Backward Lunge

After I became pregnant, my figure changed, and my face grew puffy. My fiancé began to treat me with a subtle, almost imperceptible sense of disdain. When the baby was five months along, it happened to be Valentine's Day. That day, he finally agreed to take our wedding photos, something I'd been hoping for. But just as we arrived at the bridal studio, his phone rang. "Mike, I just got back to the country. My friends are hosting a gathering, and everyone's bringing their boyfriends. Could you come and pretend to be mine?" It was a few short sentences, yet it completely altered the expression on his face. He turned abruptly, stepping out of the studio with a look of urgency. "Lucy's back. I have to go see her," he said. Hearing those words, a fire of rage ignited inside me, one I couldn't suppress. "For her? You're going to leave me here alone?" I demanded. "Do you even know how long I've been looking forward to today? It's Valentine's Day, and instead of staying with me, you're going to be with her?" His impatience flared visibly as I stood my ground. Without a word, his hand pushed me aside, and he strode out of the shop. "We can take wedding photos any day. I'm the only one Lucy has in this country. I have to go see her," he said. Then, gripping my wrist with alarming force, he shoved me, sending me sprawling to the floor. Without a backward glance, he got into his car and drove off. I felt a sudden, wet heat flowing from my lower abdomen. Pain surged through my stomach, sharp and unbearable, as my consciousness started to fade. A wave of despair and terror consumed me. Someone. Anyone. Please save my baby.

“Look at you, so wild and vulnerable,” he said gruffly and gripped a handful of my hair and pulled it backward, causing my head to tilt back while his other hand was cupping my breast.    I gasped at his sudden roughness.    “You’re driving me crazy, Dani. You’re a good distraction. I’d never been so distracted like this that I lost focus with my master plan.” *** TERZO When I took someone’s life, I knew there was no going back. To seek redemption and save my sister from marrying an evil like Francesco Giordani, I have to find his runaway daughter. The job should be easy— bring Dani Souls home by any means necessary. But when life takes an unexpected turn, it’s not always in the right direction. I find myself drawn to her. Seeing her terrified of me, I take it to my advantage. I didn’t give her many options: marry me or marry another monster. My only issue is that she doesn’t know I killed her brother. *** DANI When a tall, dark, and mysterious man steps into my life, I know he’s a made man— extremely dangerous. In a moment of weakness, I shot him.  For someone like Terzo Siciliano, a ruthless, unforgiving, and incapable of emotions, whose surname is feared by many, I should be dead by now. Instead, he plays his cards right and lures me into a trap— a marriage for my protection, or he owns my life. While our families are on the verge of a raging war, I feel helpless to resist his devilish charm. But I don’t know which feels much worse, me treading on dangerous waters or uncovering his deceit?

Twisting her hands backward, he took her till the walls. "You did'nt leave till now?" That man questions her as he leaned to her face. "Mmm...... Mmmmm....... Please leave my hand...... Leave it..." "I won't listen to you once today. I gave you once chance." He said coming close to her in a low and bossy tone. Anna smelled the strong smell of wine. It was obvious that he was more drunk than Anna. She could strongly feel his warm breaths across her face. Her start started to beat more faster than before. "But see.... You came back to me.... Now even if you want to leave me, I won't let you leave me." Anna tried hard to leave from his grip but he pulled her towards him. He kept his lips on her lips. By this sudden kiss Anna's eyes widened. She did'nt expect something like this. That man started to kiss her wildly. She started to suffocate by his wild kiss. She tried to free herself from him but was unsuccessful. He stopped for a moment and then took her face in between his hands. Both were standing too close to each other, so close that they could hear each others heartbeat but due to the darkness in the room both were unable to see each other. "You wanted this, right? You wanted me to love you endlessly" "Yes..... Yes.... I.....wanted.... to..... but....." She was trembling as she spoke.

Dakota Stelter and I tumbled down that steep ravine together. I lay there bleeding and broken, only to watch my boyfriend scoop her into his arms and walk away without a backward glance. He left me. In that moment, in every way that mattered. While everyone fussed over Dakota's scratches, no one even checked if I was still breathing. When I was finally rescued and recovering at the hospital, my boyfriend didn't even visit. I was hurt. So I moved on. Piece by piece, I rebuilt myself without him. But then he became distraught. Suddenly, he was sobbing, telling me he had always loved me.

For years, no one had been able to activate the last dragon's heart. No one except a poor young thief. ___ She only had one job–stealing a precious stone. Yet it landed her with an overbearing dragon. ___ Locked and chained, Scar suddenly awakened when his heart palpitated for the first time in decades, coming face to face with a young girl cradling his heart. In his vengeful attempt to get it back, they activate the spell binding him to her. Now not only was his heart stolen, but he was also enslaved. Scar vowed to kill the girl once the bond was broken. The only problem is no one had ever successfully broken a dragon bond, nor would it allow him to harm its new master. ___ "Oh... um ... sorry. I didn't mean to…um.. pry. I'm... gonna go now." I stuttered, inching backward from his penetrating gaze, glancing around for a way out. "I don't know who you're, but I do know you're not here willingly. Seeing as you're chained and all." Silence. "How about I set you free, and in return, you get us out of here?" Silence. Maybe he couldn't talk, so I did the only thing I could. Grabbing the keys, I fumbled with the heavy chains of his cage. His gaze finally shifted to the wooden box I dropped on the floor. "Fancy, isn't it?" I said. "I've never seen anything like it before. But then again, I'm not familiar with expensive stuff." A deep rumble rattled from his throat, freezing me in place. I glanced up at him wearily. "Run." And then he was charging towards me. ___ Tropes: Enemies to lovers. Hidden identity. Reverse harem. Betrayal. Revenge. Arranged marriage. Contract. Escape with pregnancy. Forced proximity. ___

Albert Roosevelt was the crush I was never meant to have. Like an idiot, I believed loving someone meant giving them everything, even if they didn't care about you. So, I trailed after him like a desperate puppy, bending over backward to meet his every whim. When he couldn't afford tuition, I begged Dad to fund him, sending him to the best schools. When his worn-out clothes made him a laughingstock, I pitied him and showered him with designer labels. And what did he do? He used what I gave him to chase after a gold-digging campus belle. To keep up appearances, he blew through money like it grew on trees. He even spread rumors that he was the real heir to the Roosevelts. To him, I was just an ATM. "Your family's loaded. It's not like you'll miss a few hundred grand. If you're gonna be stingy, maybe you should stop following me around," he said when his wallet ran dry. And like a fool, I believed that if I kept paying, someday, he'd love me back. After graduation, I funded his startup. The second it took off, he married the campus belle. He had the nerve to claim he earned everything through nothing but hard work. So, I crashed his wedding, and he buried a knife in my chest. "Only when you're dead, Eve Roosevelt. Only then will my pathetic past stay buried." When I opened my eyes again, I was face-to-face with a scowling Albert. "You can't scrape together a few hundred thousand dollars? It's Bianca's birthday. Are you trying to humiliate me?" I looked around the room and rolled my eyes. "Sure, I'll pay. But first? Kneel. You look pretty enough. Consider it charity, peasant."

Vincenzo Moretti was Stonehaven’s youngest financial titan— a tech mogul commanding a multibillion-dollar empire, gracing the covers of business magazines as a modern legend. But only a select few knew the truth: he was also the ruthless Don controlling the East Coast mafia. To him, wealth and power were mere chips in a game. And I? I was just another pawn used to stabilize a fragile family alliance. In our ten-year marriage, he slept with my friends, my coworkers… every single person I once trusted. Then one morning, as I took our one-month-old baby for a routine checkup, Sienna Newton, his latest mistress, ran me down with her car. The baby screamed endlessly. I begged her to take us to the hospital, and when Vincenzo arrived, he looked at me with cold disdain. “Isabella,” he sneered, “when did you learn to stage accidents? “Even if you died here, I wouldn’t bat an eye.” Then he took Sienna’s hand and walked away without a backward glance. By the time I was rushed to the hospital, the child in my arms had suffocated. Upon hearing the news, my mother suffered a heart attack. She didn’t survive. I slipped into a coma for two days. When I finally woke up, I found out that Vincenzo never visited. Instead, his father, Renato Moretti, the true king of the Moretti empire, stood by my bedside. I looked at him calmly and said, “Let me go. Whatever I owed your family, I’ve repaid in full with two lives.” Later, that same Don who had once looked down on me knelt before me, begging me to come home. But I was no longer the woman who waited, silent and broken, for his change of heart. I was the Don’s wife who turned away and never looked back.

Having grown up together, Selena Campbell and Frederick Lancaster were childhood sweethearts known as the perfect golden couple. To support him, she planned every step with painstaking care and calculated each move to perfection. She eliminated every obstacle in his path and paved the way for him to become the only Warbringer in Aurensia. Selena thought their love would eventually lead to marriage. But one day, a plain-looking young woman suddenly walked into Frederick’s life. At first, he said, "A mountain girl like her? She's beneath you, hardly even worth a second glance." Later, he said, "She's simple-minded and naive. Don't bother with her, Lena." But Selena slowly came to realise that the way Frederick looked at her was growing colder by the day. And when he looked at that young woman, there was a spark in his eyes—like he'd come alive again, full of the passion and recklessness of youth. One day, Frederick turned to her with a weary look and said, "Selena, how's our picture-perfect life treating you? Because honestly... I think I'm getting a little tired of it." That very night, Selena tore up the betrothal contract and left without a backward glance. "You won't survive without me!" Frederick roared furiously. But Selena smiled softly. "No. You're nothing without me, Your Highness."

"The galaxy had fallen to its doom, and i had fallen for you." "I am not your knight in shining armor, neither way you're a damsel in distress." At the day of her mother's burial ceremony, instead of being awakened in her room, Anne found herself in an unfamiliar forestry. Snapping out from her daze, she looked around, only to be chased by a gigantic ravenous wolf to a cliff. Once she had fallen, she instanly concluded that she had lost the creature. However, later, she instinctively found it staring at her intently, ready to lunge an attack. Without restraints, the wolf swiftly ran towards her. Anne then immediately closed her eyes and started praying for a painless death. 3...2...1.. but nothing happened! When she opened her eyes, a figure suddenly appeared in front of her, done in a black suit. The person then slowly turned around meeting her gaze. Seeing its face, Anne shuddered in fear—its face was covered with black with only its mouth shown, grinning seemingly in a hideous manner. The man was called Toto, the guardian of the forestry. After a polite exchange, Toto agreed to help Anne get back to her home, however, in the last moments, Anne had lost her memory. But who knows where Toto would actually take her. "The astral would devoured its way to gave me a path to follow; and at the far end, I am certain to find you. Random belief, it's not—it's not but a conviction!" When a suicidal fiction enthusiast dreamt about wonderland and found herself in Neverland, what would become of her? In a world of battling vampires and wolves, elves and wizards, royalties drenched in etiquette, treachery, and confusion. When you fall in love, will you listen to your heart or will you betray the universe?

A medical report shows me my husband's true colors. I've been diagnosed with late-stage stomach cancer. Yet, my husband gives our life savings to someone else. I lunge at him to take my anger out on him, but he shoves me to the floor. "Lillian needs the money to open up a shop, you madwoman! So what if I've given her the money? "You have late-stage stomach cancer, so it's the end of the line for you! Why are you trying to compete with someone who has a long life ahead when you already have one foot in the grave? You can't expect Mom and I to lose everything because of you, right?" I sit dazedly on the floor. I've never found him more unfamiliar. After that, I sneak all my wedding gifts out, wanting to sell them for money. However, I'm told they're all fakes. My husband sneers. "I'm glad I had the foresight to switch them out for the real deal. You would've taken all the money if not for that!" Later, the hospital called to say there was an issue with their system. The names on the medical reports were wrongly indicated. I ask my husband, "Why are you competing with someone who has a long life ahead when you already have one foot in the grave?"