Eight Dates

Since childhood, Astin Kier Hernandez has loved Laura Miller. But it was a one-sided love. Laura never had feelings for him. Still, he didn’t give up; he guarded her closely all through college. Out of gratitude to his family, Laura agreed when he proposed in front of their parents. He knew she wouldn’t refuse because of gratitude to their family. He thought he was the happiest man that day. He was wrong. Laura admitted she already had a boyfriend, Gael. But Astin didn’t allow the wedding plans to be canceled. Learning this, he rushed to set the wedding date. On their wedding day, Laura didn’t show up, and that was his first heartbreak. One-sided love is torture. For months, he disappeared from everyone’s radar, leaving behind his comfortable life. To forget, he joined the military, spending four years in training. After that, his team was deployed abroad on their first mission, which lasted longer than expected. Eight years is a long time, so he returned to the Philippines. He and Laura crossed paths once again. But he was no longer the Astin who was hopelessly in love with her. How many women had he left heartbroken whenever he was reassigned to a different place? But how could he now avoid the woman who did nothing but apologise and try to win him over every day? And how long could she endure his cold treatment?

The day Adrian Knight clinched a contract with our biggest client, I "accidentally" tipped a bottle of ink across the paperwork, voiding it on the spot. Because of that single blot, the project landed in Alex Lewis’s lap, and he won Chairman Henry Carter’s favor almost overnight, moving into the Carter mansion as their future son-in-law and watching his net worth rocket into eight figures. Adrian never blamed me. He just laughed that he’d never been executive material anyway and happily brought me home as his bride. Everyone whispered that, if not for my meddling, Adrian would already be sitting in the Carter family’s executive suite instead of scraping by in an ordinary life with me. Only I knew the truth: stopping him from signing that contract had saved his life. When Adrian learned I was pregnant, he locked me in the basement, fingers digging into my throat. "If it hadn’t been for you," he snarled, "I’d be Henry Carter’s son-in-law by now. You’re the reason I lost Rachel, the princess of the Carter family." That’s when I realized he’d been nursing this grudge for years. After he killed me, I woke up, reborn on the very day Adrian first reached for that fatal contract. This time, I’ll make sure Adrian Knight gets exactly what he wants.

Nova doesn’t know much, but she knows three things. One: Her mother was murdered by wolves. Two: She has terrible nightmares of a large black wolf with vivid blue eyes hunting her down. Three: There’s no out running fate. The past can be painful. Nova’s past is so painful that her brain blocked it out. With clouded memories and nothing more than a sick feeling deep in her gut, she’s forced back home where her mother was murdered to visit her grandmother and estranged sister that she hasn’t seen in eight years. Nova’s expecting the worst. To not make it home alive. To either be mauled or claimed by wild animals. To meet the same fate as her mother. Things start tumbling out of control when she meets an eerily familiar stranger. Nox in all his tall, dark and brooding demeanor leaves her with a bad feeling. It’s probably the fact that he claims to know her or it’s that she’s starting to believe him. But Nox isn’t the only one in her hometown that’s out to get her. They may be true mates, but what neither of them know is that Nova’s mother had more secrets than either are aware of. There’s another wolf that’s looking to collect what is rightfully his and he won’t stop until Nova is mated to him.

Ivy Woods has always felt like an outsider in the normal world, and her entire life was a lie. Her mother and father were killed when she was eight years old. Her grandmother told her that she suffers from hallucinations, but the truth is that Ivy has a wolf inside her that materialized when she was five years old. One day, she meets this stranger in a bar, who almost marked her as his Luna but then rejected her days after. Feeling humiliated, she wanders into the woods, only to have her life change forever. She then meets Alpha Blake of the Silver Moon Pack, who has been waiting twenty years to find his mate, only to discover her at the edge of death. To save her life, he must mark her as his mate immediately. When he learns that she knows nothing of the were-world, he must solve the mystery of why someone would go to such extremes to hide her with the help of his best friend and beta, Rick. But Rick has a secret that may end his decade-long friendship with Blake; he is the stranger who rejected Ivy, and he is her true mate. Alpha Blake also has a darkness in him that is not compatible with Ivy. The more he absorbs her power, the more he cannot contain it. Ivy also finds out the real reason to her parents' deaths, and she wishes she had never met the Silver moon pack.

My sister-in-law, Hannah Martinez, was eight months pregnant when someone shoved her to the ground. Due to the heavy bleeding, she was rushed to the hospital. I happened to drive past, but I rolled up my window and pretended I saw nothing, pressing down on the gas pedal. In my previous life, I had immediately taken Hannah to the hospital when I saw her pass out from the blood loss. However, the situation was critical. After the severe bleeding, she developed an amniotic fluid embolism. My wife, Lauren Martinez, was the best obstetrician in the city. I called her, begging her to hurry to the hospital. Yet, she thought I was throwing a tantrum out of jealousy because she was having dinner with her first love, Isaac Poole, and his family. She believed I was using Hannah's emergency to force her to come back. By the time her family finally arrived, Hannah had already died from the failed treatment of the amniotic fluid embolism. Her entire family blamed me for Hannah's death, convinced that I had deliberately caused Lauren to misunderstand and let Hannah die. My brother-in-law, Jacob Turner, who rushed back from out of town, believed their lies. In his overwhelming grief, he hacked me to death with a knife at Hannah's funeral. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day Hannah was pushed and started bleeding out.

When I was eight months pregnant, my husband's foster sister invited me to hike a snow-covered mountain. Midway up, an avalanche hit. We were both buried. My husband rushed to the scene, but before I could utter a word, his sister accused me: "She planned this! She tricked me into coming today!" I tried desperately to explain. He didn't listen. Instead, he lashed out at me. "Sandra doesn't know any better, but you should! So what if she's blunt? Is this your petty revenge? Your pathetic life couldn't even begin to repay hers if she'd been hurt!" Then he left. Took her hand. Walked away. I screamed after him, begging him to save our baby. He didn't even glance back. Worse, he unhooked my safety harness and shoved me out of the rescue group. "Since you're so clever, find your own way down." Not long after, another avalanche hit. This time, I couldn't get back up. Three hours later, Sandra was in a car accident. She needed a blood transfusion. That's when he finally thought of me. But by then, he didn't know—I was already gone. Me, and the child I'd never hold, were still buried under the snow.

It is payback time! Cynthia Laurent’s comeback is fueled by heartbreak… and a love that won’t let go. The day she was told she had six months to live, her husband’s betrayal cut deeper than any diagnosis. While grappling with a brain tumor, Cynthia overheard her stepsister’s cruel confession: “I’m pregnant.” One look at her husband’s face told her the truth — the affair was real, and the baby was his. Eight years of marriage, discarded like trash. Her pleas were met with her mother-in-law’s venom who saw her only as a nanny, a cook, a housekeeper, a cleaner – never a daughter-in-law and her eight-year-old son’s chilling wish for a “new mom.” Broken and abandoned, Cynthia vanished to Paris, ready to die. But fate had other plans. In Paris, three men of immense power burst into her life, claiming to be her brothers and vowed to protect her at all costs. Titans of industry, speed, and medicine, they rebuilt Cynthia from the ground up. Now, as the Michelin-starred queen of Maison Cynclair, Cynthia returns to the city that destroyed her. Her ex-husband falls to his knees. “We’re still married,” he pleads. Her son cries, “Mom, don’t you love me anymore?” The woman they once broke is gone. “Thank you for your betrayal,” she replied, calm and clear. “It made me a hundred-million-dollar woman.” A man’s love fades. An empire? Never.

WARNING: Some chapters contained hot scene/bed scene. Please be mindful that 17 below is not suitable for reading those. Read at your own risk. One-night-stand changes everything. Dahil sa kalasingan nina Rosalie at Jervis, hindi sinasadya ng kanilang katawan na makipag-laro sa isang lugar. It was a big mistake. There are best friends. But after that, they agreed that they could touch each other. However, Rosalie loves his second boy’s best friend ever since she was eight and Harvick was eleven. She couldn’t find her way kung paano siya mapansin ni Harvick. Not until Jervis confesses that he loves Rosalie. Rosalie refuses and rejects him because Rosalie loves Harvick ever since they were kids. Ngunit isang malaking pagsisisi para kay Rosalie na i-reject ang kanyang unang naging kaibigan sapagkat palagi itong tumatakbo sa kanyang isipan. Hindi niya maintindihan ang kanyang nararamdaman at naguguluhan siya sa kanyang dalawang kaibigan. Not until tragic happened, hindi lubos maisip ni Rosalie ang kanyang nalaman. Sino kaya ang kanyang pipiliin sa dalawa? Si Jervis ba na parating nandiyan para sa kanya? O ang kanyang pinapangarap na lalaki simula pa n’ong mga batang paslit pa sila?

On the day of our engagement, my girlfriend, Jean Sullivan, is nowhere to be found until late at night. Beside myself with worry, I, Seth Lloyd, frantically reach out to our mutual friends and even consider calling the police. Suddenly, I come across a post about her from her assistant, Callum Cox. "My manager came over to discuss some plans, but the door lock suddenly broke. Does this mean we're going to be stuck in the same room tonight? I can't help feeling a little excited." When I like the post, Jean immediately calls me, furious. "Don't you have any idea how much I earn in a year? Just one day of my lost income would cover what you make in a whole week. "All I did was skip that stupid engagement party, and you start acting all snide. I don't have time to deal with your stingy relatives." My mom, Teresa Whitfield, stays silent, her eyes sweeping over the gold, eight sets of haute couture jewelry, and several property transfer deeds in the private room. With a forced smile, she asks, "Seth, have all these wedding gifts we've prepared embarrassed you?" I sneer, caressing the keys to the luxury car I'm about to give Jean. "No, it's me who's being too generous to her."

I was born with a strange, painful condition. Women are strongly drawn to me, yet after I got married, I became allergic to my own wife, Quinn Rowan. Every attempt at intimacy left me covered in burning red welts, struggling to breathe. More than once, I nearly went into shock. Nevertheless, my desire to have a child was overwhelming. So one night, gambling with my life, I quietly slipped into the bedroom. Strangely, nothing happened to me that night. Soon, Quinn became pregnant. I naively believed everything would finally return to normal. Then, eight months into her pregnancy, a single accidental touch sent me into another violent allergic reaction, and I was rushed to the hospital. When I finally came to, Quinn was nowhere to be found. At the end of the corridor, I heard her whispering with her girlfriends, "Look how ridiculous he looked, all swollen and gasping. Pathetic." Quinn dangled the special tonic she had always claimed was meant to help me, her voice dripping with disdain, "I engineered this formula myself. I made sure he’d break out in hives the moment he touched me. That way, he’d never come near me. "But since he was so desperate for a kid, I decided to let him raise the baby Miles and I conceived together. It’s charity, really." My blood froze. The child I longed for, the baby I treasured, was never mine.