Silent Photo

I've always dreamed about finding my true love but falling in love with a handsome vampire was a shocker. He was handsome, dark and mysterious. His eyes were always on mine, but he always acted cold towards me. I don't know what I did to deserve such inhumane treatment from him. But I got my answer the day I sneaked into his strange home with my little puppy Bingo. I grasped a broken photo frame that Bingo had knocked off the table. I cleared off the broken glasses carefully. My eyes widened in shock when I saw the photo. It was a picture of a girl with dark brown hair and brown eyes just like mine. The most weird part was that she looked exactly like me. She was wearing a white sparkling wedding dress and a man with black curly hair had wrapped his arms lovingly around her. It was Hayden. This was a wedding photo taken 18 years ago. Someone snatched the photo from my hands when I turned around, and I met Hayden's angry gaze. “What are you doing here?!” He growled furiously. “ Who is Azalea and why does she look like me?” I demanded furiously. I swallowed hard. Furthermore, I think I might have discovered the biggest secret ever.

Four days after my death, my four-year-old daughter finally sensed that something was terribly wrong. The fridge door slammed into her forehead when she tried to get a snack. Normally, I would've been there in a heartbeat—arms open, kisses ready, whispering, "You're okay, sweetheart, Mommy's here." But this time, I just lay on the bed, cold and still.​ She didn't understand. She thought the sweet treat would make me respond. So she held the final piece of chocolate up to my mouth. "Here, Mommy. Have some chocolate..." But I didn't even blink. She climbed into my arms, clutching my clothes tightly. "Mommy... Mommy, wake up..." She waited for me to stroke her hair, to tell her that everything was going to be fine. There was only silence.​ Completely lost and scared, she found my phone. "Daddy, why is Mommy still sleeping?" she asked, her voice filled with desperation.​ In response, Oliver sent a photo of himself having Christmas Eve dinner with his childhood sweetheart. His voice was icy cold when he replied, "She's just sleeping, not dead. It's Christmas Eve, and I'm busy. Tell her to stop playing games and come apologize when she's done sulking." Then he hung up.​ But when the truth finally hit Oliver—when the coroner's report came, when the police knocked on his door right in the middle of his laughter, when he realized I'd been lying dead for four days while he toasted—he broke.

At sixty-five, I got served divorce papers. The same day, my husband Sebastian — decked out in his wedding suit, of all things — popped a handful of sleeping pills in a suicide attempt. For years, we were the perfect couple. The kind of pair neighbors whispered about with envy. I couldn't wrap my head around it. The divorce. The pills. None of it made sense. Not until I found the photo and letter in his pocket.

On the day I was declared pregnant, I ran into my husband in the ob-gyn. He was with his long-lost love for a prenatal checkup. "I'm not going home tonight. As you can see, I have business to attend to," Lawrence said quietly as he left with an arm wrapped around Melissa. I fell silent and booked an abortion surgery. Everyone around us thought I was a simp for Lawrence. They thought I wouldn't leave, no matter how badly he mistreated me. He had the same thought. No one knew that I only married him to repay a debt. That debt was now repaid. Ten years was up, and I could finally end this abominable marriage.

The day Eve Jones came back to town, Zac Gibson did not come home all night. The next day, I saw a post on her social media, showing a photo of two hands tightly intertwined, along with Zac’s peaceful, childlike sleeping face. When he finally came home, he threw divorce papers at me and said, "You’ve been standing in Eve’s place this whole time. Now that she’s back, it’s time for you to move on." It did not matter anymore. I was not going to live much longer anyway. Whoever wanted the title of "Mrs. Gibson" could have it. Later, I died. But Zac cried at my grave, kneeling, promising he would never hold anyone else’s hand again.

I was on a business trip out of town when I got a text from my neighbor. [Can you and your husband keep it down? Also, one of your undies fell onto my balcony.] Shocked, I opened the photo she had sent. The underwear wasn't even my style, but it matched the one I'd seen in my husband's online shopping cart. He'd told me it was a gift for me, but I remember noticing the size—it was one size larger than mine. When confronted with the neighbor's message, my husband swore that the house must've been broken into and claimed the intruder left the item behind. But something about his story didn't sit right, so I decided to dig further. That was when I stumbled upon his social media. His latest post was just three words. [I bought this.] It was paired with a photo of a lingerie gift set. Beneath it, there was a comment. [I'm wearing it.] Attached was a picture of a woman's legs—and the unmistakable background of my living room. The evidence was undeniable. I packed up the underwear and brought it straight to the police. "My husband says our house was broken into. This was left behind by the intruder, and it might have DNA on it."

I just asked Lisa to get married to me. Believe it or not, I'm just as shocked as she is. This was meant to be a hit and quit mission not a hit and trip mission! I've fallen for Lisa. It hurts my ego to admit this but this tender spoiled brat has got me into a mental and emotional war. "W.. Will you marry me Lisa? "I question again. This time deciding to go with the flow. Lisa stares at me with wide eyes. "You're... You're joking right? "She questions and I remain silent and motionless. Allowing my eyes to pass the message. She sees I'm not joking and this causes her to recline. She quickly grabs her purse off the dash board and hurries out of my car. Slamming the door shut and I watch as she runs away. Well that wasn't expected. Falling in love was never the plan;25 years of doing what he likes. Being the master of his own game and the king of his ring. Everything seems to be going fine till one cold night when he realizes he wasn't just inlove but in pain. What could possibly go wrong for an all time player and over protective brother? Lets follow five friends into this NIGERIAN novel to find out!!

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Mist inquired. Carnation bit her bottom lip and looked down at the papers she was holding. "You can't back out once you sign the contract." She remained silent, so Mist spoke up again, "think about it twice." "It's still possible to quit," Mist suggested. She shook her head repeatedly. "No. . . I've made up my mind." "You're pretty desperate, aren't you?" "My family is in serious debt, and this is the only way I can pay it off." "You're so lovely. You don't belong here. But what options do I have? People like you are exactly what our business requires. Desperate women willing to cling to a knife's edge." Carnation placed the paper on the wooden table. She took a deep breath and quickly signed the contract before returning it to Mist. With a melancholy look, the woman accepted the contract and said, "you can no longer revoke what you have already signed. From today, you are now Mr. Lust's property." Carnation's heart was torn apart by the news. She traded her freedom and pride for the sake of money. When Carnation's father was admitted to the hospital after being diagnosed with lypmhoma. Their family's small business went bankrupt. Carnation had to drop out of college and work to support her family. In serious depth, she had no choice but to work in Casa de Lujuria, an exclusive nightclub owned by Luca Lindenhurst, a Seven Sins Association member.

All I did was post a photo of the exquisite pink diamond necklace my dad gave me for my birthday. An intern, however, confronted me in front of everyone. “Miss Anderson, why is my necklace with you? Do you think being a manager gives you the right to steal from others?” I calmly explained that it was a birthday gift from my dad, personally purchased at an auction. She didn’t believe me. Instead, she pulled out surveillance footage showing me entering and leaving her office and flat-out accused me of being a thief. “Some people can’t get what they want, so they resort to stealing. Do you honestly think taking a necklace means you can take over someone’s entire life? And you’re actually trying to pass yourself off as the heiress of Anderson Corporation? Isn’t that completely ridiculous?”

On the company's designated monthly day off, Gigi Lott, Donald Hoover's secretary, posted an Instagram story. The caption read, "So what if you're the boss of me when we're at work during the day? At night, I'm the one on top!" In the photo, she was lying atop a water bed covered in rose petals, and the usually stern Donald was kneeling down to massage her feet for her. From his pocket hung a brand new golden necklace. Just that morning, I bought several gold bars and gave them to Donald while beseeching him to make our relationship public. He happily took the locket from me, but when I tried to take a photo of us with our phone, he smacked my phone out of my hands, smashing it into pieces. With a look of pure derision, he declared, "Why don't you take a good look at yourself in the mirror first? You really are a motherless wretch who wasn't raised right. Look at the lengths you'd go to just to ruin me!" Throughout the last five years, I had meekly gone along with his demand that we keep our relationship a secret, claiming it was because office romances were forbidden. But now, I was abruptly hit with the realization of how laughable it all was. The next day, I sent my father a message. "I admit defeat. I'm willing to come home and inherit the family business."