. But Cruz had been hot for Shea since he first saw her and at their first meeting the chemistry between them ignited. Cruz coaxed her deeper and deeper into a whirlpool of erotic sex, awakening latent sexual desires and bringing her orgasms beyond her wildest imaginings. Her body screamed yes at his every touch, but will she say yes to the most important question?USA Today best-selling and award-winning author Desiree Holt writes everything from romantic suspense and paranormal to erotic. and has been referred to by USA Today as the Nora Roberts of erotic romance, and is a winner of the EPIC E-Book Award, the Holt Medallion and a Romantic Times Reviewers Choice nominee. She has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning and in The Village Voice, The Daily Beast, USA Today, The (London) Daily Mail, The New Delhi Times and numerous other national and international publications.Taken by Surprise is created by Desiree Holt, an EGlobal Creative Publishing signed author."

Meu amigo de infância prometeu que assim que terminássemos a faculdade, iríamos nos casar. Mas no dia da formatura, perante todos, ele se ajoelhou não para mim, mas para Ana, aquela falsa herdeira. Para o mundo, Ricardo era o herdeiro zen do círculo social, um homem que, mesmo tendo conquistado a mulher de seus sonhos, não hesitou em exibir sua paixão por mim após o pedido de casamento. Durante cinco anos de um casamento em que fui tratada como uma rainha, recebendo todo o carinho e atenção possíveis, me deixei enganar acreditando nesse conto de fadas. Até que um dia, por acaso, ouvi uma conversa entre Ricardo e um amigo dele: — Ricardo, agora que a Aninha virou celebridade, você ainda vai continuar fingindo para Júlia? — Não consegui casar com a Aninha, então tanto faz. Pelo menos, estando comigo, ela não atrapalha a felicidade da Aninha. Quando descobri todos os escritos deixados por ele, cada um deles tinha o nome da Ana. “Que Ana se liberte do que a prende, que ela encontre paz... Que seus desejos se realizem, que ela nunca sofra por amor. Ana, talvez não tenhamos destino juntos nesta vida, mas tomara que, em outra, eu possa segurar sua mão.” Cinco anos vivendo uma ilusão, e então acordei. Decidi assumir uma nova identidade e, para romper de vez, planejei meu próprio desaparecimento no mar. A partir de agora, mesmo que o destino insista, minha história e a dele não vão mais se cruzar. Não nesta vida, nem na próxima.

Elina Hemsworth ran away from her happy marriage because she lost another child to miscarriage. She's been married to Noah Woods for five years and she knows what havoc the news would bring to him. She ran, ignoring his calls and blocking him, only leaving him with a text that she is sorry for what she has cost him. She created a new life for herself, hoping that her old life would stay dead, but that is not always how it ends. Noah Woods was hurt. The separation left him cold and hard hearted. He believed Elina left him because she found someone else and that he wasn't good enough to take care of her. He focuses all of that pain into his business and immediately, skyrocketed to be one of the biggest billionaires in New York. To him, Elina was dead, but dead things still find a way back to life. Noah Woods hired a big interior designer to help design a new estate of his and he is beyond shocked to find out that it is none other than his wife that left him five years ago. As old wounds opened and secrets surfaced, Elina and Noah found themselves caught between the past they never healed from, but when a blackmailer threatened to expose everything, love may no longer be enough to save them. This time, the truth doesn't hurt, it could destroy them both.

After the video exposing my sister Issa Acosta’s plot against me was revealed, my parents and my fiancé, Henry Nolan, stood firmly by my side, making me feel loved and safe. I confidently handed over all the evidence to them, trusting them to handle it. However, they told me that after Issa was kicked out of the house, she died in a sudden car accident, and I believed them. That was until five years into my marriage, when I accidentally saw Issa—the woman who was supposed to be dead. She was holding a little boy, clinging tightly to Henry’s hand. "Henry, if it weren’t for you and my parents, I’m afraid Zoe would’ve thrown me in prison. Thankfully, my parents destroyed the evidence and even opened a jewelry design studio for me. To avoid suspicion, you even sacrificed your own marriage. Thank you for everything in the past five years.” "Think of it as me atoning to Zoe on your behalf. As long as you and Bear are happy, that’s enough for me." So, what I thought was a happy family was nothing more than a giant lie—a scheme concocted by my parents and Henry. My parents, my husband, and Issa were the real family, and I? I was just the fool who had been deceived for five long years. Whether it was family or love, none of it was real, and I don’t want any of it anymore.

"“Funny, charming, and utterly captivating! I devoured this sparkling read.” - New York Times bestselling author Annika Martin The man I hate might be the first one to pluck my petals… Confession: I, Dandelion “Dani” Wright, am twenty-six years old and have yet to be deflowered. No man has hosed my hyacinth. Fondled my freesia. Diddled my daffodil. You get the point. My excuse? I was too busy running my family’s flower shop and winning floral design competitions. Suddenly that whole pesky virginity thing becomes a big deal when Jacob West walks back into my life. The boy I once loved. The same boy who humiliated me when he stood me up for prom. This Jacob is no boy, though: he’s all man now—confident, charming, and so sexy my metaphorical blossoms are getting scorched. I can almost forget I’m supposed to hate him forever. Almost. To make things worse, he’s my main competition now, since he took over his parents’ flower shop. If I give into this sizzling attraction between us, it could jeopardize everything I’ve worked so hard to achieve. But if I’m not careful, he might not just be the first man to pluck my petals—he might also be the only man to capture my heart."

I dated my younger brother’s best friend, Dylan Lane, for three years. More than once, he told me how much he loathed arranged marriages and how he hated being chained by family interests. However, one night, after another bout of indulgence, he wrapped his arms around me and begged me sweetly to design a wedding ring for his fiancée—someone he had never even met. The smile froze on my face, yet he just said indifferently, “Aren’t people like us all destined to marry for our families' benefit?” Seeing the blood drain from my face, he even chuckled. “Vee, don’t you tell me you're still as naïve as a 20-year-old girl, thinking I would ever marry you? At most, we're just… pillow friends." Later, I agreed to the marriage my family had arranged for me. Dylan showed up on my wedding day, disheveled and red-eyed. He fell to his knees and begged me not to leave. I stood beside my new husband, hand in hand, and smiled faintly as I chuckled. “Didn’t you say people like us were born for arranged marriages? I’m simply doing what you always wanted me to do. Shouldn’t you be happy?”

Memories have no remedy for Yorticia Fleurdelice Vigilante, who has no idea about her obscure past. She was an angel, and it was beyond her comprehension how the gust of wind had brought her to a lush Garden of Evil. Cosimo, with whom she lived, a man she was not familiar with, gives her one mission: "Kill me whenever you can." The evil is him. The De Rogatis successor to the fortune who've been concealing the truth that he's the De Rogatis empire's successor, asleep in Olimpio Sidonio Gagliardo's hands, has returned following a 13-year vengeance scheme of an age-old vendetta against the plot's ringleaders, one of whom are the Vigilantes, which risk further conflict resulted in the eradication of her clan. She did not know him well, but he caused a knot in her just thinking about his face. From this point on, Yorticia decides that she'll do this by choking him with feigned love and emotionally manipulating him into servitude. Promising him, like, a million tomorrows, she'll be like a wildflower, valiantly growing wild and free and nothing that burns. Yorticia, however, is thrown into confusion as what was supposed to be pure retaliation turns into lust... and conceivably true love as she begins to notice it was starting to consume her like a raptorous wildfire. Meanwhile, as Cosimo drops further lower while continuing to fight for the things that he holds dear and to forget the things he fears, he grapples with his own feelings for Yorticia. He wants Yorticia to know that when he found this newfound freedom through her... she became his religion, regardless of who he becomes or how low he descends. Can they ever truly learn to love one another, or are they doomed to suffocate in their destructive cycle of retaliation and violence?

"Noooooooooooooo!" With a loud shrieking voice. "Stopppp! Not again, not even here". Sobbing, trying to get a grip of what had happened, again. Her body vibrates violently, with her hands shaking and moving like they have a mind of their own. Her glowing eye is so noticeable even with the dark shades on. Her body violently jerked, spilling the hot pasta and orange juice all over the dining table and her denim shirt, while she tried her best to keep calm and behave as if everything was fine. A secret only her mum used to know about has grown wings and flown out, in the cafeteria!. "Hell no, I have to do something." She whispered to herself. But sadly, there was nothing to be done. The damage had been done already. Anxiously, she picked her backpack and brought out her journal, and placed it on the messed-up dining table. She could hear some of the students calling her a freak, and as usual, all looking at her in disgust. Her heart sinks every time that happens, knowing she's going to be the talk of the school, and she hated that. She hated all of it, and self-flagellation was as tempting as the garden of Eden. She just wished she could just disappear from the surface of the earth. Then suddenly, The bell rang, lunchtime was over. "Finally," She muttered, with a deep sigh. Yes, she is a PSYCHIC, and she's 16. She is a psychic who has another being in her. She had five friends, each with a secret to keep. they had to team up to solve the mysterious Homicide going on in their peaceful town, and in the process, they learnt each other secrets and the town's history. Will they be able to solve the mystery?