The Last Man I Should Want Eight months ago, Rafael Costa kissed me like he’d been waiting years to do it. The next morning, he told a reporter I meant nothing to him. Now he’s sitting in my locker room, wearing my club’s shirt—and asking for a second chance. We’re supposed to compete for a starting place. Instead, he’s saving me breakfast, falling asleep beside me on away trips, and making it increasingly difficult to remember why I promised to keep my distance. I can handle him being my rival. I’m less prepared for how much I like having him as my boyfriend. Especially when there are cameras everywhere—and neither of us is particularly good at keeping our hands to ourselves.

Ethan Cole offers a struggling caterer’s daughter a million dollars to make him walk. His wealthy guests laugh—until ten-year-old Lily tells him she saw him standing the night before. Ethan has spent eighteen months hiding his rehabilitation, grieving his brother, and shutting people out. Lily refuses to be intimidated by his money or his temper. Then she recognizes the silver medal beneath his collar. Her late father left something for Ethan. What begins as a cruel joke becomes a promise—and an unexpected bond between people learning how to live with the ones they’ve lost.

Daniel Hale had forty billion dollars and no idea who would stay if he had nothing left to offer. So when his housekeeper’s three-year-old daughter found him lying on the sofa, he kept his eyes closed. “Mr. Hale, are you dead?” He expected her to run for her mother. Instead, Lily dragged a dining chair across the marble floor, climbed onto it, and touched his cheek. “You’re not dead, Mr. Hale. You’re sad.” Then she gave him the one thing she never slept without. Daniel’s foolish little test should have ended with an apology. Instead, it brought him into a life of crooked pancakes, bedtime negotiations, and late-night conversations with Maria Torres—a woman who refused to be impressed by his fortune. For the first time, he wanted someone to stay. Then an unopened letter from his late mother revealed that his family and Maria’s shared a past neither of them knew existed.

Maya Perry spent six years helping build a company that now wanted to erase her. Minutes before a $950 million acquisition, her CEO fires her in front of the buyers. Security waits by the doors. Another executive stands beside a presentation stripped of Maya’s name. They expect the Black engineer they kept out of the spotlight to leave quietly. Instead, Maya asks one question. “Has your team verified that Blackidge owns the foundational Cascade Shield patent?” The buyer puts down his pen. Because the patent is hers—and Maya never signed it away. Now the executives who wanted her gone need her signature. But as their offers turn into threats, Maya discovers that stealing her work may be the least dangerous thing they’ve done.

Addison Bishop has a verified invitation, her name on the place card, and every right to sit at the gala’s VIP table. But the CEO’s wife takes one look at the quietly dressed Black woman and decides she doesn’t belong. Vivienne Kincaid crushes Addison’s name card, claims her seat, and orders security to remove her. Around them, wealthy guests watch without intervening—until a terrified executive rushes across the ballroom. The woman they just humiliated holds the final approval for their $2.9 billion investment. Now Vivienne’s husband wants a private conversation. His lawyers want to contain the damage. And Addison wants answers. Because the more they try to explain away what happened at that table, the more they reveal about the company she was supposed to trust.

Victoria Delacroix slapped me in front of thirty wealthy guests and ordered security to throw me out. She thought I didn’t belong in her family’s luxury boutique. She didn’t know I already controlled the company. One phone call ended her evening. An old sketchbook changed everything I thought I knew about my father. He was a Black tailor from Queens who died believing his greatest opportunity had ended in failure. But the designs that made the Delacroix name famous carried his handwriting. Her family had taken his work, denied him payment, and erased his name. Now her father was offering me two million dollars to keep it that way. He should have asked what I wanted before putting a price on my silence.

Ethan Vance arrives at a luxury hotel carrying his sleeping daughter and a crushed bouquet of roses for his late wife. The receptionists see his wet jacket and decide he doesn’t belong. They refuse to help. They dismiss the housekeeper who offers his daughter a blanket. They have no idea he owns the hotel. One phone call exposes their mistake. But before Ethan can take his daughter upstairs, the manager produces an envelope in his dead wife’s handwriting—addressed to Ethan and the housekeeper he has just met. He came to remember the woman he loved. Now he must discover the part of her life she never shared.

For nine years, Catherine “Cat” Bennett kept the clients happy, the projects moving, and her shrinking team afloat. Then HR offered her a sixty percent pay cut. Same accounts. Same responsibilities. Less than half the salary. Her boss knew she was a single mother. He knew she had a mortgage and a son who needed asthma medication. He expected her to sign. Cat cried in her car instead. Then a former colleague called. Their biggest competitor had been trying to recruit her for years—and its CEO wanted a meeting. By the time Cat returned to give HR her answer, she had a signed offer in her bag. Her boss had prepared for an employee who couldn’t afford to leave. He hadn’t prepared for what losing her would cost.

For three years, Nathaniel Hayes has searched for a way to help his daughter walk again. Then, at an elegant family celebration, nine-year-old Lily takes the hand of a barefoot boy—and rises from her wheelchair. Nathaniel is stunned. Lily’s grandfather wants the boy removed. But ten-year-old Noah Bennett hasn’t come looking for money or a miracle. He recognizes something in Lily that the adults around her haven’t understood. As an unlikely friendship brings laughter back into the house, Lily begins talking about the accident that killed her mother. And someone in the family has a reason to wish she’d stayed silent.

Julian Ashford once had enough money to keep Adrian Mercer in chains—and too little understanding of love to know why he wanted him to stay. Then Adrian destroyed his family’s fortune and waited for the spoiled young heir to come begging. Julian never did. Five years later, Julian delivers food through freezing rain, counts every dollar, and avoids the powerful man who ruined him. Adrian says he hates him. Julian believes him. But hatred doesn’t explain the car that follows him everywhere. The familiar candy beside his medicine. Or why Adrian keeps reaching for him after telling him to leave. Julian wants to call it even and move on. Then another man kisses him. That night, Adrian appears outside his door.

Emily Carter was hired to dance at a billionaire's charity gala. Instead, she became the evening's biggest joke. As wealthy socialites mocked her curves and laughed behind champagne glasses, Emily refused to stop dancing. But when a mysterious necklace slipped from her dress, billionaire Alexander Whitmore suddenly rose from his chair and shouted, "STOP THE MUSIC!" That necklace belonged to a Whitmore heiress who vanished decades ago. Now, the woman everyone humiliated may hold the key to...

I loved Julian Whitmore for nineteen years. On the night we made our marriage official, he murdered me for the heart beating in my chest. Death should have ended the betrayal. Instead, I became a ghost, forced to watch my husband play the grieving widower while my family helped bury the truth. I could see everything. Prove nothing. Touch no one. Then Lucian Blackwood began looking for me. My ruthless business rival. The man I had spent years fighting. The last person I expected to care whether I lived or died. While the people I loved profited from my disappearance, he refused to stop searching. And every secret I uncovered about him made my wasted life hurt more. I wanted revenge. I wanted my mother safe. But the closer Lucian came to the truth, the more frightened I became of what finding me would cost him.

Vivian Whitmore looked at the elegant Black woman standing in her father’s boardroom and decided she didn’t belong. First came the questions. Then the insults. Then Vivian slapped her in front of everyone. Amina Diop didn’t slap her back. She picked up her phone. “Hold tomorrow’s funding release.” Vivian had no idea she had just struck the founder of Diop Capital—the firm her family’s company desperately needed. But Amina had come to that meeting with questions of her own. Millions of dollars were unaccounted for. Someone had been approving payments for work nobody could produce. And the man standing beside Vivian had just recognized her. He looked terrified. Not because of the slap.

Three drops of champagne. One shove. A hundred guests who did nothing. Ella Bennett is helping serve drinks at an elegant English wedding when a wealthy guest pushes her into a fountain—and demands that she be fired. Soaked and bleeding, Ella asks for an apology. Instead, she gets laughter. Then the estate manager asks whether she wants him to end the reception. A powerful hotel executive arrives at her request. And the woman who humiliated her calls her father for help—only to hear one chilling question: “Victoria. What did you do?” Everyone wants to know who the waitress really is. Before the night is over, they’ll wish they had asked sooner.

When two armed men storm a supermarket, everyone gets down. Ten-year-old Noah Bennett stays standing. “You’ve got thirty seconds to leave.” The gunman laughs—until the security shutter starts to fall. Then he finds the scar behind Noah’s ear and recognizes whose son he is. Six months ago, Noah buried his father. Tonight, someone is watching through the supermarket cameras. Someone who knows the gunman’s name. As the exits close, Noah realizes this was never a robbery gone wrong. And he may be the reason it happened.

Avery transmigrates into another world—and finds herself selling her own stepbrother to a slave trader. She looks at the arrogant buyer before her, then at the stepbrother behind her, his face empty of hope. She pushes away the beast crystals being offered. “I’m not selling him.” But after taking him home, she discovers they have nothing but bare walls. Without selling someone, they really might not survive. Her other stepbrother is away with the hunting party, but his share of the meat is barely enough to feed Avery alone. Three people in the household. Two going hungry. Yet both brothers work tirelessly, never complaining, too timid to stand up for themselves. What else can Avery do? She touches her own animal ears, rolls up her sleeves, and gets to work feeding her brothers. … A few world-building details: Females retain a partly animal form, while males ordinarily look human and shift into beasts when hunting. The extent of their transformations and mutations depends on their rank…

At eighty years old, Eleanor Whitmore walks into a prestigious New York dance academy, only to be mocked by arrogant instructor Adrian Cole and his students. But when Adrian performs a legendary routine to humiliate her, Eleanor calmly reveals something that leaves the entire room speechless: she created the choreography herself. What begins as an embarrassing confrontation uncovers a fifty-four-year-old secret involving stolen artistic credit, a powerful dance dynasty, and a woman whose name was erased from history. Now, with time running out before the historic studio closes forever, Eleanor must confront the man who stole her legacy and prove that it's never too late to reclaim what belongs to you. A powerful story of dignity, betrayal, second chances, and the courage to be remembered.

Before we married, my husband promised his son from his first marriage wouldn’t disrupt our life. Then, on Thanksgiving night, a fourteen-year-old boy appeared on our doorstep, soaked through and shivering. “Could I stay here for two nights?” When I hesitated, he apologized and turned back toward the rain. I caught his wrist and let him in. I thought he needed a warm bed. Then I noticed how he watched our faces before taking food—and how quickly he offered to leave whenever his mother called. Giving him a place to stay was easy. Convincing him he deserved one would take years. Twenty years later, he bought me a mansion. His birth mother arrived demanding to know why the house belonged to me. But money wasn’t the only thing she wanted from the boy she had once let walk away.

Anthony Moretti has spent decades making dangerous men obey him. Then a three-year-old girl walks into his secret meeting, places a purple crayon beside his loaded pistol, and asks to borrow him for one day. Sophia needs someone for Family Day. Her father is dead, her mother needs to work, and Anthony looks like a man who can clear his own schedule. He says yes. But his most trusted lieutenant seems strangely interested in whether he’ll keep that promise. And when an ordinary afternoon ends with a photograph of the woman Anthony believed he buried thirty-four years ago, he starts asking questions someone close to him has spent a lifetime preventing. Sophia only wanted a day at school, the swings, and strawberry ice cream. Anthony may have to dismantle the life he built to give her anything more.

For thirteen Christmases, Claire Whitmore watched her family celebrate without her. Every year brought another excuse—and another photograph with no place for her at the table. Then her grandmother leaves her the family’s favorite seaside house. Two days before Christmas, twenty-three relatives arrive with luggage, assigned bedrooms, and a locksmith. They haven’t asked permission. They expect Claire to open the gate, make their beds, and swallow her resentment. This time, she refuses. But her grandmother left more than a house: three binders, an old iPad, and a letter warning Claire whom not to believe. As her family demands to be let inside, Claire begins discovering why they kept her outside for thirteen years—and what they’re afraid she’ll uncover next.