Where Everything Was Just Fine

On our wedding night, my wife led my younger brother onto our marital bed. He was wearing nothing but his underwear. She expected him to consummate our marriage in my place. "Sweetheart, I feel awful about your legs and what the doctors said about your infertility," she said softly. "Elliot will just have to help us for one night." My face hardened as I stepped forward. I was ready to throw Elliot Charlton out of the bedroom. However, my parents immediately sided against me. "You're the one who can't fulfill your role as a husband," they said sharply. "Elliot is willing to sacrifice himself so that you can have a child. What's wrong with that?" Even my brother laughed at me. He said I was not a real man and told me to accept things while I still could. According to him, I should be thankful to gain a son without doing anything. They even suggested that I stay and watch, claiming it would prove the two were only trying to conceive a child and nothing else. I clenched my teeth until my jaw ached, then turned and called my wife's greatest rival. "You win," I said quietly. "The Wallace family's investment will be transferred to your account tomorrow." After ending the call, I raised my eyes and looked at Janet Wallace. "You share his bed tonight," I said. "Tomorrow, we get divorced."

My husband's first love gets engaged. To make her regret it, he abandons me, his newlywed wife, and joins a research project down at the southern tip of the earth. I've made 999 attempts across several years to visit him, with each one ending in failure. After five years, I stopped going. During a lively birthday party, he suddenly shows up. When he sees my slightly bulging belly, he howls in anger. "I spent five years at the research base, and not once did you care about how I was doing! Who's the father of the bastard child you're pregnant with?" "It's none of your business," I calmly reply.

On the day of my wedding gown fitting, a stranger burst into the VIP suite and stabbed me with a knife. “You think you deserve a dress this expensive after stealing someone else’s man?” She tore at the delicate fabric of my skirt. Then, with a twisted smile, she hurled a bottle of acid at me. The blade was buried in my lower abdomen. The pain drove me to my knees. She grabbed my hair and yanked my head up. “Gerald’s my husband! What are you? You’re nothing but a mistress who can’t even be seen with him in public!” Blood dripped down my fingers. That was when it finally sank in. The man I had been with for seven years had been keeping another woman by his side. “What’re you staring at? Even if I kill you, with my husband’s influence, no one will dare touch me!” Staring at her smug face, I pulled out my phone with hands slicked in blood and called my brother. “Matt…” My voice was unnervingly calm. “Come pick me up at the bridal shop. And please inform the Hoover family that the engagement is off.”

Zoriana Gregory, a young woman of about 22 years, shares her secrets, dreams, her life experiences and desires about her future husband with her diary. Her fantasy of her ideal future husband soon turns reality when her diary somehow falls in the hand of someone she never thought she'd meet again after many long years. Her first love... Liam Whyte Liam visits his country again after closely 11 years, now a grown up and a successful young man. While on his quest to finding his childhood friends again, he came upon a diary during his meeting with an acquaintance of his brother. NOTE: THIS IS THE SYNOPSIS OF THE FIRST BOOK IN THIS ANTHOLOGY. AND IT IS TITLED 'DIARY OF ZORIANNA' IT WAS, A BEAUTIFUL BREAKUP; Is simply a collection of several short stories, combined into one. Each book in the anthology is a standalone.

The doors of elite research institutions aren't open to the unknown. But Rick Allen pulled Beth out of nowhere. He poured everything into nurturing her talent and promised her the world. The Allen family's compromise was simple: the Chief Young Scientist had to be Summer Belden—someone from their own social circle. From that day on, the words Rick said to Beth most often were, "Just wait a little longer." He told her to wait when her groundbreaking paper was published under Summer's name in exchange for research funding. He told her to wait again when the research she'd perfected over three years was packaged as Summer's signature work, paving the way to major awards. "The bigger picture comes first," he said. "The next Nobel Prize—I'll make sure it's yours." But when the paper credited to Summer—though written by Beth—was exposed for fabricated data, everyone reached the same conclusion: Beth, as a core member of the project, had tampered with the data to steal the credit. Locked in a glass-walled archive room, Beth looked at Rick standing outside the door. His gaze was ice-cold, full of disappointment. "Why did you touch the data?" he said. "You've ruined everything I've built." She remembered how he once told her, "In this world, yours is the only talent I truly recognize." He had promised, "I'll make sure achievements with your name hang among the stars." Now he stood with the others, judging her. He looked at her the way people look at a ruthless, ambitious fraud. When she was finally released, Beth dug her nails into her palm until blood ran down. This time, she wouldn't wait any longer.

When I went for my prenatal checkup, I filled in my mafia husband Enrico Salvatore's information in the spouse column. However, the doctor told me, "The system shows no record of you ever being married. You're unmarried." I froze, unable to believe it. "How is that possible? We got married five years ago. Please check again." The doctor pulled up the system records again, and only one line appeared on the screen: [Marriage Registration: None.] At first, I thought the hospital had made a mistake. Then, I overheard Enrico talking to one of his men. "Isabella's the only one in my heart. I'll give her everything else she wants. But Luisa gave me a daughter. For the sake of the family's bloodline, I have to register our marriage and give her that status. Isabella can never find out about the registration." At that moment, I finally understood. The small wedding five years ago was nothing but a cover. We never registered. There was no legal marriage. Even the child I was carrying had no legal standing. It was all an elaborate lie he had crafted. Since none of this ever truly belonged to me, I would just leave.

My family is on the brink of bankruptcy, and I beg my fiancé to help us with emergency funding. He turns me down cold, then gets engaged to Nellie White without hesitation. Just when I'm out of options, my childhood friend shows up with an investment contract and a marriage proposal. I say yes without thinking twice. But even with his help, our company can't escape ruin. My father, unable to bear the blow, suffers a heart attack and dies. At the funeral, overwhelmed by grief, I faint. In my haze, I overhear a conversation between my childhood friend and his friend. "You've already crushed Talitha’s family. When are you going to take her uterus for Nellie?" "On the wedding day," he replies casually. "I'll stage an accident, then operate on her myself. Her uterus will be Nell's. I can't give Nell happiness in this life, so I'll give her a wedding gift. I hope it makes her happy." Turns out his so-called devotion was just so he could take my womb. Even his proposal to me was just a way to remove all obstacles for the woman he loved.

Everyone in the northern territory knew that Damien Malfoy endured brutal punishment every year just for a chance to marry Vivian Locke. The traditions of the Dark Moon Pack required the Alpha to draw a fortune stick at the Moon Goddess Shrine to determine his true fated mate. Yet for three consecutive years, Damien drew fortune sticks that claimed Vivian was not his fated mate. Vivian thought they just had bad luck. It wasn't until the fourth year that she saw Damien switching the fortune sticks. Only then did she realize that Damien had been doing this for four years all because of Denise Ashford, the shewolf who pursued him. When Vivian finally became the Luna of another pack, Damien lost his mind and never marked another shewolf for the rest of his life.

For seven years, I thought Declan was just an ordinary Beta. That was until I secretly traveled a thousand miles to his pack, wanting to surprise him. Only to find other werewolves calling him Alpha. And more importantly, he already had a Luna. The wolves around me started whispering. “Is that the Alpha’s secret lover?” “The nerve of her, showing up here… so shameless.” I wanted to argue, to tell them they had it all wrong. I was his real girlfriend. His Fated Mate. But then, a woman in a gorgeous dress walked over. The wolves bowed their heads respectfully. “Luna.” She was on the phone, her voice a sweet, playful pout. “The blessing ceremony for the heir is about to start, and the Elders are getting antsy… I know you’re busy, but this is our child. You have to be with me.” The man’s voice on the other end was deep and gentle, a voice I knew better than my own. “I know, my Luna.” Just a few nights ago, he had whispered loving words into my ear with that same gentle voice, his body moving powerfully inside mine, holding me so tight. It was my lover, Declan.

Calliope: All my life my parents have sheltered me and now I find out not only am I a damn fairy, I have been promised to some psycho Warlock who thinks he's a God among women. DId he really think I would just drop to my knees right then and there in the damn dining room? Why does he have to be so damn hot....maybe once couldn't hurt, I can always leave tomorrow. I will show him who the God is here, he will be begging for me. Alexander: Who the hell does she think she is? She should be so lucky to be my wife, like she is some prize. This whole arrangement is ridiculous, I am only marrying her for her kingdom why should i care? I have to admit I wouldn't have a bad time with just a 5 minutes alone with her, no strings attatched, the things we could get up to....I'll have her begging me to marry her then ill be the one to cast her aside. Either way I will be her undoing.