Guilt Tripping

He chose his mistress on our anniversary. He didn't know I was already planning my funeral. For three years, I was the perfect wife. I swallowed the insults from his family. I bore the guilt of our daughter’s death. Everyone blamed me. Yet, I loved Mateo Santiago with everything I had. Until the day I found out the truth. On the same day I discovered I was pregnant again, I learned my husband was expecting a child with another woman: my own step-aunt, Valentina. And worse? I finally discovered that he was the one responsible for our first daughter's death, not me. I didn't scream. I didn't fight. I simply texted him: "Your birthday is in a month. I’ll prepare a gift you’ll never forget." Thirty days later, Mateo Santiago watched my car burn at the bottom of a cliff. He buried an empty casket and cried for a wife he thought he loved. But Isabella Romano didn't die that day. She just disappeared. I was not alone anymore. I had another life growing inside me but then I stumbled upon a stranger. A stranger shadows feared. Dante Galante.

She needs money. He wants sex. Circumstances threw them in each other's arms. Thus, a battle began. -------------------------------------------------------------------- The girl turned and ran away with the guy running after her. The other girl smirked at the scene. Once again, mission complete. But then again, failure's not in her vocabulary. The girl looked at herself in the mirror. A lazy smirk curved her lips once again. Who would have thought that her face would serve as a ticket to her dream, to a life she never had? Who would have thought indeed when before, she hated her face? She hated her beautiful cursed face for always causing her troubles. But now, she was appreciating it. Her face helped her break those hearts and ruin all those relationships. Just a few more hearts to break and a few more relationships for her to ruin and she will finally be off the hook. Does the word GUILT bother her at all? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. If she would think of others first before herself, she won't survive at all. She won't be able to eat, to have a place to live in, to buy clothes or to finance her education. Life taught her that. Life taught her to put herself first before anything or anyone else. Selfishness it is, true. But it is also selfishness that made her survive life. That's Hazel Wyatt – a working college student. Occupation? She's a home wrecker for rent.

Ethan Carter, the school’s notorious flirt, is used to getting any girl he wants. When a new literature teacher, the stunning and mysterious Ms. Vivian Hayes, arrives, she instantly becomes the fantasy of every male student. Confident in his charm, Ethan makes a reckless bet with his friends—to seduce the alluring teacher and secretly record their night together. But what starts as a game turns into something unexpected. That night, as Ethan watches Vivian under the soft glow of moonlight, he feels something foreign yet undeniable—love. For the first time in his life, he wants more than just a conquest. He wants her heart. His world shatters when Vivian discovers the existence of the video. Devastated and betrayed, she vanishes from the city without a trace. Ethan, consumed by guilt, desperately seeks redemption, but by the time he tracks her down, it’s too late—she is married to a wealthy man handpicked by her family. Trapped in a loveless marriage, Vivian forces herself to move on, yet deep inside, she knows the truth. The boy she tried to forget had already stolen her heart before she even realized it. Now bound by duty and haunted by love, she faces a cruel twist of fate—choosing between the life she’s obligated to live and the love she was never meant to have. Can Ethan win back the only woman he ever loved, or will fate forever keep them apart?

When my father asked me to choose between the two Lewis brothers I had grown up with to get married to, I chose Joseph Lewis. He was the man I had secretly loved for 13 years. But on the day of our wedding, his stepsister, Jessica Lewis, leaped off the rooftop of the hotel. She left behind a letter written in blood, blessing Joseph and me with a lifetime of love and happiness. It was only then that I learned that the two of them had been secretly in love for years. At the wedding, Joseph lost control in front of everyone, declaring that he would no longer be concerned with any worldly affairs. I was left standing helplessly in place. For the rest of his life, he lived in guilt, keeping vigil beside Jessica's grave. I resented his deceit, yet stubbornly clung to our marriage, and we tormented each other for years. This went on until we were kidnapped one day. To save me, he perished together with the kidnappers. Before he died, he looked at me and said, "Evelyn, it was wrong of me to keep it from you. But now that both Jessica and I are gone, that should settle the debt, shouldn't it? If there's a next time, don't choose me again." Then, I reopen my eyes to see that I have returned to the day when my father asked me to choose my fiance. This time, I will firmly choose his elder brother, Theodore Lewis.

I was ten years old when I lost my hearing saving Adrian Falcone's life. After that, I couldn't survive without my hearing aids. He held my hand afterward, his eyes red-rimmed with guilt, and made me a promise in front of his entire family. "Serena Lombardi, I'll protect you with my life," he said. "I'll marry you." But when I turned eighteen, everything changed. Adrian needed to pass some test set by Daniela Moretti—the daughter of a rival family—and he chose the cruelest way to prove himself. He ripped the hearing aids from my ears in front of everyone and laughed. "You're just a deaf, useless burden," he said, his voice cold and cutting. "I've been sick of you for years. Honestly? I wish you'd died in that explosion when we were ten and saved me the trouble." I gripped the rehabilitation report the doctor had just handed me, and my fingers crushed the paper's edges. The diagnosis was precise—my hearing had fully recovered. That night, I burned my hearing aids and convinced my parents to cut all ties with the Falcone family. Adrian Falcone, we're done. Whatever we had, whatever you owed me—it's over now.

The company had just taken off when a project my wife, Lenora Peterson, was in charge of ran into trouble. To ease her mind during her pregnancy, I went overseas in her stead, spending ten perilous years abroad before finally returning home, barely alive. Instead of the joyful reunion I had imagined, she greeted me with cold detachment and thinly veiled disgust. "Why are you back?" Lenora asked. "Today is Nathan’s housewarming party," she added. "Let’s head there first—we’ll talk later." We rode in silence the entire way. When we arrived, a ten-year-old girl came dashing over and clung to Lenora affectionately. “Mommy, why did you take so long? Daddy’s been waiting for you forever!” Daddy? My eyes burned with rage—until I saw my old friend Nathan Grant stepping out to greet us with a smile. "Lily, come to Daddy. Mommy’s tired—don’t bother her now." When I met Lenora’s eyes, the guilt I saw there told me everything I needed to know. I turned away and texted my assistant, Morgan Williamson, to begin acquiring the company that, by right, had always belonged to me. He soon reported back. "Mr. Brooke, the acquisition process will be completed in three days."

On the day of the company's annual gala, I quit my job and went back to the countryside, using up all my savings to help my best friend raise her daughter. She had died tragically, swept away by the river while trying to retrieve my hundred-million-dollar gala prize ticket that had fallen into the water. Wracked with guilt, I honored her dying wish and married her husband. After the wedding, I sold my blood and even a kidney just to make ends meet, raising my stepdaughter with everything I had. Eventually, she fulfilled her dream of winning the Best Actress Award and was about to marry the richest man in the country. But just as I was preparing to give a speech at her wedding, I saw my best friend, who had been dead for over a decade. She clutched my stepdaughter's hand and accused me of being a homewrecker who seduced her husband, and even claimed I had been the one who pushed her into the river all those years ago. Only then did I learn the truth—she had faked her death all those years ago, just to steal my prize ticket and travel the world, leaving me behind to raise her family. The shock sent me into a cerebral hemorrhage. When I opened my eyes again, I had gone back to the day she drowned.

"Listen, I'm tired of this marriage. We only got married because I needed a wife to secure my CEO position, and now that it's settled, you're not useful to me anymore." My husband, Dale, said to my face, nothing close to guilt flashing in his expression. And that was when I knew... I really was nothing to him. With tears in my eyes, I signed the divorce papers and left. Left his house. Left his family. Left his life. But not without a promise to myself. A promise that no matter what, I would come back. I would come back stronger. The nobody they see me as, will come back as somebody. Somebody they'd all need. ....... Chloe Dave thought life loved her when she got married to Dale Beldson, the hottest man on earth and her long crush. That was proven wrong, when what was supposed to be a happy marriage, turned to a depressing one, with a husband that rarely acknowledged her existence. Still, she held on to the hope that if he'd chosen to marry her, there'd be something in there. Some emotions in there. That died the moment his bestfriend, Nora framed her for laundry and attempted murder, and he chose to believe Nora over her. Even after all her pleas, he still refused to give heed to her. He saw her as a nobody. His family saw her as one. That was when Chloe vowed to come back and shock the world. Shock Dale Beldson, her ex-husband.

He gently laid her on the bed, taking in the sight of her beauty. The glow on her face, the innocence of her eyes, and the scent of her perfume made him feel like the luckiest man in the world. He leaned down and kissed her lips softly, before deepening the kiss and letting his hands roam her body. "Tell me what you are planning to steal next; from now on, I will buy them in large quantities." He whispered seductively into her ears. ********* Despite his immense wealth and successes, Gerald is discontent with his life until he meets Hazel. Drawn to her intriguing and impulsive nature, Gerald findshimself falling head over heels for the enigmatic Kleptomaniac. However, their starkly different worlds are bound to collide as Gerald grapples with the reality of Hazel's tendency to steal and the consequences that come with it. As theirhimself falling for her, even though she has a secret - she's a kleptomaniac. As they navigate the challenges of their unconventional relationship, Gerald must come to terms with how his love for Hazel clashes with his structured, ordered lifestyle. Meanwhile, Hazel grapples with her own guilt and the fear of losing the man she's come to love so deeply. Can their love survive their differences, or will Hazel's compulsions tear them apart? In this captivating novel, MR. BILLIONAIRE'S OBSESSION, explores the complexities of love, wealth, and identity in a gripping story that will leave you breathless until the very end.

He was never supposed to want her. She was never supposed to survive him. But some fates are written in stone. And their love? It might burn the world down. ***** DANTE SALVATORE is a devil blessed with the face of an angel and cursed with a past he refuses to confess. Raised in the shadows of Europe's deadliest families, he carved an empire from blood and betrayal. He doesn't believe in God. He doesn't believe in love. Only power and control. But when he's given a gift by an old enemy, a trembling girl in holy white ,he doesn't expect her eyes to shake something loose in him. Something dangerous that could unravel everything he's built. …. CELESTE MOREAU is a fallen saint. A girl with too much guilt in her bones and too many prayers left unanswered. Haunted by the night her mother died while she was sneaking out to meet a boy, she's spent six years behind church walls, trying to repent. Trying to disappear. She knew what the other sisters did in the shadows. She just prayed she'd never be chosen. But when her only friend begs her to take her place for a mysterious client, Celeste finds herself sold to the most dangerous man in Europe. He is sin incarnate. And when he touches her, she doesn't feel fear. She feels alive.