Three And A Half Years

Two months into my cold war with Sean, the lover he’d been keeping finally danced her way right up to me, the real deal. Everyone expected me to react the same way I always had before, kicking up a huge scene to stake my claim. Instead, I looked at the intimate photos of Sean and her in the group chat, smiled, and sent them my blessing. [Looking good. Wishing you two a long and happy life.] The chat went dead silent. Sean must’ve sobered up from his little paradise because in the middle of the night, he drove home and pounded on my door. He was furious. “Do you think this is funny?” However, I only met his gaze calmly. “Honestly, after all these years, none of it is.”

On my twentieth birthday, my father asked me to draw from a box of straws. It was to pick a husband between William Smith and Austin Smith to inherit North Town. The short straw represented Austin, while the long straw represented William. No matter how hard I tried, I could not get the long straw. However, I was certain that I did not want to marry Austin. I drew straws for three years, but it was to no avail. I had no choice but to tamper with the straws to marry William as I wished. However, ten years into our marriage, he was no longer gentle and kind. He had turned into a really cold person. He neither returned home nor touched me. Even when I threatened him with a knife, he refused to talk to me. Despite feeling hurt, I was unwilling to let him go. That was until I watched him kick away the only medicine I had for my asthma while I was writhing on the floor. “I was the one who switched out the straws. There was no long straw, yet you forced me to marry you. Mandy died from a broken heart, so you should pay with your life.” When I opened my eyes again, I was holding a short straw. I calmly said, “Since it’s the short one, I choose Austin.”

On the road, I met a woman unlike anyone I had ever seen before. Her name was Janet Smith. She seemed slow and almost childlike, yet she had been wandering alone for two years without ever going home. Even with one leg crippled, she had forced herself to climb the Highveil Mountains. This time, however, she was caught in a blizzard. Injured and stranded, she could no longer make her way down. As her vision blurred and her strength slipped away, tears covered her face. She placed a pair of small handmade clay dolls in my hands. "I'm probably going to die here," she murmured. "Please give these to my adoptive brother, Chester Graham." She was clearly at death's door, yet her smile was soft and unexpectedly serene. "Tell him I've seen enough of the world. I don't love him anymore. And tell him he doesn't need to worry. I'm not so foolish now. I won't cause trouble for anyone again." Chester? At the sound of his name, I stood rooted to the spot. In Riverton City, everyone who worked at the harbor knew him, the so-called Ship King. Right before I left for the mountains, news of his engagement had been everywhere.

The day my brother, Chester Rodney, came to the orphanage to take me home, my boyfriend Dominic Huxley looked at me coldly and said, "If you choose to acknowledge your birth family, we're over." I knew he had his pride—he could never accept the difference in our social standing. So, for him, I turned my back on the family I had yearned for my whole life. In the decades that followed, I toiled without complaint, saving every cent to help him rise to success. By the time I was not yet fifty, overwork had worn me down. Lying on my deathbed, my breathing shallow and weak, I watched Dominic on television. He was now an acclaimed scientist, just awarded the nation's highest research honor. Tears welled in his eyes as he thanked another woman. "All these years," he said, "I never felt worthy of Alicia. But now, maybe I can use this award as the prologue to a love I've owed her for decades." The "Alicia" he spoke of was the woman mistakenly switched with me at birth—the false heiress the Rodney family raised as their own. The camera zoomed out. Alicia Rodney stood radiant, graceful, and perfectly preserved by years of luxury, blushing as she accepted the trophy. "I waited for you for decades," she said sweetly, "but marriage is still something I'll need to ask my brother about." Chester, who had long taken over the family, looked at her with an indulgent tenderness tinged with something unspoken. "I was adopted by our uncle back then for one reason—to protect Alicia. Making the only princess of the Rodney family happy has always been my life's mission." Only then did I realize—everything I thought I had chosen freely, every sacrifice I made without regret, was nothing but a trap, carefully woven by two men, all for Alicia. The betrayal pierced my heart. I died without peace. But when I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day Chester came to take me home from the orphanage. I glanced past the two men eyeing me with subtle disdain. Without hesitation, I stepped into the car. "Take me home," I said. This time, I'd send whoever stole my life back to the gutter they slithered from.

The moon goddess bestows onto a young girl the ability to become half werewolf, half vampire, and half witch. Will she be able to fulfill her destiny and guard the three realms?..

I've been kidnapped for ten years. When I finally get to go home, I find out that my parents have adopted a new son. In order to prevent me from bullying the adopted heir, Jake Ewing, my parents decide to enroll me in a popular transformation reality show. Every day, I have to compete with the pigs for food and a spot to sleep. Before I go to bed, an instructor will make me recite a hundred times how good my parents and Jake are. If I ever make a mistake, I'll face harsh public punishment in front of the camera. I also have to apologize repeatedly until the director is satisfied with me. Once the reality show is over, I finally transform into the perfect son and brother my family prefers. But on the day the reality show is set to air, I choose to jump off the TV station's rooftop, killing myself once and for all. That's when my parents lose their minds.

When the mafia heir, Marco Gallante, barged into the family vault with his mistress, I was standing before the Virgin Mary statue, cross-checking bloodstained ledgers. Fiore Albero cowered behind him, pointing at the ledgers in my hands and shrieking, "Marco, I'm scared..." I did not even bother looking up, just flicked the ash off my cigar. However, Marco kicked the desk over with one swift boot. "Chiara Moltisanti, Fiore can't stand the sight of all this blood and violence. Sign the divorce papers, now!" I stared at the mess scattered across the floor, thinking back to the pregnancy report the family doctor had handed me just ten minutes ago. The Gallante bloodline was dying out in this generation. Ever since the eldest son, Luca Gallante, died in that accident, Marco became the sole heir. The Don, Carmine Gallante, dreamed of nothing more than a legitimate boy of pure blood to carry on the family name and glory. So, I smiled, bright and sharp, with unmistakable mockery. "Perfect. Since you want true love, then the Don's throne will never be yours." Besides, I never wanted Marco, that useless fool. What I wanted was the Gallante empire, a mafia dynasty spanning three continents with 100 years of roots, and the control that left him with nowhere to run and no legs to stand on. This time, I would cut him out completely, keep the bloodline, and sit at the head of the family.

Rumors spread about the city's wealthiest man, Alexander Stone, abandoning his wife after three years of a secret marriage to marry the daughter of a state senator for personal gain. However, his wife surprised everyone by calmly modifying their divorce agreement to demand compensation for her husband’s failure to fulfill his duties as a husband. She is entitled to half of his company. And when the man offers a reward for her whereabouts, he puts himself in the hands of his top lawyer advisor, unknowingly she is the abandoned ex-wife who is set to take half of his company.y.

I was twelve when Henry Shaw took me home from the orphanage, gave me a new name, put me through school, and gave me a good life. Ten years later, his first love returned from abroad. Her name sounded like mine, and her face looked like a mirror image. I quickly realized I had been a stand-in all along. Crushing the diagnosis in my pocket, I decided that I was going to live the rest of my life for myself, even if I did not have much time left.

When Corinne turned fifteen, she was sent to live with the Silver Stone pack… To learn how to be a wolf. Half human, half wolf, with no awakened wolf inside her. An outcast. Weak. Labeled “the hybrid”… But what no one knows is that she carries an Alpha aura she should never have had. Three years of bullying and silence, And three years of falling in love with the one man she was forbidden to want. Glacier… The Alpha of Silver Stone. Her father’s closest friend. A man whose heart was sealed shut by betrayal, who turned his back on the Moon Goddess forever. He swore no mate would ever threaten his control… Until Corinne’s scent began to change. As her eighteenth birthday draws near, A bond awakens. Impossible to deny. A hunger she was never meant to feel. Can a weak hybrid become an Alpha’s mate? And can an Alpha refuse fate… simply because she is his friend’s daughter? In a world ruled by laws, Love may be the one crime that is never forgiven.