His Sweetheart Strides Back

Isn’t it funny how love works? I have always loved Dreston, and he has always been the one for me—my first love. As a child, I loved him, as a teenager, nothing changed. And now, even as his wife, I still couldn’t love him any less. But he only ever loved Tina—my teenage best friend. She came into our lives and didn’t just take him away from me. She took my happiness, my laughter, and even the girl I used to be. I still remember her words to me: “You knew he was mine, yet you married him.” She made me feel like I was the villain. Maybe I was foolish to believe that love alone would bring him back to me. But nothing changed. He would always love her. I finally gave up the day I signed the divorce papers. I learned to let go, to move on, and to start fresh. And just when I had finally decided to start my life again—just when the universe rewarded me with a man who loved me unconditionally… Dreston came running back. Now he wants a second chance.

For eight years, I lived as a wife no one knew existed, built my life in silence, loving a man who never truly saw me. I gave him everything and he gave me nothing but cold nights…and quiet tears I cried alone. Still, I stayed. Day after days. Years after years. Enduring. Hoping. And breaking…slowly. Not until she came back. His first love. And he didn’t just welcome her into his wife, he brought her into our matrimonial home, right on our matrimonial bed. And the little girl I raised in my arms…now calls her momma. Choosing her over me. He thought I would stay. He believed I would keep loving him the way I always had—quietly, and endlessly—no matter what he did to me. But he thought wrong. Because that day…something inside me shattered, and something far more dangerous took his place. So I left. No tears. No begging. No looking back. And when I returned… I made sure I wasn’t the woman he remembered. Now, I stand beside a man the world fears. A man who doesn’t hide me. A man who looks at me like I am everything. “Stay away from her. She’s my wife.” Clyde growled, his hand tightening into a fist. I almost laughed. Because for the first time in eight years…those words meant nothing to me. He broke me once. Now he wants me back. But I didn’t come back for love. I came back to take everything he ever chose over me.

On the day Tristan Spallone, the head of a mafia family, and I mark our fifth wedding anniversary, the manager of the Spallone family vault calls. Something that was stored away for a long time has finally come due, and Tristan is to retrieve it. He's so busy that he barely has a moment to breathe, so I go in his place. What I bring back is an old roll of film. The manager warned me that if it wasn’t developed soon, its age might cause it to be ruined beyond recovery. But when I have them developed, frame after frame is filled with Winnie Leigh, his first love. Her smile looks so sweet in those pictures that they nearly suffocate me. What about me, one may ask? I never once appeared on his albums. The office door slams open. Tristan bursts in, already out of breath. "Anna, is your life really so empty that you have to dig through mine?" I turn toward him, the man who's usually so composed. I neither question him nor break down. Instead, I speak slowly. "We're getting a divorce." Tristan frowns and thrusts the stack of photos into the shredder. He then looks back at me. "They're gone. Do you still want a divorce?" A bitter smile tugs at my lips. "Yes."

The day after I returned to my home country, my old classmates ambushed me with an invitation to a reunion. In the hotel, I ran into my ex, Shawn Quinn, whom I hadn't seen in five years. The room froze when he pulled out a ring and proposed. Gasps rippled through the crowd. They all expected me to jump at the chance, given how hard I had chased him back in the day. They forgot the gut-punch of our graduation day. Shawn had sided with another woman, letting her paint me as a plagiarist, a cheater, a bully. The school authorities revoked my diploma and kicked me out of the ceremony. Humiliated, I fled abroad, leaving behind a shattered heart. Now, his best friend told me, "Shawn pulled strings to get your diploma back despite your past mistakes. He never forgot about you. He has been waiting for you all these years. You're his only love."

What happens when you see the man you have devoted your life to loving smiling lovingly at another woman? What happens when he tells you that he cannot love you any more? What happens when you see your crush for the first time in ten years? What happens when you find out that love does not exist? What do you do then? Elara Quinn devoted her life to being the perfect wife material for her boyfriend, even though he never put a ring on it. She is obedient, submissive, and the best any man would want, but it all comes crashing down before her eyes when she learns of her boyfriend's affairs with an imposter of the Quinn family. She learns that he wants to climb up the cooperation ladder, and the only way to do that is for him to marry into the Quinn family. The only catch is that no one knows what the Quinn Heiress looks like. Now she has to go back and claim her right before anyone else does it. Can she make it in time, or is it going to be too late for her to reclaim her position while also finding the time to fall back in love with her first love? Ezra Thatcher never believed that he would get to love again when the girl he secretly had a crush on suddenly disappeared into thin air and then reappeared again looking the same as ever. The only catch is that he is engaged to a new girl, but his feelings stay the same. Back to Love is a thrilling romance story about a cheated girl falling back in love with her first love and a love-stricken boy trying to make love work again for him.

When he was 8, she was 3 and a fairy at a Halloween party. His eyes could not leave her side. When he was 15, she was 10, they met at the school entrance, she was in a hurry with her parents and did not see him but he did, his eyes lingered on her every step. When he was 19 she was 14, and was the feisty little thing he has ever seen but then she disappeared... He kept her deeply in his heart, and was eager to meet her again until he saw her as a lady of the night.