Showing results by narrator "Shirl Rae" in All Categories

Have you ever felt like you were living your life for a future that was predetermined? Like there was some bigger picture you just prayed you would someday see clearly? That picture has been crystal clear to me since I was old enough to recognize it for just what it was. Or, I should say, recognize him for who he was.

Layton Morris and his brother Mike grew up not knowing what it would be like to live in a normal home. With no running water or electricity in their home and no parents around to protect them, they quickly learned how to survive and depend only on each other. When a tragic accident took Mike away from Layton and the only other person that he ever let into his heart walked away from him, leaving his heart shattered, Layton focused all of his time and energy into the ranch he and his brother dreamed of.

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.

Seven years have passed since I fell for Boone West. The brooding bad boy. We were friends, even when I secretly wanted more, but I settled for what he offered. After he left Wyoming - and me - I grew up. Moved on. Or so I believed, until he blew back into my life with the scorching force of an Arizona desert wind. I'm not that innocent 16-year-old girl anymore; I'm a businesswoman who swore never to settle again. But this older, wiser, hotter version of Boone unsettles me. How am I supposed to resist Boone's megawatt smile and his built-army-strong body?

Nate: It's nearly impossible to be surrounded by love but not understand it. My parents, my sister, and just about everyone around us has no trouble accepting that love. To give your trust to someone else and believe they would die before hurting you. I've witnessed it - I've seen the power of it - but I've also seen the pain. Because for me, I've only loved someone I could never have, and my biggest fear is that by giving her my love, all I would do is ruin her.

A difficult year filled with loss and heartache leaves Allison Scott withdrawn and emotionally disconnected. When she is finally ready to move forward with her life, she embarks on a getaway vacation to Miami, determined to find healing from the painful memories in her past. Damien Wales also has a tragic past that has left him a cold and distant person. However, the moment he sees Allison, he is inexplicably drawn to her, and Damien is a man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants.

Mirror, mirror, who's the fairest of them all? I still cringe when I hear that line. A fairy tale that had girls pretending they were the fairest, the most beautiful, and the most entitled. A fairy tale most couldn't grow out of turned my haunted childhood memories into a living nightmare. Girls who grew up believing that pile of garbage became the meanest of all mean girls. And those mean girls were right. It was a line meant for all the beautiful people in the world, and I knew the answer would never be me.

He was just a hookup. I wasn't supposed to see him again. He wasn't supposed to be my boss. Or Dad's new business partner. We weren't supposed to keep doing this, night after sheet-clenching, heart-pounding, lip-biting night.   

"You can either choose love or you can choose hate, because where one lives, the other will die." Kidnapped a day short of her twenty-fourth birthday, Skye Sedgewick struggles to uncover her captor's motives. Damian Caballero is not only impossible to read, but also dark, troubled, and unflinchingly brutal. For twenty-one days, Skye holds on. But on Day Twenty-Two, she yearns for the sweet slumber of death. Because on Day Twenty-Two, Skye realizes that her only way out means certain death for one of the two men she loves.

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.

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.

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.

Engaged and happily in love, Allison Scott and Damien Wales are looking forward to joining their lives together as one. Coming from a mournful year after losing her parents, Allison is ready to heal and move on to the next chapter with the love of her life. But Damien's past continues to threaten their future. A man once obsessed with Damien's sister is now after his one and only love, Allison. The woman who came before Allison is determined to captivate Damien's heart.

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.

With her best friend happily married and now pregnant, Sam Matthews should be overjoyed. Instead, she can only see what is missing in her life. Pushing her emotions aside, she retreats to a piece of her past that she's kept hidden-something that even her best friend knows nothing about.Taking a step into her future, Sam moves to North Carolina, where she once again encounters Mark Robertson. He is persistent and hard to resist, and little by little, he uses his charms to break through Sam's walls.

Knox Masters knows what he wants, and he gets it. All-American football player? Check. NFL pros scouting him? Check. Now he's set his sight on two things: the national title and Ellie Campbell. Sure, she's the sister of his teammate, but that's not going to stop him. Especially not when he's convinced that Ellie is the one. But Ellie isn't as sure. She's trying to start a new life, and she's not interested in a relationship...with anyone.

Once upon a cold, dark night, a Russian killer stole me from an alley. I’m dangerous, but he is lethal. I escaped once. He won’t let me do it twice. The revenge is his. The betrayal is mine. But so are the lies to protect the ones I love. We’re cut from the same twisted cloth. Both merciless. Both damaged. In his embrace, I find hell and heaven, his cruelly tender touch destroying and uplifting me at once. They say a cat has nine lives, but an assassin has just one. And Yan Ivanov now owns mine.

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.

On the eve of her 18th birthday, Nora Leston meets Julian Esguerra, and her life changes forever. Stolen away to a private island, she finds herself at the mercy of a powerful, dangerous man whose touch makes her burn...a man whose obsession with her knows no bounds.

BLAIRE: Part 1 in The Dark Romance Series - Bought. Conditioned. 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 10 years ago and conditioned me with brutality to worship and protect him. And I have protected him. BLAI2E: Part 2 in The Dark Romance Series - Don’t take what isn’t yours. Unless you’re willing to fight for it. I survived my depraved master, Maksim. Now, I belong to Charlie Decena, by nature and by nurture.