A Heart No Longer Waiting by Dusty Blush

Romance

I woke up on silk sheets that smelled of expensive cedar and cold sandalwood, a world away from my cramped apartment in Brooklyn. Beside me lay Ezra Gardner—my boss, the billionaire CEO of Gardner Holdings, and the man who could end my career with a snap of his fingers. He didn’t offer an apology for the night before; instead, he looked at me with terrifying clarity and proposed a cold, calculated business arrangement. "Marriage. It stabilizes the board and solves the PR crisis before it begins." He dressed me in archival Chanel and sent me home in his Maybach, but my life was already falling apart. My boyfriend, Irving, claimed he had passed out early, yet his location data placed him at my best friend’s apartment until three in the morning. When I tried to run, I realized Ezra was already ten steps ahead, tracking my movements and uncovering the secret I’d spent twenty years hiding: my connection to the powerful Senator Grimes. I was trapped between a CEO who treated me like a line item on a quarterly report and a boyfriend who had been using me while sleeping with my closest friend. I felt like a pawn in a game I didn't understand, wondering why a man like Ezra would walk up forty flights of stairs on a broken leg just to make sure I was safe. "Showtime, Mrs. Gardner." Standing on the red carpet in a gown that cost more than my life, I watched my cheating ex-boyfriend’s face turn pale as Ezra claimed me in front of the world. I wasn't just an assistant anymore; I was a weapon, and it was time to burn their world down.

Romance

The last thing I remembered was the freezing water filling my lungs. My adoptive parents, the Millers, had sold me, a tool for their precious biological son. They took money from Olivia Hayes's family, the very girl who made my high school years a living hell, and used it to force me out of school,

Modern

Thanksgiving rush, the usual chaos of life with my daughter, Jessica. For years, I' d been their quiet support, their free childcare, their endless ATM. My late husband' s heroism left me one asset: our fully paid-off home. Then, a towering display of canned goods began to fall, directly on my gr

Romance

The glossy magazine cover screamed it: "Chloe Van Der Bilt to Wed Titan of Industry Richard Sterling." My heart, which I' d poured into every stainless-steel surface and Michelin-starred dish of "Ember" -the restaurant I built for her-shattered. For five years, I' d sacrificed everything, clawi

Billionaires

I was Ava, the unsung architect behind InnovateNext, the tech empire my husband Ethan now helmed. For eight years, I' d been his devoted wife, sacrificing my groundbreaking career and protecting his fragile ego by taking the blame for our infertility. Our Connecticut home was a picture of domestic

Sci-fi

My full scholarship to Princeton had just arrived, a bright promise of four years alongside Chloe and Maya, the girls my family had sponsored since childhood, whom I saw as my own sisters. But their smiles shattered when they announced their "dream" was deferring Princeton to follow a delinquent qu

Romance

The sterile white walls of Liam's penthouse, a gilded cage masquerading as my studio, stifled me. Every painting, every breath, belonged to him. Then, a cold, glowing message appeared in my vision: `[Muse System Activated. Main Task: Sever the parasitic relationship with Liam.]` My secret guide h

Sci-fi

The music was too loud, the crowd too thick. Then came the screams, the smell of smoke, the fire. My body moved to save Chloe, a reflex from a past life I shouldn't remember, a life where her disgust and obsession with her childhood crush, Ethan, had led to my suicide. But then the cruel memories fl

Romance

I loved Michael so fully, a quiet burning devotion for my youth pastor, believing he was my soulmate. Then he left me for his "true love." In a fit of desperate jealousy, I hired men to just `scare` him, but it went horribly wrong. He suffered a head injury, waking with amnesia, claiming I was th

Werewolf

Book 1 Amethyst prayed for her childhood best friend to be her mate. Everyone stares, they tease, they bully her for being an orphan but Mason was different. He protected her, he defended her. The Alpha's son loved her since they were pups. But you can't be kids forever. Everything turned sour when

Modern

For five years, I lived in a gilded cage, believing I was the cherished orphan saved by the wealthy Estrada family. They gave me a home, a career as an architect, and their son, Andres, as my fiancé. They told me my best friend, Dyan, had betrayed me. I believed them. Then one night, I found Andre

Fantasy

My name is Ethan, and for seven years, I was a vampire's blood thrall, a living blood bag for Victoria, my supposed mistress. Every day was pure agony, battling the "Pact Strain" – a searing pain that only her blood could ease, blood she rarely offered. I endured her extreme neglect, her casual cr

Romance

For seven years, I was the perfect husband, or rather, the perfect live-in help, trapped in a gilded cage after the Davies family took me in following my parents' death and arranged a marriage to their daughter, Olivia. I gave up my dreams, working a stable job and tending to their every need, becom

Romance

Ethan Vanderbilt, heir to a formidable real estate empire, believed he had it all: a thriving business, a sophisticated life, and Isabella Hawthorne, the woman he saved from a shipwreck years ago at the cost of his own future children. His perfect world shattered during their engagement party when I

Modern

For three years, I was Keagan Steele's passionate secret, the "Wild Rose of Beverly Hills" who finally tamed the city's coldest billionaire. I thought our love was real, a quiet world built away from the glitz. Then I overheard him call me a "placeholder," a three-year experiment until his true lov

Billionaires

She opened her arms to hug him, but he halted her, flinging an envelope at her. Amy stopped and looked at him in shock, perceiving a female fragrance from him. Was he really cheating on her? She picked up the envelope and opened it. "Divorce papers? Anderson? Why? We can sort it out..." she said

Billionaires

My life was a constant payment, a humiliating exchange for my sister Chloe's next breath. Julian Vance owned me, casually tossing wads of cash that paid Chloe's astronomical medical bills, but bought him the right to my endless compliance. He'd send me on midnight errands miles away after I'd nearly

Modern

My Charleston dream wedding to Ethan, my fiancé of ten years, was just days away. Our future together felt set, a lifetime hand-in-hand. Then, my smart home security feed played a horrifying, silent film. Ethan, my fiancé, intimately with Chloe, my stepsister, right there in our house. An undeni

Modern

The rejection letter for Danny' s after-school program landed like a physical blow. I just wanted a safe, affordable spot for my sweet five-year-old. But the reason shocked me: the spot was taken by "another child" of Sergeant First Class Tom Barnes – my husband. Tom admitted it was for Kyle, son

Romance

The last thing I remembered was dying alone on a cold concrete floor, my family ruined, my life a story someone else wrote. But then a cold, mechanical voice declared me a "supporting character" and a "villainess," my narrative arc complete. My decade-long devotion to Ethan Vance, the golden boy,