It's Not Supposed To Be This Way

I am about to book a room at a hotel owned by Luca Conti, a consigliere under my command, when a sharp voice suddenly cuts in from behind me. "Aspetta. That's not your price." I turn around. A woman wearing a manager's badge stands there with her arms crossed, scrutinizing me as if I am an unsightly stain she can't wait to wipe away. "We don't allow prostitution here," she says coolly. "If you're receiving clients, there will be a fine." As she speaks, she hands me a penalty notice. The charges are clearly listed on the paper. "Illegal guest reception fee: 350 thousand dollars. "Special soundproofing fee: 150 thousand dollars. "Special cleaning fee: 100 thousand dollars. "Total fee: 600 thousand dollars." Receiving clients? I have simply come straight from a Mafia cocktail party without changing clothes—that's all. What exactly does she take me for?" I lift my gaze and answer evenly, "You're mistaken. I am not that kind of person. You can contact the hotel owner, Luca Conti, and ask him who I am." A sneer flickers through Sofia Rossi's eyes. She spits to the side, full of contempt. "Still claiming you are not a puttana? Women like you come here every week. Every single one of them swears she knows him. "Our boss is the consigliere to the Russo family, the most powerful Mafia family in Seneriffe. Do you really think he needs someone cheap like you? "I suggest you pay up now, subito, before your client loses patience and drags you into the street and rapes you." I do not waste another word on her. I take out my phone and send a message directly to my secretary, Marco Bianchi. "Notify Luca. Either this manager, Sofia Rossi, disappears from this city, or he does."

When nineteen-year-old engineering student Sky is scouted by Dream Entertainment, he thinks it’s a scam—until life throws him into financial uncertainty and he decides to take the leap. What starts as a desperate attempt to help his family quickly evolves into something far more complicated: a chance to star in a reality show where contestants pair up and compete for a coveted lead role in a new Boys’ Love (BL) series. Night, a successful but emotionally guarded model, isn’t the type to sign on for flashy reality shows—until he sees Sky’s casting photo and feels something he can’t explain. Against his manager’s advice and his own better judgment, he joins the project, drawn to the boy with the shy smile and uncertain eyes. Thrown into a house with six striking and wildly different contestants, Sky and Night are assigned roommates—others, not each other—and must navigate awkward first impressions, lip-sync battles, late-night conversations, and the growing tension between competition and connection. As the cameras roll and emotions blur, the question that hanging in the air: Is this just a path to fame in the entertainment industry—or is it something real? Is it all just for show?

After receiving devastating news Rachel has 200K and needs to decide how to move forward with her life. With the bit of money on her side at least she knew that her one option wouldn’t have to be marrying out of need, or so she thought. But will she marry her ex’s best friend?

At twenty-eight, I held the dubious honor of being the last unmarried socialite on New York's Upper East Side. Everyone around me was growing increasingly anxious about my single status. In my previous life, my mother arranged a matchmaking cocktail party, where I was told to choose a husband from ten handpicked elite bachelors. I bribed the event planner to place Mark West's profile at the very top—and as I had hoped, I chose him. After we married, Mark treated me with what seemed like tender affection. He even bought me an oceanfront villa in the Hamptons, making me believe I had finally found true love. But that illusion shattered the day I was nine months pregnant, just hours away from giving birth. Mark drove a scalpel straight into my abdomen—then, right in front of me, hurled our newborn onto the floor. "If you hadn't forced me into this marriage with your family's power, Sofia wouldn't have been heartbroken enough to go drinking and get drugged and assaulted. This… this is what you owe her!" He tossed the scalpel aside, then calmly let his private doctor pin down my blood-soaked body. I fought through excruciating pain for six agonizing hours, until I finally bled to death. Afterward, Mark dumped my corpse into the Hudson River. But for Sofia, he hosted a grand funeral—funded with my money, under my name—and paraded himself to the world as a grieving, devoted widower. Given a second chance at life, I refused to step foot in that cursed matchmaking event. Instead, I went straight to my mother with a demand: marry me to Robert Black—the most ruthless, cold-blooded titan of Wall Street, whose scarred face was feared by all. In the end, stripped of my financial backing, Mark's hedge fund collapsed. He became a disgraced fraudster, spat on by everyone on Wall Street.

At the beginning of a new year, I stay at the hospital to take care of my mother-in-law on my own. My wife, Yelena Lipton, on the other hand, is on a vacation with her first love, Phillip Warren, in a tropical island overseas. Funnily enough, I'm the last one who finds out about her impending marriage with Phillip. When my mother-in-law hears about the news, her condition deteriorates to the point she gets sent into the treatment room immediately. I have to call Yelena over a dozen times for her to finally pick up the call. "Do you have a death wish or something? Why did you bombard me with calls? I'm in the middle of something right now, so leave me alone!" After that, Yelena ends the call. Since then, I keep failing to get in contact with her. During that time, my mother-in-law has passed away from the treatment failure. When I'm done organizing the funeral, I send Yelena a divorce agreement right away. "Have you gone nuts? It's just an announcement to cheer Phillip up! Are you seriously going to file a divorce from me?" After hearing Yelena's accusations, I reply calmly, "Mom's dead. I've already dealt with everything concerning her passing. You should come back and visit her grave."

I gave Michael the best two years of my life, but in return he handed me the divorce papers the moment my sister came out of the coma. ┈┈┈┈․° ☣ °․┈┈┈┈ Since the moment my sister was born, it had always been about her, never me.... Everyone, including our parents adored and favored my sister, Seraphina over me. Even Michael, the man I had been in love with since I was a teenager, only had eyes for my sister. He loved her, dreamt of marrying only her and also starting a family with her. But circumstances forced Michael to take me as his wife instead and my sister fell into depression and tried to commit suicide in which I was held responsible for. I was only supposed to be his contract wife, but along the line I felt Michael had started to love me but that illusion shattered the very moment his love for my sister reawakened after she woke up from the two years coma. I agreed to walk away with a broken heart after granting him the divorce. And just when I was about to move on from Michael, he suddenly showed up at my doorstep to make things more difficult for me because he said he couldn't let me go and he's obsessed with me. That was the bitter truth - My sister was the love of his life while I was only his obsession and the object of his desire.

Blurb: All Zelda has ever wanted is to be happy and spend the rest of her life with her soulmate. But what she doesn't know is that her parents had arranged to marry her off to the ruthless Alpha Kent, since that was the only way to stop him from attacking their pack.

First love is supposed to fade. Yours became an obsession. Liam Thorne was everything to you—his warmth, his kindness, his adorable quirks. You risked it all and confessed, only for him to break your heart with three devastating words: "This is my girlfriend." Ten years later, you've painstakingly rebuilt your life, securing a prestigious job at the Aethelgard Corporation in the gleaming city of Aethelburg. But on your first day, your past walks through the door. There he is, your first love, now your cold, demanding boss who treats you like a total stranger. Blinded by a decade of pain, you unleash your fury on him… until a shocking revelation changes everything. The man in front of you isn't Liam. He's his older brother, and your fresh start just became a beautiful, complicated nightmare.

Oscar Miller was Shirley Bishop's personal bodyguard, but when she got attacked on her birthday, he shielded her foster sister, Myra Bishop, with his own body. Shirley got cut three times—once across her face, once on her arm, and a third that stabbed her lower abdomen, leaving her unable to have children ever again. But even after all that, she still wanted to marry him. Later, Oscar did marry her—but he never touched her, not even once, all the way until his death. At his funeral, the insurance company showed up. "Mr. Miller purchased a large insurance policy before his death. The beneficiary is Ms. Myra Bishop." That was when Shirley realized that after all these years, Oscar had never gotten over Myra. Now, she had been reborn to when her father asked her to choose from four men she had grown up with to be her husband. This time, she decided to fulfill his wish and picked someone else.

When my cousin died, my aunt forced me to marry her husband in order to take care of the child she left behind. She said that it was a way to pay her back for raising me after the death of my mom. For eight years of being in the marriage, I was bullied by my cousin's son, accusing me killing his mom in order to take over her home. And my husband? He never defended me. To them, I was nothing more than a mere house help. And the day I had looked forward finally came, when I could walk away from the marriage. But fate had other plans—I died in pain that very day. Now, with a second chance at life, I made one thing clear: I was done with that miserable family, for good.