Bias

Ever since my CEO husband returned from his business trip, he's been acting strange. His hugs are stiff, and his kisses are empty. Even when we're intimate, something just feels off. When I ask him why, he just smiles and says he's tired from work. But everything falls into place the moment I see his first love stepping out of his Maybach, her body covered in hickeys. That's when I finally give up. I don't argue or cry. I just smile… and tear up the 99th love coupon. Once, he wrote me a hundred love letters. On our wedding day, we made a promise—those letters would become 100 love coupons. As long as there were coupons left, I'd grant him anything he asked. Over the four years of our marriage, every time he left me for his first love, he'd cash in one. But what he doesn't know is that there are only two left.

On the day of my mate-bonding ceremony, someone threw a corrosive potion at me, leaving my face disfigured. In front of everyone, Oliver Fielding—my fated mate, the one promised to me for eight years—coldly rejected me and claimed the Alpha's younger stepsister, Isabella Dorsey, instead. That same night, Alpha Lucas Dorsey placed a moonstone ring in my hand. "If Oliver won't claim you, then I will. And I'll make sure you get justice." He brushes his fingers over my corroded, scarred cheek and whispers tenderly, "Evelyn, even in such a state, you're more beautiful than anyone else." Since he claimed me, Lucas has treated me like something sacred. He remembers every little thing I love and hate. Even when the painful memories overwhelm me and I lash out in panic, he just presses a kiss to my palm, his pain lingering in the touch. How could I not be completely lost to him? However, three years later, I overhear Lucas speaking with his assassin outside the council chamber. "That silver-laced corrosive potion I had you prepare—was the dosage correct?" The assassin hesitates before replying, "Alpha, if you care about Evelyn so much, why would you—" "Isabella wants Oliver, so I'll help her by removing the obstacle—Evelyn." He runs his thumb over the herbal sachet I made him and murmurs, "It's just… I've grown strangely reluctant to let Evelyn go. She's my pawn, after all." I wipe away my tears. If I'm nothing more than an obstacle to him, I'll save him the trouble and walk away on my own.

My boyfriend, Zayne Jefferson, is particularly gifted in certain ways. Every time we're intimate, he insists on trying something new. More than once, he gently coaxes me, saying, "Once you graduate, we'll get married." And I believe him. I throw myself into my studies, pushing hard to finish my credits early. At the same time, I secretly watch all kinds of videos at night and read up on techniques. I want to keep his body satisfied. One night, I stay up too late studying and miss curfew. I run to the bar to find him, where I overhear him chatting with his friends. "Zayne, is your girlfriend really that wild in bed?" one guy asks. "Of course. He trained her himself!" another guy says. "What about Yasmin?" Zayne exhales a stream of smoke, his eyes soft. "She's different. She's pure." In that moment, I begin to hate him. Back on campus, I make a call to my professor. "That secret program you mentioned… I want in." From this day on, my life belongs only to my career.

A love affair between two unlikely fellows because of the huge differences in their religion, culture and tribe. The two strange fellows met in a national youth service scheme after graduating from the university. It was love at first sight. But from a distance the love brewed till their paths crossed. Everything nearly fall apart if not that they were meant be. Destiny has a way of orchestrating events. They had no option than to tell themselves the truth which is that happiness lies with both of them coming together as one. But to make this happen the two had to wrestle down the tribal hatred, the religious acrimony, the cultural bias that nearly shattered their love. It's romantic, it's intriguing, it's fascinating, it's titillating and captivating.

On my twenty-third birthday, my brother, Zackary Dixon, became the wealthiest man in the country. He threw a grand birthday party for the nanny's daughter, saying that she would be the Dixon family's favorite. At the same time, something went wrong with my artificial heart. I couldn't find a suitable one, only one month left in my life. Due to the torture of illness and great pressure, I had no choice but to call him. Hearing my cough, he coldly said, "At that time, you were afraid to get involved, and now you regret it?" My throat was sore. I stared at his expressionless face through the phone and laughed bitterly. "Zackary, three hundred thousand dollars is no big deal to you. Help me, OK?" Zackary sneered. I could hear his warm voice comforting Lillianna, "Voice phishing. It's fine." Of course, he was fine, because his sound beating heart was mine.

My husband's true love developed acute kidney failure, and I was the only matching donor. To save her life, he forced me to terminate my pregnancy at six months. Despite his gentle tone, he said the most heart-wrenching words, "Can't you be a little kinder? You're just losing a child, but she's losing her life." I resisted with every fiber of my being, but he threatened his own life to force my hand. On the operating table, both my child and I died. Meanwhile, his true love's transplant was a success, and she lived. Although the outcome was exactly what he wanted, he spiraled into madness upon hearing news of my death.

As Zayla Scott, my husband's first love, pushes me down the stairs, he's in the kitchen, thoughtfully making her a warm drink. When she sees I survived, she hires someone to assault me and has me thrown into the bear enclosure at the zoo. It's only after the bears tore me apart that my husband finally remembers I exist. "All I did was refuse to take time off to pay my respects to your mother with you. How could you be so cruel, Joey? You're a zookeeper—it's your job! Why would you force Zayla, who's pregnant, to care for savage creatures? "Get over here and give Zayla a blood transfusion right now, or I'll dig up your mother's grave myself!" He doesn't know that all that's left of me is my broken body.

At my engagement banquet, a student sponsored by my fiancé sneaked drugs into a wine glass. To save my meticulously planned event, I quietly had a servant replace the glass. But then, the student and a notorious playboy had a scandalous encounter. A video leaked. Her reputation was ruined, and she jumped to her death. Then my refined fiancé forced me to kneel at her grave and tortured me to death with drugs. Only then did I learn she was his lifelong love. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the engagement banquet.

In order to protect my father, I was tortured for ten hours, but my father was busy celebrating his adopted daughter’s eighteenth birthday. With my dying breath, I called my father and said, “Dad, it’s my birthday today. Could you wish me a happy birthday?” “You crazy monster! You got your mother killed in order to celebrate your birthday! How could you still ask me to celebrate your birthday? You should just die!” With that said, he hung up. The next day, my corpse was placed in different flower pots and put in front of a police station. My father was in charge of inspecting my corpse, and he could immediately tell that the murderer did this for revenge. What they did to me was cruel and made a mockery of the police’s authority. But he did not manage to tell that the deceased was the daughter he hated.

At a dinner party, my genius painter of a husband, Henry Shepherd, used his hands, hands insured for millions, to shell crabs for his young assistant, Tamara Lee. This was all to coax her into eating a few bites when she claimed she had no appetite. Meanwhile, I drank myself into a bloody mess, trying to secure investments for him. When I asked him to hand me some antacids, he refused without even looking up. “These hands are for painting. Use your own.” For ten years, he couldn’t even be bothered to change the way he treated me. That night, as I sobered up in the cold wind, I asked my lawyer to draft a divorce agreement. "Henry, in this vast, chaotic world, our paths end here," I said inwardly