Ten Past Five Artinya

My boss, Patrick Hoffman, has made a bad investment that fails. When the board wants someone to be held accountable for the loss, he makes me the fall guy. Now that I've been fired from the company, I can no longer make my mortgage payments. My wife, Georgia Lowe, ends up falling seriously ill as well. In dire need of money, I ask Patrick for my severance pay. Sitting in his luxury car, he simply tosses me a few hundred dollars, saying, "You expect me to give you severance pay? I lost over a billion dollars because of you, Heath! How dare you ask me for money? "Here. Take these hundred-dollar bills and buy your wife a decent coffin!" My fists clench as I watch him drive off. Later that night, I drop a bombshell in a group chat filled with investors and business owners. "Seeking employment—bringing years of professional experience in cooking the books to the table. My former boss has nothing but praise for my abilities!"

After losing his fiancée in a car accident, millionaire Carlos vows to avenge her death and take justice on behalf of his late fiancée. What Carlos didn't expect was that in the midst of this game of revenge another feeling would arise and that his plan would become an almost perfect revenge.

As the project lead, I was supposed to receive an annual bonus of $28,000. However, my wife transferred all the money to her newly hired male assistant and simply tossed me a supermarket gift card instead. “There’s $30 on this card. Buy whatever you want. I’m pretty generous, aren’t I?” I was stunned. “Joy, my mother needs that money for her surgery. You can’t be serious!” She sneered and said, “Why waste money on someone who’s dying anyway? At most, I’ll give you $700 to pick out a nice coffin.” Looking at her smug face, I smiled as well. Joy probably forgot that although she held all the company shares, the core patents of the company were registered under my personal name. I immediately sent a message to my lawyer. [Starting today, I’m releasing all patents in my name for free!]

At the Mating Ceremony, my mate Alexander rejected our mate bond in front of the entire pack, then turned around and marked Sarah instead. While I endured the excruciating pain of rejection and the pack's vicious gossip, Alexander's brother Ethan walked into our ceremonial grounds. He presented me with nine hundred and ninety-nine Moonflowers, confessing he had secretly loved me for years. His wolf had recognized me as his mate, and he'd dreamed of making me his. I was shocked to discover he was my second chance mate, and touched that he saved me from humiliation. I immediately nodded in agreement. Five years into our marriage, I had miscarried five times, and had finally managed to conceive again. Ethan held me carefully, spinning me around with joy, promising to take good care of me and the baby, even if it cost him his life. Four months into my pregnancy, I overheard him talking with the pack healer: "Alpha Ethan, just like the previous five times, the miscarriage drugs have been added to your wife's pregnancy supplements." "I don't understand. Sarah was able to bear your child, so why not your wife?" Ethan laughed bitterly: "Only those who produce an heir can inherit the Alpha position. Alexander is infertile, and I want Sarah to fulfill her wish of becoming the pack's Alpha Female." Alexander and Ethan were the children of our pack's Alpha. The Alpha had declared that whoever produced an heir first would become the next Alpha of the pack. All those passionate vows and promises were nothing but lies. The brothers, Alexander and Ethan, both loved Sarah. If that was how things stood, I would leave. I returned to our bedroom and secretly took out my phone, dialing a number I thought I would never contact again: "I agree to return and inherit the Shadow Pack. But I need you to do me a favor."

The buzzing of my phone in the middle of the night jolted me awake. On the other end of the line came a voice I could never forget. It was my daughter! However, she died three years ago!

Stephanie Ford has given her heart and everything else to Tyler Grover throughout their five-year relationship, only to find out that he has already married his first love, Kiara Grover, on their wedding night. The fake marriage certificate that Stephanie holds is proof that she's stuck in an elaborate scheme that Tyler and Kiara have come up with. This realization leaves her heartbroken and her trust in Tyler permanently shattered. Throughout the past five years, she's gone through a car accident that's apparently staged by others, which has ruined her dreams of becoming a professional dancer. To make things worse, Tyler and Kiara intend to use her as a surrogate mother for their child. Hence, Stephanie decides to go home and enter into a business marriage that her family has arranged for. The next time they meet again, Tyler watches as the cold and aloof heir to the powerful Hawke family of Jetterpolis, Adrian Hawke, pulls Stephanie carefully into his arms. He treats her with utmost care, as though she's the most precious treasure in the world. Tyler's eyes redden instantly. He sinks down to his knees like a madman and begins begging Stephanie for her forgiveness. "Steph, this is all my fault! Please come back to me!" But Adrian shields Stephanie from Tyler, his expression now glacial. "Get lost! Don't you dare taint my wife's sight with your filthy presence!"

Annie Saint-Claire is a woman with an active memory. She daily has to fight constant memories about her husband, Aaron Casey, whom she had lost three years ago. As a widow she has to fight for survival. She is in desperate need of an income. Billionaire Aaron Casey wakes nightly from erotic dreams about a woman whose face keeps eluding him. His frustration and questions about what happened to him makes him a serious man with anger issues and no answers as to why his body has scars. Aaron’s safe place is his office. He trusts no one. He randomly hired a personal assistant unbeknown to him his wife. Annie in her haste to attend an interview has an explosive encounter with her husband, the very man she thought she had lost. He was angry and alive, quick enough to catch her before she collided with the ground. Aaron found himself instantly annoyed yet intrigued with Annie who he impulsively kissed where they stood in a thunderstorm. Annie’s mind and body screaming for answers. Passion and a past have both spiraling out of control. Annie now has the explosive knowledge her husband was alive but completely unaware who she was. One shock look into his eyes…memories flashing through her mind in picture perfect clarity, her heart screaming for completion, demanding she open her broken heart and start rewriting her own heartbeat. Once by all account a forgotten past, now forcing her to reclaim what’s rightfully hers…you are mine: I am yours…

Caspian Henderson has been rigid and restrained throughout his six-year marriage to Juliet Bennett, and their life together feels dull and uneventful. Even their nights together feel like a chore with a set time. He arrives on the dot, does what he came for, and leaves. Everyone in their social circle believes he's the kind of man who will never bend for any woman. That was true until a month ago, when he returned with an orphaned girl who claims to have saved his life. Her name is Willow Everly. She's cold and unapproachable—the polar opposite of Juliet, who has been doted on all her life. Juliet's girlfriends attempt to warn her. "That young woman looks like a handful. You'd better keep an eye on your husband." Juliet beams. "Don't worry. Caspian doesn't even waver when I tease him. There's no way he'd be interested in that delicate little thing." Yet in just a few days, she finds out just how wrong she is.

Thanks to an accident, I'm somehow able to get on a phone call with the past version of me from seven years ago. Upon hearing that I will be getting engaged to Edward Herring soon, Younger Me is so excited that she keeps rolling around in bed. She also claims that she will be the happiest woman in the world seven years later. Am I happy, though? I can only smile bitterly without saying anything. Then, I silently show Younger Me the old scars of the suffering and pain I've gone through in the past. The gentle Edward is no longer here. Now, the Edward I'm with is the type who allows others to call me a manipulative bitch repeatedly and demands that I grovel to his first love, Madison Scott, and her family in a form of apology before our engagement. "So, do you still want a future like this?" The sparkle in Younger Me's eyes fades away instantly. After that, my past has been rewritten. Let's never see each other from the start, Edward Herring.

I married Dario Vellari in place of the true Salvatore heiress. Dario was the only heir of the Vellari Famiglia, the one with the severe PTSD. Five years of marriage. He never slept with me. Then Bianca came home from Boston, the real heiress, and everything changed. In front of her, Dario reined in his temper. The rooms he had never let me enter, the things he had never let me touch - Bianca walked through them as if they were her own. I thought, then, that I was finished caring for Dario. But after I left, he scoured every corner of the northern hemisphere looking for me. Said if the bride wasn’t me, he would never marry at all.