The Ending Without The Beginning

Modern

Twenty minutes before the "Wedding of the Century" at The Plaza, I stood outside the Presidential Suite in a fifty-thousand-dollar Vera Wang gown. I was the girl from a West Virginia trailer park about to marry Hugh Maxwell, the golden heir to a billion-dollar defense empire. I pushed the door open only to find Hugh pinned against the bed with my own stepsister, Floy. She was wearing my bridal diamond necklace, and the sounds of their laughter scraped against my eardrums like sandpaper. I didn't scream; I listened as Hugh grunted that once the wedding was over and the trust fund unlocked, he'd dump "that hillbilly trash" on a bus back to the mountains. They weren't just cheating; they were planning to steal my family's land deeds and leave me with nothing. When I set off the sprinklers and exposed their naked bodies to the paparazzi, the Maxwell family didn't apologize. They called me a "greedy peasant" and threatened to ruin my life unless I signed a new deal to save their crashing stock. I realized then that I was never a bride to them. I was a transaction, a rounding error in a ledger to be used and discarded. They thought my poverty made me weak and my silence made me a victim. "If we don't have a marriage certificate by midnight, the bank freezes thirty percent of our liquidity," their lawyer warned. So, I gave them exactly what they wanted. I used a loophole in their hundred-year-old family covenant and married the only other direct heir available. I didn't marry Hugh. I walked into the ICU and married his uncle, Fleet Maxwell-the legendary war hero who had been in a vegetative state for months. Now, I am the matriarch of the Maxwell dynasty. I've suspended Hugh's executive powers, exiled my mother-in-law to the Swiss Alps, and taken control of the family vault. They think I'm just a gold-digger waiting for a "corpse" to die so I can collect a fifty-million-dollar widow's payout. But last night, as I lay beside my comatose husband, the man they called a vegetable gripped my hand back.

Romance

She walked back into my life as if she had always lived there as if my heart was a home built just for her. Meeting her was completely unplanned, but soon turned out to be the most beautiful part of my life. I thought that keeping her away from me would keep her safe, but I was wrong. You can keep t

Gaming

Ong's Hat was more of an experiment in transmedia storytelling than what we would now consider to be an ARG but its DNA - the concept of telling a story across various platforms and new media- is evident in every alternate reality game that came after. - Games Magazine 2013

Fantasy

More than 200 years ago, portals leading to alternate dimensions suddenly appeared simultaneously, all over the world. Various monsters and magical beasts reside within these portals; conventional weapons were rendered useless and mankind's annihilation was inevitable. Then when all hope seemed lo

Modern

It happened about six in the morning, in a large red room. A bar of sunlight streamed in at the window, in which dust-motes were dancing by the thousand. A man and woman were lying in bed; I was standing up in my cot, plucking at the woman with my podgy fingers. She stirred, turned, rubbed her eyes,

Billionaires

Billionaire's Lair #1 September Thorne is the most influential billionaire in the city. He's known as "The Manipulator", other tycoons are shivering in fright every time they hear his name. Doing business with him is a dream come true but getting on his bad side means the end of your business a

Modern

After eight years together, I thought Floyd was my future. But when a wooden frame collapsed at the lake, he ran right past me to help another woman. He didn't even glance at my shattered arm. "Wait a minute, Katerina!" he yelled, scooping her into his arms and sprinting away. His betrayal only g

Sci-fi

Delve into the life of Jenkins Curtis, a clumsy space technologist who's had no dream other than to explore the space in a world aftermath world war |||. Would his dream come true or not?

Werewolf

Being born from rape and taking her mother life from birth. They detested her; treated her badly and gave her no name. Wanting nothing to do with her. Girl, they called her, for eighteen years; until it had become the only name she knew for herself. When her family who should have taken care of h

Fantasy

In a world of novels, there must be a female lead and a male lead, and they will have to marry each other for happy ending! And that's what everyone always has in the end of text---Happy Ending, and happily ever after. But, for someone like her, Maria Ebillish, the daughter of small household in rev

Romance

Once upon a time, a man and a woman with completely different stories met through a person in common. He has a young son whom he raises alone, and the help of his younger brother, after the death of the child's mother. She, who after an event in the past discovers that she can never have children, b

Adventure

They've kept the world safe for centuries. Working from the shadows, culling the numbers of those who might threaten humanity. Now asked to work alongside the very ones they used to call prey, will they find middle ground for peaceful coexistence? Or will the ever increasing forces of darkness use t

Literature

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preservin

Romance

Serina was in a whirlwind marriage with the CEO of Liverteo foundation. She one-sidedly fell in love with him after, but secrets and lies made her miserable. She died on the day she saw him lying next to a woman, but with a twist of fate she was able to travel back to a year before she met her trag

Romance

I woke up, not from sleep, but like snapping back into a nightmare I'd already lived. The cramped cabin's stale air, pine scent – hauntingly familiar. Jake stood there, hand out, his voice wheedling: "Sarah, Brenda needs that locket." Brenda. The name sent a cold shiver down my spine. My mother' s

Fantasy

She loved all of her exes, but she can’t find the “right one” for her. With her cursed love life, can she met her one true love despite her life’s circumstances?

Romance

'Eira' The girl whose emotions are completely iced over; she feels nothing, neither anger or joy or grief or passion or want. Most crucially, she hasn't changed yet, for reasons that are still a mystery to her, therefore she has no idea that she is a werewolf. For twenty-four years, she had been be

Literature

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not

Romance

My wife, Sarah, always had a radiant smile, bright and flawless, just like the diamond necklace she wore. Everyone at the party, celebrating the pinnacle of my architectural career, saw us as the perfect couple, living in a stunning penthouse. But beneath the facade, a chilling rot was eating away a

Short stories

A love that bloomed too early. A truth that shattered too much. And a finale that questions everything. Mikey Ledger wasn't supposed to fall for Crizzle Hamilton. She was loud, chaotic, and constantly stole his fries but somewhere between college rooftops, shared secrets, and everything they never

Romance

The world came down in dust and fire, and I was trapped, pinned under a heavy beam. Next to me, a colleague, Jessica, was also caught. Through the rubble, I saw first responders, a glimmer of hope. Hope that shattered when I heard my husband, Mark, over the radio. "My wife is a strong woman; she'