Author: Karan Kumar

My name is Brooke Halstead, and if you had seen me the morning I walked into the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, you probably would have been mistaken. Most people did. I was five foot five. Slender build. My hair was pulled back tightly. Nothing dramatic about my face, no story I offered willingly,…

PART 1 The first time I felt like my skin was being ripped off wasn’t when I saw Sebastian Vega kissing Julia Montgomery behind the Italian silk screen. It was when I recognized on that woman’s neck the black diamond brooch my mother wore the day she launched the first Luna de Mármol collection. I…

Part 1 My name is Claire Donovan, and the day Sergeant First Class Derek Kellan decided to make me his afternoon entertainment at Fort Bragg, I had no idea that half the company would remember it for the rest of their careers. I sat alone in the Havoc Company mess hall, a tablet in one…

Elena didn’t think. He acted. He pressed himself against the wall next to the boardroom and lowered his head slightly, pretending to wring out the mop, while straining his ears as if his life depended on it. And, in a way, it did. Because every word that came out of that room confirmed that the…

—Soul! Soul, please! The voice broke again above, drowned out by the wind and snow. Alma remained motionless inside the burrow, her back pressed against the stone, her heart pounding so hard that for a second she thought the noise would betray her. Outside, the storm roared as if it wanted to uproot the mountain….

The rich man was forgotten at his own party… until the maid’s daughter broke the silence with a gesture that no one could ignore. Have you ever been surrounded by people… and still felt completely alone? That night, in a luxurious estate in Beverly Hills, everything glittered like a magazine spread. Chandeliers blazed, elegant tables…

At 8:12 the next morning, Emily was standing in my kitchen with the same satisfied smile she had worn on her face for almost our entire lives. The early morning sun streamed through the window onto the countertop, illuminating the dishes I had prepared with almost cruel precision: lemon-glazed chicken, garlic mashed potatoes, a platter…

“That’s my older brother, Dad!” — The billionaire’s son pointed at the homeless boy in the street Part 1 —He’s my older brother, Dad! Alexander Belmont froze in the middle of the sidewalk when his son Tommy let go of his hand and ran toward the corner of the Alameda, where a barefoot, thin, and…

“You’re not blind, it’s your wife slipping something into your drink,” the old woman told the billionaire. The park bench was cold, as if it had spent the entire night holding the sadness of others. Graham Whitmore sat at one end, his back straight out of habit, his soul bent inside, gripping his cane with…