Faded Letters

Three years of contract marriage, and Silas has been the picture of icy restraint — buttoning his shirts all the way to the top. Knowing he doesn't love me, I decide to stop lying to myself. But just as I'm about to flee with the divorce papers, I stumble upon a forum called Mischief & Mayhem. The pinned post screams in red letters: "URGENT! I'm actually an incubus. I've spent three years pretending to be cold and celibate so I won't scare my wife. But she just asked for a divorce and I can't hide it anymore... HELP: How do I win her back in 30 days without revealing what I am?" In the attached photo, a black heart-tipped tail is shamefully coiled around a suit trouser leg, its tip hooked around a tie. That tie — I bolt upright in bed. That's the limited-edition tie I gave Silas. My iceberg husband is secretly a lovesick male incubus?

Her name, they say, is Bliss. Silent, radiant, and obedient, she’s the perfect bride for enigmatic billionaire Damon Gibson. Yet Bliss clings to fleeting fragments of a life before the wedding: a dream of red silk, a woman who mirrors her face, a voice whispering warnings in the shadows. Her past is a locked door, and Damon holds the key. When Bliss stumbles into a hidden wing of his sprawling mansion, she finds a room filled with relics of another woman. Photos, perfume, love letters, and a locket engraved with two names reveal a haunting truth. That woman, Ivana, was more than a stranger. She was identical to Bliss. As buried memories surface, the fairy tale Bliss believed in fractures into a web of obsession, deception, and danger. Damon’s charm hides secrets, and the love she thought she knew feels like a gilded cage. To survive, Bliss must unravel the mystery of who she was and what ties her to Ivana. In a world where love can be a trap and truth a weapon, remembering the bride she used to be is her only way out.

In the quiet, affluent suburb of Ashford Grove outside Minneapolis, power wears philanthropy like perfume. Emily Hart grew up believing her mother died in an accident tied to a wealthy family’s private gathering. Fifteen years later, armed with letters written before her mother’s death, Emily returns to Minnesota determined to uncover the truth behind the Richardson empire — a dynasty known for charity, influence, and untouchable prestige. What she finds is not just corruption, but ritual. Not just silence, but a system built on sacrifice. When she uncovers financial records linking her mother’s death to a secret covenant operating beneath the Richardson Foundation, Emily discovers something even more destabilizing: a hidden adoption, sealed for years, connecting her to Alexander Cole — a young financial analyst unknowingly raised inside the very structure that destroyed their mother. As alliances fracture and secrets rise to the surface, Emily must decide whether truth is worth the destruction it brings. In a city that survives through reputation and silence, what happens when the shadow is finally named?

When the babies in my womb were about five months old, I suddenly heard my daughter's voice in my head. "Mommy, Bella is trying to get rid of me. She's grabbing my umbilical cord with her hands. It hurts so much…" Believing Ava, I forced myself to eat nonstop and take every supplement I could. I even asked the doctor whether there was any medicine that could suppress Bella's growth. When I was in labor, the fetuses were too large. I lost so much blood and only delivered Ava before I died. Bella died in me as well. Right before my consciousness faded, I saw the newly born Ava looking at me with a wicked smile. "You idiot. You believed everything I said. Your luck, Bella's luck, and even Daddy's luck. I'll gladly take them all." Only then did I realize that Ava, whom I fought so hard to give birth to, was a monster. When I opened my eyes again, it was back to the very first day I heard Ava's voice in my head.

"Sign it." He barked, before motioning Andrew, his butler over and handing him the briefcase. "What is it?" I murmured, retracting the paperwork from the envelope. The words "Divorce Agreement" were written vividly in block letters on the heading. My legs weakened as a mix of trepidation, befuddlement, and shock engulfed me. Fernando wanted a divorce which meant that I was now officially doomed. + Helen Crawford is the demure and petite wife of Fernando Alvarez. All that changes one day, when Fernando comes home from work one day, flings a brown envelope at her, and asks for a divorce, simply because his one true love is now back in town. Betrayed, she signs it without a squeak and walks out of his life forever, unknowingly pregnant. However, karma soon strikes and Fernando realizes that he made a grave mistake of divorcing Helen for his ex-girlfriend. But by then, many years have passed and Helen has already told their son that he is dead. Will it be too late for Fernando to rectify his errors, and get his family back?

I died beneath the Ferris wheel where Henry Cadden and Sophie Lloyd had their secret affair. Two lives were lost that day, mine and my unborn child's, but they all said it was my fate, and I deserved it. Sophie had orchestrated everything. She convinced Henry to cut our child from my body and give it to her, then stole my phone to frame me for infidelity. She also asked him not to look for me. Later, he found out the truth. The lifeless body he discovered was mine, and the child he had removed from my womb for Sophie was our own. My remains weren't even complete. He told himself it was for the best, that the child had done a good deed and would be blessed for it. But deep down, guilt consumed him. Still, in the end, he decided to marry Sophie. As my soul faded and seemed to be slipping away for good, he exposed Sophie's evil deeds at their wedding. In a final act of desperation, he dragged her and jumped down the building. She died instantly on the spot, but he didn't and went into a coma for life.

"Unbelievable! My virtuous daughter-in-law wants to become my mistress. I must be dreaming." Watching Edrick pretending to be all surprised, I wanted nothing but the ground to open up and swallow me whole. "I am truly willing to do anything you want," I desperately said. "Suck my d**k. I need to check the product before I buy it, right?" The playful expression on Edrick's face faded as he spoke with an intimidating tone. "What!" I gasped. On the day Elaira got married, she was kidnapped by her ex Edrick from whom she ran away five years ago while being pregnant and discovered that Edrick was her husband's father. On top of that, Elaira's husband tried to give her away to his father as a price for getting acknowledgement as his heir. After knowing that she was just a pawn in her husband's scheme for inheritance and becoming her father-in-law's mistress overnight who will she choose? Her treacherous husband or formidable ex who wants Elaira to give birth to his child even though she is now his daughter-in-law!

The novel consists of several mini-stories about therapy sessions at a therapy clinic named "Soulmate", but the letters "m-a-t-e" were broken in a storm. Each mini-story is narrated by both the psychologists and the patients, describe the patients' worldview, why they do what seems "mentally ill" to us. We often say that the patients' head is abnormal, that their way of thinking is so weird. But is there any possibility that it's because they received different (whether right or wrong) information, so they react differently? Is that just because we "normal people" haven't got enough understanding about this world? Throughout the story, we could see that therapy sessions are a two-way arrow. While the experts are affecting the patient, the patient is also influencing them,“When you look deeply into the darkness, the deep darkness is also looking into you". The story does not make any conclusion about who is right or which world is real, maybe all of them are real, maybe they are all virtual, or maybe, it all doesn't matter. Isn't the world where we live? Wherever you live, that's your world.

After Ryan Spencer cheated on me again with his secretary, I completely lost it. When my mind started to spiral, I grabbed the fruit knife off the table. I just wanted it to end. “Why are you hurting yourself again? He doesn’t love you anymore?” I looked up. The sixteen-year-old Ryan was walking toward me, heartbreak written all over his face. His voice was gentle. “Tell me who he is. I’ll make him pay.” I stared into the bright, earnest eyes of the boy standing in front of me. I didn’t say a word. I simply lifted my hand and pointed at his face. Later, Ryan was the one who had me admitted to a psychiatric hospital. When the sedative began to wear off, the teenage boy appeared again, sitting by my bed. He stared at the man outside who looked just like him. The light in his eyes faded little by little. Then he spoke, his voice strained. “I don’t care who he is. I’ll kill him.” The sixteen-year-old Ryan never lied to me. When he said something, he meant it.

Adam Smith, Ceo of Smith enterprises, New York's most eligible bachelor, was having trouble sleeping since a few weeks. The sole reason for it was the increasing work pressure. His parents suggested him to get another assistant to ease his workload. Rejection after Rejection, no one seemed to be perfect for the position until a certain blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl walked in for the interview. The first thing any interviewee would do when they meet their interviewer is to greet them with respect but instead of that Kathie Patterson decided to spank Mr. Smith's ass. Surely an innovative way to greet someone and say goodbye to their chance of getting selected but to her surprise, she was immediately hired as Mr. Smith's assistant. Even though Adam Smith had his worries about how she would handle all the work as she was a newbie, all his worries faded away when she started working. Always completing the work on time regardless of all the impossible deadlines. An innovative mind to come up with such great ideas. She certainly was out of this world. And the one thing Adam Smith didn't know about Kathie Patterson was that she indeed didn't belong to the earth.