Showing results by author "Stella" in All Categories

I'll be the first to admit that I live at extremes. After going 10 years locked in what felt like a dysfunctional marriage, I'm now decidedly boy-free. In nearly three years I've had no boyfriends, no flings, no dates, and no sex. For the sake of my dream career, the sacrifice has been easy. At least it was. Until he came along. Lukas Hendricks. He's rude, gorgeous, arrogant - a stone-carved wall of muscle and distraction. He's everything I know to avoid but there's no avoiding your next-door neighbor.

It's been 12 years since I've seen him, but loathing Emmett Hoult still runs in my blood. Thanks to the hell he wreaked on my teenaged life, I've avoided the prick like the plague. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and after a fire destroys my apartment during the most important week of my life, I'm suddenly as desperate as they come. Hence the roommate situation. It's his summer home. His family said he wouldn't be around. They said I'd never run into him. But oh, did I run into Emmett Hoult. And in the worst way possible.

I was drunk-dialing my ex the night I met him. Six-three, sexy as sin, and so incredibly rude I could smack the asshole smirk right off his face. Long story short, we got off to a bad start. But when the tabloids interpret our sparring as Drew Maddox "groveling" with a "mystery brunette", his agent presents us both a proposal: shacking up as a couple this summer. It's an alleged "win-win". I need to prove to my ex that I'm fine. Drew needs to prove to his team that he's stable.

On my 18th birthday, my father, the senator, gives me the gift he thinks every little girl dreams of. The man of my dreams, and the wedding to match. Stefan Zoric is heir to an elite worldwide modeling agency. Practically a prince. My arrangement is simple, as far as sham marriages go. I give him my virginity, behave as the perfect wife, and he'll pay for the college degree my father found irrelevant. But I don't want to be the perfect wife. I want him to want me the way I want him.

Julian Langham was poised on the brink of a dazzling career when the lawyers lured him into making a catastrophic mistake. Now, instead of the concert platform, he has a title he doesn’t want, an estate verging on bankruptcy...and bewildering responsibilities for which he is totally unfitted. And yet the wreckage of Julian’s life is not a completely ill wind. For Tom, Rob, and Ellie it brings something that is almost a miracle...if they dare believe in it.

He was supposed to be my first and only one-night stand. He was definitely never supposed to become my boss. I had always been the good girl - the workaholic with every second of her life mapped out to a tee. Then I got trapped in an elevator with Julian Hoult. He was...irresistible. Sophisticated sex in a crisp white shirt. His voice alone dropped me straight to my knees. What was I supposed to do? Well...I can tell you what I was definitely not supposed to do. I was not supposed to run into him ever again. I was definitely not supposed to accept his dirty little job offer.

A perfect storm led me to this place. Ghosted by my fiance, I was suddenly broke, heartbroken and facing eviction. Enter Mason Leo, the six feet and two inches of pure muscle and arrogance I've hated with a passion since the day we met. The man is cocky, womanizing, and ruinously gorgeous. Worse than that, he's my ex's brother. And for the next two weeks, he gets to do with me as he pleases. I'll explain. With both our exes - wait for it - set to marry each other in St. Lucia, I've agreed to let Mason pay my debts so long as I play his date.

Tragedy drove him into unwilling exile. Death demands his reluctant return. In the decade between, he has answered to many names and amassed a variety of secrets. Now the actor known to Paris as L'Inconnu must resume his real identity and become Francis Adrian Sinclair Devereux, Earl of Sarre...a man he no longer knows how to be and whose name, thanks to the malice of a friend turned enemy, remains tarnished by an old scandal. Revenge, so long avoided, slithers temptingly from the shadows.

At the end of his Grand Tour, somewhere between Athens and Constantinople, Christian Selwyn, the young Earl of Hazelmere, vanished—seemingly without trace. Time passes. In London, his uncle and cousin move into his home, while his unofficial fiancée, Sophia, is left desolate and in limbo.

The marriage of a well-bred Royalist lady and an illegitimate Roundhead Colonel is less a match made in heaven than a union doomed to hell. Unfortunately, Sir Robert Brandon's last will and testament leaves Venetia Clifford and Gabriel Brandon with little choice in the matter - deeply though they both resent it. Their tempestuous relationship is reflected in the stormy events buffeting the nation as England slides inexorably into a second Civil War.

I thought I was trying out to be the Zoric's newest model, but Luka was auditioning wives. The last time I saw Luka Zoric, he left me stranded in his bed. This time, I'm the one holding the cards.

Meet Adam Brandon...acutely intelligent and master swordsman but gradually realizing that he isn’t yet ready for the future he had previously planned.Victim of a cruel deception, Camilla Edgerton-Foxe has a jaundiced view of the male sex and a tongue as sharp as her wits...but she also possesses an extraordinary talent. A peculiar encounter offers Adam the kind of employment for which he is uniquely suited and that will exercise his mind as well as his muscles. The fly in the ointment is that Miss Edgerton-Foxe comes with it...as does Rainham.

In 1988, Harry made one mistake: he took a bribe, letting a man he knew as Igor into Britain - and he’s regretted it ever since. So when he recognises Igor many years later as his newly elected MP, he knows he has to come clean. But the MP recognises him, too - and Harry fears what he might do next.

Following a gruelling operation in Paris, Liz Carlyle’s bosses post her to MI5’s counter-espionage desk, but they haven’t counted on the fallout from Putin’s incursions into the Ukraine. Liz needs to track down a Russian spy who has entered the UK before he completes his fatal mission. Meanwhile, the intelligence services are in the spotlight. In response to the debate raging around privacy and security, they hire Jasminder Kapoor, a controversial civil rights lawyer, to explain the issues to the public.

Whether addressing sexual frustration with your partner, trying out new fantasies, or negotiating the terms of a BDSM scene, Stella Harris believes that communication skills are vital to sexual fulfillment. Tongue Tied gives listeners straightforward advice on how to conquer their fears, identify their needs, and feel positively empowered. Harris charmingly takes listeners through all aspects of communication, from basic interpersonal skills to negotiation advice for expert-level kink play. 

CALLUM - Lake and I never had a chance at normal. She was drop dead gorgeous from day one - our maid's granddaughter who became my mother's spoiled living doll. I hated that girl with all my heart and at the same time, I worshipped every inch of her skin, every word that she spoke. I lived for her and the twisted game of truth or dare we created to feed our f--ked up needs for shock, shame, and one-upping each other. Lake was my drug, my bad lifestyle choice. And I'd fallen in and out of love with her a thousand times till the day she disappeared.   

Roderick Alleyn is back in this unique crime novel begun by Ngaio Marsh during the Second World War and now completed by Stella Duffy. It's business as usual for Mr Glossop as he does his regular round delivering wages to government buildings scattered across New Zealand's lonely Canterbury plains. But when his car breaks down, he is stranded for the night at the isolated Mount Seager Hospital, with the telephone lines down, a storm on its way and the nearby river about to burst its banks....

As England slides into Civil War, master-goldsmith and money-lender, Luciano Falcieri del Santi embarks on his own hidden agenda. A chance meeting one dark night results in an unlikely friendship with Member of Parliament, Richard Maxwell. Richard’s daughter, Kate - a spirited girl who vows to hold their home against both Cavalier and Roundhead - soon finds herself fighting an involuntary attraction to the clever, magnetic, and diabolically beautiful Italian.

Charles ll leads an army south to reclaim his throne, but the dream ends in a crushing defeat at Worcester. With little more than the clothes on their backs, Ashley Peverell and Francis Langley manage to reach Paris, where Ashley resumes his under-cover, unpaid work for the King. Beautiful, stubborn, and street-wise Athenais de Galzain has risen from the slums of Paris to become the Marais Theatre's leading actress. From first chance, Ashley and Athenais are drawn together with the unstoppable force of two stars colliding; a force which Ashley must conceal.

Have you ever been in a situation where all of those internal warning signals went off but you went forward anyway? Or in a situation where you started to drive forward and then something told you to stop? This anthology is a collection of stories of similar situations that our authors experienced. Listen on to find out about their own red flags.