Investing All-in-One For Dummies

I took time off work and flew out to be my best friend's maid of honor. The moment my plane landed, she picked me up and took me straight to the hotel. Not long after we got to the room, she handed me a shopping bag. Inside was the newest phone on the market, a bottle of luxury perfume, and a check for ten thousand dollars. She said with a bright, excited smile, "It's your bridesmaid gift. Even if I'm getting married, you're still the most important person in my life." My eyes filled with tears right there. The next morning, I woke up before sunrise. I put on my bridesmaid dress and went to find her. She was sitting in front of the vanity mirror. Stylists were moving around her, busy with her hair and makeup. When she saw me, she turned with a huge smile and waved me over, her face glowing with excitement. But the moment I stepped closer, her expression changed. It was like she had just seen something disgusting. "Get out." Her voice was low, but the disgust in it was clear. "Disappear from my sight. Right now." I froze where I stood.

Camilla George is a young singer at a local bar, who has everything going for her at her pace, but her life took a huge turn when she bumped into her doppelganger in a mall one day, but only if that was all. She was proposed to marry her fiance. How could she marry the fiance of a girl, who looked just like her? How was she supposed to cope? Did you think she was going to agree to the setup? EXCERPT: “Why are you messing around with me? Your job is just look pretty, and be my wife!” the cold man rumbled while glaring at Camilla, and a heavy sigh escaped her lips. “And that is what I have been doing, Mr. Sanders!” she rattled, but the man hissed, not believing it. “No, you have been doing more. You had been seducing me, and snugging into my mind!” he accused. “Was that a bad thing? So did you mean I should go away?” Camilla asked, meeting the man's fiery gaze, and she sucked in air when the man's hot palm touched her back. “No, even if you do, I am going to find you with my last breath, because you need to take responsibility for me,” he says. “So what happened to the no falling in love rule,” Camilla asked with a solemn look. “Trash it!” he says, crashing his lips on hers.

Betrayed by his first love. Hunted by his own pack. Marked as nothing more than a plaything for stronger men. Zane has always been an outcast... bullied for being weak, mixed-blood, and unwanted. And just when he thought he finally found love in Ash, his world shattered with one cruel betrayal. But the Moon Goddess isn’t finished with him yet. Dragged into the elite Magic Academy, Zane thought he’d finally be free. Instead, he’s trapped between dangerous alphas, deadly rivals, and desires that could tear his soul apart. One wants to possess him. One wants to break him. And one might be his salvation… or his greatest sin. With every stolen glance, every forbidden touch, the lines between hate and obsession blur. Power isn’t the only thing awakening in Zane, so is a hunger that could ruin them all. Will Zane submit… or will he make them all kneel?

On our wedding anniversary, I ask my husband, Luke Blackburn, to buy me some fish stew. Since I'm in my first trimester, I keep vomiting every now and then due to morning sickness. Right now, I have an intense craving for fish stew. But Luke comes home empty-handed in the middle of the night. He claims that he's completely forgotten about my request. I don't say anything at all. All I notice is a strand of long hair sticking to Luke's collar that doesn't belong to me. Some time later, I see the fish stew I never got to eat in a photo that Luke's colleague, Ruby Pollard, has uploaded to her social media feed. The caption reads, "Luke ordered this dish for me. He knows that I love fish stew from this particular restaurant the most. I'm so touched by his gesture!" In the photo, I see a pair of familiar hands picking out fish bones from the meat tenderly just for Ruby.

At the company's annual banquet, my wife, Amelia Sanford, publicly announces that she is gifting her assistant, Zayden Craig, a private jet worth 20 million dollars. Zayden wraps his arm around her waist gleefully. "Thank you, Ms. Sanford. I will definitely repay your kindness." I do not argue or make a scene. I simply turn and leave. But Amelia comes after me to give me a scolding. "Why are you jealous? What is wrong with me giving my top assistant a plane? You are incapable of doing anything right, and you still have the nerve to make a fuss?" I smile bitterly and don't bother to explain. I am the one doing all the work, but all the credit goes to Zayden while she pretends not to see it. It is time to walk away from this rotten relationship.

The day before the spacecraft launch, I am anonymously reported for concealing a mental illness and lose my qualification to board. After being confined in a psychiatric hospital for three years, my husband, Simon Bergman, who is now a decorated figure in the aerospace field, personally brings me home. "I had no choice but to send you there. I even applied to be demoted just to bring you back. Let's just live our lives well from now on," Simon says. Burdened by guilt for affecting his career, I spend the rest of my life carefully taking care of him and busying myself in the kitchen as a dutiful wife. But before I die, my daughter finds the letter accusing me of having a mental condition—it is written in my husband's own hand. She also discovers decades of correspondence between him and a deceased war buddy's widow named Charmaine Marlowe. In those letters, he writes that to fulfill his buddy's dying wish to take care of Charmaine, he fabricates a false mental illness record and inserts it into my astronaut application. As a result, I was sent to the psychiatric hospital, and my position was taken by her. The glass shatters, and the sharp fragments pierce me, like they are stabbing into my heart. I was supposed to be the one to go to space. But my husband sacrificed my chance so that another woman could have it! I die in despair. When I open my eyes again, I am back on the day of the astronaut selection for the manned spacecraft launch. This time, when Simon offers to help submit my application, I refuse to let him.