Only Time Will Tell Novel Novels & Stories

When I was waiting for Theodore at City Hall from dawn to dusk, he was accompanying his first love on a hike. I called him dozens of times, but he rejected my calls instantly each time. He finally picked up on the twentieth call. "Why are you blowing up my phone when you simply didn't see me for a day? Why are you acting so desperate? Sammy's feeling unwell because of her heart and I still need to take care of her at the hospital. We'll talk later about registering our marriage." Ten years of love. This was the 100th time Theodore had left me alone in front of City Hall for his first love. I hung up and calmly tossed the wedding ring away. This marriage? I was done with it.

On our seventh mating anniversary, my Alpha mate, Ronan Thorne, abandons me once again for his secretary, Evelyn Stone's sake. This time, I don't kick up a fuss at all. Instead, I calmly draw out a silver dagger in hopes of ending my life. The moment the tip of the dagger is pressed against my neck, I feel someone grab my wrist all of a sudden. "Why are you hurting yourself? Who broke your heart?" I looked up in a daze, only to see the 18-year-old version of Ronan. He's so anxious that his eyes have gone red. At the same time, he keeps trying to embrace me. "Tell me who that bastard is! I'll make him pay!" I don't explain anything at all. Instead, I merely utter his name softly. After that, the current Ronan personally locks me up in the dungeon. He claims that I need to reflect on myself—that I shouldn't target Evelyn out of jealousy. Just then, the younger Ronan appears again. He stares at the older and cold-looking Ronan outside the silver bars, then turns back to look at me with disbelief written all over his eyes. I just nod in response. He clenches his fists tightly. Soon, a furious roar escapes his throat. "He's not worthy of being your mate! I'll kill anyone who wants to hurt you, regardless of who they are!" As opposed to the 28-year-old Ronan, the 18-year-old version of him loves me more than anything else in the world. Naturally, he will definitely stick to the promises he has made to me.

On our Christmas break road trip, my cousin Felix Lloyd spotted some high-powered speakers at a highway rest stop. He had to have them—said he wanted to "blast it." "It's Christmas. We finally get to see everyone! We need some vibe!" My wife, Lana Ramsey, smiled and helped him pay. "Young people have energy. They know how to enjoy life." I yanked the power cord out. "Those aren't for regular cars. This is an EV. Overload it, and the whole system fries. Then what—just stuck in the middle of nowhere?" Lana's parents, Vincent and Donelia, booed me, calling me a buzzkill. Felix cranked the volume all the way up. Lana glared at me. "Say one more word and get out. I'll drive." Later, the speakers fried the battery system. We were stranded in total darkness on a rough mountain road. They finished the last of the food, then shoved me out to "go find help." I slipped, rolled down the slope, and died. When I opened my eyes, I was back—right when Felix jammed the speaker plug into the charging port. I grabbed a few more subwoofers and handed them over. "One isn't enough. Add more. That's how you really crank it."

Lena Clermont fell hard for her dad's friend, Andrew Rohan—twelve years older. The first time she saw him, he was all sharp suits and broad shoulders, effortlessly standing out. He smiled, patted her head, and handed her a princess dress. Fast forward to twenty. He got drugged at a banquet. She wore that same dress, offering herself as the cure.

She’d built two years of walls and he dismantled them in one evening. He didn’t announce himself. He never had to. The last person she expected walked in like he was exactly where he was supposed to be. Halle hadn’t seen Adrian Vale in two years. Two years of carefully avoiding his name in conversations, his face on screens, and the memory of waking up in his bed, fully dressed, completely alone, and somehow disturbed by that, than if anything had actually happened. Then he showed up to her best friend’s wedding like he owned the place. He reached over her shoulder, lifted the glass of champagne from her hand without spilling a single drop, brought it slowly to his lips, held her gaze the entire time and had the absolute nerve to look good doing it. Adrian Vale didn’t do anything halfway. He never needed to raise his voice because the room already belonged to him. He never reached for things…things simply found their way into his hands. Including, apparently, her. On a moonlit dance floor, his hand slid warm and certain up her spine, his forehead dropped to hers in the dark, and he said the thing that short-circuits every rational thought in her head. “You’re the only thing I’d let ruin me.” He pulled her in for a kiss, close enough to feel his breath, close enough to lose her mind completely, and then he pulled away. Leaving her wanting. He calls her starlight like it’s a secret only he gets to keep. And Halle is so embarrassingly, helplessly gone for him. The ones who make you forget your own name? Those are the ones worth ruining yourself for.

My husband's first love posted a video on her social media. In the video, the two of them were passing a playing card with their lips. When the card fell, their lips met in a kiss. They didn't stop—lost in the moment, they kissed passionately for an entire minute. Her caption read: [Still the same clumsy piggy! PS: Steve's skills are as good as ever!] I quietly liked the post and left a comment: [Congrats.] The next second, my husband called, yelling at me furiously, "No other woman is as dramatic as you! I was just playing a game with Lanie. Why are you acting crazy again?" It was then that I realized seven years of love meant nothing. It was time for me to leave.

When Yelton Group tanked, their CEO and his wife showed up at our door, begging for a marriage alliance. My dad, thinking I was still head-over-heels for Rosie after ten freaking years, threw a million into their sinking ship and signed me up to marry Rosie. Wedding night? She blindfolded me and kept whispering how bad she wanted it. A month later, I tested positive for an STD. Then I caught her bragging to her friends. "Quinn got wrecked by, like, a dozen girls," she laughed. "Wanna guess who gave him the infection?" Her friends were cracking up. "I scouted all the grossest red-light spots," one said. "Each one's got a different flavor." "Just wait," another giggled. "When the symptoms hit hard, we'll know who wins." Rosie added, "Prize money's ready. Soon as we figure it out, she gets paid." That's when it hit me. It wasn't Rosie in bed that night—it was a lineup of strangers she set up. I lost it. Went straight to her, demanded answers. She didn't even flinch. "Mad? Please. If you hadn't dangled that million to force me into this marriage—or scared Caleb off—do you think I'd waste my time on you? "Once Caleb forgives me, you're done." I asked for a divorce. She locked me in the basement. "Chill," she said. "We're still placing bets on who gave you the STD." Six months later, I died down there. Just rotted away. Then I woke up—right back on the day her parents came begging for that deal. Only this time, on the wedding day? She was the one crying.

Even in her wildest dreams, Elara never imagined she would be loving her own reaper. Given all she gained and had to her boyfriend only to find him humping her stepmother, Elara thought this the worst possible thing to happen in life. Just to find herself in hell, surrounded by dead people and trapped in a survival game. Would she survive and chase after her oppressors? Or would she simply die... Forever?

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.

My wife, Ariel Sweeney, would always buy me a new watch every time she cheated on me. We'd been married for four years, and I'd already collected 99 watches. That also meant I'd forgiven her 99 times too. This time, she went on a business trip for three days, and returned with a Patek Philippe watch worth ten million dollars for me. I then knew that it was time we got a divorce.