Why Am I Suddenly Stumbling Over My Words

"Mr. Dawson, about that farmhouse construction project in Hattensburg… I've decided that I'm willing to go there." Gary Dawson, on the other end of the line, sounds fairly surprised. "I've been asking you to go there for ages, yet you refused every time because you said you wanted to be with your boyfriend, Timothy. Why the sudden change of mind?" Madeline Carlton lowers her reddened eyes and pretends to chuckle nonchalantly. "I guess I hit one too many walls and just decided to come to my senses afterward." Hearing this, Gary sighs and says sternly, "This is a highly classified mission. You will be assuming a whole new identity when you start working on this project. Before the mission ends, you will not be allowed to have any contact with the rest of the world. "Madeline, are you sure that you've thought things through?" "Yes. I just want to escape this place as soon as I can." There is a long silence on the phone. However, Gary answers right after the pause. "Alright. I'll send the classified contract to you in a while. It should take about a month for the paperwork to be finalized. Use that opportunity to say goodbye to your friends and family." The call disconnects. An email pops up in Madeline's inbox. Right after reading through the classified contract, she signed her name with a flourish and submitted the file with a click. At the same time, Bloomberg Group's new product launch plays on the television. Timothy Bloomberg, wearing a tailored white suit, slowly leads Lacey Houston up the catwalk stage.

Five years after my death, my daughter, Emma, dialed Xander Green’s number. She cautiously asked, "Do you like my mom?" She was trying to get an answer to the question I once wrote in my diary. "Xander, do you like me?" Unexpectedly, the voice on the other end sneered, "Did your mom put you up to this? Using her own daughter like a pawn? What an unfaithful woman! She’s already with your dad, yet still trying to rekindle things with me?"

During a company team-building event, I collapse from a seafood allergy. Yet my fiance, Frederick Scott, rushes Beatrice Sutton, who only twisted her ankle, to the hospital. I come close to dying because I don't get treatment in time. Later, Frederick explains, "Beatrice is my best friend's sister. He's seriously ill now, and I promised him I'd take care of his sister. I swear I'll keep my distance from her from now on." This isn't the first time I've heard an excuse like that. On our fifth anniversary, Beatrice accidentally deleted a work file and burst into tears out of worry. When Frederick heard about it, he left me stranded on a mountain and drove back to the office himself. I spent a whole day and night walking home through the rain. On Christmas, Beatrice's house lost power. Frederick was worried that she might be scared of being alone, and he rushed over to her place without even telling me, leaving me out in the snow waiting for him until dawn. These kinds of things have happened countless times. Afterward, he always brushes them off with the same excuse. I've long since lost all faith in him and no longer believe a single word he says. I pick up my phone and call the company that keeps reaching out to me. "I've decided to accept your offer from last time. I'll bring the core technology with me."

I gave my husband everything—my love, my loyalty, and even my health—only to be tossed aside like garbage. The night I handed him the contract that would make him a millionaire, he gave me divorce papers and introduced his new fiancée, the daughter of his company’s director. Just when I thought my world had collapsed, he appeared. Leon Castello. The cold, ruthless billionaire my husband had spent years trying to impress. He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse: “Marry me, and I’ll make your ex regret ever leaving you.” At first, it was just a deal. A marriage on paper. But Leon knew things about me no stranger should. He protected me, cherished me, and whispered my name in his sleep like a long-lost memory. And then I discovered the truth. Leon Castello wasn’t just my husband’s enemy. He had been waiting for me all along.

At the awards for the Global Jewelry Design Competition, my stepsister Sandra took the grand prize. She used the designs she stole from me. What she didn’t know was the show’s biggest sponsor: Jude Moretti. Godfather of the Moretti family. A bloodthirsty monster scarred in an explosion, a man they say can never have children. And the grand prize? Becoming the Godfather’s bride. That night, Moretti’s men, all in black, delivered a gold-trimmed marriage contract. They were here for the “genius designer.” My fiancé, Marco, panicked. He whisked Sandra off to Vegas to save her. They got married that night. With the deed done, Sandra strutted back in, wearing my silk robe. She flashed the ring on her finger and the hickies all over her neck. “Marco’s mine now,” she purred. “What are you going to do, Odessa? The Godfather’s only giving you a day. If you don’t marry him, the Family will have to appease him. That means sending you to the red-light district. Selling you to the kind of sicko who gets off on broken things.” She was wrong. I had another choice. I found my father and stepmother, both scrambling to deal with the contract. “I’ll do it,” I said. “I’ll marry the Godfather.”

In the seventh year of my marriage to Simon Heath, I finally walk away from him after his 32nd mistress shows up at my door. I join a classified government program and disappear from his world. Now he's falling apart and calling me non-stop. "Lily, I was wrong. Please come back." In the past, a single word of apology from him would have been enough to make me stay. But not this time. This time, he's bound to be disappointed.

My father is one of the notorious and rich men in the world. Because of how much he hated my mother and me, he betrothed me to the president's son rather than have me go to college. He did it for business, to have more connections and money. But, I never want to marry for money. My mother did the same and I'm suffering for it. I chose to run away from home to a far place. I planned to go to college from there. Like fate, the bad boy I fell in love with is my betrothed husband. oh....and I made an enemy that turned out to be the daughter my father loves.

My boy friend Caleb Ford's childhood sweetheart, Julia Leclair, is losing her hair from chemotherapy. So, he orders me to cut mine off and make her a wig. "Julia's allergic to synthetic wigs. You've been growing your hair for ten years—it's perfect." I refuse, but his friends tie me down. Someone shaves my head to the scalp, buzzing through my thick, glossy hair until nothing's left but a butchered mess. Julia sits in her wheelchair and laughs, saying I look like a toad. Caleb smiles and nods in agreement. He adds with a chuckle, "It's just some hair. Was that really necessary?" But back when I was bullied for having uneven, choppy short hair for six straight years, it was he who stood in front of me. He had his arms spread wide as he shielded me from harm. Now he's the one wielding the blade. One by one, their little circle chimes in. They tell me not to hold a grudge against someone who's sick. Caleb snaps impatiently, "Stop trying to talk sense into her. She can get lost! Did you see that fit she threw over a few strands of hair? It's not like they won't grow back." I turn around and walk away. I never look back. Later, I hear that Caleb begs for my forgiveness by kneeling his way up 9000 steps until his knees are ruined.

I was the stand-in who looked most like my husband's first love. He put me through countless plastic surgeries, both major and minor ones, until I became her exact likeness. But then, she came back from the dead. All it took was her saying, "I don't like anyone looking like me," and he sent me right back to the operating table once more. I begged him, telling him that my body couldn't handle it anymore. Alas, he only looked at me with irritation. "Seeing that cheap imitation of her face just disgusts me," he sneered. "No matter how close you come, you'll never be her." In the end, I died on that operating table. Yet, he went mad, trying desperately to recall what I once looked like.

Diana Balmorris is the only daughter of the family that has a chain of restaurants across the country A, a young heiress who had been in love with her childhood friend, Mikhael Montreal. Everyone wanted to witness the two business conglomerates to finally merge, and the marriage for love! However, one night changed it all. On the day of their engagement, a woman announced that she is pregnant with Mikhael's baby! Diana is broken hearted at what happened and drank herself to death that night. Because of her drunken state, she had found the mysterious arrogant Raphael Blackstone, the infamous ruthless mafia boss, who had been bullying a man, and poured a drink on him at the bar! She was able to escape him, but she had thrown up on him the second time. What's more, she had lost consciousness in front of him. Coincidentally, Raphael has been pressured by his grandfather to marry, and the only way he can inherit the company is if he got married for love! "What, you want me to marry you? Are you insane?!" "Yes, I am," and sealed it with a kiss.