Freckle Face Shawn

Orlando and I had been together for ten years. I'd looked after his sick mom, sweating out a fever of my own, and where was he? Knocking back drinks with Rosalind, playing therapist to her broken heart. I swallowed my pride at work, getting chewed out by my boss, while he spent the night companying Rosalind because she had cramps. Then, when I got the news my mom had passed, I tried calling him, desperate for support. But nope—phone off. After a wild goose chase, turns out he was at Rosalind's graduation. That was it. I gave up. But Orlando wouldn't let go. Red-eyed, he begged me for just one more chance.

During the holiday, my six-year-old son received his cleft-lip surgery. He wore a mask and sat quietly in our family bookstore, engrossed in a picture book. A young man came in, pinching his nose dramatically as he swaggered up to the manager. "Why did you let someone with an infectious disease in here?" he demanded loudly. "Get them out!" The manager winced. "Sir, I'm sorry, but I don't have the authority to remove other customers." Undeterred, the man marched up to me. "Be wise and get out of here. My girlfriend is Imogen Slater, CEO of the Slater Group. You don't want to mess with me." I froze in stunned silence. Imogen despised all men except me, and this guy claimed she was his girlfriend.

I always thought my wife was just an ordinary "brother-loving sister," the kind who would do anything for her brother. But one night, I watched in frozen horror as she dismembered her brother in our storage room. Then, as if nothing had happened, she turned and looked straight at me. She flashed her usual gentle smile. "Honey," she called softly, her voice sweet and familiar—exactly the same as always.

My dormmate falls in the dorm and sends the rest of us the hospital bill. She wants us to compensate her. "I only fell because you guys left a puddle of water at the door. It's only right that you compensate me, don't you think? It's not much—you each just have to give me a thousand dollars to cover the checkup, medication, transport, the classes I missed, and the mental distress I suffered." I exchange looks with my two other dormmates. All three of us politely decline. That's when she goes berserk. She screeches threateningly, "Do you know who my father is? I'll make sure you guys can't graduate if you don't compensate me!"

He locked me in his penthouse, a beautiful bird in a gilded cage. Caius Evans, the billionaire who ruined my father, thought he owned me. He wanted to break me, to possess my art and my silence. But as the days turned to nights, the lines between captor and confidant blurred. He started sharing his secrets, his scars, the ghost of a brother he loved and lost. Now, the man I should hate is the only one who sees the real me. And the key to my cage is also the key to his haunted heart. But is this love real, or just another one of his calculated games?

I manage to drag Jared Sheppard from death's door. Since then, I've accompanied him from his poorest times all the way to the current moment, when he's now worth tens of millions of dollars. On the day his company goes public, he gets engaged to another woman. "Gabrielle, she's different from you. She's an actual princess of the elite. I need to give her an official title, so I can't fool around with you anymore." I never bothered defending myself. It's time for this farce to end, anyway. After all, there's still a man waiting for me at home, who's been calling me his princess since I was a little girl.

I helped my wife, Kim Carey, rise from obscurity into stardom, only to discover that she was having an affair with a rising young actor who looked like me. When I asked for a divorce, she cried and begged me not to leave. In the end, I caved in. I gave her three chances. The first time, she stayed up all night to post a public statement clarifying all the rumors between her and Emmett Stone. She canceled all her work and stayed with me for an entire week. The second time, on my birthday, she publicly announced that Emmett was her soulmate. She even released intimate photos of the two of them. She buried herself in my arms and said righteously, "Emmett is depressed. I'm only doing this to comfort him. You're the only one in my heart. This is the last time. Please believe me." Then, she abandoned me in the wilderness, just because Emmett had suffered a minor injury on his hand. The final time, my father was critically ill and urgently needed a huge sum of money for surgery. She refused to even transfer a single cent to me. "All the money has been invested in Emmett's new drama," she said coldly. "Your father won't die that quickly." That night, my father missed the best window for treatment and died on the operating table. My heart was completely shattered. When Kim finally returned home late that night, I asked for a divorce once more.

I was shattered to learn that my precious child was not mine. My own flesh and blood was gone forever. I was not going to crumble under the weight of the revelation or consume myself with hysteria or grief. Instead, I channeled my pain into putting my mother-in-law behind bars and breaking my husband before moving on with my life.

Iris always knew her marriage was on thin ice, but she’d expected it to pass like a phase. Until her husband divorced her and went for her stepsister instead. At the same time, her company is snatched from her grasp. Betrayal. Heartbreak. Dejection. Iris makes a friend of this pain…until him. Orchard Hector. He offers her a four-year marriage contract and a new purpose, being on common grounds. “You’re only my ex-husband, Dave,” Iris replied darkly. “And whatever plan you have to get me back, they won’t succeed.”

Nilagyan ng mga gamot na pampatulog ng asawa ko ang formula ng aming anak para makatakas siya para makipag-Christmad date sa assistant niya. Habang takot na takot akong isinugod ang aking nilalagnat na anak sa ospital, hindi ko inaasahang makita ang asawa ko na karga ang kanyang assistant sa itaas. "Napilipit ni Peyton yung paa niya, kaya andito ako pata tulungan siya ipasuri ‘to!" Kahit na ang aming anak ay nasa operating room na nakikipaglaban para sa kanyang buhay, hindi siya gaanong tumingin sa kanyang direksyon. Hinigpitan ko ang hawak ko sa sampung milyong dolyar na napanalunan sa lottery ticket sa aking bulsa. Oras na para tapusin ang pitong taong pagsasama na ‘to.