Glanced

My husband of five years, Eric Vale, came home drunk again. As I laid him in our bed, he murmured, “Don’t worry, my love… I’ll take care of you and our baby.” My heart stopped. Baby? We’d been on birth control since the day we married. There was no baby. I shook him lightly. “What are you talking about, Eric?” He blinked at me, confused, then smiled like nothing had happened. “Hey, babe… did I say something?” The next morning, I checked our joint account. Every month, ten thousand dollars had been wired to a woman named Bella Evers. Yesterday, he sent two hundred thousand more—with a note: I can’t wait for our baby to be born. Bella was Eric’s mistress and was now six months pregnant. So I made one call. “Papa,” I told the most feared Don in the South, “I’m getting a divorce.” I glanced at my sleeping husband. “I want him gone. And I want him broke.”

"Mom, Dad, I’ve decided to come home for the blind dates you mentioned. I’ll be back by the end of the month." In the early spring, with the lingering chill of winter in the air, Valerie Stonecutter pushed open the door while speaking softly into the phone. Her gentle voice drifted through the rain like a thread weaving through the mist. Pulling her collar tighter against the cold, she heard her parents breathe a sigh of relief on the other end. "Val," her father began, his voice heavy with age. “Your mom and I haven’t been in good health these past few years. So now that you’ve made up your mind, that’s good. When you’re back, I’ll have your Aunt Laura arrange a few suitable candidates for you to meet." Hearing that her parents were already making arrangements for her future, Valerie’s gaze flickered, her emotions momentarily unsettled. After a few more words of small talk, she ended the call. She glanced around her home with a heavy heart, her thoughts tangled in a quiet storm. Then she retreated to her bedroom and began to pack.

I was born just one minute after Tiara, but the world treated that one minute as if it lasted a lifetime. She was the star. I was the shadow. She was flawless. I was the afterthought. She was loved. I was forgotten. Even by Reagan de Russo, heir to the wealthiest family in the country and the man I had secretly loved for the past ten years. But to him, there was only Tiara. And when he proposed to her, I knew my quiet little dream had finally died. Until that day came. The day Tiara left him at the altar. The day the world stopped turning for just a second. The day the man who had never even glanced my way, turned to me and asked me to take her place. I knew what I was. An escape. A damage control. A backup plan. And I... I was too tired of being strong. So I said yes. We married. Without love. Without a future. Just a one-year contract and a life of make-believe in front of flashing cameras and watching eyes. But the longer I stayed by his side, the harder it became to tell what was real and what was just part of the performance. Because for the first time... Reagan saw me. But can love truly grow from the ruins of lies, old wounds, and the shadow of a woman who’s always been his first choice? Or will I always be… only the second best?

"She is not property. She is my mate and you will not mention 'her' like you're talking about a burnt banana peel."   My breath hitched.   No one had ever defended me like that.   Not once.   Kael glanced over his shoulder at me, his expression softer now, protective. "But it’s her choice. Not mine. Not yours." .......................................................... At just eighteen, Meeva Vale thought that she had found her fairytale ending, an Omega chosen as Luna by the Alpha of the Sinhound Pack. But six years later, her marriage to Alpha Jared has left her silenced, sacrificed, and stranded in a life that no longer feels her own.   When the powerful Alpha Kael Edgar of the Brawnstorm Pack storms into her territory to confront Jared over a broken trading treaty, everything changes. With a single glance, the bond between Kael and Meeva ignites. But Meeva is already claimed, married even.   But Kael doesn’t give two fucks.   He lays siege to the pack and takes Meeva with him, officially staking his claim as her mate. Her wolf betrays her heart, surrendering to him long before she does. What begins as a sinful passion quickly transforms into a deeper whirlpool.   With a dark sorcerer on their tail, their story is about to take a very unnerving turn.  

"This is my first time... it hurts... oh, it’s bleeding..." Allie winced as a cut from the kitchen knife throbbed on her finger. Liam glanced at her, his face full of concern, and applied the medicine with a sharp, almost angry tone: "I’ve told you not to go near the kitchen! Just tell me what you want to eat, and I’ll make it for you!" For Allie, her 20th birthday gift was discovering her boyfriend's betrayal with her best friend in bed. Furious, she turned her back on Nick and married Liam Hart, the city’s most influential and untouchable man. From that moment, she faced endless challenges: Nick’s constant manipulations, Liam’s family scheming against her, and the toxic people in their lives. Everyone sees Liam as the perfect, doting husband—no one knows the price she pays for his love. Exhausted, Allie faced Liam one night, her voice trembling with frustration: "Liam Hart, you are a monster in disguise." Liam, looking hurt, replied with a soft grin, “You wound me, darling. How could I possibly be a monster when I’m the one who’s supposed to protect you?”

My mom gave birth to a pair of twins. While I lived with my grandma in the countryside since young, my younger sister, Katrina Coffey, got to live with our parents. I only got to live with my family after I got into a high school in the city. I thought I'd be able to experience what it feels like to be loved by my family. What I didn't know was that this would be the start of my nightmares. My family alienated me, treating me as though I were an outsider. My status was even lower than that of Katrina's dog. Later on, Katrina forcibly stuffed a piece of mango, which I was allergic to, into my mouth. Her excuse was that she wanted to help me get rid of my allergy. I tried to plead with my parents for help with great difficulty, but they merely glanced at me icily. "What's with the complaints? Are you saying that we can't have mangoes anymore because of you from now on?" "What allergy? All you have to do is eat more mangoes, and you'll be fine!" What they didn't know was that people actually die from severe allergies.

She was said to be the treasure in their kingdom, the white wolf pack. She was the queen's newly born princess. Born to save their world, she was forced to leave the extramundane life she would have when the clan of bloodsucking vamps attacked their peaceful kingdom in the middle of the night under the sight of the goddess of the wolf moon, Diana. Her protector, an ever witty brilliant half-wolf half-vampire sent her to the ordinary world. "She is the treasure. She must be protected!" However, covered with shining gold cloth, she was left alone in front of a wide huge iron gate of a blue blood family. "Something's sparkling in front of the gate, Jon!" Halley woke her husband up in the middle of the night. "Wait! Let me check!" the still drowsy man got up wobbling as he went outside and glanced at the snow-white skin baby with long candy corn hair and bluish-purple eyes. . "Whose the ugly baby?" rubbing his still sleepy eyelids, the sixth-year-old Vince asked his parents. "Don't you call her ugly? From now on she is going to be your baby sister. Her name is Arianna!" his mother gently answered as she stroked his head.

I gasped, shocked as he pulled me to his lap in the wheelchair, roughly. “M.mr. K.king,” I stutter, afraid and surprised. He glanced up at me, his grey eyes shining in an emotion I couldn’t place. “If you are going to pretend to be a doting wife to me, cooking meals and trying to make unnecessary conversations, then you might as well strip naked, get on the bed and let me perform my duty as a doting husband by damaging those walls in between your legs and trust me, my illness won’t be a hindrance,” he whispered against my neck and for a second I forgot I was married to a literal devil. A handsome devil in a wheelchair. **************** After an accident, Dexter King got confined in a wheelchair. A once admirable man turned sour, hated by all and even his fiance left him for his brother. After a marriage proposal he couldn’t refuse, Dexter and Aurora got married and Dexter promised within himself to make her life miserable. But what happens when Aurora is hell bent on healing his broken leg? And what happens when they realize the accident was all a plan? Enemies are definitely closer than Dexter thinks, and betrayals are bound to happen, but would everyone give up on him, including Aurora, who has her share of a harsh life from her family?

I grew up abroad. My mother feared I might marry a foreign man, so she arranged an engagement for me with a talented and handsome man in Flodon. She insisted that I return home to get engaged. I came back and started shopping for an engagement dress at a luxury boutique. I selected an off-white strapless gown and decided to try it on. Suddenly, a woman nearby glanced at the dress in my hand and told the saleswoman, “That’s a unique design. Let me try it.” The saleswoman immediately yanked it out of my hands. I protested indignantly, “Excuse me, I was here first. Don’t you understand the principle of ‘first come, first served’? Or do you just not care about common decency?” The woman scoffed and retorted, “This dress costs $188,000. Do you really think a broke nobody like you can even afford it? “I’m Lucas Goodwin’s sister in all but blood. He’s the chairman of Goodwin’s Group. In Flodon, the Goodwin family sets the rules.” What a coincidence! Lucas Goodwin was my fiance! I immediately called him and said, “Hey, your ‘sister in all but blood’ just stole my engagement dress. Do something about it.”

On their third wedding anniversary, Clark Summer gifted his wife a diamond necklace named "Love Nyla," broadcasting his devotion to the world. But while the public swooned, Nyla sat alone in their empty home, staring at a photo sent by a stranger: her husband’s new secretary, Jordyn, wearing that same necklace, tangled in Clark’s arms. For three years, Nyla had been the perfect, submissive wife. In return, she received betrayal, humiliation from her mother-in-law, and Clark’s sickening justification that his affair was merely a "physical necessity" while he still loved her. He believed Nyla was trapped, tethered to him by her father’s astronomical medical bills. He thought she would swallow the insults and raise his mistress's child. He was wrong. Selling their mansion, gathering evidence, and delivering irrefutable proof of her infidelity… Nera turned and left, donning a white lab coat instead of an apron, transforming overnight into a top-tier pharmaceutical researcher who had astonished the industry. When Clark, with belated repentance and red-eyed pleading for her return, saw his icy ex-wife being gently embraced by his uncle Damon, he saw the aloof man before him. The superior man coldly glanced at his nephew, his voice low and dangerous: "What are you calling 'wife'? Call her 'auntie'."