
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 😍
Omega Bound
Thane Knight is the alpha of the Midnight Pack of the La Plata Mountain Range, the largest wolf shifter pack in the world. He is an alpha by day and hunts the shifter trafficking ring with his group of mercenaries by night. His hunt for vengeance leads to one raid that changes his life.
Tropes:
Touch her and die/Slow burn romance/Fated Mates/Found family twist/Close circle betrayal/Cinnamon roll for only her/Traumatized heroine/Rare wolf/Hidden powers/Knotting/Nesting/Heats/Luna/Attempted assassination
Alpha Nicholas's Little Mate
What? No—wait… oh Moon Goddess, no.
Please tell me you're joking, Lex.
But she's not. I can feel her excitement bubbling under my skin, while all I feel is dread.
We turn the corner, and the scent hits me like a punch to the chest—cinnamon and something impossibly warm. My eyes scan the room until they land on him. Tall. Commanding. Beautiful.
And then, just as quickly… he sees me.
His expression twists.
"Fuck no."
He turns—and runs.
My mate sees me and runs.
Bonnie has spent her entire life being broken down and abused by the people closest to her including her very own twin sister. Alongside her best friend Lilly who also lives a life of hell, they plan to run away while attending the biggest ball of the year while it's being hosted by another pack, only things don't quite go to plan leaving both girls feeling lost and unsure about their futures.
Alpha Nicholas is 28, mateless, and has no plans to change that. It's his turn to host the annual Blue Moon Ball this year and the last thing he expects is to find his mate. What he expects even less is for his mate to be 10 years younger than him and how his body reacts to her. While he tries to refuse to acknowledge that he has met his mate his world is turned upside down after guards catch two she-wolves running through his lands.
Once they are brought to him he finds himself once again facing his mate and discovers that she's hiding secrets that will make him want to kill more than one person.
Can he overcome his feelings towards having a mate and one that is so much younger than him? Will his mate want him after already feeling the sting of his unofficial rejection? Can they both work on letting go of the past and moving forward together or will fate have different plans and keep them apart?
Goddess Of The Underworld
When the veil between the Divine, the Living, and the Dead begins to crack, Envy is thrust beneath with a job she can’t drop: keep the worlds from bleeding together, shepherd the lost, and make ordinary into armour, breakfasts, bedtime, battle plans. Peace lasts exactly one lullaby. This is the story of an orphan pup who became a goddess by choosing her family; of four imperfect alphas learning how to be better. Steamy, fierce, and full of heart, Goddess of the Underworld is a reverse harem, found-family paranormal romance where love writes the rules and keeps three realms from falling apart.
Falling For The Biker: The Vice President's Girl
His eyes darken, flicking to my mouth.
"It's wrong. Your brother would slit my throat for just standing this close. But tell me, little bird" his breath ghosts my skin, "are you trembling because you hate me… or because you've wanted this just as much as I have?"
Wren thought she'd buried the chaos of New Orleans for good—the clubs, the blood-soaked loyalties, the men who lived and died by their kuttes. Seattle gave her everything she ever wanted: freedom, love, a future.
But one betrayal shatters it all.
Dragged home by tragedy, Wren finds herself under the watchful eye of Ezra Jax—the Raven Reapers MC's vice president and her brother's best friend. He's infuriating, dangerous, and far too tempting for a man she should never touch.
And the deeper Wren is pulled back into his world, the more she realizes nothing about her past—or about Ezra—is what she believed.
In the chaos of gang wars, mounting debts, and old betrayals, he becomes the one constant. The more she fights him, the harder she falls. And the more he pushes her away, the more lethal his pull becomes.
Because in this world, love isn't sweet.
It's brutal. Bloody.
And it's bound to break them both.
When loyalty is everything and love can cost your life, will Wren risk her heart on the one man she was never meant to love?
A pack of their own
The mafia princess return
The Pack: Rule Number 1 - No Mates
"Let me go," I whimper, my body trembling with need. "I don't want you touching me."
I fall forward onto the bed then turn around to stare at him. The dark tattoos of Domonic's chiseled shoulders, quiver and and expand with the heave of his chest. His deep dimpled smile is full of arrogance as he reaches behind himself to lock the door.
Biting his lip, he stalks toward me, his hand going to the seam of his pants and the thickening bulge there.
"Are you sure you don't want me to touch you?" He whispers, untying the knot and slipping a hand inside. "Because I swear to God, that is all I have been wanting to do. Every single day from the moment you stepped in our bar and I smelled your perfect flavor from across the room."
New to the world of shifters, Draven is human on the run. A beautiful girl who no one could protect. Domonic is the cold Alpha of the Red Wolf Pack. A brotherhood of twelve wolves that live by twelve rules. Rules which they vowed could NEVER be broken.
Especially - Rule Number One - No Mates
When Draven meets Domonic, he knows that she is his mate, but Draven has no idea what a mate is, only that she has fallen in love with a shifter. An Alpha that will break her heart to make her leave. Promising herself, she will never forgive him, she disappears.
But she doesn’t know about the child she’s carrying or that the moment she left, Domonic decided rules were made to be broken - and now will he ever find her again? Will she forgive him?
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 Human Among Wolves
My stomach twisted, but he wasn’t finished.
"You're just a pathetic little human," Zayn said, his words deliberate, each one hitting like a slap. "Spreading your legs for the first guy who bothers to notice you."
Heat rushed to my face, burning with humiliation. My chest ached — not from his words alone, but from the sick realization that I had trusted him. That I had let myself believe he was different.
I was so, so stupid.
——————————————————
When eigteen-year-old Aurora Wells moves to a sleepy town with her parents, the last thing she expects is to be enrolled in a secret academy for werewolves.
Moonbound Academy is no ordinary school. It's here young Lycans, Betas and Alphas train in shifting, elemental magic, and ancient pack laws. But Aurora? She's just...human. a mistake. The new receptionist forgot to check her species - and now she's surrounded by predators who sense she doesn't belong.
Determined to stay under the radar, Aurora plans to survive the year unnoticed. But when she catches the attention of Zayn, a brooding and infuriatingly powerful Lycan prince, her life gets a lot more complicated. Zayn already has a mate. He already has enemies. And he definitely doesn't want anything to do with a clueless human.
But secrets run deeper than bloodlines at Moonbound. as Aurora unravels the truth about the academy - and herself - she begins to question everything she thought she knew.
Including the reason she was brought here at all.
Enemies will rise. Loyalties will shift. And the girl with no place in their world...might be the key to saving it.
The Prison Project
Can love tame the untouchable? Or will it only fuel the fire and cause chaos amongst the inmates?
Fresh out of high school and suffocating in her dead-end hometown, Margot longs for her escape. Her reckless best friend, Cara, thinks she's found the perfect way out for them both - The Prisoner Project - a controversial program offering a life-changing sum of money in exchange for time spent with maximum-security inmates.
Without hesitation, Cara rushes to sign them up.
Their reward? A one-way ticket into the depths of a prison ruled by gang leaders, mob bosses, and men the guards wouldn't even dare to cross...
At the centre of it all, meets Coban Santorelli - a man colder than ice, darker than midnight, and as deadly as the fire that fuels his inner rage. He knows that the project may very well be his only ticket to freedom - his only ticket to revenge on the one who managed to lock him up and so he must prove that he can learn to love…
Will Margot be the lucky one chosen to help reform him?
Will Coban be capable of bringing something to the table other than just sex?
What starts off as denial may very well grow in to obsession which could then fester in to becoming true love…
A temperamental romance novel.












