Showing results by narrator "Shirl Rae" in All Categories

My biological clock just exploded. Eighteen months. That's how long I have to make a baby happen before it becomes one more broken dream. Fate has a sick sense of humor, though. Its name is Hayden Shaw. Yes, the Hayden Shaw. Billionaire developer, scandalously gorgeous, his hard-headed ego only eclipsed by his enormous...reputation. He needs a bride to fool the world. I need a baby. It's simple business. Strictly professional.

One drunken night turned a joke into a life-changing moment. He warned me not to fall for him, and I should've listened. He intoxicated me. He made me crave him. He ruined me. In the end, I'll never be the same.

Abducted at 18. Held captive for 15 months. It reads like one of those headlines. And yes, I did it. I stole her. Nora, with her long dark hair and silky skin. She's my weakness, my obsession. I'm not a good man. I never pretended to be one. She can love me, but she can't change me. I can, however, change her. My name is Julian Esguerra, and Nora is mine to keep.

Forced to join a secret intelligence agency at a young age, Russian interpreter/spy Yulia Tzakova is no stranger to dangerous men. But she's never known one as ruthless and compelling as Lucas Kent. The hard-edged mercenary frightens her, yet she's drawn to him - a man she has no choice but to betray.

Signing with Brighthouse Records was supposed to be everything we ever wanted - our better life. Our chance at everything we never had but always wanted. All our dreams would finally come true, and we were on top of the world. It was our chance at the happiness we never had in life. Our every desire was at our fingertips, and the power of that feeling was all-consuming. But then it took every dream we thought would come true, and it slapped us in the face with the cold, hard reality.

Army combat veteran and registered nurse Erin Olszewski's most deeply held values were put to the test when she arrived as a travel nurse at Elmhurst Hospital in the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. After serving in Iraq, she was back on the front lines - and this time, she found, the situation was even worse. Rooms were filthy, nurses were lax with sanitation measures, and hospital-acquired cases of COVID-19 were spreading like wildfire.

Three long, brutal years have passed, and Ace Crow swears he will find London Stallone one day. He'll do everything he can to get her back. She knows his word is true because he's back. Ace is everything London is not: ruthless, deadly, risky. And she's the last piece to his puzzle. But he's mistaken about one thing: Getting her back is not going to be easy. There are always consequences. There are always hidden truths. There is always betrayal. But things aren't so simple any more.

Captor and captive. Lovers. Soul mates. We're all that and more. We thought we were past the worst of it. We thought we finally had a chance. We thought wrong. We're Nora and Julian, and this is our story.

When Pam Rollins decides to shake things up after her kids leave the nest—she makes two major changes. Starting yoga classes and joining a dating app. After her daughter urges her to connect with other singles, Pam meets a minotaur who is ready to sweep her off her feet.

There is a love so fierce it cannot be measured. A heart so strong it will never slow. There is a promise so sure it can never lie. He promised me that love forever. Even when it wasn't enough.

It's her best friend's wedding, and Autumn Lane is trussed up in a pink bridesmaid dress with a big "everything is great" smile plastered across her face. She's not going think about her life imploding, or spending the next two weeks housesitting in the ridiculously small town of Diamond. No, she'd rather think about the tattooed hottie in the wedding party...and how to turn the wicked way he's looking at her into a night of intense pleasure.

Sick of her interfering brother nosing into her love life - and by proxy, her sex life - Penny Diamond has decided she needs a break from her "girl next door" reputation. And she knows exactly who can help her.... Tall, lean, and impossibly intense Sebastian Strafford is rumored to have a sexual appetite with a decidedly wicked flavor.

Navy SEAL Maverick Hart has everything. Women want him. Grown men idolize him. The job, the glory - it's all his. Not because it's handed to him but because he works hard for it. The second his sights lock on something, he owns it-or destroys it. Windsor Forbes only takes calculated risks in her profession and in her personal life. After being left at the altar by the only person she's ever loved, the very last thing she's looking for is a relationship - especially the insane brand an arrogant Navy SEAL is offering.

If you're lucky, you'll fall in love-truly, madly, and deeply in love. Maddy and Reid had that kind of love-the all-encompassing, Earth-shattering, once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. Then life happened. Old wounds that were thought to be long healed and scabbed over are ripped opened, and they are forced to face the possibility that maybe they are not strong enough to fight their demons and embrace the light.

I loved once. I gave everything that I had to that love, blindly believing that nothing could ever take that feeling away from me. Away from us. And when my little world of happiness was ripped from my fingers, I felt a loss that still haunts me to this day. Now I use that lingering grief as a shield to keep my heart from loving again. It's that fear that keeps me from letting anyone, except my daughter, get close enough to make it hurt. To make my heart bleed when I inevitably lose again.

Jessica Channing's big-city life should be more exciting than 60-hour work weeks and popcorn nights with her girlfriends. She has worked hard fulfilling her role as a child prodigy and graduating college years before her peers. She's the good girl, the brilliant girl. She is also dateless. Jess's rigid, predictable life upends when she visits a small town to deal with a relative's death. Long-lost memories come crashing down on Jess's world when two men, the Blackard brothers, seem to lure her in.

Bought. Conditioned. Sold to the enemy. My name is Blaire. I'm head of security to a man who controls the Russian underworld in Europe. His name is Maksim and he's my master. He bought me ten years ago and conditioned me with brutality to worship and protect him. And I have protected him. I've slain everyone who has tried to do him harm. Everyone but a man he loans me to; a man who threatens to break me and everything in which I believe.

I have three cardinal rules: Never mix business with pleasure. Never let a woman spend the night. Never date a woman with kids. Kids freak me out. God only knows how many this baby daddy has. Man, what was I thinking when I was in college? Me, Drake Hanson. Aka Donor 5262. It was a piece of cake and $1,500 a month for my deposits (in sperm bank speak) came in handy. I just didn't think about the consequences. One day, some kid is going to call me Daddy, and I'm going to get hit up for child support.

Once, Lucus Shaw was my everything. First kiss. First surrender. First man to promise me a ring, children, a life together. I remember his rogue smirk, his soul stinging kiss, the blistering words that always made him a little dangerous. I gave him my body for one insatiable night. He gave me secrets, heartbreak, and hatred. Friends to lovers to mortal enemies. Our tragic destiny. But I survived. Adapted. Moved on. Fate doesn't care. Luke's back, and I have to pretend we still have a Cinderella romance to save my career.

Sara Greaves has been planning her perfect wedding since she was five. Twenty years. Wasted. When she's dumped by her fiance, she heads to Vegas to forget and ends up at a hotel hosting a Romance Readers conference. Cuz she's lucky like that. Mr. Tall, Dark, And Anti-Marriage buys Sara a drink, and makes her a bet . . . she could marry any guy in Vegas tonight and make it work. She wasn't supposed to choose him.