The Dinner

My sister-in-law, Hannah Martinez, was eight months pregnant when someone shoved her to the ground. Due to the heavy bleeding, she was rushed to the hospital. I happened to drive past, but I rolled up my window and pretended I saw nothing, pressing down on the gas pedal. In my previous life, I had immediately taken Hannah to the hospital when I saw her pass out from the blood loss. However, the situation was critical. After the severe bleeding, she developed an amniotic fluid embolism. My wife, Lauren Martinez, was the best obstetrician in the city. I called her, begging her to hurry to the hospital. Yet, she thought I was throwing a tantrum out of jealousy because she was having dinner with her first love, Isaac Poole, and his family. She believed I was using Hannah's emergency to force her to come back. By the time her family finally arrived, Hannah had already died from the failed treatment of the amniotic fluid embolism. Her entire family blamed me for Hannah's death, convinced that I had deliberately caused Lauren to misunderstand and let Hannah die. My brother-in-law, Jacob Turner, who rushed back from out of town, believed their lies. In his overwhelming grief, he hacked me to death with a knife at Hannah's funeral. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day Hannah was pushed and started bleeding out.

I can't get married to you" I kept walking back,not breaking eye contact till my back hit the wall and he closed the distance between us. Towering over my petite frame he pinned me against the wall, playing his hands on each side of my body he trapped me between him and the wall. My heart thundering. "Your opinion doesn't matter here" His deep ,emotionless voice sent chills down my spine. _____________________________ Vera A 21 year old is a beautiful,naive and sweet girl who had everything taken away from her at a tender age was taken by her aunt and uncle after her parents murder by an uprising against the ruling Russian mafia which was Mikhail's (Vera's father) mafia. From then on Vera had been living with her cousin and her parents for 18 years and is not aware of the dangerous life she was born into and the fact that they aren't her real parents. Julius He is the boss of the Greek and Italian mafia owning the biggest mafia in the world. He is rude , arrogant and ruthless billionaire Being the most feared mafia leader he has no room for emotions or love in his life but what happens when one dinner changes everything and awakens something in Julius¿ On one hand Vera is being forced to marry Julius to protect her dad but is Julius being forced?

Commander Samson Gardner was my fiance. In his family was an iron-clad rule—no divorces. Before my brother died, his last wish was for Samson to marry me. So, even after falling in love with his childhood sweetheart, Samson still decided to marry me as promised. However, everything changed the day said childhood sweetheart destroyed the only watch my brother left me. When Samson sided with her again, I didn't argue. I simply reached out to my mentor overseas and started preparing to become a foreign correspondent. Before leaving, I gave myself ten days to put things in order. On the first day, I quietly hid the marriage application I was supposed to submit. On the third day, I turned in my resignation to the military. The day I was to leave, Samson finally remembered the watch and promised to take me to buy a new one on his next day off. Right after that, he ordered me, "Celia is inviting friends over for dinner tonight. Make sure the food is ready before you go." I agreed with a smile—and then never showed up in his world again. Afterward, Samson would stare blankly at the marriage application inside his drawer every time he saw my name in the news. There, within his drawer, were the memories of an autumn not yet fully arrived, the lover he could never win back, and the watch he could never give...

I was treating some friends to dinner at the private club my cousin owned. When we wrapped up, I waved over a server. "Just put it on Nick's tab." The server nodded, but a manager I'd never seen stepped in to block her. Wearing a smile that never reached her eyes, she said, "Sir, Bosco is a members-only establishment. We don't offer tabs." I felt a flicker of irritation. "I'm the owner's cousin. Just let him know." She let out a sharp, mocking laugh and slapped a bill onto the table. Eighty-eight thousand. Exclusive suite atmosphere maintenance fee, ten thousand. High‑end social network filtration fee, twenty thousand. Spontaneous entertainment ambience enhancement fee, fifteen thousand. And a mess of other miscellaneous charges. Since when did Nick's place dare to bleed customers dry like this? "What's wrong? Can't pay and now you're trying to name‑drop?" She looked me up and down with an arrogant tilt of her chin. "I've seen plenty of our boss's relatives. Not one of them is as broke, pretentious, and shameless as you." Right in front of her, I dialed Nick and put the call on speaker. "Ten minutes," I said. "Make sure she disappears from my sight. Otherwise, I'm revoking your authorization for this club."

While she’s at home preparing dinner for him, he’s out on dates. While she’s drinking with men to secure a business deal for him, he’s announcing his single status to boost his stock. When she drags herself to the hospital with a high fever, he’s there at the same hospital, caring for René—his mistress. She loved him for ten years, gave everything she had, and did everything she could for him. She never believed their love could die. Yet, it did. She doesn’t hate him; she’s simply exhausted, so she decides to leave. Only then does she find a firm chest and a warm embrace that had been waiting for her all along. With her first taste of true love, she realizes how much time she wasted with her ex, a man who never truly loved her. When he comes home one day, he’s shocked to find the woman who had always been there for him is gone. Regret floods him, and he chases after her, only to see another man by her side, taking sacred vows with her, their hands intertwined. In that moment, he realizes he’s lost the innocent girl who once loved him—the most precious treasure he ever had. And now, she’s gone forever.

"My incubus has been with me for a month, but he still won't let me touch him. What could be the reason for that?" I type my questions into the customer service feedback form and wait for a reply. The customer service representative replies at once in a very helpful manner. "Dear customer, our incubi are all very eager to stick to their owners like glue! I'm afraid your issue might be due to a malfunction on his end. "We can apply for your incubus to be replaced with a new one instead, and he will arrive in a week." I look at Riven Sterling, the incubus whom I had made tailored specifically to my tastes. After a moment of thought, I decide that maybe I can just wait and observe for a while longer. If he still doesn't change for the better, then I can perhaps send him in for repairs. After all, Riven is just too perfectly aligned with my tastes. I can't bear to give him up. However, at the family dinner, I quickly realize that Riven is having a reaction toward my younger stepsister, Teresa Ashford, who is sitting across from me. It's only then that I recall that Teresa is the one who opened my parcel the last time Riven arrived at the doorstep. That night, I contact the customer service representative again and say, "You said that the new replacement would be arriving in a week, right? Please send it out, then. Thank you."

Lena Hale promised herself she would never see Adrian Vale again—the boy she once loved, the man who ruined her life without ever knowing he did. But fate doesn’t care about promises. One night. One borrowed dress. One harmless dinner with an elderly millionaire to keep her bills from crushing her. That’s all it was supposed to be… until Adrian walks into the same hotel and looks at her with the cold, cutting eyes of a man who thinks he already knows the truth. He thinks she sold her heart for money. He thinks he finally caught her in the act. He thinks she has a price. And Adrian Vale is a billionaire who always pays what something is “worth.” A raised eyebrow. A silent gesture. An envelope she never asked for. A number she can’t ignore. Suddenly Lena is trapped in a slow-burn collision of power, obsession, old wounds, and the kind of chemistry that burns hotter after eight years apart. He wants answers. She wants freedom. But the past they share is a loaded gun—and Adrian is done pretending he doesn’t want to pull the trigger. He was the love she lost. Now he’s the danger she can’t escape. And the more she fights him, the more he decides she was always his. If Lena can’t match him move for move… she won’t survive him.

At the dinner table, my wife's best friend suddenly speaks to her in Lytian. "Three years ago, you married Julian in a grand wedding just to help Jace get Julian's letter of forgiveness. Over the years, I've seen Julian fall more and more deeply in love with you. Yet, you're still lying to him. "You gave him sterilization pills but passed them off as his depression medication. Aren't you afraid that he'll fall apart if he finds out the truth?" My wife, Erica Inman, briefly shows a conflicted expression on her face. She then gives a bitter smile and says, "A child unwanted by their mother has no reason to be born. As long as Julian doesn't stand in the way of Jace's happiness, I will keep my promise and stay by his side for the rest of his life." No one knows that I've learned Lytian to keep up with Erica. I stand in the living room and look at the fresh kiss mark on my neck. As I glance at the medication I take regularly for my depression, my whole body turns cold. It turns out that all of Erica's affection toward me was fake. What I thought was my salvation turns out to be nothing but a carefully planned deception. Since that's the case, I'll do my part to make sure they all get what they want.

Discovering this piece of information out, I groan without thinking about it and then everyone stares at me.  Quickly, I turn to Arabella and that is when she raises her voice after winking at me, and states with a smirk on her lips, “I agree, it is to die for.” At that moment, I know our match is perfect.  After we finish dinner, I scoop her up and carry her upstairs, while kissing her passionately in front of all the onlookers.  Unable to take my hands off her, I kick the door open to the bedroom and then walk in quickly.  I throw her down on the bed and kick off my boots before climbing on top of her.  When I gaze into her eyes there is a fire inside and I realize that I have never seen that particular look there before.  She pulls my head down and wraps her fingers in my hair, while she returns my hot kisses everywhere.  Feeling the pressure in my pants, I break our kisses off suddenly and straighten up.  With a confused and hurt look in her eyes, she asks, “Do you not want me?” Julian the Alpha King has a secret. One night when he goes to save some of the humans from being massacred, he meets Arabella and feels drawn to her like no other before. However, when she finds out that werewolves exist, she runs from him repeatedly. After all, she thinks he is the big bad wolf.

When Henessey returns to her home country after 15 years away, she's not welcomed in the usual sense. Instead, her identical twin sister begs her to swap places for a date with the billionaire prince of the country, Kellen Powers. The plan was simple: ruin the dinner so he would reject the arranged marriage proposal. But everything backfires when Kellen accepts the proposal, seeing Henessey as the perfect crazy person to survive his family's politics. Henessy rejects him and runs away, only to end up spending a night with Kellen after getting her heart broken by her boyfriend. Despite their explosive attraction, she still refuses to marry him, driving the billionaire to obsession. With no other option, Henessey reveals her true identity to Kellen. Furious, he forces her into a contract marriage, threatening to destroy everything she holds dear. Henessey agrees to sign to protect her sister, but on the official wedding day, Kellen discovers his bride has been swapped with the original bride. Enraged, he abandons the wedding to search for Henessey, bringing chaos to her family's doorstep for their deceit. Kellen and Henessey share a history that only he remembers, making him bitter and determined to make her pay for what she did in the past. There’s a thin line between love and hate but the couple seem to be drawn to hate. Will their love be strong enough to overcome the secrets, pain, and deceit that await them? Or will they tear each other apart?