Bondage Project

On our seventh wedding anniversary, I was straddling my Mafia husband, Lucian, kissing him deeply. My fingers fumbled in the pocket of my expensive silk dress, searching for the pregnancy test I'd hidden there. I wanted to save the news of my unexpected pregnancy for the end of the evening. Lucian's right-hand man, Marco, asked with a suggestive smile in Italian: "Don, your new little canary, Sophia. How does she taste?" Lucian's mocking laughter vibrated through my chest, sending a chill down my spine. He replied, also in Italian: "Like an unripe peach. Fresh and tender." His hand was still caressing my waist, but his gaze was distant. "Just keep this between us. If my Donna finds out, I'm a dead man." His men chuckled knowingly, raising their glasses and swearing their silence. The warmth in my blood turned to ice, inch by inch. The one thing they didn’t know was that my grandmother was from Sicily, so I understood every word. I forced myself to remain calm, keeping the perfect smile of a Donna fixed in place, but the hand holding my champagne flute trembled. Instead of making a scene, I opened my phone, found the invitation I had received a few days ago for a private international medical research project, and tapped "Accept." In three days, I would disappear from Lucian's world completely.

I lose my memory and wander the streets, surviving on scraps and the kindness of strangers. Then, Miles Blackwood from the Institute of Medical Research finds me and takes me in. He tells me that I'm his long-lost fiancee who ran away years ago, and that he's spent every ounce of energy searching for me ever since. As I'm frail and riddled with illness, he watches over me as I take my medication every day, tracing the scar on my lower back with a strange, tender affection. But everything shatters the day I regain my memory. I accidentally overhear Miles speaking to a friend. "Miles, you forcibly removed Cassidy's kidney for Claudia back then. That was what caused her to lose her memories. And in the end, you let Claudia take all the credit for the research. "Now, after Cassidy's been suffering out there for years, you're bringing her back just to use her for the artificial kidney project? Aren't you worried that she'll regain her memories?" Miles scoffs. "She's incredibly grateful to me now. Besides, she's just a sickly woman. So what if she finds out? As long as we succeed in the research on artificial kidneys, Claudia will become the star of the medical world. As for Cassidy? She'll have made her contribution to the medical field." A cold chill rushes through me in an instant—I am Cassidy.

I gave my full support when my father decided to set aside $2.1 billion in trust funds for his three illegitimate kids. Things had been very different in my previous life. At the time, the company urgently needed capital for a new project, and I had convinced my father to postpone setting up the trusts. I never imagined the three of them would take it as an attempt to seize the family fortune for myself. Furious, they went street racing to vent their anger. The result was a fatal crash. The car was destroyed, and none of them survived. Under my leadership, the company continued to grow at an astonishing pace and eventually secured a place on the Fortune Global 500 list. Yet on the very day I received the title of Young Entrepreneur of the Year, my father got me drunk and ordered my limbs broken. As I lay there screaming in agony, I demanded to know why he was doing this to me. His reply was filled with venom as he crushed my fingers one after another. "If you hadn't been so greedy for the inheritance, Ethan and the others wouldn't have gone out to clear their heads. They never would have died in that crash." In the end, my father beat me to death. When my critically ill mother learned the truth, the shock took her life as well. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day my father decided to establish the trust.

One day, my partner, Natalie Moore, cried and begged me to let her have the baby she had conceived with her childhood sweetheart, Yarden Holt. I agreed, but only on two conditions. Firstly, Yarden had to take the child abroad and never come back. Secondly, if Natalie ever broke the first condition and allowed them to come back, half of the Moore family’s estate had to be transferred to me. Everyone called me a gold-digging opportunist. They accused me of using a woman to climb the social ladder and coveting the Moore family fortune. Nevertheless, Natalie was willing to go against the entire Moore Corp board just to keep that child. Five years after that, I went to a neighboring city for a project and found a little boy. I took him to the police station so they could contact his family. The officer dialed the number the boy gave, and the voice that came through was one I knew all too well. “Baby, don’t worry. I’m coming to get you right now.” Less than half an hour later, Natalie, who was supposed to be hundreds of miles away at a meeting, stormed into the police station. I sat on a bench and watched her indifferently. She froze, and her face turned pale. I smiled and stood up to greet her. “Natalie, I had no idea that you had secretly brought this little boy back. Did you stop caring about your inheritance?”

My husband, Liam, got his terminally ill ex-girlfriend, Chloe, pregnant. He said it was to grant her dying wish of becoming a mother. On the day she gave birth, Liam's sister, Isabella, hired a security firm to guard the hospital, claiming it was to prevent me from causing a scene. Isabella stood by Chloe's bedside. "Don't worry, I have people posted at the entrance. If Ava dares to show up and make trouble, we'll have her thrown out immediately." Liam, seeing I hadn't come, breathed a sigh of relief. "Chloe, just focus on delivering our baby safely. Don't worry about anything else." He truly believed that since he was only fulfilling his dying ex's last wish, I would never be so unreasonable as to make a fuss. Looking at the tiny, rosy infant in his arms, he sent me a text: "Darling, I did this for you. I had her carry a child for us, so you could finally be a mother." He thought that as long as I accepted it all, this child was my ultimate reward. But what he didn't know was that I had just surrendered my residency. In one week, I would be in Kenya, working as a volunteer on a project of biomedical research. It was meant to be a final goodbye—a world away from Liam, forever. But he was searching for me like a madman, pleading for me to return.

Before the company Ruby Lane and I built finally landed a multimillion-dollar funding, she had agreed that we would get married once the deal closed. But when I rushed to the celebration party that night, I saw Ruby kissing the investor, Jack Hunter, in front of everyone. Then, she proudly held up their marriage certificate. Jack took the microphone and said, "To prove I'm serious, I didn't just invest money into the company, I gave myself too! My wife will lead this company to even greater heights!" My colleagues all looked at me, expecting me to cause a scene. Instead, all I did was smile as I clapped. "That's great news! I wish both of you a happy life from now on and hope that the company goes public soon!" The entire room went into an uproar. After the party, Ruby pulled me aside to explain what happened. "Jack throws money at this project like it's nothing to him. He just wants to know what marriage feels like, that's all. Did you really have to act that childishly just now? "Once the company goes public, I'll divorce him. Then, I'll make it up to you by doubling the amount of shares you'll get. You can see the big picture, right?" I smiled and stepped back. "Don't bother. The share price would have crashed. We're done, Ruby."

For ten years, my family had called me a jinx. When I was three years old, my dad claimed that he lost a major project because he had to take care of me due to my illness. My mom wanted to buy me sweets, only to end up getting hit by a car in front of a candy store. That was how she hurt her arm. My older sister, Siena Bell, often claimed that she screwed up in her tests simply because I kept breaking her pens. One day, my mom invited a shaman named Mr. Reyes over. After inspecting the house, he contemplated for a while. "This child is affiliated with misfortune by nature. She's a walking jinx who absorbs the entire family's luck." He then added, "But if she has a life of misfortune, you will regain your luck." At first, I felt aggrieved and tried to fight back by throwing tantrums. I tugged at my mom's sleeve while arguing loudly, "I'm not a jinx!" But my mom just looked at me calmly. There was a hint of eerie calmness in her eyes. She said, "Mr. Reyes said that you have to accept your fate. Someone has to bear the sacrifices no matter what." Her icy words doused out the hope in my heart. In a way, this twisted dynamic actually worked. My dad's business went steady, whereas Siena started getting better grades. At one point, I even started thinking that I was a real jinx. But… why was it that my family was haunted by more misfortune after my death?

Following the success of her two novels, Cela receives an offer for the TV adaptation of her stories but a third story has to be written soon to complete a three-story special. She is not in to the project until she rediscovers the paper bearing the address of the meeting place of her supposed first date with Nate. Now that her mother is no longer around to interfere, she becomes inspired to reunite with him after many years and hopefully write the third novel based on their new story. Unfortunately, he is now about to get married in two months. Disappointed with the turn of events, she decides not to meet him again. She visits their old meeting place and finds it a good place to write but unexpectedly meets him there. They agree not to talk to each other if they meet there again but fate leads them to meet again under different circumstances leaving them no choice but to speak to each other. Suddenly, Nate’s fiancée starts acting weird and suggests that he spend the weekend with Cela while she is away. Although it confuses him, he figures that it is her way of helping him get closure. The two spend one Sunday reminiscing the past expecting a closure in the end but the wonderful moment they share this time only makes it harder to achieve that closure so Cela has to put a stop to it saying, “Please don't think even for a second that there is still something left or something new to explore after everything that happened or did not happen. This is not a novel. This is reality. We don't get sequels or spin-offs in real life. We just continue. We move forward and that's how we get to the ending."

Giselle Shaw, the intern, has sent a five-dollar bonus to the company's group chat that has 500 members in it. I get crowned as the luckiest person for being able to claim 20 cents from the bonus. So, Giselle tags me in the group chat immediately. "Hey Rebecca! Since you're the luckiest person in the group chat, why don't you send a bonus here? There are 500 people in this group chat altogether, so you can just send 5,000 dollars here. "5,000 dollars isn't much for you, right? It so happens to be the bonus you've received from Mr. Gallagher because of the project you've secured. You can send us the bonus so that we can get some good luck from you!" The moment I refuse, Giselle begins playing the pity card in the group chat by claiming that she can't reap good luck for everyone in the company. My boyfriend, Vincent Gallagher, rushes into my office and starts berating me angrily. "Rebecca Campbell, just how stingy are you to not want to send a five-thousand-dollar bonus to the group chat despite being a higher-up in this company? You even made a young woman cry! Is this how you do things? "You'd better send a 50-thousand-dollar bonus to the group chat right now and write a five-thousand-word apology letter by hand! I want you to sincerely apologize to Giselle as well! Otherwise, I'll break up with you! You can forget about retaining your position in this company, too!"

~ ALISTAIR ~ I hate him. There’s no point in admiring what you can’t be. I hate his sharp tongue, his smug smirk, the way he looks at me like he already knows how this ends. I don’t like men. Calvin Rutledge is a problem. A problem I can’t ignore. A problem that’s in my face, under my skin, unraveling me one smirk at a time. But the worst part? I want him. And he knows it. Now, every glance burns, every touch lingers, and every fight makes me crave the one thing I swore I’d never want—him. A man. A know-it-all who plays by his own rules. I was never supposed to want him. And yet, here I am… falling. __ ~ CALVIN ~ I know his type. Rich. Arrogant. A cocky football star who thinks the world revolves around him. Alistair Morano is all that—and more. My sworn enemy. My reluctant project partner. My ‘boss’. He thinks I’m just another nerd he can push around. Cute. But here’s the thing—he’s the one being played. By the time he realizes I’m the one pulling the strings, it’ll be too late. Because he’ll be mine. Mine to tease. Mine to break. Mine to ruin. And when he finally falls? I’ll be right there, waiting to catch him, just to break him all over again.