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The weary old nineteenth century had advanced into the last twenty years of its life. Towards two o’clock in the afternoon, Ovid Vere (of the Royal College of Surgeons) stood at the window of his consulting-room in London, looking out at the summer sunshine, and the quiet dusty street. He had received a warning, familiar to the busy men of our time — the warning from overwrought Nature, which counsels rest after excessive work. With a prosperous career before him, he had been compelled (at only thirty-one years of age) to ask a colleague to take charge of his practice, and to give the brain which he had cruelly wearied a rest of some months to come. On the next day he had arranged to embark for the Mediterranean in a friend’s yacht.
You are the children of Old Mother England, on both sides of the Atlantic; you form the majority of buyers and borrowers of novels; and you judge of works of fiction by certain inbred preferences, which but slightly influence the other great public of readers on the continent of Europe.
The two qualities in fiction which hold the highest rank in your estimation are: Character and Humour. Incident and dramatic situation only occupy the second place in your favour. A novel that tells no story, or that blunders perpetually in trying to tell a story - a novel so entirely devoid of all sense of the dramatic side of human life, that not even a theatrical thief can find anything in it to steal - will nevertheless be a work that wins (and keeps) your admiration, if it has Humour which dwells on your memory, and characters which enlarge the circle of your friends.
I have myself always tried to combine the different merits of a good novel, in one and the same work; and I have never succeeded in keeping an equal balance. In the present story you will find the scales inclining, on the whole, in favour of character and Humour. This has not happened accidentally.
Advancing years, and health that stands sadly in need of improvement, warn me - if I am to vary my way of work - that I may have little time to lose. Without waiting for future opportunities, I have kept your standard of merit more constantly before my mind, in writing this book, than on some former occasions.
Still persisting in telling you a story - still refusing to get up in the pulpit and preach, or to invade the platform and lecture, or to take you by the buttonhole in confidence and make fun of my Art - it has been my chief effort to draw the characters with a vigour and breadth of treatment, derived from the nearest and truest view that I could get of the one model, Nature. Whether I shall at once succeed in adding to the circle of your friends in the world of fiction - or whether you will hurry through the narrative, and only discover on a later reading that it is the characters which have interested you in the story - remains to be seen. Either way, your sympathy will find me grateful; for, either way, my motive has been to please you.
During its periodical publication correspondents, noting certain passages in "Heart and Science," inquired how I came to think of writing this book. The question may be readily answered in better words than mine. My book has been written in harmony with opinions which have an indisputable claim to respect. Let them speak for themselves.
SHAKESPEARE'S OPINION.-"It was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common." (King Henry IV., Part II.)
WALTER SCOTT'S OPINION-"I am no great believer in the extreme degree of improvement to be derived from the advancement of Science; for every study of that nature tends, when pushed to a certain extent, to harden the heart." (Letter to Miss Edgeworth.)
FARADAY'S OPINION.-"The education of the judgment has for its first and its last step - Humility." (Lecture on Mental Education, at the Royal Institution.)
Having given my reasons for writing the book, let me conclude by telling you what I have kept out of the book.
It encourages me to think that we have many sympathies in common; and among them, that most of us have taken to our hearts domestic pets. Writing under this conviction, I have not forgotten my responsibility towards you, and towards my Art, in pleading the cause of the harmless and affectionate beings of God's creation. From first to last, you are purposely left in ignorance of the hideous secrets of Vivisection. The outside of the laboratory is a necessary object in my landscape - but I never once open the door and invite you to look in. I trace, in one of my characters, the result of the habitual practice of cruelty (no matter under what pretence) in fatally deteriorating the nature of man - and I leave the picture to speak for itself. My own personal feeling has throughout been held in check. Thankfully accepting the assistance rendered to me by Miss Frances Power Cobbe, by Mrs. H. M. Gordon, and by Surgeon–General Gordon, C.B., I have borne in mind (as they have borne in mind) the value of temperate advocacy to a good cause.
With this, your servant withdraws, and leaves you to the story.
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Joelle thought she could change Adrian's heart after three years of marriage, but she realized too late that it already belonged to another woman. "Give me a baby, and I'll set you free." The day Joelle went into labor, Adrian was traveling with his mistress on his private jet. "I don't care whom you love. My debt is paid. From now on, we have nothing to do with each other." Not long after Joelle left, Adrian found himself begging on his knees. "Please come back to me."
Madisyn was stunned to discover that she was not her parents' biological child. Due to the real daughter's scheming, she was kicked out and became a laughingstock. Thought to be born to peasants, Madisyn was shocked to find that her real father was the richest man in the city, and her brothers were renowned figures in their respective fields. They showered her with love, only to learn that Madisyn had a thriving business of her own. "Stop pestering me!" said her ex-boyfriend. "My heart only belongs to Jenna." "How dare you think that my woman has feelings for you?" claimed a mysterious bigwig.
Desperate to handle her grandmother's towering medical bills, Gianna agreed to a contract marriage with Tristan, the enigmatic man she'd once shared a one-night stand with. She assumed they'd fulfill each other's needs and dissolve the arrangement once the terms expired. Unbeknownst to Gianna, this marriage was a dream Tristan had clung to for ten relentless years. Certain she was just filling someone else's role, Gianna prepared to leave when that other woman returned. But Tristan, his eyes burning with unspoken emotion, seized her trembling hand and declared, "You’re mine. Now and always."
For ten years, Daniela showered her ex-husband with unwavering devotion, only to discover she was just his biggest joke. Feeling humiliated yet determined, she finally divorced him. Three months later, Daniela returned in grand style. She was now the hidden CEO of a leading brand, a sought-after designer, and a wealthy mining mogul—her success unveiled at her triumphant comeback. Her ex-husband’s entire family rushed over, desperate to beg for forgiveness and plead for another chance. Yet Daniela, now cherished by the famed Mr. Phillips, regarded them with icy disdain. "I’m out of your league."
"I'm going to tell you what I have in mind," he murmured. "First you're going to strip down until you're completely naked," he whispered against her ear. "Then I'm going to tie you up so you're completely powerless and subject to my every whim." "Mmm, sounds good so far," she murmured. "Then I'm going to insert a plug to prepare you for me. After that I'm going to spank that sweet ass of yours until it's rosy with my marks." She shivered uncontrollably, her mind exploding with the images he evoked. She let out a small whimper as he sucked the lobe of her ear into his mouth. God, she could cum with just his words. She was already aching with need. Her nipples tingled and hardened to painful points. Her clit pulsed and twitched between her legs until she clamped her thighs together to alleviate the burn. "And then I'm going to f**k your mouth. But I won't cum. Not yet. When I'm close, I'll flog you again until your ass is burning and you're on fire with the need for relief. And then I'm going to f**k that ass. I'm going to take you hard and rough, to the very limits of what you can withstand. I won't be gentle. Not tonight. I'm going to take you as roughly as you can stand. And then I'm going to cum all over your ass. Are you ready to be completely and utterly dominated?"
Bailey seems to be never destined to fit in, a little geeky, but under it all, a hidden beauty that so many seem to miss, but still not what her pack Alpha is looking for in a fated mate... so he is determined to reject her and make her life hell. Bailey, knowing her life will likely never be the same focuses on what she can control, her future, and heads off to study; becoming a teacher. Asher is the Beta of Autumn Valley Pack, a neighbouring pack. A broken man having suffered the loss of his mate after a rogue attack, Asher is slowly crumbling. Falling to pieces. A shadow of his former self, and not a man that anyone wants to be around anymore... Until, Autumn Valley Pack require a new teacher, and Bailey finds herself there and pushed together with the Beta. Is there a connection building or is that in their imaginations? And what will happen when Bailey's mate comes back to claim what is his?