I had spent an entire year pouring my heart into planning my wedding with Eason Chambers. Yet, with just ten minutes left before the ceremony was set to begin, I was handed the final program. Under the bride's name, it read: Samantha Gates. She was a student Eason had been financially supporting for a decade. Before I could even process what I was looking at, the massive screens around the venue flashed to life, showcasing slide after slide of Eason and Samantha. The final photo was taken just last night. In it, Samantha was draped in my wedding dress, leaning softly against Eason's chest while he gently adjusted her veil. He looked down at her with such tender devotion that anyone would have mistaken them for the real bride and groom. Eason walked over, took my hand in his, and let out a quiet sigh. "Samantha was just diagnosed with a terminal illness. She won't make it past this year, and all she wants is to know what it feels like to be a bride. She's suffered enough. You and I have decades ahead of us, so please don't begrudge her a couple of hours." I looked at the man I had loved and waited for over the past seven years, suddenly hit by a wave of pure absurdity. "So today, you're marrying her?" He stayed silent. Samantha walked up, clutching my bouquet, a tearful smile playing on her lips. "Alice, I'm only borrowing Eason for today. He'll be all yours after this." As if fearing I might make a scene, Eason frowned and cut in, "Don't cause trouble. Let her have her moment first. As soon as it's over, we'll hold our ceremony as planned." So after an entire year of painstaking preparation, my wedding was nothing more than a temporary backdrop he could lend out to fulfill someone else's dream!

The day before I, Josephine Carter, was supposed to go wedding dress shopping with my fiancé, Ethan Shaw, his first love, Nadia Pierce, posted a video online asking for help. "I'm terminally ill. My last wish is to ride on the back of my first love's motorcycle one more time." The entire internet rallied to find the "motorcycle boy" from her past. When it turned out to be Ethan, I told him clearly that I wasn't okay with it. He blocked the video right in front of me. "Relax. I gave up riding years ago. All I want now is to marry you." But on the day of our dress fitting, Ethan was nowhere to be found. My best friend, Hailey Brooks, rushed over to help me pick out dresses, then held out her phone with trembling hands, showing me a locally trending post. In the video, Ethan was speeding across a coastal bridge with Nadia on the back of his bike. The caption read: "The regret I left behind at 17. At 27, I'd risk everything to make it right." Tens of thousands of comments flooded in, all calling him a "true love hero." But nobody knew that this "true love hero" had just stood up his own fiancée. Late that night, Ethan walked through the door looking windswept and worn, carrying my favorite iced coffee. He smiled and pulled me close. "I just took a kid out for a little ride. You're not really going to be jealous of a sick girl, are you? Don't be mad. We still have a wedding to get to tomorrow." I smiled back. "I'm not mad." Because half an hour ago, I had already canceled the wedding we spent a year planning.

Everyone in Kingsport knew that Elijah adored me beyond reason. For my birthday, he had drones trace my name across the night sky. To win me back after an argument, he bought a nine-figure ruby on the spot. Everyone said I was the most dazzling woman in Kingsport. On our tenth wedding anniversary, Elijah gave me a gift. I wore my brightest lipstick and his favorite red dress, and opened the velvet box with full anticipation. Inside lay a divorce decree. "Freya," he said, smoking without even looking up, "it's time for you to step aside." After ten years of playing the stand-in, the real one was finally coming back. "Give me $3,000,000, and I'll move out tonight." He frowned, probably not expecting me to be so decisive. "There's no rush. I'll have the driver take you to your new place tomorrow." Thinking of the zeros in my bank account, I raised my champagne glass with a smile. "Sure. Let's celebrate our divorce, then." After all, I had always been the gold-digger who sold herself to Elijah, the one who knew exactly how to milk his guilt for every penny.

The day I put on the engagement ring from the prince of the capital's elite circle, the man who had supported me for 10 years, Ethan Grant, lost his mind. I was 10 when the Grant family, the city's wealthiest, took me in. On my first day in that house, I knew I had to please their son, Ethan. But the first time he saw me, he sneered, "Straight out of the slums. You reek of poverty." The servants laughed at me. I never ate at the table again. Once, I secretly tried on a body-hugging skirt, wavy hair, and stilettos. He threw it all away in front of everyone. "So tacky. Who are you trying to seduce?" After that, my closet had nothing but faded, plain school uniforms. I walked on eggshells trying to please him. But he gave my guaranteed university admission spot to his first love. He even had his bodyguards smash my cello. I hid in the storage room and cried all night. He said calmly, "After I marry Vivian, you can stay and be my mistress." But I would rather starve on the streets than be anyone's mistress. So while he was abroad on vacation with his first love, I accepted a proposal from his biggest rival. A month later, Ethan came back. When he saw the diamond ring on my finger, the ever-arrogant Ethan Grant's eyes turned red.

As the youngest daughter of a Mafia family, I had always known that one of my two childhood friends would someday become my husband. Both of them were proud and aloof and had little interest in a marriage alliance, but I never gave up.   Everything changed the day my adopted sister, Ava Collins, and I were kidnapped by one of our family's enemies. The kidnappers suspended us above the docks and forced my two childhood friends to choose between us. They handed over every cent of the ransom, then pointed at Ava without a moment's hesitation.   "We choose her!"   The dock explosion left my face horribly disfigured. When I was finally rescued, I saw the two of them on their knees in front of Ava, crying as they comforted her.   "Don't be afraid. We'll protect you."   "No matter which one of us your sister marries, the other one will marry you. We'll make sure you're happy."   "You're the most important person to us."   When I woke up in the hospital, my mother placed the marriage contract in front of me. I didn't write either of their names on it. Instead, I booked a ticket out of the country.   I didn't want a love I had to keep chasing.

My sister and I are rare twin werewolves born into our clan. We came into this world only three minutes apart, yet we couldn't be more different in every way.   I'm the clan's youngest and most formidable leader. My sister, Freya Frostbourne, is frail and delicate, unable even to catch a single rabbit. Because of this, our mother, Lenora Frostbourne, always claimed I stole all her nourishment while we were still in the womb, so from that day on, I let her have everything.   I placed first in the annual clan great hunt, and Mother handed every single one of my prizes straight to my sister. "She needs this to build up her strength," she said. "You owe her this."   When it came time to receive our spirit weapons, I was left with the very last and most inferior one my sister didn't want.   I went to our father, Evander Frostbourne, to speak of it, and he told me, "You've got everything you could ever need. Don't pick fights with your sister over stupid little things."   Later, I stood surrounded by enemies, relying on the promise of our bond with the Alpha. But beneath the full moon, he betrayed me. "Your sister needs my protection far more than you do," he told me.   I stood there, biting back the pain, watching him walk away to her. And in that moment, the very last of my patience shattered completely.   If staying in this home means I must give up everything, then why shouldn't I take it all for myself?

My honeymoon trip with Julian Hayes—I never went. His female best friend did. I saw it on her social media. Julian had used a business trip as an excuse to turn down our honeymoon, yet there he was, fingers intertwined with hers, looking at her with unmistakable tenderness. Caption: Honeymooning with you. I guess this counts as marrying you, right?   Location: Silverpine.  This was supposed to be my honeymoon trip with Julian. A trip I had dreamed about for years, eagerly waiting for the day I could finally travel with him. But every time I brought it up, he would say he was busy, tired, had no time, or that we could go "next time." And just like that, three years went by. Turns out, when someone really wants to go, they don't need three years to make it happen. I stared at the photo for a long time before reposting it with a comment: Married man and his mistress? If you want my husband that badly, I'll gladly give him to you.

I was interning at a women's health hospital.  That day, I had just stepped through the hospital doors when Andre Montrose, my supervising doctor, hit me with a sudden announcement.  "Yolanda D'Averne, we've got a patient who came in this morning with her water broken way before her due date. I'm about to perform an induction for her, so come with me to observe and learn!"   I moved to follow right behind him by pure instinct. Then, out of nowhere, a line of bright, livestream-style on-screen comments popped up right in front of my face.  A: [He's about to ask Yolanda to join him in this surgery, and make her administer the oxytocin to the pregnant woman.]   I jolted to a stop mid-step, and sure enough, I heard Andre give a cold, deadpan order. "Once we get into the operating room, you'll start by giving her the oxytocin as I instruct. For the rest of the surgery, I'll walk you through doing it on your own."   The on-screen comments blew up, zipping by so fast they turned into a blur.  B: [Don't be a dumbass, do NOT go into that OR with him.]  C: [Her preterm labor didn't just happen, he dosed her with too much oxytocin last night. The fetus is already dead, and the mother just died on the operating table too.]  D: [If you go in there with him, he's gonna pin both of those deaths on you.]   My feet slammed to a halt right at the delivery room entrance. I stared at Andre, his face dark with a cold, unreadable scowl, and took a deliberate step backward.  "Hospital policy says high-risk induction procedures need to be evaluated and monitored by two senior doctors. "Sorry, but I'm only an intern. I need to go get the on-duty head physician, Irene, downstairs to join us." I kept my voice steady, already edging toward the stairwell.