The article ran on a Thursday morning, six days before the final Halloway presentations, under the byline of a business reporter named Priya Anand who had spent the better part of a decade covering the city's development politics with the specific, patient thoroughness of someone who understood that the real stories in this business were never in the press releases.
Trying to be a strong independent woman.
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Some desires are meant to stay hidden. Behind closed doors, temptation has a way of finding you. Velvet & Vice is a collection of seductive, dangerous one-shots where forbidden chemistry, stolen moments, secret desires, and complicated lovers collide. Every story begins with a temptation. Not every one ends with regret. Enter if you dare. Leave your morals at the door.
Rukmini Devraj has spent her whole life being told she is worth less than the sons in her house. When her stepbrother's gambling debts bring the Rajvardhan family's black cars to her village, she learns exactly how little say she has in her own future — she is the price of her family's survival. Yuvraan Rajvardhan doesn't want a wife. He wants the Devraj family to pay for what they took from him twelve years ago, and marrying their daughter is the cruelest, quietest way to do it. Cold, controlling, and untouchable, he expects nothing from Rukmini but her silence — and her eventual, contracted departure in exactly one year. He doesn't expect her to become the only person in his gilded, guarded house who isn't afraid to look him in the eye. As the walls of Shauryagarh close around her and a dangerous cousin's obsession grows, Rukmini uncovers a truth that could unravel everything — including the fragile, forbidden thing growing between her and the husband who was never supposed to want her back. One year. One contract. One impossible, consuming love neither of them signed up for.
She was raised to be a poison meant for one man's heart. He married her to end a war he didn't know he was already losing. Neither of them expected the poison to fall in love with the cure. Vishakha has never had a name that was truly hers. Raised inside the Kaalratri Order - a centuries-old sect that breeds vishkanyas, poison-maidens, the way old kings once did - she has spent twenty-six years becoming a weapon with only one purpose: marry Kritanta Rajvansh, heir to an empire built on her family's ashes, and end his bloodline from the inside. Kritanta Rajvansh has buried enough people to know exactly what a knife looks like wearing a wedding sari. He marries her anyway - for peace, for politics, for a grandmother's manipulations he doesn't yet understand - and tells himself he can control anything that walks into his house. He is wrong. So is she. Between a haveli full of family secrets, a brother's forbidden love, a sister's long-nursed vengeance, and an uncle whose loyalty has been a thirty-year lie, Vishakha and Kritanta will have to decide whether the marriage that was built to destroy them both is the only thing strong enough to save them - before the Order collects on the vow written in her blood before she could even speak it.
She came to Devgarh broken, carrying silence where her voice should have been. He was the Sarpanch-feared, distant, and a man who never crossed his own lines. What begins as protection slowly turns into something neither of them names... until care becomes habit, presence becomes comfort, and love grows quietly between them. This is not a story of saving. It is a story of choosing-again and again. A love built on respect, restraint, and the courage to stay. 𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐒: Soft Romance Dark Themes Set in the 1980s Age Gap (25 × 30) Rural Royalty Rescuer Hero × Survivor Heroine Protective & Possessive (Healthy) Powerful Man × Quiet Strength Devotee Hero × Devotee Heroine Slow Burn Romance Found Family Feminine Power Rising Courtroom Justice Arc
Book 1 of Raktapushp Chronicles He conquered her kingdom. He took her as a prize. He never once expected to lose himself to her instead. Meera is a healer's daughter and a rebel's blood - captured when her homeland falls to the empire of Chandragad, dragged to a palace built on the bones of everyone she's lost. Crown Prince Vikramjeet is the man who burned her world down. He owns her fate. He does not expect her to own his heart. What begins as possession becomes obsession. What begins as hatred becomes a vow neither the gods nor the throne will recognize. But Chandragad does not forgive a tyrant's son for loving a commoner's daughter - and the price of that love will be paid in blood, betrayal, and a wound that will echo for generations. Some loves are not meant to survive the empires that create them. ⚠️ Dark historical romance. Mature themes. Read author's note before starting.
𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡 𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 Five couples. One school. One year that changes everything. Aisha never planned to fall for the boy everyone feared. Vedavati never planned to see past the boy she judged. Naveya never planned to pray for someone who didn't believe in prayer. Mrinal never planned to fall at all - and certainly not like this. Aadhya never planned to love someone who thought he wasn't worth loving. But hearts don't ask for plans. Agni doesn't know how to love gently. He only knows how to protect violently. Raaj has nothing she was taught to value. And everything she actually needs. Danish believes love is biology. Until she makes him question everything. Vihaan holds them all together - quietly, without asking for anything back. Kabir has been afraid his whole life. She makes him brave. This isn't one love story. It's five. Five boys learning that strength means something different when someone soft is watching. Five girls learning that love isn't weakness - it's the most dangerous thing they'll ever choose. Family pressure. Old wounds. Rumors that spread like wildfire. Faith tested. Grief that arrives without warning. And underneath all of it - five pairs of people choosing each other anyway. She'll teach him softness. He'll burn down the world if she cries. She'll pray for him even when he doesn't believe. He'll choose her even when logic says don't. She'll sculpt him into someone who knows he's worthy. He'll protect her even when she insists she's fine. St. Devika School, Meerut. One amaltas tree. Ten broken-and-whole hearts.
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