Alhambra Library Hours Novels & Stories

My husband, Alex Carter, is a top AI engineer. He one day gets drugged by a new intern at his company, and one night of chaos follows. He calls me the next morning, his voice hoarse from a hangover and filled with unfamiliar panic. "Em, I messed up. But don't worry. I gave her enough money to disappear from this city." After ten years together, I believe it is just a momentary lapse in judgment. Six months later, Alex's company suffers the worst cyber attack in its history, with core data hanging by a thread. I rush back from a fragrance exhibition in Astral, only to witness a scene at the data center entrance that sends me into shock. Alex stands outside the tightly sealed door, his face showing a weariness and guilt I have never seen before. The doctor says that the intern, Brooke Anderson, is three months pregnant and has spent 72 hours with him in the high-radiation server room. Now, she shows signs of miscarriage. Later, Brooke gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl. The entire Carter family is ecstatic. I remove the wedding ring that has accompanied me for ten years, my fingertips turning ice cold. I dial the number saved with only one letter "S" and say, "Mr. Sullivan, I accept the collaboration you proposed last time." A low, soft laugh comes from the other end of the line. "Ms. Emma Shaw, that's a wise decision."

I married a man just hours after being abandoned at the altar. Now I’m staring at a stranger who calls me his wife. Sofie Davis never imagined her perfect wedding would end in ruin, her white dress soaked by rain, her dreams shattered at her feet. Left behind on a day meant to honor her late parents, Sofie is drowning in heartbreak when James Alexander Reed steps forward with an impossible offer: a contract marriage. James, a powerful and emotionally walled-off billionaire, has watched Sofie from afar, drawn to the sincerity and compassion that set her apart from the world he knows. For him, the proposal is a shield against the fortune-seekers orbiting his wealth and a chance to finally get close to the woman he’s never forgotten. For Sofie, it’s a desperate attempt to reclaim her dignity, rewrite the ending, and survive the public humiliation she never asked for. As their fragile arrangement begins to blur, Sofie’s fire and empathy chip away at James’s defenses, revealing a tenderness even he didn’t know he still possessed. But both carry wounds that run deep: grief, betrayal, and the quiet ache of loneliness masked by control. Their journey is messy, tender, and slow-burning. And when love finally demands more than convenience, Sofie and James must decide if what’s growing between them is worth the risk or if it’s safer to walk away before their hearts are fully exposed. Unbound Desires is a story of second chances, healing, and the kind of intimacy that only blossoms when two people dare to be truly seen.

“I Marcus Brennon of Shadowmoon, hereby reject you as my mate,” he declared with finality. “Not only are you a disgrace to me, but you are a curse to this entire pack. I do not wish to be associated with such bad luck.” Marcus stood before me, his voice extremely cold as if we didn't just share a special bond a few hours back. As Marcus turned to leave, the pain of his rejection sliced deeply through me. I stumbled to my feet, my limbs feeling weak under the weight of the broken bond. *** Bella had it all, a face card that never declined and curves in all the right places, excellent college grades, and a lovely, peaceful home. But when her father Alpha Derek was mysteriously murdered, everybody turned against her and her world as she knew it comes crumbling down. Everyone but her knows her real identity and how she came to be a part of Alpha Derek's family. In a cruel twist of fate, the woman she thought was her mother does the unthinkable casting her out with nothing to her name. Betrayed by her own family, with nowhere to turn, Bella seeks comfort in her mate's arms, only to be met with rejection. Just as Bella was about to lose hope a friend saved her life unexpectedly. A few months down the line Bella met a fine young man who effortlessly set her heart ablaze. Would her life take a turn for the better or, does fate have something more special or perhaps even darker, for her?

Dressed in white, rose in hand and waiting for her husband at the aisle for more than an hour was never the kind of scene Stephanie Clark had ever thought about when fantasising what her dream wedding would be like. Hours passed, and unable to bear the murmurings anymore, she strode out of the wedding hall, and went straight to the groom’s prep room, expecting to find her soon to be husband with probably his groom's men. What she would have never expected was finding him deep inside her stepsister. She’s devastated and humiliated. Burning with the ache of rage, she turned around and grabbed the very first man she saw outside. To add to her list of unexpected situations for the day, the moment she pulled away, she realised the man she kissed was none other than her groom’s elder brother who was rumoured to be callously handsome, ruthless to the core, and worse, incapable of fathering children. She goes to a club to drink her sorrows away, only to end up in Zane's bed. Vengeance meets opportunity, Stephanie Clark and Zane Wright make a deal: he’ll give her everything she needs for revenge, wealth enough to vanish and start over but only if she gives him the one thing he wants most, an heir. Zane doesn't make it easy. He sets down five rules. No affection. No questions. No betrayal. No disobedience. No forgetting or deviating from the aim. It was all supposed to be easy. But when desire burns between them, what happens when one of the rules is broken?

For eight years, Elara Voss was the perfect ghost. She scrubbed floors, cooked silent meals, and endured the biting scorns of her husband, Ryan, and their eldest daughter, Chloe. To them, she was a boring housewife. A servant. An embarrassment to Ryan’s rising social status. They had no idea that the woman they belittled was Elara Hamilton, the reclusive titan behind Hamilton Global, the world’s most powerful tech empire. She had traded her throne for a marriage she thought was built on love. She was wrong. The breaking point comes at a high-society gala. In front of the city’s elite, Ryan publicly discards her, calling her a worthless weight around his neck. He thinks he is finally free. He doesn't realize he just declared war on the woman who secretly funded his entire life. That night, the housewife vanished. The CEO returns. Within forty-eight hours, Ryan’s world implodes. His contracts are canceled, his bank accounts are drained, and his reputation is in ashes. As the global markets reel from the return of the "Iron Queen," Ryan is forced to face a terrifying truth: he didn't just lose a wife. He lost the only person keeping him relevant. Now, Ryan is a man with nothing, chasing a woman who has everything. From the neon lights of Tokyo to the boardrooms of Manhattan, he must grovel at the feet of the woman he once stepped on. But Elara is no longer the devoted wife who stayed for the sake of the family. She is a queen reclaiming her crown, and this time, Ryan will have to prove he is finally worthy of the woman who no longer needs him to survive.

I paid the ultimate price in my last life for being too polite to refuse others. During a summer vacation, four children ended my life. "Talia, we’re already on the way to your place. We should be there in about two hours. No need to prepare anything special. Just keep things the way you normally do. Don’t fuss." I stared blankly as the voice came through my phone. The agony of my skin being scalded raw by boiling-hot stew was still vivid in my mind. When I had struggled and begged for help, those children had dragged me back together. In the chaos, I had fallen from the seventh floor and died with my eyes wide open. I glanced at the calendar on the wall. I had been reborn. In my previous life, my sister-in-law, Vanessa Mercer, had dumped her four kids at my home for the summer and left. I was forced to care for six children alone and was pushed to the brink of collapse. Simply because I wouldn’t let my nephew, Jaxon Mercer, play on his tablet for hours on end, and because I told him not to wander around the house in nothing but his underwear, the conflict escalated until it led to that horrifying death. My whole body trembled at the memory. I rushed into the bedroom, grabbed my identification documents, and fled toward the high-speed rail station with my two daughters, Kaia and Nova Mercer. "Mom, where are we going?" "I'm taking you on a trip. We’re going to have as much fun as we want!"

04:00 AM. JFK International Airport. I switched off airplane mode, and my phone lit up. The first notification was an Instagram story from my husband, Donovan Valentino, Don of the Valentino family, posted at 3:30 AM: a photo of Seraphina Moretti’s back, captioned, “Run 50 completed. Package delivered safe.” An hour before that, my flight had hit catastrophic clear-air turbulence, dropping two thousand feet in seconds. I’d clung to my seatbelt until my knuckles turned white, the crumpled threat letter from a rival crew pressed like a blade against my ribs. In those blind, falling seconds, one thought burned through the panic: If I live through this—if Donovan is waiting at arrivals—I’ll tear up my transfer papers to Dubai and stay. But there were no missed calls. No messages. He’d been too busy collecting Seraphina. He knew my flight details. He just didn’t care. Four years of marriage. 50 fully armed security details for Seraphina. For my 112 long-haul flights over those same four years? The most I ever got was a driver in an unmarked sedan. Even the night Gambino’s crew tailed me from Manhattan, and I spent six hours locked in a diner bathroom. He didn’t pick up until dawn, after the twelfth try. My transfer to Dubai was confirmed. The signed divorce settlement was in my bag. This was the last time I’d ever come back for him.

I never broke eye contact as he slicked his already hard cock up with it. It never did take him long to get hard in my presence, especially after working me open when we had stood under the stream of the shower. Shuffling his ass forward just a little, he pulled me close to help me slowly sink onto his cock. Once my ass was flushed against his lap and he was to the hilt, he sighed, and I could see the exact moment that all the stress left his body. “Thank you.” He whispered. ______ I got pregnant after a sizzling one-night stand. I didn’t know then he was the son of a billionaire mafia Don. That night, he walked over to me with powerful strides that announced to the world, that he owned it. The dim light dancing over his sculptured face, Teased me with a glimpse of perfection. His deep baritone voice vibrated thru my core, and before I knew it, we were back at my place, thrusting into ecstasy. For hours he took me to heaven and back, But on earth, he became cold as ice. Then, without so much as a name, He walked out the door and out of my life. I tried to forget him, Until I got unexpected news from my doctor weeks later. and before I had time to digest the information, I was snatched by two men. Now I’m in the presence of the Don of all Dons, congratulating me on my pregnancy. And the man that took me to heaven, is now tasked to keep me in hell.

First day back in the office. I was face down at my desk during lunch when the desk next to mine started rattling under a series of hard knocks. I looked up. It was the firm's new architect, Flora Reeves. "Lunch time ended five minutes ago. You're still asleep at your desk? Don't bother coming in tomorrow. You're fired!" I told her I had just come back from a client meeting. I had been pulling all-nighters on the project for a week. She looked at me like I was something on her shoe. "All you do is take clients out, drink with them, and scribble a few sketches. "You don't even punch in. You're barely in the office. What gives you the right to nap at your desk during work hours?" I almost laughed in her face! I was the firm's chief architect. The bulk of the projects on Walsh & Co.'s books had my name on them. The firm's success was, frankly, carried by me. She saw me out of the office most days. She did not see me in another city, on another job site, talking down another client. And in our industry, most of those clients had hired Walsh & Co. because of my name and reputation. I kept my composure. "You're not in HR. On what authority are you firing me?" She said, "On the authority that my husband is the president of this company." I went still. When did my boyfriend get married?

My dad is a player. After he succeeds in his conquest mission, he leaves this world… as well as four mothers to me. My first mom is an extremely wealthy CEO. My second mom is supremely famous for her work as the top actress. My third mom has stellar medical skills, whereas my fourth mom holds an authoritative and influential position. My four moms have spent the last 16 years doting on me endlessly. They would give me whatever I want. That is, until three years ago when William Carson, the son of their first love, returns to their lives. Since then, my moms have only trusted him, reserving all their distrust for me. When William accuses me of calling him a bastard filthier than that of a mutt who doesn't have the right to live at home, my moms make me live in a kennel and eat scraps like a true mutt. When William claims that I'm the one taking the lead to bully him at school, my moms decide to make me drop out of school. Then, they hire three delinquents to beat me up at home for three long months. When William tells my moms that I've shoved him once again, my moms lock me up in a cage and starve me for 72 hours straight in hopes that I will learn my lesson. Just when I'm on the brink of dying from starvation, I hear Dad's voice. "Henry, do you want to come back to me?"