Marry Myself

“You fucking carry my name now, Bella. You're Mrs Bella Enzo Barine. You no more belong to Marino's.”, Enzo roared. “I'm not a piece of land or some property that you own, Enzo. I'm a human and I breathe. I'm married to you, not sold.” Bella spoke with tears in her eyes as the grip on her arm was getting harder which might leave a bruise later. I will not be dictated by a mandate to marry someone like Enzo De Luca, the sole heir of the Barone Clan. Despite his reputation for ruthlessness and his animosity towards the Marino’s, I refuse to be coerced into a marriage with a man I haven't seen in years. His grey eyes may have been my first love and my first heartbreak, but I will not allow him to break me. As the daughter of his greatest enemy, I am confident that I will not be bent to his will. The real question is not whether love can emerge from violence and hatred, but whether I will allow myself to be controlled in a perpetual struggle.

“I’ll give you anything you want but you need to leave.” Daniel muttered to me the second time making my leg wobbled, I fell infront of him. He looked at me but no trace of concerns in his eyes. “Cynthia, you should name your price and leave as soon as possible.” he muttered, his voice filled with so much ease as if I meant nothing to him all these years—as if the whole three years of being together were absolutely nothing! After begging frantically, he threw a cheque at me, his eyes impatient. With tears in my eyes, I looked at Daniel but he didn't even budge. Slowly, I picked myself up, took my box, tore his cheque to his and left his home—if he could threw me out even after three years of peaceful marriage then he could as well hold his cheque. I didn't marry him for his money and I'd prove to him that I was worth more than the money on his cheque.

The two childhood sweethearts swear that they'll marry no one but me, but they stand by as my dog of ten years gets killed in a car accident. I cradle the dog's mangled body, but no tears fall. Dante Battaglia stares at me in disgust and asks, "Why did you bring it home? Don't you know Anna's allergic to it?" Dario Battaglia immediately rushes over to snatch away the body in my arms. "This is a damned jinx. Get rid of it!" The Battaglia siblings and I are childhood friends. Dante became the Don, and Dario the Consigliere. I'm the precious princess in the two brothers' eyes, but everything changes with Anna's arrival. After burying the dog myself, I reply to the email inviting me to join an international classified project. The email reads, "Ms. Julia Costanza, we'd like to know if you're willing to participate in this institute's ten-year-long classified project. Upon joining, your personal information will be sealed for a decade, and you will be prohibited from contacting the outside world." I replied, "Yes, I agree."

Elena Morgan thought she had it all, a loving husband, a bright future but her world began to crumble after learning her terminal illness had reached its final stage. Having to discover her husbands’ affair with her step sister on the night of their wedding anniversary. Betrayed, poisoned, and pushed down the stairs to her death. Elenas’ last thought was a desperate wish: “if I would do it over again, I would choose differently…..I would fight back ... .I would live for myself…..”. Elena wakes up a day to her wedding day, three years in the past. This time Elena refuses to marry the man who murdered her. In a moment of rage, she approaches Damien Carrington, the cold wealthy CEO, a single father who lost his wife who he cared deeply for. Elena barely knew him in her first life but still goes ahead to propose the unthinkable: A Contract Marriage. Can Elena rewrite her fate before death claims her again? And can a marriage that started as a contract become the love story they both deserve.

My body craves him. My mind resists him. My heart fears him. Noah Hayes is a sinful temptation with a sex appeal, unlike any man I’ve ever met. He’s also twice my age...and my new boss. After years of working a job I despised, for the sake of a family I was forced to support, I had enough. Finding a new job should have been simple, but working as a nanny for billionaire Noah Hayes is anything but. He may be arrogant and self-involved, but I can’t stop myself from wanting him. When I find myself in his arms and in his bed, I allow myself a moment to hope. But how could I have known what was coming for us...and how it would break us?

Everyone in New York knew that Don Lorenzo Capone loved his wife dearly. At the height of our love, he shielded me from a bullet that went straight through his chest. The hospital issued eleven critical condition notices. I cried myself hoarse at the door of the emergency room. "Lorenzo, don't you dare die on me, or I'll instantly find a pretty boy to marry and have children with!" He survived the ordeal, and the first thing he did when he opened his eyes was to marry me. After the marriage, he ruled over New York's largest underground empire with an iron fist, but never allowed any woman to get close to him. On our third wedding anniversary, I went to his private dock to give him a surprise. There, I saw him holding a pair of twins, teaching them how to shoot. The man who could kill without batting an eye was looking at the children with eyes full of affection. The children's mother was Elena Tribbiani, the daughter of an arms dealer who was his equal. "Lorenzo, what if Vivian finds out?" Lorenzo dismissed it casually. "A fragile porcelain doll like her is only fit to be displayed in a glass case. Only a she-wolf like you is worthy of bearing my family's cubs." It turned out, what I thought was true love was merely a carefully-woven lie. I did not confront him. Instead, I sent a text message to an FBI special agent. "Agent Smith, I have a list of the arms deal you’re investigating."

I didn’t marry him for love. I married Ethan Blake because my brother was dying, and he needed a wife to secure his inheritance. It was supposed to be a simple deal—one year. No feelings. No expectations. On our wedding night, he didn’t touch me. Didn’t even pretend to try. “You are not her,” Ethan said quietly, adjusting his cufflinks like I wasn’t even worth looking at. I told myself I could survive that. I told myself I wouldn’t fall for a man who was still holding onto someone else. But living in Ethan Blake’s world was a different kind of loneliness. Because he didn’t love me, yet, he watched me when I wasn’t looking and kept his distance. Yet, no one else was allowed to get close to me. And slowly, against my better judgment… I started hoping. Hoping that one day, he would see me. I was wrong. The day she came back, everything changed. The woman he had been waiting for. The woman I was meant to replace. In front of everyone, Ethan didn’t hesitate. He chose her. And in that moment, something inside me broke so quietly that no one noticed except me. So I left. No goodbye. No explanation. Just gone. I thought that would be the end of it. Until Ethan Blake came back into my life, like losing me was the one thing he couldn’t afford. But I’m not the same woman he married. And this time? He’s the one chasing He’s the one breaking while I decide if he deserves a second chance—or if I should finally choose myself.

The day I marry Navy Captain Dean Aldridge, I hear his stepsister Shirley Pierce's inner voice. "Diane is so beautiful and graceful. I wish I could be like her, but I'm nothing more than an unwanted burden in this family… "I really adore her, though. I saved up my allowance to buy her a bracelet as a wedding gift, but I'm afraid she'll think it's unlucky and refuse it." In my last life, those words had filled my heart with pity. I'd accepted the bracelet and even taken Shirley under my wing, teaching her to read and write. But not long after my wedding, my health began to deteriorate for no reason. It wasn't until I lay dying that I discovered the truth—the bracelet Shirley had given me was cursed, and she'd deliberately made me hear her inner voice. She'd long been in love with Dean and was determined to make the Aldridge family hers one day. Now, when I open my eyes again, I find myself back on my wedding day.

“Am I selling myself!?” I asked as I looked at the documents in front of me. He looked up, and with a sly smile said: “Yes.” Just like that, I was forced into a marriage with the most eligible bachelor of NY. He was the heartless boss everyone feared, the enigmatic CEO that I worked for until I desperately needed money for my mom’s treatment and had to “sell myself”. But what would happen when his truth came out that he, in fact, was also a mafia boss? Scratch that – what would happen when every time he hurt me, I wanted to help him? Could I make the heart less boss feel something, or would I kill myself trying? I'm Hailey, and this is my story. I didn't know how it would go, until he came in and took control. Now all I yearn for is him, but would he ever feel the same about me?

As a lawyer myself, I never knew that facing what any of my clients would face, will be so tough. I was blamed a murderer of my own husband all evidence against me. And that was how my life began. I was forced to get help from my biggest enemy, Mateo. The mafia I planned on ruining myself to make my yearly achievement. The story turned into a desperation between love, duty, and survival. Which one will I chose?