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A love story that ended in tears. A cheating scandal. A heartbroken man. A dark past. Venita Kent is desperate to find a job but she keeps hitting brick walls. Until she doesn't. A company has finally hired her and she walks in to find herself the personal assistant to the man she was in love with eight years ago. He hates her, for good reason because she shattered his heart to dust and he is only so happy to make her life a living hell. Amidst unresolved emotions, their new dynamics, her twisted present, and her dark past will these two lovers find each other again?
Venita
The cab pulls up in front of my home and I get out and fish around inside my purse. The pathetic jingle of a coin or three tinkling together greets me. I pay the cabbie and then he is on his way. With a sigh, I shut my wallet and stuff it into the back pocket of my worn jeans.
Home, I think, staring up at the apartment complex sprawled in front of me.
The word apartment complex is way too luxurious for the place I call home. The building is on the poorer side of Los Angeles. Just like everywhere else, there is the elite, expensive side where the socialites stay, the orderly side where the average men stay and then there is this side. This is the side that everyone wishes was coloured out of the maps.
I continue forward, my shoes slapping against the floor, loud in the silence of the night. My heels are in my hand as they are every other night. After spending the entire day on my feet in heels, I would rather walk barefoot home than spend one more second in those damn traps.
I push our huge main door in. There should be a doorman here, or at least a guard. Our landlord does not have the extra penny to waste on security for people like us though. This building is inhabited by people that others should guard against.
Unlike the outside of the building, the inside is quite noisy. The thin walls offer the residents no privacy. I hear a couple arguing, a baby crying, someone's phone ringing. The tiny lobby is also unmanned, and in fact many people use it to keep the few broken and useless things they don't want anymore. It will all be emptied, eventually. I walk faster, in a hurry to get out of the halls and into the relative safety of my apartment which is on the third floor.
"Shoot." I say, glancing at the huge wall clock hoisted just before the stairs. It is a miracle the thing still works. I am quite sure the batteries have not been changed in more than a year. I am later than usual today, but I did take up two shifts and still stayed an hour extra. It is past midnight.
The stairs creak under my feet like the groaning of ghosts, my weight causing each one to sag suspiciously. They will collapse one day, and I had better not be the one on the stairs when that happens.
On the second floor, a door opens and someone hurries forward, one of my neighbours, Maria. Her head is down and her hair is covering most of her face but I still glimpse the spot of colour on her face around her eye when she brushes past me. I make no comments, I simply continue to the next flight of stairs. In a neighbourhood like ours, it is much better to pretend like your neighbours don't exist. Nobody stops anyone to make conversation, we simply brush by each other, our suspicion trained on the other person, alert in case they try to do anything funny.
I encounter no one else as I hurry towards my door, jamming my keys into the keyhole and turning. The pile of papers in front of my door is unmistakable, my daily mail. The mail is the only system that still works efficiently in this building; the bills will not pay themselves. I drop into a crouch and gather the handful before I push into my apartment and shut the door behind me, hitting the switch and turning the lock simultaneously. Turning around, I behold my home.
It is tiny. I have no sitting room, there is just my bedroom which has its adjoining bathroom and kitchen. What else could a girl ask for? It is small, so small that I cannot take eight steps along the wall but it is clean and it is home. I sling my wallet and the papers onto my perfectly laid bed and go into the bathroom to freshen up. The makeup goes first, a light coating on my face more to protect myself from the rest of the world than the other way round. Waiting tables has certain expectations, cloth-wise and look-wise.
You can be the type to auction your body as much as your tray; these people have their boobs practically hanging out and skirts so tight and so short you could drop a pen and get an eyeful on your way back up. They get loads of tips at the end of the day so everyone's happy. If not that, you can choose to auction a certain part of your body, in my case my legs which have received a compliment or two in the past. I don't complain about my tips, sometimes they are the ones that pay my bills and not the actual pay. If not those two, you could decide to wear full length trousers and long-sleeved tops in the heat of the town but in a place like this, where the only person hungrier than you is the person next to you, that is almost not an option at all. The makeup is a mutual agreement between us all. Most of the other ladies wear it to look more attractive. I wear it because I cannot stand to live such a miserable life in my element. It is my war paint of a sort, a flimsy shield between myself and the world but I will take that rather than go fresh-faced and vulnerable in my irrational opinion.
After cleaning off the makeup, I have a quick shower. The hot water has long since stopped working and even though the night is a little chilly, I have bathed enough times to be used to it.
After, I stare at myself in the mirror. I look worn out and tired. There are dark circles beneath my eyes and my eyes are dim, like a shutter has been pulled over them.
"Why is my life so shit?" I ask my reflection.
If this was a fairytale, there would be a shimmer and my reflection would begin speaking to me. She would tell me that great treasure awaits me and I'm destined to be fucking rich. I huff and turn away. Fairytales don't exist.
A contract marriage brings two people that never met together. Hayden doesn't have time for marriage, she has a dynasty to rule and unruly brothers to keep in check. Tristan is a dedicated bachelor, the last thing on his mind is marriage, and especially not to the mysterious veiled woman who is rumoured to be hideously disfigured. She is not his type, and yet Tristan cannot get the thought of having her out of his mind. No matter how much she denies it, she falls for his seduction with every passing day. Neither of them is ready for the flames of desire that threaten to consume them. With her life and her inheritance in jeopardy and everything at stake, is he enough to save her from the waiting jaws of her demise?
Vekra is just a regular wolf in a regular pack, but that is until her father betrays all werewolves and her pack becomes outlawed. She must find a way to redeem herself and her pack and she knows just who can do that for her; her mate. Alpha Zaden is everything she has ever imagined her mate would be. He is hot, he is dark, he is sinfully attractive, he is powerful, and he does not want her. Rejected, unworthy, Vekra must find a way past the pain and the hurt that have become her daily mana. She must do everything in her power to bring her mate to her side. But what happens if she fails?
Death is a lullaby, and only she can hear it. She was just a normal girl with average dreams and average problems. That is, until the line between life and death blurred for her. Stuck in life, undying, Maria de Cavinne is forced to seek answers and see ugly truths in places that she had least expected it. Julius Allyrh will do anything to save his friend and king. When his journey takes him to the doorsteps of a woman that is nothing like any he has ever met, he will do anything to get her to break all of her scruples, for very selfish purposes. The potent elixir of emotions that grow between them is wrong, dangerous and forbidden. As time goes on and they both unravel truths behind dynasties, see ancient prophecies come to life, it will be a constant struggle to stay above the dark executioner's blow. Will they survive it, or will their feelings be the end of them?
Allison fell in love with Ethan Iversen, the soon-to-be Alpha of the Moonlight Crown pack. She always wanted him to notice her. Meanwhile, Ethan was an arrogant Alpha who thought a weak Omega could not be his companion. Ethan's cousin, Ryan Iversen, who came back from abroad and was the actual heir of the pack, never tried to get the position nor did he show any interest in it. He was a popular playboy Alpha but when he came back to the pack, one thing captured his eyes and that was Allison.
Linsey was stood up by her groom to run off with another woman. Furious, she grabbed a random stranger and declared, "Let's get married!" She had acted on impulse, realizing too late that her new husband was the notorious rascal, Collin. The public laughed at her, and even her runaway ex offered to reconcile. But Linsey scoffed at him. "My husband and I are very much in love!" Everyone thought she was delusional. Then Collin was revealed to be the richest man in the world. In front of everyone, he got down on one knee and held up a stunning diamond ring. "I look forward to our forever, honey."
It was supposed to be a marriage of convenience, but Carrie made the mistake of falling in love with Kristopher. When the time came that she needed him the most, her husband was in the company of another woman. Enough was enough. Carrie chose to divorce Kristopher and move on with her life. Only when she left did Kristopher realize how important she was to him. In the face of his ex-wife’s countless admirers, Kristopher offered her 20 million dollars and proposed a new deal. “Let’s get married again.”
Chandler Su who had cheated by her boyfriend then got drunk at a bar. To take revenge, she grabbed a man randomly and took him to the room. After a crazy night, Chandler found the strange man was a super handsome guy the next morning. Shy and shocked Chandler run away after leaving 150 RMB and scorning the man of his poor bed skills. However, she never thought the story would become so dramatic as the next day, she found out that the new coming president of her company was exactly the man she slept the last night! Worse than that, this new boss seemed very narrow-minded as he asked Chandler to come to his office on the first day.
The whispers said that out of bitter jealousy, Hadley shoved Eric's beloved down the stairs, robbing the unborn child of life. To avenge, Eric forced Hadley abroad and completely cut her off. Years later, she reemerged, and they felt like strangers. When they met again, she was the nightclub's star, with men ready to pay fortunes just to glimpse her elusive performance. Unable to contain himself, Eric blocked her path, asking, "Is this truly how you earn a living now? Why not come back to me?" Hadley's lips curved faintly. "If you’re eager to see me, you’d better join the queue, darling."
Rosalynn's marriage to Brian wasn't what she envisioned it to be. Her husband, Brian, barely came home. He avoided her like a plague. Worse still, he was always in the news for dating numerous celebrities. Rosalynn persevered until she couldn't take it anymore. She upped and left after filing for a divorce. Everything changed days later. Brian took interest in a designer that worked for his company anonymously. From her profile, he could tell that she was brilliant and dazzling. He pulled the stops to find out her true identity. Little did he know that he was going to receive the greatest shocker of his life. Brian bit his finger with regret when he recalled his past actions and the woman he foolishly let go.