What Eating Gilbert Grape

On our engagement day, my fiancee, Lucille Perry, had her childhood best friend, Derek Miller, show up with a box of handmade cookies as a gift. Out of basic courtesy, I picked one up and took a bite. Derek and a few of his buddies burst out laughing. "This mama's boy can't even recognize his own mother's ashes!" My stomach churned violently. Shocked and furious, I lunged at him to throw a punch, but Lucille desperately held me back. Derek looked at me smugly and grinned. "Since you already ate it, why don't you tell everyone how your mom tastes?" I was so angry that I kicked him right in the face. However, Lucille turned around and slapped me hard across the cheek. "Spencer Bourdain, is this really necessary? Can't you take a joke? Eating a little bit of ashes won't kill you. Look at how petty you're being!" My heart went completely numb. I quietly pulled out my phone and sent a message to a certain number. [The wedding reception is ready. All we need now is you, the bride-to-be.]

On our third wedding anniversary, I brought a gift to my husband’s office. Walking past the secretary's suite, I stopped dead. A king-size bed had been set up inside. A young woman in a designer dress was sprawled across it, a handheld game console in her hands, surrounded by imported snacks of every variety. "Kevin, the lunch you ordered yesterday was pre-packaged meals. Marcus and I both felt sick after eating it. Today, make sure it's from The Palace Hotel." Kevin -- my husband's personal assistant -- bowed and scraped before her, his face a mask of obsequious flattery. "Mrs. Thorne, please don't worry. Mr. Thorne made it very clear -- everything should be tailored to your preferences and the baby's. He knows you love the chef at The Palace Hotel, so he set up a standing VIP account for you. Anything you want, anytime." She was Mrs. Thorne? Then what exactly was I? My brow furrowed. I glanced down at the wedding ring I'd worn for years. The girl beamed, radiant. "For the baby's arrival, my husband is throwing a lavish yacht party. Every important person in New York is getting an invitation. I want the whole world to know that I'm the love of his life, and that our son will be blessed by the most powerful people before he's even born. The champagne and flowers must be the finest available -- no budget limit. Our child is going to have the best of everything from day one." I stared at the gentle swell of her belly and called my father. "Dad, that divorce agreement you drew up three years ago -- you can have the lawyers send it over now."

On the day of her engagement, her boyfriend had run off. She drowned her sorrows unexpectedly, then she made love with her boyfriend's older brother. Two families caught the two people the next morning in bed! "If that's the case, then get married!" The man who had always been cold and calm used a simple sentence that couldn't be simpler than the conclusion of the relationship between the two. Marrying Damian Desmond??? She doesn't dare! From childhood to adulthood, for some reason, the person she feared the most was him. Her world with his was radically different. Who is Damian Desmond? The pillar of the nation, the elite of society, the first family, the first intelligence, the heart is more treacherous than anything else and is desperate, and she is just a child of a second wife, not just a slow mind. A slow, reluctant appearance can only be considered elegant, the family background goes without saying, it is as different as chalk and cheese. So, in everyone's eyes, Fiona Forger, she is "an ugly toad dreaming of eating swans. So this time, basically no one expected that the person who ran off was her...

My husband, Mark Thompson, and I went hiking. After eating some wild berries I picked, he was poisoned and died. When I got home, a woman named Sarah Miller and her son, Tommy Miller, showed up at my door. It turned out Mark had given them our house and car. On top of that, he owed them a huge amount of money. I ended up giving them all the savings I had. To care for my sick mother-in-law, Judith Thompson, I worked three jobs. I was surviving on basic meals like bread and butter. After years of exhausting work, I collapsed in the hospital. Judith told the doctors to stop my treatment. Just as I was about to die, Mark walked into the ward with Sarah and Tommy in his arms. He tossed five dollars at me. “Thanks for taking care of my mom all these years.” That was when I realized Mark had faked his death just to be with Sarah and their love child. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day we went hiking together.

My adopted sister, an Omega who has always seemed delicate, harmless, and wolf-less, vanishes the night before full moon. Everyone, including my parents and my mate—the Alpha who's supposed to protect me—blames me for driving her away. They drag me to the Memory Offering altar, bind my wolf in silver chains, and demand the truth from my memories. Little do they know that my body has been laced with 99 silver needles, buried deep under my skin, each one driven in by the hand of the innocent girl they adore the most. The silverbane has seeped through my blood, eating away at my bones and my wolf spirit. I don't have long. So, I seize control. I invoke the oldest rite in the pack, the Memory Offering, to let them see the truth with their own eyes. For three years, I've been the one who was framed, humiliated, and tortured. Meanwhile, my so-called gentle sister is the real monster behind it all. By the time the truth is revealed, the silverbane has devoured my soul. Bathed in the blinding white light of the rite, I die on that cold, stone altar, with a pain that cuts to the bone and a peace that feels almost like freedom.

My best friend Seraphine had not one drop of blood left in her body when they found her. Her skin was translucent. There were two dried trails of blood from the corners of her mouth, like she had wept herself empty long before the end. She left one note. One sentence: "Vera saw his face." From that day forward, I became the Covenant's greatest sinner. Because I knew who did it. But I said nothing. For ten years, I said nothing. Then Lucian came back. He was the one who had turned us, raised us, given us the only home we had ever known. He set the Soul Prism in front of me. "Tonight," he said, "you give me the killer." His eyes hadn't changed. That was the worst part. After ten years of exile, of stones and fire and nights that never got warmer, I looked at him and he was still exactly who he had always been to me. "Or you disappear from this world along with him." He didn't know. The reason I had chosen exile and starvation and a Blood Oath that had been eating my soul core alive for a decade — was him. All of it, always, had been for him.

My nephew, Jason, came to live with my family for three years while he went to high school in the city. I took care of him the best I could, never once thinking it was a burden. The day he got accepted into a top-ranked university, he went live online. He told thousands of strangers about his miserable life living under someone else's roof. "I know I shouldn't say this, but I really suffered through it. "Those days of depending on others… I never want to think about them ever again. "I just want all parents to know this. No matter how poor you are, keep your kids with you. Even eating scraps together is better than watching another family of three enjoy a feast while you sit alone in the corner." He became an overnight sensation, so did I. The people on the internet dug up everything about me. My name, my job, my address. I was doxxed. I died depressed from the online bullying. However, I somehow got to do it all over again. This time, I was not going to be the saint anymore.

I'm the only heir to the wealthiest conglomerate in the world. My father, Tyrone Ferguson, is extremely powerful and has forces from both the underworld and the legal world eating out of his palm. But I witness my girlfriend, Vivian Vega, giving a "Voluntary Transfer of Body Ownership" contract to my arch nemesis, Richard Larkin, at our engagement ceremony. "Don't be mad at us, Isaac." Vivian shows me the contract, her tone still light and casual. "I love you, so I'll reserve my most treasured virginity for you. I will always be your wife, but I want to give the ownership of my body to Richard." "The hell are you on about?" With a deep frown on my face, I attempt to pull Vivian away from Richard, only to get pushed away by the latter. Vivian quickly moves to stand in front of Richard, her brows tangled into a frown. "Stop being so narrow-minded, Isaac! I'm free to give anyone my body!" She then stands on her tiptoes to kiss Richard right in front of me. At that moment, I become the biggest joke in elite society. Before the mass media begins spreading the news, I send out a text message calmly. "There's no need to help cover up for the Vega family's shady businesses anymore."

Grayson I was her nightmare before I ever knew I loved her. I told myself it was harmless words, laughter and power. I didn’t see the damage until it was too late. By the time I realized Selene was the only girl who ever mattered, she was already gone, taking my chance at redemption with her. Success followed me anyway. Money. Power. A company with my name on the top floor. None of it erased her. So when she walks into my office ten years later—untouched by the boy I used to be—I know this is my reckoning. She may be my employee now, but I’m the one on my knees. I’ll endure her anger, her hatred, even her revenge… if it means I get the chance to make things right. Because this time, I refuse to lose her. Selene I survived him once. I won’t let him destroy me again. Grayson was my bully, my humiliation, the reason my scars run deeper than skin. He took pieces of me I never got back—and now fate has the audacity to put him above me. My boss. My CEO. My past. He looks at me like regret is eating him alive. Like I’m something he still wants. But wanting me now doesn’t erase what he did then. I didn’t come back to be weak. I didn’t come back to forgive. I came back to win. And if Grayson thinks redemption will be easy, he’s forgotten one thing—I’m not the girl he broke anymore. And I won’t go down without a fight.

Jenna Nova watched everything taken from her when her father died. Yet, it wasn't as gut drenching as seeing her boyfriend eating her Stepmothers' pussy after being kicked out of her father's multinational company. Getting drunk at the bar and ending up in the wrong room. She woke up in the company of a dying man, saving his life in the process. Everything changed when she found out about his identity. That man was Casper Blade, the newly inaugurated CEO of Blade Towers and ruler of the dark mafia. Not only was he cold and ruthless but it was also rumored that he was the devil disguised as a human. He was attractive to the kill but his heart was as dark as coal. He was everything she feared and before she realized, he got her just where he wanted her. Against his dangerous family and all odds, he broke protocols just for her. Still, Jenna couldn't accept his obsessive love and tried to escape but why couldn't he let her go? He had taken over her mind and when he found her, she begged to be left alone. His lips parted slightly, and he spoke like a demon. "Return my heart, and I will let you go."