Pocketbook International

On my birthday, I go out to eat with my family. I make a wish, hoping that we will always stay happily together. When I open my eyes, I see my son, Luigi Marino, holding up his tablet. On the screen, a line of text reads, "Dad, Maria says she's pregnant with your baby. Am I going to get a new mom?" Giovanni Marino is busy taking pictures of me with a Polaroid. He glances at the screen casually before writing a reply on the back of the photo. "No. I made a promise with your mom. If either of us betrays the other, we will have to disappear from the other's life forever. I can't live without your mom. So, you have to help me keep this from her. Even if Maria's baby is born, they will never appear in front of your mom." After writing that, he looks at me and asks in a gentle voice, "What's wrong, my love? Why are your eyes red? Did the smoke from the candles irritate them?" My tears are about to fall, but I force a smile and reply, "I'm fine. The birthday gift you all prepared for me is wonderful. I'm so touched that I can't help but cry." He doesn't know that my dyslexia was cured a week ago. It seems I no longer have to hesitate about the job offer from a well-known international nonprofit that teaches children with dyslexia how to read. The paperwork will be done in seven days. When that time comes, I will disappear from their world completely.

Megan Corteza fell in love with the school’s football quarterback, Ashton Pritzgold. She has a simple beauty, but she is the number one all over senior high school students, but she lacked with one thing, and that is money which matters in their school to become famous that is why she was never on Ashton’s radar. Ashton Priztgold is the most popular guy on campus because he got it all, intelligent, hot, handsome, and the football prodigy, and most of all, son of the filthy rich business tycoon in the country. Megan always kept away from the rich, but one day she was shocked when Ashton approached her, and she became the envy of all the girls on campus, and her once peaceful life became chaotic because of him. For Ashton, Megan was way out of his league because hot cheerleaders and rich girls will always chase him around, but he was on a mission to know her and couldn’t stop himself from falling in love with her. And he didn’t foresee the big mistake he had made will hurt her whole being and shattered not only her heart but her entire future. Megan was broken-hearted and left no choice but to left her home after her high school graduation and promised herself never to forgive Ashton for what he had done to her. Ashton is now the CEO of Pritzgold International Shipping Lines, Incorporated. After eight years, he meets Megan again, and he realized he was such a fool for hurting her because, after so many years, he realized Megan was still his one great love.

My childhood friend, whom I hadn’t contacted for years, kept calling nonstop during an important meeting. After the meeting, he spoke in a sharp tone. “Do you think you’re too big for your britches? I’m getting engaged and you’re not even coming back to help out. Do I have to invite you?” I was representing my country at an international scientific forum, so I could only decline politely. Unexpectedly, he turned all haughty. “Fine then. If you’re not coming back, then just send me a gift with four circles and I’ll let it slide. Four circles? Thinking he meant ten thousand with four zeroes, I immediately agreed. “Don’t worry, I’ll give you ten thousand dollars as a wedding gift.” “Ten grand? Who the hell are you kidding? “My wife is the eldest daughter of the Jeffersons, the most prestigious family in Cirrus. Only the most distinguished people are on the guest list. Seeing that we’re old friends, I’m letting you attend. It’s your great honor!” He cursed angrily and sent me the invitation. I was struck dumb the moment I opened it. My aloof ice queen of a wife, who kept strangers at bay, was locked in a passionate kiss with her arms wrapped around my childhood friend’s waist. “Four zeroes, huh? How about four wreaths?” My gaze darkened as I clutched my phone. Four funeral wreaths ought to count as four circles, too!

When Ava Harrison hide behind the wooden drink cart, she never expects to hear her world unravel word by word. Married for three years to Marcus Moretti, the cold but captivating heir to an international luxury conglomerate, Ava has sacrificed everything, her dreams, her dignity, even her health—to love and support him. But the man she trusted has been lying. And worse? He's been doing it with her sister, Sophia. With a positive pregnancy test clutched in one hand and her dignity in the other, Ava walks away from the man who never truly saw her. But the world won't let her go easily. Not when she's carrying the Moretti twins heir. Ava disappears, not just from Marcus's world but from everything she's known. She changes her identity, finds unlikely allies—including a mysterious masked man with a dark past—and begins a quiet life in Canada. But Marcus refuses to let her go. As he unravels the truth—that Ava was the one who saved his life years ago, not Sophia—he spirals into guilt and obsession. But Ava is no longer the naïve girl who cried in silence. She's determined to protect her unborn children at all costs. And when fate forces her to cross paths with Marcus again, both are pulled into a storm of regret, revenge, and revelations that will tear their world apart. Love, betrayal, and the strength to rebuild— This is a rollercoaster of emotions, laced with secrets, seduction, and the quiet resilience of a woman who finally chooses herself.

On the night of our wedding, my wife, Carol Lockhart, leaves me and goes to stay at a hotel instead. It's because she's an aloof, arrogant young woman who has always been in love with my younger brother, Thomas Shaffer. Over the next ten years of our marriage, I treat her as sincerely as possible and give her my entire heart, but the only response I get in return is her mockery. "Marcus Shaffer, I would rather be a nun for the rest of my life than fall in love with you!" However, when a heavy truck comes skidding toward me, the woman who has hated me all her life suddenly throws herself at me and shoves me away, saving my life. Before passing out, I see her grabbing the doctor's hand, while blood flows from her mouth, begging, "Don't tell that idiot that I was the one who saved him… "And don't let my parents blame him for my death…" My eyes fill with tears. I finally understand now that she wasn't the only one who made the wrong decision during our wedding. After I'm reborn and given a second chance at life, I decide to join the International Peacekeeping Forces and head out into the war as a frontliner. Since I can no longer live out the rest of my life with her, I wish her a lifetime of happiness, and I hope that we will never meet again.

When I was ten, my mother married into the Corleone family, and I followed her into that house. Before Vincent Corleone learned to hate me, he had once treated me like a real little sister. Later, he became the one who hurt me most. He believed my mother had driven his own mother to her death, and from that day on, he made sure I paid for it. Humiliation, contempt, cruelty—he never spared me any of it. Then Leo Moretti, Vincent’s closest friend, confessed that he loved me. I thought he was my way out. I was wrong. The morning after I gave him my first time, I overheard him speaking to Vincent behind a half-closed door. “I got the photos from her first night,” Leo said quietly. “Are you really going to make them public?” Vincent’s voice was cold enough to freeze my blood. “She owes my mother a life. If I can’t take that, then I’ll make sure she pays another way. I want her ruined.” That was the moment I understood. The tenderness had been fake. The love had been a trap. And the man I had trusted most had been waiting all along to destroy me. What they didn’t know was that two weeks earlier, I had already received an invitation from Professor Evans at the world’s top international medical research institute. So this time, I left first. And I was never coming back.

What if you are invited in a falling game? Where your heart is in contingency. You need to act like a real couple in one whole month with activities you need to do together. What's the percentage of you not falling in love? Can you distinguish if he/she shows genuine gesture or is it a trap to make you fall? The prices are immersive, hard to nod off. Will you chose money or love? Or are you dictate your heart for the sake of money? Are you going to fall for uncertain love and vague love? Putting your heart at stake? Or you will play smartly, making your partner fall and ensure your winning place. This is the falling game and everything is fake. Once you fall, you lose. Good day Oxians! You are one of a lucky student to participate in the FALLING GAME. Golden rule: ONCE YOU FALL, YOU LOSE. 1. Exclusive for students of Oxford International School only. Any transferee or exchange students need to sign contracts to avoid problems. 2. Don't kill other participants. You are allowed to harm everyone in the game but killing is a crime. 3. No to inactive. Two absents mean a punishment plus removing to the game. 4. Can do activities and attendances. Failure to comply means a punishment. 5. Act like a real couple. Play your cards well and don't let your heart dictates your mind. We have eyes everywhere. If you are interested, please see us in FG house anytime. For further information and knowledge regarding this game, you may send an email to FGhouse@gmail.com

The Alpha’s 90-Day Luna: Ruin of the Alpha (Book 2) The contract was for ninety days. The obsession is for an eternity. I thought I had escaped the wreckage of my past when I walked away from the altar and into the arms of a stranger. I thought I was hiring a temporary shield against Blake Turner’s greed and Riley Knox’s betrayal. I didn't realize that by signing my name at the Downtown Civic Registry, I was handing my soul to the most lethal predator in the Blackwood Territory. Connor Vale. To the world, he is the Obsidian King—the ruthless Alpha behind Vale Media Group who rules the industry with shadow and steel. To me, he was a calculated risk. But as the scent of dark cedar and rain consumes my senses, the truth emerges from the darkness: Connor didn’t just happen to be at the registry that day. He has been stalking my shadows for years, waiting for the moon to finally break me so he could claim the pieces. Now, as I fight to reclaim my throne on the international stage, my enemies are closing in. Sloane Pierce and the remnants of my old pack are determined to see my reputation torn to shreds, using every dirty tactic to expose my secrets. They think I’m alone. They think I’m vulnerable. They haven't met my husband. In this world of shifted loyalties, fated obsessions, and cold-blooded revenge, I am no longer the prey. With the most dangerous Alpha in the territory backing my every move, I will ensure that those who tried to ruin me are crushed under the weight of the Vale legacy.

By the third year of my marriage to Daniel Hawthorne, the war had already taken more than it ever returned, and this time it took his younger brother, Thomas Hawthorne. My sister-in-law, Eleanor, collapsed, and in the weeks that followed she tried to follow her husband into death— once with sleeping pills, once by the river beyond the officers’ quarters— only to be dragged back both times, each time clinging to me afterward as though I were the last thing keeping her grounded. I stayed with her, wiped her tears, and whispered that Thomas would want her to live, until the day she received the test results confirming she was three months pregnant, and the grief of losing her husband was slowly softened by the arrival of new life. I smiled too, believing grief had finally loosened its grip. That night, holding my own pregnancy test in my hand and thinking it was finally time to tell Daniel, I passed the study and heard his friend say quietly, “She’s carrying your child. You convinced the doctors to adjust the timeline so everyone would believe the baby belonged to your brother. Aren’t you afraid Margaret will find out?” Daniel didn’t hesitate. “She won’t,” he said calmly. “She loves me. She wouldn’t leave. I won’t let her know.” I didn’t step inside. I didn’t confront him. Instead, I opened the letter I had received weeks earlier— an official deployment order from the international medical corps, assigning me to a frontline war zone— and tapped Accept.

For six years of marriage, Cyran Valehart and I lived with measured respect, as if we were partners holding the same scale in perfect balance. For the sake of my equestrian career, I refused to have children. He shouldered the gossip, endured the judgment, and stood beside me without hesitation. But when I rode into what should have been my final international competition, he went back home with his first love—her hand resting protectively over her swollen belly. "All these years, you chose the horses over me," he spat. "That damned competition meant more to you than our family ever did." His voice shook with righteous anger, but his next words cut far deeper. "Six years ago, I abandoned Celia once. Now she carries my child. I won't betray her again." In that instant, my marriage became nothing but a title. I was reduced to a wife in name only, a figurehead in his home, a shadow he no longer cared to see. During the very competition meant to crown my life's work, Cyran laced a sharp needle beneath my saddle, each stride of my horse a fresh stab of pain meant to break us both. I lost the match. My horse collapsed with a shattered leg. And in that fall, my dream and my marriage were crushed together—ruined by the very man who once swore to protect them. Later, he paid with everything he had, desperate to make amends. But no matter what he sacrificed, Cyran Valehart was already behind me, nothing more than a ghost I would never turn to face again.