Teddy's Nuts

I'm due for a promotion when I stumble upon my husband entangled with his childhood sweetheart. After that, I'm secretly admitted to a psychiatric facility. I repeatedly tell the doctors that I'm fine, but all I get is worse abuse and humiliation. When Howard Armstrong visits me every month, I beg him to get me out. Each time, he says, "This is a proper establishment, so you have to follow the doctor's instructions. Don't be unreasonable!" On the day I'm discharged, he speaks to me tenderly and calls me his honey. Later, when I place a divorce agreement before him, he breaks down in tears.

After Cynthia Musich causes a surgical accident, my husband of eight years, Xavier Goodwin, forces me to take the fall for her. "Being suspended won't have any effect on you, but Cynthia's just starting out! Leaving a mark on her record this early in her career will ruin her!" The accident victim's family cause a scene and stab me thrice in my pregnant belly. I call Xavier and beg him to save me, but he says coldly, "Cynthia was stabbed, and her life is at stake, so can you please stop making trouble? Just come out on your own." Later, when my dead body is brought to his department, Xavier loses his mind.

At the party for our first wedding anniversary, I hit the floor—face-first on a red carpet, gasping like a fish out of water. Carlo Pipino, my husband, had his arm draped around Gianna Verde, his childhood flame, sipping champagne and laughing. Gianna knew I was allergic to nuts. So, obviously, she bathed everything in hazelnut dressing. One bite and boom—my throat locked, my lungs lit up, and hives popped like confetti. I reached for my allergy meds—came up with a fistful of melted M&Ms instead. Gianna laughed when she saw my face. "Surprise! Carlo swapped your meds. Seriously, Siena, one nut? Dramatic much?" I slid off my chair, wheezing, while the crowd placed bets on how long my "performance" would last. "Carlo... my meds..." I croaked. "Please. I'm gonna die." He sighed, annoyed. "God, you're so dramatic. Why do women always play dead for attention? You know I love you. Just stop this show already." Right then, my heart shattered faster than my lungs could. I stopped begging. Hit the distress signal. Called my real family.

I was touching myself in front of the teddy bear on my bed, because I knew a man was watching behind its eyes. He had sneaked into my home, lay on the bed where I slept, and left traces of himself on my clothes. When I noticed, he watched as I hid in a corner, trembling… not knowing that I had been waiting for him for a long time.

Emily's parents owed a debt of a hundred million dollars before they died, and her fiancé promised to pay the debt once they get married. She attends her fiancé's birthday party only to be drugged by her cousin; a room has already been arranged for her, but she was mistaken taken to the wrong room. She unknowingly slept with a stranger, who left her while she was still asleep. Emily's life is ruined, and she was kicked out of the family. Five years later, Emily comes back to the city with a five-year-old girl. She is a well-known artist, but she couldn't fork out her parent's debt, so she was willing to sell her art gallery for the amount. She meets her potential buyer, a billionaire in the business world, who is also a stranger she slept with five years ago, her daughter's father. She doesn't recognize him, but he recognizes her, not as the girl he slept with five years ago, but as a little girl who owns the secret to his parent's deaths.

After two years of marriage, Khloe Roswell went to reissue her marriage certificate—and discovered the document she'd cherished was a forgery. Determined to confront her husband, Trey Fox, she instead overheard the devastating truth: the man who had tenderly cared for her for six years had, in fact, been married for five—to their university’s advisor, who was six years older than him. She wasn't just his cover; he had branded her barren and forced her to raise his child with another woman. Disgusted, Khloe called the lawyer about her inheritance. Her declaration was simple and left no room for doubt. "I am unmarried. I have no children. The assets are mine, and mine alone." With that, she walked away without a backward glance. Trey, smug and convinced she had nowhere to go, waited for her to come crawling back. He never imagined the day he'd see Khloe again in a marriage alliance broadcast to the nation. Now, she stood in the spotlight, commanding unimaginable wealth, side-by-side with a man at the pinnacle of power—basking in the world's envy.