This Was A Man

"She loved him with all of her, But he was too oblivious to her shining light that instead drew someone else in, Someone who's been meaning to find light all his life if not for all of eternity" She had no love life to begin with but she made a living out of making people fall for each other hopelessly with just a snap of her fingers. Years of yearning to somehow be seen by Jason Faux, her multi-millionaire, playboy of a best friend as more than just a friend, Justine Bell ends up crossing paths with the enemy. Only to follow him into the dark depths of lies, secrets and manipulation she never thought existed in her world of skyscrapers and billboards. Loosing Justine to the darkness of his own world, will Jason be able to resist his instincts and leave Justine to the hands of the enemy?

When I find out that Joe Herring—the man I've loved for ten years—is planning a grand proposal, I'm so thrilled I can't sleep a wink that night. But the next day, everyone in the pack is buzzing about how Alpha Joe just proposed to my stepsister, Nora Safford. He comes to me afterward, trying to explain. "It's not even real, Anna. Nora doesn't have anyone in the pack. I'm just doing her a favor. "Don't worry. I'll break it off before the mate-bonding ceremony next week. Then we'll have our ceremony, just like we planned." But over and over, he keeps asking me to compromise for Nora. And when the mate-bonding ceremony finally arrives, he's still with her. So in the end, I let her have him and walk away without a word.

Every person who crossed to our life have a past that we want to be concealed and buried. There are things that happend that we don't want to talk about. And we are one of those people who wants to forget what that person did. And there are secrets we are hiding that we can't stop from the day it would be revealed. ************ Once upon a time, a girl named Ultear Acosta tried to pursue the man she loves but at the end of the day. She was tired and finally stumbled. Ultear was tired because Sting never tried to look at her and paid a bit of attention to her. Eventually, she fell out and got injured. Ultear was the only one who lost the battle, as she was the only one who is fighting for it either. But in her returns. Destiny once tested her again by the strength she had built up over the years. To fight the battle, she loss. Would she fight again for her happy ending, or would she just let the fear take her and run away again?

Rosé Willian discovers she has been dating a married man on their fifth year anniversary. This news doesn’t only destroy her heart, but her whole life too- her reputation and career alike. She loses her job due to the viral video of her going around in the small city of Ontario. Unable to move around freely in the city without whispering gossips and accusing fingers following her around, Rosé flees Ontario to Washington with her friend, Paula. Rosé’s life takes a new turn when she meets Navy Leonardo, a CEO of a luxurious clothing line, a company where she goes to seek a job as a Blogger of the company. On the first day of her employment, Navy Leonardo receives a message from his father, Mayor Alessandro demanding his presence at the family Thanksgiving, else he will be disowned and canceled from the family will. Meanwhile, his father’s threat is due to the fact that Navy has been absent from home in Italy for about five years following the betrayal of his girlfriend, Clarissa getting married to his brother, while the whole family watched. Receiving the message not only upset him, but it makes him bitter and vengeful. A sudden idea to make his ex-girlfriend jealous and his brother envious, occurs to him, a plus fun would be the panicking reaction of his parents to him, bringing home a low class woman as his girlfriend. Who is more perfect for the job than the down to earth Rosé Willian, the Blogger. Beautiful and younger than Clarissa, but poor enough to make his parents turn. Navy is overwhelmed by the pleasure of a silly revenge that he asks Rosé to be his fake girlfriend, just for a night, not knowing he is in for a twist of fate.

Jim Charleston is my foster brother. He and I have been dating in secret for 10 years. On the day we decide to go public, Jim receives an undercover mission assignment to Duskhaven, where he has slim chances of returning alive. The night before he left, he held me and promised, "If I come back alive, I will marry you in a grand wedding. I'll stay by your side forever." Foolishly, I broke ties with my family and waited for him. I became the laughingstock of the entire high society circle. Three years later, Jim returns but with a ruined reputation and enormous debts. Kneeling like a broken man before our father, he firmly declares, "I promised Anne I would take care of her for life, Dad!" The woman named Anne hid timidly behind Jim, clutching her pregnant belly tightly. Dad turns to me instinctively. Everyone is waiting for me to lose my mind and cause a scene. However, I just smile. Right then and there, I accept the engagement ring from the good-for-nothing playboy. On the day of my engagement party, Jim drives in recklessly. With a gun in his hand, he shouts, "Cecilia Forrest! If you dare go through with this marriage, I'll kill him!"

My husband, Francis Zouche, thought we weren't well-off and could not afford to raise a child. So, he forcibly took me to the hospital to get an abortion. Right after the surgery, I discovered that he had transfered 200 thousand dollars to his first love, Heidi Colman, for her birthday. Out of pure rage, I got into a huge fight with him in the car, which led to an accident that killed us both. When I opened my eyes, we had returned to the day before our wedding. In our previous life, we were married for ten years. We weathered storms and supported each other, but Francis never wanted us to have a child of our own. On the day I died, I finally understood that the one he loved was Heidi. After getting a second shot at life, I decided to fulfill his wish. We canceled the wedding, blocked each other's phone numbers, and never contacted each other again. Eight years later, Francis became a top lawyer in Alvren and publicly proposed to Heidi at a law forum. Seeing that I was still single, he mocked me with a sneer, "Yvette, I know you loved me for two lifetimes. But I am getting married now. Don't keep waiting for me to come back to you." I glanced at him wordlessly and bent down to pick up my daughter before walking away. As a shocking realization hit him, his eyes reddened. He questioned furiously, "Didn't you promise to love me forever and to only give birth to my children?"

When my husband Joshua dragged his student Linda Moore into our apartment, I didn't even blink—I gave up the bed. Last time, it'd been pouring when he showed up with her in the middle of the night. Told me to crash on the floor with my daughter Mia and gave Linda the bed like it was nothing. I lost it. Fought with him, snapped at her. She bolted, slipped into a ditch, and supposedly drowned. Joshua said nothing. Then, one night, with the storm going wild outside, he pried open a manhole and dumped me and Mia in like trash. "Linda's my mentor's daughter. She's dead—how am I supposed to face him? You two can apologize yourselves." We didn't even get to scream before that freezing, disgusting water swallowed us whole. Turns out, Linda faked the whole thing. Just a twisted joke to punish me. Joshua moved her in right after, like nothing happened. Now, thunder cracked again as the door opened—and there he was, Linda right behind him.

Reborn as the long-lost Rogers heir, missing for fifteen years, I avoided every chance to bond with my two brothers in this family. When they tossed me Vivi’s discarded, ill-fitting gown for the family gala, I smiled and put it on. When they sent Vivi to get an elite education while ordering me to scrub the utility room, I picked up the mop without a word. When they let Vivi chase love and dumped her rejected suitor on me, I didn’t fight. I accepted her leftovers with a calm nod. This was all because in my past life, I had spent my entire life desperate for my brothers' approval, only to end up despised by everyone for it. When I died in the crossfire of a gangland shootout, my own son pushed my body away in disgust. "Mom, did you really waste your whole life on such a petty fight with Aunt Vivi? Dying for the family would have been a more dignified end. At least then you wouldn't have disgraced our name." I left this world filled with resentment, only to open my eyes and find myself back at the moment I first set foot in the Rogers estate. This time, I'm done fighting. The power, the name, the honor. I'm letting them have it all. I’ve already been accepted into a closed-door medical project. Soon they will never see me again.

I wasn’t even pregnant, yet I ended up popping abortion pills like they were candy. It was all because in my past life, the moment my widowed sister-in-law got pregnant, every single side effect of her pregnancy became mine. She strutted around happily with her big belly, consuming spicy tamales, while I was rushed to the hospital for violent nausea and stomach pain; she showed off her flawless skin in crop tops every day, while my stomach broke out in hideous stretch marks. When I told my husband what was happening, he just shoved me away impatiently. “Enough with the jealousy! My brother’s dead, and she’s carrying his only child. Of course, I should look out for her. Do you really have to put on such an act?” After that, my sister-in-law went even further. She kept testing her limits during pregnancy and even ate a mango she was allergic to. And me? I went into anaphylactic shock, landed in the hospital, and nearly died. Doctors couldn’t explain it. They just brushed it off, saying I was overly jealous and it was all psychological. Later, my sister-in-law tried to brand herself as a “hot single mom”. She went live, belly and all, to show off her weight-loss workouts. She jumped around for three straight hours. And me? My uterus literally gave out, and I hemorrhaged to death. When I opened my eyes again, it was the exact day she first announced her pregnancy.

Clay Nikolaidis: I don't know why everyone's so worried about me. I'm happy being single. H-A-P-P-Y, Happy. I don't understand why my twin sister thought her getting married and having my niece and nephew meant I felt left behind. Least of all, to the point that she decided I needed a dog… It’s a joke. She gave me a corgi and said he’s my new wingman. of a wingman, I've been striking out, and worse, just got evicted from my apartment. Now I'm staying at my cousin's place till I find a new one. This dog owes me. Xenia Rosario: I've loved everything about living in the Big Apple. Everything but my apartment seems to be big here. Shoebox apartment aside, I just became the owner of Tinkerbell, a therapy training dropout. Trust me when I say her name is meant to be ironic. She's bigger than me. This is probably how I got dragged through the park, and if I ever find the owner of that tiny dog who scared Tink, I'm giving them a piece of my mind. This is a standalone story but is the fifth book in the Ravenwood series. Book 1 - The Princess of Ravenwood Book 2 - Chasing Kitsune Book 3 - Expect The Unexpected Book 4 - Out Of My League Book 5 - Man's Best Wingman