Rule #1: Date within your circle. Rule #2: Uphold the family image. Rule #3: Never, ever get distracted. Carter Vanderbilt has followed the rules his entire life. As the golden boy of the conservative elite, his path was set: marry a suitable girl, run the family empire, and maintain the status quo. His current fling, Ashley, is the perfect "pick me" placeholder-until Meredith Bridges walks in. Meredith is kindness and light, a beautiful black woman who represents everything his world is not. And Carter can't look away. His fascination quickly twists into a dangerous obsession, making him question every belief he's ever held. Ashley isn't about to let some "sweetheart" steal her trophy. She's played the game too long to lose now. Watch as a man's entire world unravels for an obsession that was never part of the plan. He was taught to build walls. She's the reason they'll crumble.

Cali and Chance have been best friends since the sandbox. She was always the bookworm, introverted friend that calmed his extroverted, charming ways. Cali's love for Chance bloomed from that friendship into romantic interest, even though she knows that he will never settle down and has never so much as had a girlfriend. She is sure that Chance is the one, she just cant seem to get him to see that. Especially when he suddenly decides to stop being a play boy and settles down with her roommate. Chance has loved Cali since before she even agreed to be his friend. She is his home, his safe place. The one that has accepted and protected him no matter what. When he starts to see her outside of their normal stomping grounds, and notices other guys noticing her, he starts to feel more than that old male friend guardian jealousy. He starts to want more from her than their normal hugs and banter. And that upsets him. He cant risk losing Cali just because he cant keep dirty thoughts of her out of his head. Can she get him to see her? Can he stop watching her? And when it's all said and done, will they still be Best Friends?

Four years ago, Selena Moreau gave her heart to a man she had no business loving. She was a seamstress-young, gifted, and far from home. He was a prince, caught between duty and desire, with promises that tasted like forever. In the quiet shadows of the palace, they shared something soft, something sacred... until the world outside tore it apart. Now, Selena lives a quiet life in the town no one of importance ever visits, raising her son with careful hands and a guarded heart. She asks for nothing. Expects even less. The boy she bore is hers alone, and she intends to keep it that way. But when the newly crowned king returns and their paths cross once more, old feelings begin to stir-and buried truths rise to the surface. Alexander is back... not just in her world, but dangerously close to the one secret that binds them forever. He wants to know his son. He wants to understand what he lost. But after everything he left behind... will she let him in? A story of first love, betrayal, and the slow, aching journey back to one another-where the cost of silence may be the only thing keeping them apart.

He came for a hiding place. He stayed for the cook. Serenity Davidson has no time for strays. She's too busy running the best soul food catering business in Greensboro and keeping her heart in the Dudley neighborhood. As a proud Dudley High alum, Serenity knows how to handle the heat but she isn't prepared for the starving, half-dead man collapsed on her front porch. She does what she does best: she feeds him. He says his name is Kevin. He says he's an unemployed factory worker with "bad asthma." He is lying. He is Lorenzo Moretti, the ruthless Don of the Sicilian Mafia, battered and hiding in plain sight. He intended to heal, exact his revenge, and disappear. But after weeks of Serenity's soul food, her warm bed, and her sharp tongue, Lorenzo realizes he has a new addiction. He's not just going to take back his empire. He's taking the cook with him.

Aaliyah never planned on catching the eye of Leo Ramirez. A quiet, brooding basketball player who looks at her like she's trouble & like he'd burn the whole world for her.

She grew up in their house, best friends with one brother... and now she's tangled up with the other. A summer wedding, a secret romance, stolen kisses, and the kind of love that could ruin everything.

He blocked her in. She shut him down. Now, the whole town is waiting for the explosion. Sage Woodson didn't come back to Liberty Creek to fall in love. She came to bury her grandfather, sell his estate, and get back to her life as a high-powered Chicago ER nurse. She has a plan, a timeline, and zero patience for the locals. Especially not for the arrogant Fire Captain driving a midnight-blue F-150 who thinks he owns the road. Captain Connor Stapleton is used to being the hero. He's used to respect. He is not used to a curly-haired tourist publicly questioning his manhood in a crowded coffee shop parking lot. They were supposed to be enemies. But when Sage inherits her grandfather's rusted-out 1969 Chevelle, she realizes the only mechanic in town skilled enough to save it is the very man she swore to avoid. A wager is struck: Connor has one week to get the engine running. If he fails, Sage leaves for good. If he succeeds? She owes him a date. But late nights in a humid garage have a way of blurring the lines between fighting and flirting. As the engine roars to life, so does a possessive, feral hunger that neither of them expected. Connor doesn't just want a date. He wants to ruin her for anyone else. And Sage is realizing that the only thing scarier than leaving... might be staying. Small town. Big truck. Massive attitude.

Amira Hart was never meant to be part of the story. Not the public one, anyway. But behind every polished legacy is the girl no one talks about-the one who was loved in secret, then left in silence. For two years, Amira and Brooks Whitmore IV lived in that silence. He was the President's son, raised for cameras and campaign trails. She was the woman he chose when no one was watching. Their worlds were never meant to meet. The cards were stacked long before they kissed in the dark. Now, two years later, a wedding invitation arrives. His name is on it. So is hers. Told in fragments and flashbacks, His Secret is a quiet storm of a love story-about memory, erasure, and the women history tries to forget.

SEQUEL TO HIS SECRET (highly recommended to read his secret first possibly could be read as a standalone) It's been four years since Amira walked away from Brooks Whitmore-and the life that nearly swallowed her whole. Now twenty-eight, she's graduated from cosmetology school, raising her daughter, Alina, and building a future of her own. Stronger, sharper, and unwilling to be anyone's secret again, Amira swears her past is behind her. But when a man she's casually seeing drags her to a political event, Amira finds herself face-to-face with Brooks for the first time in years. Only now, he's married. Only now, he's on the verge of the Vice Presidency. And only now, the truth about Alina threatens to surface. Brooks has everything he was raised to want-power, status, Margot on his arm. But behind closed doors he's colder and haunted by the woman he let slip away. What happens when their worlds collide again? When secrets can't stay buried? This time, Amira isn't the girl he left behind. She's a woman with something to lose.

"The Underground Fighter and His Childhood Best Friend" ❦ Sasha "Kayo" Sokolov is a Russian fighter who was sent to America at a young age. One day, he met a young girl by the name of Everleigh Wilson, who taught him how to speak English, and helped him with his studies. They bonded so easily and became the best of friends. Years passed, and Sasha disappeared. Everleigh had to go on with life without her best friend. Until one lonely night when she saw the one man she loved more than anything beating another man to death. - "What happened to the boy I used to know?" she questioned, shutting her eyes at the feel of his hand traveling up her dress. He was so close to her throbbing core, and she hated how much she wanted him to touch her, enter her, ruin her. Sasha smirked sadistically. "He's gone, kitten. And he's never coming back." ❦ 𝐁𝐖𝐖𝐌, 𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐤, 𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞.