
Introduction
A forgotten key card in her purse. A newspaper headline about the “Mediterranean Strangler.”
Each victim was a woman traveling alone. Each romance lasted exactly five days.
Now Amelia’s facing a nightmare disguised as paradise trapped between attraction and suspicion, reason and fear.
As the sun sets on their fifth day together, she must decide whether to run, fight, or play the most dangerous role of her life: pretending to love the man who plans to kill her.
Chapter 1
Amelia Noah POV
The bathroom mirror doesn't lie, even when I wish it would.
Black mascara streams down my cheeks in twin rivers, mapping the geography of my humiliation. I grip the marble countertop until my knuckles turn white, staring at this stranger with the puffy eyes and trembling lips. This can't be me. This pathetic woman can't be Amelia Noah, senior marketing executive who closed the Hartfield campaign last month, who commands boardrooms filled with men twice her age.
But Marcus's phone buzzes against the sink where I dropped it, and another text from "Trainer Babe" lights up the screen. Can't wait to see you tomorrow. Tonight was incredible.
My stomach lurches. Tonight. While I worked late preparing the Morrison presentation, Marcus was with her. Again.
I force myself to scroll through the messages I've already read twice, each one a fresh cut. Three months of exchanges. Three months of planning secret meetings while I made dinner reservations and picked out lingerie and convinced myself we were building something real.
You're so much more exciting than her.
She has no idea what she's missing.
When are you going to end things with the workaholic?
The workaholic. Eight months together, and that's how he describes me to his mistress. Not Amelia. Not his girlfriend. The workaholic.
"Jesus, Amelia, put the phone down."
Marcus fills the bathroom doorway, his gym bag still slung over his shoulder. Even now, caught red-handed, he looks annoyed rather than guilty. His dark hair is still damp from whatever post-workout shower he shared with Trainer Babe, and he's wearing the cologne I bought him for his birthday.
"Three months?" My voice cracks. "Three months, Marcus?"
He sighs like I'm being unreasonable. "Look, it just happened, okay? These things happen."
"These things happen?" I turn to face him fully, and something wild and desperate rises in my chest. "I introduced you to my sister. I was planning to bring you home for Christmas."
"Come on." He shifts the bag to his other shoulder. "Christmas is eight months away. We both knew this wasn't going anywhere serious."
The words hit like physical blows. "I didn't know that."
"Well, maybe that's the problem." His tone turns sharp, familiar. The same voice he uses when I ask him to put his phone away during dinner, when I suggest we spend a quiet evening together instead of going to another bar with his friends. "You get too attached, too fast. You always have. It's suffocating."
Too attached. Too fast. Suffocating.
I've heard variations of this speech before. From David, my college boyfriend who said I was "emotionally exhausting" after I asked him to meet my parents. From Ryan, who called me "clingy" when I wanted to spend more than one night a week together. From James, who said I had "unrealistic expectations" about communication.
"Maybe I just have normal expectations," I whisper.
Marcus rolls his eyes. "See? This is what I'm talking about. You turn everything into some big emotional drama. Some people just want to have fun, Amelia. Some people don't need to analyze every text and plan every moment and—"
"Get out."
The words surprise us both. They come from somewhere deep in my chest, steady and clear.
"What?"
"Get out of my apartment." I step aside so he can reach the sink, grab his phone, and watch his face change as he realizes I've been reading his messages. "Get your things and get out."
"Amy, come on—"
"Don't call me Amy." Only my family calls me Amy. I never should have let him use it. "And don't 'come on' me. You've been cheating for three months. Three months, Marcus. While I was falling in love with you."
He flinches at the word 'love,' and I realize I've never said it out loud before. Not to him. I was waiting for the right moment, the right setting. I was always waiting.
"Look, I'll end things with Jess—"
"Jess." Her name tastes bitter. "You couldn't even keep it anonymous."
Marcus runs a hand through his hair, a gesture I used to find endearing. "This doesn't have to be complicated. We can work this out."
But I'm already shaking my head. The fog of shock is lifting, replaced by something harder and cleaner. Math. Marcus plus Jess equals eight months of lies. Marcus plus me equals what? Date nights where he checks his phone. Weekend mornings where he leaves early for "workouts." A relationship that was dying while I fertilized it with hope and flexibility and the desperate need to make someone love me.
"There's nothing to work out." I walk past him into the bedroom, pulling his drawer open and dumping clothes into his gym bag. "You made your choice. Multiple times."
"Don't be like this, Amy—Amelia. You're better than this."
I freeze with his Northwestern t-shirt halfway to the bag. "Better than what? Better than having standards? Better than expecting fidelity? Better than wanting a boyfriend who doesn't describe me as 'the workaholic' to his other girlfriend?"
His mouth opens and closes like a fish. Finally, he says, "You're too needy. You always have been. That's why this keeps happening to you."
The words land exactly where he aimed them, in the soft place I've been protecting since I was twelve and my father explained that Mommy needed "space" to "find herself." The place that wonders if I'm fundamentally too much, too demanding, too hungry for love.
But tonight, something different happens. Tonight, I look at Marcus—really look at him. At his expensive haircut and his designer protein powder and his casual cruelty wrapped in false concern. And I realize he's not delivering some painful truth. He's just another mediocre man who thinks my desire for genuine connection is a character flaw.
"You're right," I say, zipping the bag. "This does keep happening to me. Because I keep choosing men who think wanting love is needy."
I hand him the bag and walk to the front door, holding it open. Cool October air rushes into the apartment, carrying the sound of traffic and distant laughter from the street below.
Marcus pauses in the doorway. For a moment, I think he might apologize, might show some recognition of what he's destroying. Instead, he shakes his head.
"Good luck with that attitude, Amelia. You're going to need it."
The door closes behind him with a soft click.
I slide the deadbolt home and lean against the wood, suddenly exhausted. The apartment feels cavernous around me, all the spaces Marcus used to fill now echoing with absence. His coffee mug in the sink. His Netflix profile on my TV. The weekend plans we made that will never happen.
I walk to the living room and sink onto the couch, surrounded by the detritus of our relationship. Takeout menus from restaurants where we shared appetizers. A wine bottle from the weekend we drove upstate to see the leaves change. The travel magazine Marcus brought over last week, open to an article about Greek islands.
"Maybe we should take a vacation," he'd said, pointing to a photo of white buildings climbing clifftops above blue water. "Somewhere romantic."
Romantic. While he was texting another woman.
I pick up the magazine, studying the image more carefully. Santorini, the caption reads. The photo shows a resort perched on volcanic cliffs, infinity pools reflecting endless sky. It looks like another world, a place where thirty-two-year-old marketing executives don't get their hearts broken by men who smell like other women's shampoo.
A place where I could remember who I am when I'm not trying to earn someone's love.
My laptop is already open on the coffee table, cursor blinking in the search bar. Before I can talk myself out of it, I type: flights NYC to Athens.
Last Chapters
#44 Chapter 44 Amelia's Testimony Begins
Last Updated: 4/15/2026#43 Chapter 43 Victim Impact Statements
Last Updated: 4/15/2026#42 Chapter 42 Courtroom
Last Updated: 4/15/2026#41 Chapter 41 Anna's Testimony
Last Updated: 4/15/2026#40 Chapter 40 The Prosecution's Case Begins
Last Updated: 4/15/2026#39 Chapter 39 Opening Statements
Last Updated: 4/15/2026#38 Chapter 38 Jury Selection Begins
Last Updated: 4/15/2026#37 Chapter 37 Meeting the Families
Last Updated: 4/15/2026#36 Chapter 36 Return to Athens
Last Updated: 4/15/2026#35 Chapter 35 Trial Preparation
Last Updated: 4/15/2026
You Might Like 😍
Alpha VS Omega' Twin VS Twin (A Dark Werewolf Romance)
Stripped of everything, Callum is thrown into the Rookeries, where packless wolves go to die. But he survives. He builds a pack from the broken and the damned. He falls in love with Valentina, a dhampir hunted by the same vampire Parliament that destroyed his life.
In a city ruled by immortal aristocrats and controlled by ancient dragons, Callum learns the hardest truth: individual virtue cannot defeat systemic evil. But small victories matter. And some fights are worth losing everything
Tempted By The Enemy
She escapes to Preston Island to attend the wedding without informing him only to collide with Lucas’s hot, fiery and arrogant brother, the twenty-three-year-old, Nicholas Donnelly. Sparks immediately fly between them but Alyssa refuses to acknowledge them fearing her brother's wrath.
The wedding is over and Alyssa tries hard to forget the mysterious Nicholas Donnelly but can he forget her? Can he ignore the attraction he feels for her, feelings that have resurfaced after ten years?
What will Allyssa do when she is stalked by the man who has been invading her dreams since the day she met him? What will she do when she is whisked away to a deserted island by the unpredictable Nicholas Donnelly? Can she tame her heart or surrender to sinful temptations? Read to find out!
Part of the Temptation Series. Can be read as a standalone.
Game of Destiny
When Finlay finds her, she is living among humans. He is smitten by the stubborn wolf that refuse to acknowledge his existence. She may not be his mate, but he wants her to be a part of his pack, latent wolf or not.
Amie cant resist the Alpha that comes into her life and drags her back into pack life. Not only does she find herself happier than she has been in a long time, her wolf finally comes to her. Finlay isn't her mate, but he becomes her best friend. Together with the other top wolves in the pack, they work to create the best and strongest pack.
When it's time for the pack games, the event that decides the packs rank for the coming ten year, Amie needs to face her old pack. When she sees the man that rejected her for the first time in ten years, everything she thought she knew is turned around. Amie and Finlay need to adapt to the new reality and find a way forward for their pack. But will the curve ball split them apart?
From Substitute To Queen
Heartbroken, Sable discovered Darrell having sex with his ex in their bed, while secretly transferring hundreds of thousands to support that woman.
Even worse was overhearing Darrell laugh to his friends: "She's useful—obedient, doesn't cause trouble, handles housework, and I can fuck her whenever I need relief. She's basically a live-in maid with benefits." He made crude thrusting gestures, sending his friends into laughter.
In despair, Sable left, reclaimed her true identity, and married her childhood neighbor—Lycan King Caelan, nine years her senior and her fated mate. Now Darrell desperately tries to win her back. How will her revenge unfold?
From substitute to queen—her revenge has just begun!
The Family Books 1-3 (A Mafia romance)
The saint to my sinner. with her innocent eyes and devilish curves.
A Madonna that was meant to be admired but never touched.
Until someone took that innocence from her.
She left.
The darkness in my heart was finally complete.
I avenged her, I killed for her, but she never came back.
Until I saw her again. An angel dancing around a pole for money.
She didn’t know I owned that club. She didn’t know I was watching.
This time I won’t let her escape.
I will make her back into the girl I knew.
Whether she likes it or not.
2/ Judge and Jury- I can’t stop watching her.
I’m not even sure I want to.
Taylor Lawson, blonde, beautiful, and totally oblivious to how much dangers she’s in.
She’s also the one juror in my upcoming murder trial that hasn’t been bought.
The one who can put me behind bars for a very long time.
I know I should execute her.
After all that’s what I do.
I am the Judge.
I eliminate threats to The Family.
And Taylor is a threat.
But I don’t want to kill her.
Possessing her, making her love me seems like a much better plan for this particular Juror.
3/ Rags and Ritches-
The Game of Claiming
A drunken bet becomes their private game: win the maid.
The rules?
Don’t let the others know you’re falling for her.
And never, ever let her leave.
But each brother plays differently—
The eldest buys her obedience.
The second steals her breath.
The third corners her in the dark.
The youngest ruins anyone who touches her.
Lila isn’t sure if she’s a player in their game… or the prize they’ll destroy each other to claim
Accardi
“I thought you said you were done chasing me?” Gen mocked.
“I am done chasing you.”
Before she could formulate a witty remark, Matteo threw her down. She landed hard on her back atop his dining room table. She tried to sit up when she noticed what he was doing. His hands were working on his belt. It came free of his pants with a violent yank. She collapsed back on her elbows, her mouth gaping open at the display. His face was a mask of sheer determination, his eyes were a dark gold swimming with heat and desire. His hands wrapped around her thighs and pulled her to the edge of the table. He glided his fingers up her thighs and hooked several around the inside of her panties. His knuckles brushed her dripping sex.
“You’re soaking wet, Genevieve. Tell me, was it me that made you this way or him?” his voice told her to be careful with her answer. His knuckles slid down through her folds and she threw her head back as she moaned. “Weakness?”
“You…” she breathed.
Genevieve loses a bet she can’t afford to pay. In a compromise, she agrees to convince any man her opponent chooses to go home with her that night. What she doesn’t realize when her sister’s friend points out the brooding man sitting alone at the bar, is that man won’t be okay with just one night with her. No, Matteo Accardi, Don of one of the largest gangs in New York City doesn’t do one night stands. Not with her anyway.
Aphrodite and the Cursed Mate Bond
She finds truth.
Aphrodite is not human at all. She is a rare white wolf, descended from an ancient Direwolf bloodline long believed extinct. The ritual meant to sever her ties awakens her wolf instead and with it comes the scent of five mates bound to her by fate.
The Alpha twins who once scorned her now cannot stay away. A human hunter walks beside her and proves that strength is not born of fangs or dominance. A cursed Wolf King holds the key to her past and her father’s imprisonment. And watching from the shadows is one who was never meant to interfere at all.
As gods fall, packs fracture, and war reshapes the world, Aphrodite must decide what destiny truly means. Is it submission to fate or the courage to choose her own path.
Love does not come in one form. Neither does power.
In a world ruled by gods and wolves, Aphrodite will become something neither ever expected.
Not a queen.
But the axis upon which the world turns.
Let Them Kneel
Cast out by her pack. Forgotten by the Lycans.
She lived among humans—quiet, invisible, tucked away in a town no one looked at twice.
But when her first heat comes without warning, everything changes.
Her body ignites. Her instincts scream. And something primal stirs beneath her skin—
summoning a big, bad Alpha who knows exactly how to quench her fire.
When he claims her, it’s ecstasy and ruin.
For the first time, she believes she’s been accepted.
Seen.
Chosen.
Until he leaves her the next morning—
like a secret never to be spoken.
But Kaelani is not what they thought.
Not wolfless. Not weak.
There is something ancient inside her. Something powerful. And it’s waking.
And when it does—
they’ll all remember the girl they tried to erase.
Especially him.
She’ll be the dream he keeps chasing… the one thing that ever made him feel alive.
Because secrets never stay buried.
And neither do dreams.
The Deadly Mafia Princess
Her gang take the matter in their own hands, to try to save their leader from the horror of her home. What none of them know, they wasn’t her real parents, and now Ro will be sent away to live with her real family. That makes her closest members in her gang pack up and move as well. They don’t want to be far away from their leader.
After the Affair: Falling into a Billionaire's Arms
I’d appreciate all your support, thank you so much!
From first crush to wedding vows, George Capulet and I had been inseparable. But in our seventh year of marriage, he began an affair with his secretary.
On my birthday, he took her on vacation. On our anniversary, he brought her to our home and made love to her in our bed...
Heartbroken, I tricked him into signing divorce papers.
George remained unconcerned, convinced I would never leave him.
His deceptions continued until the day the divorce was finalized. I threw the papers in his face: "George Capulet, from this moment on, get out of my life!"
Only then did panic flood his eyes as he begged me to stay.
When his calls bombarded my phone later that night, it wasn't me who answered, but my new boyfriend Julian.
"Don't you know," Julian chuckled into the receiver, "that a proper ex-boyfriend should be as quiet as the dead?"
George seethed through gritted teeth: "Put her on the phone!"
"I'm afraid that's impossible."
Julian dropped a gentle kiss on my sleeping form nestled against him. "She's exhausted. She just fell asleep."
The Alpha's Stripper Mate
"What?" It was out of my mouth before I could stop it. I did not wait for him to answer me, I walked toward him.
"Dance on my lap."
My head screamed at me to turn around and run. But my whole body responded to his command.
"Yes, Alpha," I pulled my dress over my body, it dropped over my head and fell to the ground behind me. I was left in nothing but my matching bra and thong. My hands covered my chest on reflex.
"Let me see."
My hands dropped to my sides.
I lowered myself into his lap, facing him. His eyes peered into mine, and I could feel his hot breath fan my face. His dick responded to all my moves, hardening against my now-moist vagina. I swallowed hard, allowing my lips to part in a ragged breath. His hands trailed up to my waist.
"No touching."
At the tender age of eleven, JoJo Wyatt was forced to grow up far sooner than she should have. Born to a cruel father and a weak mother, she quickly realized she had to become the breadwinner for herself and her sister. Nothing else mattered to her, not even the hottest men. In fact, she despised them. After one horrific night, she swore never to have any contact with the male species again. That was, until she started working for him as his stripper.
Meanwhile, Alpha Lake Rush, thirty, was the most feared Alpha in the country. Burdened by his own share of life's struggles, he had learned only to be cruel and reckless, rejecting not one but two mates. But what happens when he discovers yet another mate, and she turns out to be his stripper?












