The Brass Bottle: A Farcical Fantastic Play in Four Acts

The Travelling Companions

Thomas Anstey Guthrie (8 August 1856 - 10 March 1934) was an English novelist and journalist, who wrote his comic novels under the pseudonym F. Anstey. He was born in Kensington, London, to Augusta Amherst Austen, an organist and composer, and Thomas Anstey Guthrie.

Rejected by the Son, I Chose the Don

On my wedding day, my father sold me to the Chicago Outfit to pay his debts. I was supposed to marry Alex Moreno, the heir to the city's most powerful crime family. But he couldn't even be bothered to show up. As I stood alone at the altar, humiliated, my best friend delivered the final blow. Alex hadn't just stood me up; he had run off to California with his mistress. The whispers in the cathedral turned me into a joke. I was damaged goods, the rejected bride. His family knew the whole time and let me take the public fall, offering me his cousins as pathetic replacements-a brute who hated me or a coward who couldn't protect me. The humiliation burned away my fear, leaving only cold rage. My life was already over, so I decided to set the whole game on fire myself. The marriage pact only said a Carlson had to marry a Moreno; it never said which one. With nothing left to lose, I looked past the pathetic boys they offered. I chose the one man they never expected. I chose his father, the Don himself.

The Billionaire's Blind Bride: No Mercy

I married Clive Harrington, the coldest billionaire in Manhattan, under a strict contract that forbade any emotional burdens. When I needed a high-risk surgery to save my sight, I checked into the clinic alone, hiding the procedure from a husband who saw me as nothing more than a legal asset. I thought I could handle the darkness in silence. But while I was blind and bandaged in my hospital bed, my biological mother called, screaming that if I didn't produce a Harrington heir by the end of the fiscal year, she would cut off the life-saving treatments for my disabled sister. I was crawling on the cold hospital floor, desperately feeling for a cane I had dropped, when I touched a pair of expensive leather shoes. It was Clive. He was supposed to be in London closing a multi-million dollar deal, but there he was, watching his "contract wife" groveling in the dark like a beggar. He didn't walk away in disgust. He carried me to a five-thousand-dollar-a-night VIP suite and sat by my bed, listening in chilling silence as another voicemail from my mother filled the room, calling me a "useless broodmare" who was only worth the trust fund disbursements my marriage secured. I expected him to remind me of Clause 34B or hand me divorce papers now that I was "damaged goods." Instead, I felt his thumb brush a stray tear from my cheek, his presence shifting from a statue of ice into a predatory shield. "I thought I was just currency to you," I whispered, my voice trembling behind the gauze. "Just an investment." Clive didn't answer with words. He picked up his phone and called his head of legal with a single, terrifying command: "Kill the Douglas family’s credit lines. Every debt, every lien—trigger them all. If they want a war, I’ll give them a massacre." As he leaned down to kiss my bandaged forehead, I realized the contract was dead. My husband wasn't protecting an asset anymore; he was hunting the people who had dared to touch what belonged to him.

Secret Triplets: The Billionaire's Second Chance

I stood at my mother’s open grave in the freezing rain, my heels sinking into the mud. The space beside me was empty. My husband, Hilliard Holloway, had promised to cherish me in bad times, but apparently, burying my mother didn't fit into his busy schedule. While the priest’s voice droned on, a news alert lit up my phone. It was a livestream of the Metropolitan Charity Gala. There was Hilliard, looking impeccable in a custom tuxedo, with his ex-girlfriend Charla English draped over his arm. The headline read: "Holloway & English: A Power Couple Reunited?" When he finally returned to our penthouse at 2 AM, he didn't come alone—he brought Charla with him. He claimed she’d had a "medical emergency" at the gala and couldn't be left alone. I found a Tiffany diamond necklace on our coffee table meant for her birthday, and a smudge of her signature red lipstick on his collar. When I confronted him, he simply told me to stop being "hysterical" and "acting like a child." He had no idea I was seven months pregnant with his child. He thought so little of my grief that he didn't even bother to craft a convincing lie, laughing with his mistress in our home while I sat in the dark with a shattered heart and a secret life growing inside me. "He doesn't deserve us," I whispered to the darkness. I didn't scream or beg. I simply left a folder on his desk containing signed divorce papers and a forged medical report for a terminated pregnancy. I disappeared into the night, letting him believe he had successfully killed his own legacy through his neglect. Five years later, Hilliard walked into "The Vault," the city's most exclusive underground auction, looking for a broker to manage his estate. He didn't recognize me behind my Venetian mask, but he couldn't ignore the neon pink graffiti on his armored Maybach that read "DEADBEAT." He had no clue that the three brilliant triplets currently hacking his security system were the very children he thought had been erased years ago. This time, I wasn't just a wife in the way; I was the one holding all the cards.

The Queen Returns: Pampered By Her Three Powerhouse Brothers

After five years of playing the perfect daughter, Rylie was exposed as a stand-in. Her fiancé bolted, friends scattered, and her adoptive brothers shoved her out, telling her to grovel back to her real family. Done with humiliation, she swore to claw back what was hers. Shock followed: her birth family ruled the town's wealth. Overnight, she became their precious girl. The boardroom brother canceled meetings, the genius brother ditched his lab, the musician brother postponed a tour. As those who spurned her begged forgiveness, Admiral Brad Morgan calmly declared, "She's already taken."

Contract Marriage With My Billionaire Boss

"We're friends," I said, voice barely steady. Aaron's lips curled, slow and cruel. "No, we're not." "Friendship's too pure for this." His hand slid to my waist, hot and claiming as he yanked me flush against him. "Do friends kiss like this?" He kissed me. Hard. Possessive. "Or grab each other like this?" A squeeze to my ass. A gasp. "Or think filthy little thoughts?" His breath burned against my ear. "Touch themselves to it?" My cheeks flamed. My body betrayed me. "Stop lying, Venus." His voice was a growl. "I feel it. Every time I'm near you." I whispered, "But you don't even like me." His smile was pure sin. "I don't have to like you to fuck you." Then the offer: "Let's get it out of our system. No lies. No strings. Just truth." He grabbed my chin, eyes lit with hunger. "Say the word, princess." A whisper against my lips- "I'll ruin you." And God help me... I wanted him to. --------- Aaron Sinclair needs a bride to claim his inheritance. Venus Carter needs a miracle to save her dying mother. What begins as a cold contract marriage spirals into a dangerous game of buried trauma, stolen identities, and forbidden attachment. He's ruthless, closed off, and refuses to love. She's resilient, lost, and refuses to stay unloved. But when secrets unravel revealing a stolen childhood, a tragic past, and a vengeful stepmother, their fake marriage is the only thing standing between them and destruction. In a world ruled by power and silence, will love dare to speak first or break them both instead?

The Mute Bride Is The Secret Mastermind

I was the titan of Wall Street until an indictment and an ankle monitor turned my penthouse into a gilded cage. To save face, I was forced into a marriage with Elza, a "mute" girl from the Schmidt family whom I treated as nothing more than a silent piece of furniture while my empire crumbled. The night I was poisoned at a high-society gala, a mysterious server in an oversized uniform saved my life with terrifying, clinical precision. They disappeared into the night, leaving me with a silver cufflink and a burning obsession to find the shadow who held my life in their hands. Back home, I took my frustration out on Elza, telling her she was "exhausting to look at" and "smelled like sickness" after her charity visits. Her own family treated her like a stray dog, trying to humiliate her at the next gala by dressing her in what they claimed was a cheap knockoff while whispering to the press that she was nothing but a high-end escort. "Stay out of my way," I would growl at her, never noticing the steel in her eyes. I sat at my table, watching my rivals' stocks plummet and wondering who "The Zero"—the legendary financial ghost—really was. I never suspected that the woman I ignored was the same one solving the equations that were currently burning Manhattan to the ground. The injustice peaked when Elza stood before the city's elite, not as a victim, but as a queen. She dropped over a hundred million dollars to buy back her family’s legacy, revealing a secret fortune that made my own empire look like pocket change. As I grabbed her wrist and saw the small red mole hidden beneath her watch, the truth hit me like a physical blow. The silent wife I had despised was the savior I had been hunting, and she was finally done playing the victim. "We have a lot to talk about, wife," I whispered, realizing I had been sleeping next to the most dangerous woman in the world.