A SOLDIERS STORY

Modern

Twenty minutes before the "Wedding of the Century" at The Plaza, I stood outside the Presidential Suite in a fifty-thousand-dollar Vera Wang gown. I was the girl from a West Virginia trailer park about to marry Hugh Maxwell, the golden heir to a billion-dollar defense empire. I pushed the door open only to find Hugh pinned against the bed with my own stepsister, Floy. She was wearing my bridal diamond necklace, and the sounds of their laughter scraped against my eardrums like sandpaper. I didn't scream; I listened as Hugh grunted that once the wedding was over and the trust fund unlocked, he'd dump "that hillbilly trash" on a bus back to the mountains. They weren't just cheating; they were planning to steal my family's land deeds and leave me with nothing. When I set off the sprinklers and exposed their naked bodies to the paparazzi, the Maxwell family didn't apologize. They called me a "greedy peasant" and threatened to ruin my life unless I signed a new deal to save their crashing stock. I realized then that I was never a bride to them. I was a transaction, a rounding error in a ledger to be used and discarded. They thought my poverty made me weak and my silence made me a victim. "If we don't have a marriage certificate by midnight, the bank freezes thirty percent of our liquidity," their lawyer warned. So, I gave them exactly what they wanted. I used a loophole in their hundred-year-old family covenant and married the only other direct heir available. I didn't marry Hugh. I walked into the ICU and married his uncle, Fleet Maxwell-the legendary war hero who had been in a vegetative state for months. Now, I am the matriarch of the Maxwell dynasty. I've suspended Hugh's executive powers, exiled my mother-in-law to the Swiss Alps, and taken control of the family vault. They think I'm just a gold-digger waiting for a "corpse" to die so I can collect a fifty-million-dollar widow's payout. But last night, as I lay beside my comatose husband, the man they called a vegetable gripped my hand back.

Literature

Anybody know where the electricity turns on? asked the sergeant in a good-humored voice. "Here it is." The light over the door of the barracks snapped on, revealing a rotund cheerful man with a little yellow mustache and an unlit cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth. Grouped about him,

Literature

With Our Soldiers in France

Young Adult

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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was a Scottish physician and writer known around the world for his stories about detective Sherlock Holmes, which all but created the literary field of crime fiction and made the name Sherlock Holmes synonymous with detectives. Aside from the Sherlock Holmes

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Edward Bulwer-Lytton was a well known English novelist in the 19th century, and he's been immortalized for coining famous phrases like  "pursuit of the almighty dollar" and "the pen is mightier than the sword". In addition to being a politician, he wrote across all genres, from horror stories to his

Literature

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally impor

Romance

DREAMS CAN COME TRUE BUT JUST NIGHTMARES. In Des Pontonniers, a super-dread blood sucking human is blamed for the spate of vicious attacks; Max Blake wishes the cause was that simple. Unfortunately, hiding his vampire identity, especially from Miley Evelyn, while fighting his need to transform,

Literature

A Simple Story by the actress, playwright and novelist Elizabeth Inchbald has remained enduringly popular and almost continuously in print since its first publication in 1791. In scenes charged with understated erotic tension it tells the stories of the flirtatious Miss Milner who falls in love wit

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This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, o

Romance

I told you to stay in your room what are you doing here? my stepmother asked me why do you tolerate this shit if I were you I would show her her place. Easy for you to say I said join Lina in her world full of problems

Mafia

"You will not call me dear. You will take that money and give me my freedom like we both agreed, Mateo Morales," Jasmine bellowed. Mateo dropped the spoon on the tray, drank some water to clear the aftertaste, reached for the bag of money zipping it close and shoving it firmly into her hand. "Unfort

Fantasy

Twelve people. Four elements. One person's desire to break free. Everything had been constructed carefully for the future generation - threads woven to create a basket of safety and peace. A blanket thrown over the...

Literature

A Strange Story, Volume 1. by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Romance

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Adeline Dutton Train Whitney was an American poet and prolific writer who published more than 20 books for girls. Her books expressed a traditional view of women's roles and were popular throughout her life.

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Fantasy

The author of this book was the daughter of that Count Rostopchine who was governor of Moscow when it was burned in 1812, and Napoleon was obliged in consequence to make his disastrous retreat from that city. Born in 1799, Sophie de Rostopchine married, in 1821, the Count de Ségur, a son of o

Romance

I am madly in love with him, a while before I decided to confess what I fell for him… I love him so much that I can die for him. And you know what I am dying not for him.. but because of him. He is pointing his gun toward me. At the center of my forehead. I am in shock. Everything has changed a cou

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There is to-day a widely spread new interest in child life, a desire to get nearer to children and understand them. To be sure child study is not new; every wise parent and every sympathetic teacher has ever been a student of children; but there is now an effort to do more consciously and systematic

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Old Valentines / A Love Story by Munson Aldrich Havens