Batting Batting

When I was four months pregnant, my fiance, who was a doctor, left me hanging when we were supposed to get married. This was not the first time; this was the sixteenth time. The first time, his nurse fainted at the sight of blood during an operation, and I waited for him for an entire day at the city hall. The second time, his nurse called, and he left me behind on a viaduct to buy daily necessities for her. Whenever we were about to get married, his nurse would call him for all sorts of problems. The final time was when he told me he was sick. Despite the rain, I rushed to the hospital, only to find that it was his nurse who was sick. He stayed by her side to care for her while he lied to me without batting an eye. At that moment, I began to hate him. I aborted our baby and left. But he chased after me and even traveled out of the country just to apologize.

One impetuous night gave them a gem and a lifetime of happiness. Izabelle had one-time sex with her crush, her cousin’s bestfriend after he was drugged. Later learning that she was pregnant, a misunderstanding flared where he believed that she had it all planned out. He agreed on taking responsibility but Izabelle’s desire was not to get into a loveless marriage and so she gathered her belongings and fled the country. Five years later, he saved a cute little bunny from child traffickers at the airport not knowing that the child was his. “You look like me, see? We have same eye colour,” the child pointed out. Then again, few minutes later when her Mother walked in, ‘Mommy, look I found daddy.” She raised her head to meet those icy familiar dark eyes. All Izabelle wanted was to keep her child away from Marcel but what about the sweet little thing holding onto his legs out of nowhere, batting her eyes at him and asking. “Will you be my daddy?”

Viviana Bellini was a free spirit who loved unconditionally and thought she had found her prince charming who was a mafia until he slept with her supposed best friend and cast her away, now that she is betrayed she swears to return and get her revenge but on reaching her home, she finds out that she had been arranged to a cold mafia don. But instead of staying in the house like the good wife her father wanted her to be, Viviana decided to go into the wild. Raffaele Conte was a man who was cold, calm and a silent assassin who could get blood on his face without even batting an eyelash, he never smiled and he never cried, people called him the cold sculpture until he met Viviana who seemed to show him another color that is not black. But Viviana is not all that meets the eyes and Raffaele has his own secrets. Would these two people navigate into a love unquenchable when the secret is revealed? Or will their various quests tear them apart and make them enemies?

In my third month of employment, I realized that my colleagues were calling me an old geezer behind my back. This nickname came from Wanda Stewart’s arrogant and ambitious assistant. I had hit the age of 32, but was still clinging onto the last vestiges of hope of marriage after eight long years of our relationship. I asked Wanda, “Do you know that your subordinates call me an old geezer?” She said without batting an eyelid, “That’s just the way Samuel is. He’s just a straight-talker and he’s just kidding. You’re already 32, are you seriously fussing about this?” She then chuckled, “You two are really alike.” My heart turned cold. Turns out that eight years of my youth were nothing but a joke to her. I turned to leave, resigning from my post and blocking her. Yet, the woman who was always so calm and cool started panicking. “Jansen Graham, please come back to me.”

My new dormmate thinks my boyfriend is a player and advises me to break up with him. After I politely reject her, she gets mad and complains about me online, saying I'm love-addled brain. Her video goes viral, and the online community calls me an ingrate who doesn't know what's good for me. When I see the smug smile on my dormmate's face, I slap her without even batting an eye. "Stop acting like you're a champion for feminism when all you can think of is making yourself seem better than other women!"

During a charity gala, my boyfriend bids on a pair of matching watches but gives one of them to his true love. The media excitedly capture the scene and ask, "You bought a million-dollar watch without even batting an eye, Mr. Loewe. You've been single all these years—is it time for you to make an official announcement on your relationship status?" Everyone off stage applauds him, and I join them. I give him my blessings for his so-called announcement. To make it up to me, he attends my birthday celebration. Yet he pushes me into the cake to make his true love happy. Unbeknownst to him, there's a steel rack in the cake to keep it steady. I end up bloodied and on the brink of death.

She thought her life couldn’t get any worse—a college dropout forced to become the breadwinner for her sick mother and gambling father, who favored her younger sister over her. She worked at a restaurant under a perverted boss who constantly made unwanted advances toward her. Unfortunately, the day she decided to run away from that miserable job was the same day she discovered her father owed a powerful mafia boss a huge debt. And that mafia boss had only one way to collect his money—by taking one of the siblings. Without batting an eye, her parents threw her at the mafia boss as payment. And in that devastating moment, they revealed the cruelest truth of all— She was never their real daughter. She was just an orphan they had taken in before they were blessed with a child of their own.

Eight years of loyalty—wiped out by three days of her batting her lashes. At the bonfire, I swore the Alpha would finally mark me. Instead, I watched him fasten a sparkly little pendant around her neck. When the fire broke out, he ditched me—flames snapping at my heels. Said I could "handle myself," then played hero carrying her out. She showed up at my herb shop all smug, called me a "mutt no one wants." Then he showed up—Alpha on his knees outside my door, begging for another shot. I nodded toward my shelves. "These heal every wolf in Stormborne... except the Alpha who couldn't see what was right in front of him."

"Tell me why you're so insistent on marrying me.""Because I love you, of course." Celeste York's words are sweet as honey, but her eyes are cold as ice and devoid of emotion.Damon Bishop snorts. No one on this earth has ever had the nerve to treat him as their prey. He admires Celeste's pluck.Yet to his surprise, the day after he turns her down, Damon finds Celeste is able to watch him and his fiancée walk past her without batting an eye.This pisses Damon off. Is this how Celeste acts when she loves someone?

Meghan Summers; Mean lean captain of the basketball team. She'll slam your ass in the lockers and tell you the painful truth without batting a lash Zayn Rodriguez; The badboy with presumed skeletons and the leather jacket, of course. These two were cliques apart until a stupid dare brought them together. When an arranged marriage threatens to make things more than they are, Meg and Zayn must see to it that things don't change.