Not the space where I sleep or the walls that surround me, but instead, the people that surround me. The ones that make me feel like me. Like I don't need to hide. My brothers, my best friend. It's a small bubble, sure, but one I'm damn happy with. I might be a little lost at times-I mean, who isn't?-but I always know where to go when I need to find myself. It's safe, comfortable, familiar. My home.Until he falls into my lap. No, literally. Into my lap. That beer I spent the last of my money on? Gone. All over me. Damnit. I'm wet, and I'm...oh.Oh dear God.Tall and broad. That surfer hair and those sparkly blue eyes. Cheeky grin and southern drawl that makes a girl wanna drool. All those rippling, tattooed muscles. Oh, yes.Mitchell Hudson, baseball superstar, you may fall into my lap any day, kind sir.Except then he starts making a home inside my heart, and that vital organ? Well, I'm not sure we're ready for what he has to offer. His home is tied to a place thousands of miles away, and mine? Well...mine's right here.The man hits more homeruns than I can count, and that's exactly what I'm afraid he's going to do: run home, and take a piece of my heart with him when he goes.** You do not need to know anything about baseball or even really like the sport to read this story. But if you like athletic men who like to throw their strength and alpha sides (and their women) around, this might be the story for you! **

    

    The father of my unborn child. Our future is uncertain until my stepbrother is on the loose. Can Zayn put an end to this danger and save our family?

    It was show room perfect, an illusion. One I wanted desperately to escape.Then fate intervened and revealed something new.Even now I’m not sure how it happened. That the fates aligned so perfectly as to give me a second chance. I had fallen hard and fast and just when I thought my life was over it exploded in color and love and happiness. A world full of Skulls with dark ink, sharp tongues, and wicked minds. I had finally found my home.If only my father hadn’t found it too. DanMy world had been good. No better than good. It was great. But it was lonely. Then I made a wish for something more. Amazingly the universe came through for me. I fell hard and fast. Suddenly things that seemed impossible became possible. My life exploded in warmth and sunshine. A world full of big brown eyes, soft lips, and sweet sighs. She reminds me of home.Her father thinks he can take her away from me. I guess he’s never met a Skull.We protect what’s ours…and Lily is most definitely mine.

    I’m just his maid, he’ll never love me…Late at night he sits at his desk, necktie loosened, the sleeves of his crisp cotton shirt rolled up to his bulging biceps.How I wish I could run my fingers through his hair, graze my nose against his cheek and massage his tense, muscular shoulders.How I’ve tried to get his attention.Prancing around him in cute little dresses, my cheeks a rosy shade of pink.Dropping a crumpled tissue on the floor to give him a peek as I bend over to pick it up.Spending half my salary on expensive perfumes just to give him a whiff of me as he rushes past.Anything to make him grab me and kiss me as he does to Stacey!Instead, all I ever get is a polite smile when I pour his morning coffee.The only time he notices me is when I burn his toast.Then his eyes turn red, his fists clench, and his powerful voice rumbles from deep within his chest.It makes my heart race…Maybe I should burn his toast again this morning.Smolder it to ashes.Then he’ll really give it to me.

    "Not your ordinary detective story."

    Come on, say it with me. Ha-des.”“Hades,” Ariel breathed out, still not believing the sight before her. Every picture she had seen of the gods had not depicted Hades’ beauty. The god sitting before her was not a crusty old man with a white beard; no, he was a Calvin Klein model.“Yes,” Hades clasped his hands together and grimaced, “the God of Death and riches; that’s me.” Ariel nodded, still refusing to believe but knowing she had to and Hades’ grimace turned even bitter, “And you, darling, will be staying with me for quite some time.”

    When she craves revenge on a drunken whim, she falls victim to divine intervention and an unexpected surprise from her own mistakes.

    But from the moment I saw her, I knew I wanted her.I shouldn’t have spoken to her. Messing with her means digging my own grave. Pursuing her puts my family at risk.Chloe is my light, but family is everything…

    But here I was, on the last day of the year, staring into the eyes of a man who held all my nerves hostage.This was wrong.But I wasn’t looking to be right. Especially not to a husband who doesn’t deserve my loyalty.Still, I should be miles away from here on a yacht circling the Potomac river. My body should’ve been pressed into my husband’s hard chest while his arms held me close as we counted down the last ten seconds of the year. It should’ve been him staring at me like a snack, his eyes slowly undressing me. But it wasn’t my husband, Keith, staring at me.It was this stranger.How could I be so reckless?If anyone saw me walking hand in hand with a man who was not my husband, I could lose more than just a husband. I could lose my opportunity to enact change to New York City’s criminal justice system as a district attorney. Yet, I swatted the red flags away and continued following this stranger into the penthouse suite.Why was I willing to risk it all for a man I didn’t even know?>b>Nicolai:I had one rule. One rule only. Never bring a woman near my home. Yet, here I was, breaking another rule tonight all in the name of the beautiful woman sitting all alone in the grand room of Camilla’s Cuisine.Sixty million dollars was riding on this meeting; yet, my eyes kept roaming over to her. I was supposed to be studying the man sitting across from me—calculating his every move, screening for any deception. Yet, my eyes remained on her, following every graceful move she made.She hadn’t noticed me at first. Hell, I hadn’t realized how long I’d been staring at her until her dark brown eyes rose from her plate to stare into mine. Unlike most women I encountered, she wasn’t intimidated by me openly staring at her. She stared back; yet offered no flirty smile or invitation for me to come over to her. The more I stared at her, the more intrigued I became.Why was she staring back at me?As the acting boss of the Balducci crime family, I’ve spent the past two years restoring order from the chaos left behind when the former Don walked away from the life and family we’d been born and bred into.La Cosa Nostra, this thing of ours, was a matrimony that could never be intercepted or broken. Everything was second to the La Cosa Nostra. It was an oath that my father prepared me to take. It was an oath that authored all decisions that I made.Organizing crime to become a multi-billion-dollar corporate industry, I played every move with careful configurations. Nothing stood in the way. Not a pretty face, friend, foe, or family. Yet, tonight, I ended my meeting before it even started, just so that I could stop her from leaving Camilla’s Cuisine.What was it about her?AUTHOR’S NOTE: This novel is part of the Balducci Family Saga. There are events and characters mentioned in this novel that appeared in previous installments.Please follow the sequence of the Balducci Family Saga listed below:BOOK ONE - Dipping Into SinBOOK TWO- Dipping Deeper Into SinBOOK THREE- Loving Her In The Shadows - Sovereignty

    I drop expensive vases, and miraculously find ways to trip over thin air. Not a day has passed by when I’m not wearing a Band-Aid for some kind of accident that I’ve endured, and it’s stooped to the level now that my parents call me King Kong and joke about having warning signs and safety tape around my bedroom door. Once upon a time, I used to think of that as a laughing matter, but not anymore.Not since I almost killed my crush’s mom. Suddenly the idea of being compared to a giant gorilla of mass destruction doesn’t actually seem that crazy

    I just got out of college. I wanted to explore the world. I wanted to go to the US and travel around Europe. Tapos maiyak at matakot kasi naliligaw ako sa isang bansa na hindi ako pamilyar. At siguro, tumira sa Thailand for a year or two. I also wanted to work three jobs at a time. Gusto kong maranasan na mahirapan sa pagbabayad ng rent sa apartment. Gusto kong makaaway iyong landlady ko kasi ubod ng sungit. I also wanted to adopt a dog and complain because I couldn't take care of it. He wanted to settle down but I wanted to do so many things in my life. Magkaiba iyong priorities namin. Still, I asked him to wait. That maybe after a year or two, we could talk about it again. Ang selfish ko pero gusto ko kasi na kapag ayos na ako, nandyan pa rin siya. There's the comfort in knowing that after all of this, he's still there, waiting for me. But two years, seven days, three hours, five minutes, and thirty seconds later, I was in a church. I watched him get married to someone else.

    It's a known fact at Madison High that Ryder is down for pretty much everything- the stories written on the bathroom stalls are law, after all. Her infamy doesn't stop her from holding a place at the top of Madison High's food chain, though, until something happens at Georgia Brenner's annual New Year's Eve party.All anyone knows is that Ryder was seen being led into a room by Ryan Morgan, Georgia's on again off again, and Mason Brenner, Georigia's twin brother, and that, two hours later, Ryder Burle was at the Hospital.But who will believe the school slut when she cries rape?Weston Stark is the new kid in school. The son of a lawyer, he knows that Ryder should be able to tell her side of the story, no matter what the rumors about her imply. The problem is that no one else is willing to listen.

    Her abundance of friends, perfect grades, and almost ideal family reflected her hard work, making her an object of jealousy for many. But there was more to Zoey than what met the eye — hidden underneath the pressure to uphold her practically perfect image, was a girl determined to express herself. And she did just that with two of the most unlikely hobbies that one could have — paint and delivering mail. Then she discovered Nico Forrest, a cocky British boy forced to get a job at his local post office, and the two were forced to bond over morning mail delivery. Soon, they saw each other much more often than they would have liked to. What could go wrong?