Masquerade Birthday Party

The underprivileged student I've been sponsoring suddenly shows up at my birthday party, swaggering in and waving around a pregnancy report. "Look—Pheebs is pregnant with my baby! You'd better be smart and divorce her already!" I point at the report, stunned and confused. "Are you sure it's Phoebe who's pregnant with your child?" Victor Thompson, my beneficiary, smirks proudly as he fiddles with the pregnancy report. "Duh! We conceived the baby last month on our cruise trip!" The entire room falls into a stunned silence. My ex-wife, Phoebe Jackman, has been dead for three years.

To cheer up their depressed adopted daughter, Ashley Reid, my parents don't dare to treat me nicely. They've even locked me in a pitch-black room more than 700 times, just to put a smile on her face. At first, they feel guilty toward me. But eventually, even my older brother, Liam Reid, who used to care for me the most, treats it like it's all perfectly reasonable. When Ashley's depression finally starts to ease, I work up the courage to kneel and beg them to seal off that room for good. But at her birthday party, simply because I'm wearing the only T-shirt I own, she starts tearing up and asks my parents if I don't like her. My parents and Liam rush to comfort her and, yet again, lock me away in that dark, endless room. "Summer, you're her elder sister. You have to be more considerate of her feelings." "If you hadn't insisted on wearing something so tacky for her birthday party, she wouldn't have gotten so upset." "You've gotten used to it after all these years, right? One more time won't matter to you." I curl up in the corner, gripping my hair, unable to say a word. Three days later, they finally let me out. They remind me not to upset Ashley again. But I just stare at them blankly. "Sorry, who are you?"

It all started from the day she broke up with her boyfriend, Felix. She was raped in a birthday party and the incident couldn't be traced. Her company went down and even the sales dropped. Now the only way to get back her reputation and her company is to get married to the CEO of babel's group and merge her company with his—but it turned out that the CEO is her ex-boyfriend's brother. Their love grew deeper, and at a dime minute she found out that her so-called husband was the one who raped her and damaged her reputation. Will she divorce him and lose her company or stay with him in Bitterness and hatred?

On the day of my birthday party, I wait for my boyfriend to arrive so we can start the celebrations. To my surprise, all I get is a challenge from his true love. "I'm sorry that Harv can't be with you today, Sammy. He's getting engaged to me! Don't worry, though. It's just a formality—this is the 100th wish he's helping me fulfill. I hope you don't mind!" Tiana Lowe sends me a video along with that voice message. My boyfriend exchanges rings with her before kissing her passionately. I immediately call him and snap, "What the hell do you mean by that, Harvey Linton?" He gets angry. "Can you stop being so jealous all the time? I can celebrate your birthday with you every year, but Tiana only has 100 wishes. I have to help her fulfill them!" I snap, "Fine, then. I wish you two will be together forever!"

On the day my twin sister, Alexia Cavanaugh, and I turn 22, I collapse and find out that I have late-stage cancer. Ignoring the doctor's advice to be admitted, I walk out of the hospital. All I want is to spend one final birthday with my family without a single worry. But when I arrive at the party, a server stops me at the door and tells me the venue has been reserved exclusively for Alexia. Outsiders aren't allowed in. Through the glass, I watch as my brother holds a cake and my father places a birthday hat on Alexia's head. Even my boyfriend is there, smiling as Alexia makes a wish. I stand there for half an hour, gripping my phone, before my boyfriend finally answers my call. "I was just at the hospital. I—" He cuts me off. "Ophelia, you've always been healthy. It's Lexi's birthday today. We should talk later." Isn't today my birthday too? My mother died giving birth to me. The doctor later explained that I deprived Alexia of nutrients before birth, which left her frail from the start. And just like that, everyone decided I should always step aside for my twin, who was born five minutes before me. I ball up the report with my cancer diagnosis and toss it in the trash. I'm done letting their favoritism hurt me. I've never received their love anyway, so I choose to leave for good.

After dating in secret for seven years, Mitchell Zahn decides to propose to me on the day his birthday album is officially released. But during the birthday party, he publicly invites Isabella Claxton, a composer and my sister, to work with him. I follow Mitchell to ask him for an explanation. That's when I hear him and his friends chatting and joking inside the lounge. "You're so loyal to your first love, Mitchie. You couldn't wait to ask her to work with you upon her return. What are you going to do about Gabriella, though? Will she accept how your relationship ends when she's written so many songs for you?" After a moment, another person laughs and says, "To Mitchie, Gabriella has always been a replacement for Isabella. Now that Isabella is back, her replacement has to go. Don't you agree, Mitchie?" I wait for a long time before hearing a soft sound of agreement.

In a whirlwind of masked confessions and secret desires, Holly takes a leap of faith at a dazzling masquerade party, declaring her undeniable love to her best friend's older brother. Little does she know, their passionate encounter beneath the mask is shrouded in mystery and forgotten in an instant. When Holly finds she's out carrying his child weeks later, she musters up the courage to reveal the truth to him, only to be met with jealousy and confusion. As she grapples with his unexpected coldness, she can't help but feel a deep sense of shame, prompting her to vanish without a trace, carrying their precious secret within her. Years pass, and Holly's life takes an unforeseen turn when her mother falls ill. Forced to confront her past and return to her roots, she unwittingly exposes her hidden truth, forever altering the course of her life. In a heart-wrenching tale of redemption and second chances, Holly and her lost love embark on an emotional journey back to one another, rekindling a love that time couldn't extinguish. Uniting in sacred matrimony, their shared love blossoms, bringing forth a future filled not only with the twin sons they were destined to have, but with the healing power of forgiveness and a love that defies all odds.

10 years earlier, Jason drives down a dark deserted road on his way home from a birthday party, when he sees a red haired woman walking along side the road. Picking her up, he finds out that she is not what he thinks she is. Instead, he ends up losing his soul. Spending the next 10 years of his life looking over his shoulder, he eventually comes to the realization that the only way to get his soul back is to kill her. Does he find and kill her or does she haunt him for eternity. Find out in The Soul Eater.

Veronica was invited to the birthday party of her best friend Luan. But she didn't know her dark plan. Luan set her up with the old businessman Mr. Wilson to get her virginity. But Veronica entered the wrong room number for Mr. Damian Johnson, and the rest is history. Six years ago... She had quintuplets. And Damian back in the Philippines to marry her. But she got a wrong fiancé when Damian met Veronica again. He felt something strange that he didn't know. There's been a chance of the two to reconnect since Luan is in the picture. Is Damian discovered the true before he end up to Luan and marry her...

Elara Voss had spent her whole life in the shadows of wealth she didn’t inherit trapped in her father’s empire, dismissed by her stepmother, and humiliated by the man she once loved. On her twenty-sixth birthday, she discovers a shocking truth, her family’s fortune was never hers to claim… because someone else holds the real inheritance a man she’s never met. Determined to reclaim her life, Elara fakes a new identity and enters the glittering world of high society. There, she meets a mysterious, brooding billionaire, Kael Hawthorne, who’s as alluring as he is dangerous. He’s rumored to be ruthless, untouchable, and utterly untamed but Elara has a secret she holds the key to the empire he’s desperate to protect. What begins as a calculated alliance a partnership to outmaneuver her family soon spirals into a web of deception, desire, and betrayal. Every masquerade ball, every whispered secret, every heated glance pulls them closer… and yet, every lie threatens to destroy them both. Elara must decide will she settle for vengeance, or risk everything for love with a man who might be the only one who truly understands her?