Face Time With Eight Mga Nobela at Kwento

Every April Fools' Day, my boyfriend joined his childhood friend in the same cruel prank, pretending to propose to me. Last year, I slipped the ring onto my finger, my heart full of hope. Suddenly, the mechanism snapped tight. Pain shot through my hand, and I cried out. He apologized afterward and promised that, this year, the proposal would be real. As such, I arrived carefully dressed, believing him. Instead, I was met with a face full of cake. He reached out gently, wiping the cream from my face as if it were nothing more than a harmless joke. However, this time, I took a step back. After six disappointments, I chose to walk away. So why was it that, in the end, he was the one consumed by regret?

My mom died giving birth to me. They couldn't save her. My dad? He dumped me outside a prison and ran. Didn't even look back. It was five degrees. I was basically frozen. Barely breathing. Later, a guard said the whole max block lost it that night. One hundred eight inmates—death row, life sentences—went crazy. Slamming doors. Smashing windows. Yelling they wanted to keep me. In the end, they filed a letter. Not a breakout plan. A custody request. Somehow... it got approved. From that day on, I had 108 dads. But growing up, I found out the truth. They weren't criminals. On paper, they were dead—killed in the line of duty. In reality, they were still out there, serving. Eighteen years later, I got into one of the top high schools—with the highest score in the State of Ashford. On the fifth day, I beat the rich girl, Vivian Cobbley, by one point on a mock exam. Next thing I knew, my name was all over the bulletin board: [Riley Ray, daughter of murderers!] Vivian cornered me in the bathroom and shoved my head into a toilet. "Your dads are killers. That filth's in you too." She beat me so hard I dragged her down when we went over the second-floor railing. When I woke up, the Dean of Students was right in my face, finger in my face. "No surprise you're violent. It's in your blood. Call your criminal dads. Now." I shook. "Mr. Todd... you sure you want me to call them?"

Eight years ago, my first love, Zyla Garcia, dumped me. Right in front of me, she threw herself into the arms of a rich scion named Brett Salway. She said condescendingly, "Kieran, you asked me to wait for you for three years. But how many three years does a woman have?" I begged her desperately, but she remained unmoved. Brett even ordered someone to pin me to the ground and force me to finish a bottle of red wine before letting me leave. "You should thank me, Kieran. Otherwise, you would never have the chance to drink such expensive wine in your life!" Brett sneers. I watched as they got into a luxury car and drove off. Eight years later, I am one of the most powerful figures in this city—and I run into them again.

Eight years of loyalty—wiped out by three days of her batting her lashes. At the bonfire, I swore the Alpha would finally mark me. Instead, I watched him fasten a sparkly little pendant around her neck. When the fire broke out, he ditched me—flames snapping at my heels. Said I could "handle myself," then played hero carrying her out. She showed up at my herb shop all smug, called me a "mutt no one wants." Then he showed up—Alpha on his knees outside my door, begging for another shot. I nodded toward my shelves. "These heal every wolf in Stormborne... except the Alpha who couldn't see what was right in front of him."

I went to visit the set where my chaste fiancee, the award-winning actress Whitney Lockwood, was shooting her new movie. When I heard she was shooting a bed scene, I frowned but still agreed. However, her scene partner, a young actor named Yarden Stein, could not get into character. Whitney grew impatient. She said they should do it for real. I stopped her and said they could use a body double instead. She slapped me across the face and glared at me with teary eyes. “Yale, this movie is very important to me! I have to make sure it’s perfect! Or do you think my first time matters more than the career I love most?” In the next second, she tore off all her garments and climbed onto the young actor without hesitation. She turned to look at me. Her eyes were full of sorrow. “I’ll imagine Yarden is you. Then, it will be no different from being with you.” I watched them slowly prepare for the scene. I heard the clapboard snap as filming began. My face stayed blank as I made a phone call. “Blacklist Whitney and Yarden. Anyone who still hires them will be making an enemy of the Foster family.”

Katherine has to marry before twenty eight to inherit her mothers company. Days before the wedding she finds her fiancé with her stepsister. She walks out, drinks, and crosses paths with the low key CEO, Cade Lawson, a man she mistakes for a gigolo. In that haze she signs a marriage certificate with him without knowing. Now she wakes up tied to a powerful CEO and pushed closer to the first love she thought she lost.

My mother said I was a born beauty and was able to charm any man. She told me not to touch a man before my twentieth birthday. In the previous timeline, I listened to her, so when a wealthy heir was dosed with an aphrodisiac, I pushed him away when he tried to take me into his embrace. But the effects of the skincare routine I did transferred to my mother after my twentieth birthday. I used face masks, but my face became wrinkled and spotted. Meanwhile, my mother glowed with smooth and youthful skin. I danced, but I only became fatter while my mother became slim. Seeing how I looked like a fifty-year-old woman, my father called me a useless piece of trash and wanted to marry me off to a bald man as his second wife. I cried and begged my mother for help. But she said this was for my own good, her twenty-something face a mask of hypocrisy. I was forced to run away from home, but doing so only sped up my aging. Three days later, I died on the streets right by a trash heap. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back in time to the night I met that rich heir. This time, I did not push him away but straddled him in bed.

Julian Hayes spent eight years climbing from first officer to captain of the most coveted international routes. I stood beside him for every mile of that climb. For him, I walked away from the Valenti family, the most feared Mafia name on the East Coast. I buried Elena Valenti, and became Lina Vale, the girl who smiled in the cabin while he ruled the cockpit. The day I left, my father stood on the marble steps of our estate and said, "Elena, if you walk out that gate for him, don’t come crawling back." Julian never knew. To him, I was a woman with no real family, no real power, and no life worth asking about. I was the one who memorized his flight schedule, packed his stomach pills, and kept dinner warm until midnight. Once, I asked him, "Can you take me into the sky the way you see it? Just once." He didn’t even put down his fork. "The cockpit is a workplace, Lina. Not a theme park." I said okay and never asked again. Then one sleepless dawn, I found the encrypted album on his phone. More than forty cockpit photos: cloud seas, blood-red sunsets, double rainbows after storms, the Milky Way over the Atlantic. Every one had been sent to the same contact. A teddy bear emoji. The newest photo showed half a sun hanging off the wingtip. His caption read, [Next time you’re off, I’ll put you in the observer seat. Sit on the right. That’s where the whole sky opens up.] She replied, [I’ll hold you to that.] I put the phone back. I didn’t change the password, didn’t delete the album, didn’t wake him up to beg for an explanation. At dawn, I brewed his coffee like always, sat alone at the kitchen island, and drank mine in silence. Then I sent my resignation letter and called a number I hadn’t touched in eight years. I watched the first flight of the morning rise beyond the Manhattan skyline and said, "Papa, I’m coming home." When the line connected, my father’s voice was colder than a gun barrel. "Have you thought it through?"

My brother wants to become the godson of a Mafia don. As his sister, I was picking out his burial plot. In my last life, I overheard the truth that the selection wasn’t an honor but a suicide mission—used once, then erased. I did everything I could to stop him, but he cursed me for blocking his path to power. With no other choice, I secretly called the police. So, my brother was arrested; his dream shattered. Instead, someone else took his place, and during a bloody shootout, that man proved himself. He became the don’s sole successor. Our family lost its home, paying the price for offending the Mafia. My parents and my brother went insane. Convinced everything was my fault, the three of them worked together and buried me alive in the hills behind town. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day my brother excitedly announced he was going to take part in the selection. Looking at his stupid, clueless face, I smiled. This time, I’ll watch with my own eyes as he becomes nothing more than a replaceable lapdog.

Old commander, Peter Howell, slipped and fell into the water, while his guard—my brother, Joe Castro—was off setting off fireworks with our foster sister, Felicity Castro. After getting a second chance at life, I didn't run to find Joe like I had before. I jumped in without hesitation and dragged Peter out. Last time, I went to get Joe. He made it in time and saved Peter, and from that day on, Peter treated him like a hero. His career took off. But Felicity had started a fire with the fireworks. Her face was badly burned, and she couldn't handle it. In the end, she took her own life. Joe stayed eerily calm and told me it was just an accident. But the day my college acceptance letter came, he grabbed the iron poker from the fireplace and smashed my leg. His face twisted with hatred. "Commander Howell knows how to swim. Why did you have to drag me there? "If you weren't trying to get my attention, Felicity wouldn't have gotten hurt. She wouldn't have died! And now you think you get to go off to college and start fresh? Not happening. "Your future, your life, you'll use it to pay her back!" He beat me until everything went black. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day Peter fell into the water.