"So you didn't give me one. Don't you want to befriend me?" Oliver teased, with absolutely no expression on his face. If it weren't for his tone, I never would have guessed. "But you're my husband... my fake husband." My face scrunches in confusion, and he very slowly takes a step closer to me, and I immediately take one back I'm backed up and pinned between the wall and his very huge body. His left hand lands right above me on the wall, and his right one slowly snakes around my waist, and I shiver as a result. My eyes flutter closed, my breathing thickens as he bends until he's right in front of me. My heartbeat is going a thousand miles an hour as I feel his lips brush against my right earlobe. "Listen, and listen carefully, sweetheart," he whispers, his deep voice seeping trouble, and that nickname-I swear to God. "I am your fake nothing," he says, stressing the 'nothing,' his hot air fanning my neck. "Our marriage might've been a contract, but under no circumstances is what we have fake. You are my wife and will be until you have my fucking signature on the divorce papers. Got it?" With a shaky breath, I look up at him as I feel him pull his face away. __________ She was raised to follow the rules. He was born to break them. Sienna Martinez is the golden girl. Soft-spoken, smart, and graceful. She runs her family's business, keeps her reputation spotless, and avoids trouble until trouble walks in wearing a tailored suit and a devil's smirk. Oliver Salvatore is royalty, the next CEO of The Salvatore Group. Ruthless when needed, dangerously charming when he wants. Marriage was never in his plans until his brother and her sister ran away. But one year, one marriage, and one rule-don't fall in love-prove easier said than done. Especially when the girl he's been searching for fourteen years is the one standing right in front of him, and somewhere between the lies and the longing, they've already crossed the line.

BOOK 1: Started in Seattle: Fayette Monet has dreams, one of those dreams are to move to Seattle all the way from Paris to pursue to career. Fayette carries baggage though, her ex who dumped her before she left for Seattle. Now she is moved in and is forgetting about him, when she bumps into the handsome hockey captain that catches her eyes instantly. Elias Graham has been known for hockey his whole life. His life has been easy going for the most part with only some drama following him and his friend. He plans to pursue hockey for the rest of his life and nothing else, not even a love interest. That is until the new girl from Paris pays for his drink after insulting it.

𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐟𝐥𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐬𝐭...𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐢𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐧 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐡. Arabella never meant to get close to someone like him. Warren is reckless, unreadable, and surrounded by rumors that make people run. But the more she's warned to stay away, the more she wants to know why he hides behind those walls...and why he can't seem to stay away from her either. ────୨ৎ──── Warren Reid is a name everyone in town knows, and not for good reasons. He left a student unconscious before disappearing into juvie, and now that he's back, the rumors are worse than ever. With a past that whispers warnings and a reputation that silences rooms, Warren is used to being feared, not understood. He trusts no one, lets no one in, and only keeps two people close. Emotions are weaknesses in his world, and vulnerability has never been an option. Until her. Arabella Winters is the picture of perfection and the last girl anyone would expect to cross paths with someone like Warren. Smart, sweet, and sheltered, she follows every rule her parents set, never once stepping out of line. She's the kind of girl who still believes in good graces, bedtime curfews, and fairy tale endings. But one knock on Warren's door throws her into his world, and nothing is the same after that. Everyone says he's trouble, but Arabella doesn't see the monster they all fear. She sees someone broken, someone hiding wounds no one else bothers to look for. What starts as innocent curiosity soon becomes an intense pull neither of them can resist. She's drawn to the shadows he hides in, and he can't stay away from the light she doesn't even know she carries. Now Arabella has to ask herself: is she helping Warren escape the darkness...or is she just letting it swallow her too?

Nine-year-old Addison has known only darkness - locked away in a basement, her world has been one of silence, fear, and isolation. But when Addison moves in with the Harrington brothers - the family she never knew she had - she faces the daunting task of learning to trust, speak, and heal. Surrounded by love but haunted by her past, will Addison find the light she's been searching for - or will the shadows of her trauma keep her trapped?

Hockey player Aiden Peters used to torment Alyssa Davis all throughout middle school because he hated her, right? It's Alyssa's first year of college, a place she told herself she would have a fresh start. But what happens when she bumps into a hockey player that she swears she knows and hates... Aiden is the no shit taking team captain that everyone happens to love. The last thing he needs is to fall in love again especially with Alyssa Davis. She hates him, he is deeply in love with her, and both of them pretend they don't know each other when they are the one things they can't get out of their minds. Tw's// descriptions of ED, depression, anxiety and panic attacks

Nathan Kingston has been forgotten by the world. A dad that fucked off when he was young and a mother gone days at a time with work he feels alone. Especially since he goes to the most elite private school in the city on scholarship. He's falling down a pit, he needs someone. But nobody notices him, except a smiling girl with icy blue eyes. Ivy Matthews loves her family, she really does. But she's the middle child, squashed between a supermodel older sister, a basketball star twin brother and a figure skating prodigy younger sister. She gets overlooked, unless she gets in trouble. She's failing two of the classes she needs to graduate, she needs someone. And he's the boy who never smiles. • • • Matthews Series: Book Two [DUAL POV] ⚠️Tw: Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, Panic Attacks [word count: 103129]

🎖️WATTYS SHORT LIST 25🎖️*COMPLETED* River Fontaine has it all. The looks, the personality, the friend group and the popularity. Everyone either wants to be her or with her. Nash Kingston is just the same. Handsome, mysterious, wanted by all and very charming (in his own way). Girls and boys fall at his feet, except for our blondie. Followed after their families feud, he doesn't like her one bit and River...well, she loves some good banter. To her is just playful bickering, to him it's a long time grudge. Either way, they can't stay away from each other. -•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-• "I don't think your girlfriend would appreciate you calling other girls hot." "Then good it's her I'm saying it to." "I'm not...your girlfriend." "Not yet." -•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-• #1 IN POPULAR #1 IN BICKERING WATTY'S SHORT LIST 2025

"Romano, you better get your hands off me unless you want to end up six feet below!", she exclaimed as she squirmed, trying to find a way to break free from me with a deep glare. Amusing. I let out a deep heavy sinister chuckle as I threw my head back. This all felt so nostalgic but ...the difference is...she would have never had the guts to talk back to me like how she does now. Time slowed down as the memories flashed across my mind. How timid she was when Kai first introduced me to her - looking at me with those sweet doe eyes. I know I didn't deserve it. I still remember everything so clearly....so why does she act like she doesn't know me? Why is she so angry when I should be angry about her disappearing? She should have never come back ... .because I'm going to make her life here a living hell. And she will never be able to escape it! Sofia would have been safer if she was known to be 'dead'. Sofia Crimson, the daughter of the assassin . Romano Giovanni, the leader of the Italian mafia. They had history together, grew up together. Sofia, pulled apart from her family and friends and including Romano- appears to be dead according to the world and the evidence provided but Romano sees otherwise. He knows that there was something off, something fishy about the whole situation, so he decided to take the matter within his own hands.

21-year-old Celena Smith doesn't fear anything anymore. From being adopted by the American mafia after narrowly escaping death to surviving the torment that same family continuously brings to her. Although one thing manages to shake her up... on the night of her 21st birthday, she finds out she's been arranged to marry the oldest male heir of the Italian mafia. 22 year old Alessio Rossi is the head of the Italian mafia and doesn't have any time for any bullshit. He's power hungry and will do anything to make sure his family legacy continues to stay strong. So, of course, when the offer comes to marry the only daughter of the American mafia, the third most powerful in the world, he doesn't hesitate, no matter the circumstances. Even when Alessio and his brothers aren't fans of outsiders to their family at all. Despite all this, there remains one huge problem... what happens if the mafia world finds out she's adopted, not only them, but Alessio and his brothers also? Is the whole alliance truly a scam? Will walls begin to break and connections form? Will the animosity from both powerful families break Celena? Or will one or two more big secrets shake up everything they all know?

Ivy Bright has always believed that a smile can fix anything - even when life keeps proving her wrong. Stuck in a cold mansion with a neglectful mother and a cruel stepfather, she scrubs floors and hides her pain behind a cheerful mask, convinced that kindness is the only thing she has left to give. But everything changes when five strangers arrive, their presence dark and commanding. The Vitalo brothers - Massimo, Declan, Zayn, Jaxon, and Vale - have come to reclaim what's rightfully theirs. They expected to find their father living off their late mother's fortune. What they didn't expect was Ivy. She's not their blood, yet something about her stirs a long-buried instinct to protect. Hardened by loss and betrayal, the brothers have forgotten what softness feels like... until they see the girl with the unbreakable smile. They came for vengeance. They met her. But can Ivy's light survive their darkness? Or will the shadows that cling to the Vitalo brothers consume her, too?