My sister was watching my fiancé and me pose for our wedding photos when she suddenly wanted a turn.   Tristan Denholm took out my custom-made wedding gown for her to try on.   Simone Whitfield studied herself in the mirror and nudged his shoulder. "Are you sure this is a good idea? Meredith loves this dress. She had it altered more than ten times. Won't she be upset?"   Tristan crouched and arranged the skirt for her himself.   "Meredith doesn't mind things like that. It's just a dress. It's not often you want to wear something of hers."   Simone shifted, frowning at the bodice stretched across her full bust. "It's a little tight. I can barely breathe."   She caught my eye in the mirror and smiled. "You're still flat as a board, Meredith."   Tristan chuckled and picked up a pair of scissors to cut the stitching at the bust.   "Don't tease her. She can't compare to you."   I caught his hand. "This is my wedding dress," I reminded him hoarsely. "It's made to fit me."   He rubbed my head as though soothing a child. "It's not often Simone likes something of yours. Be good. There are other dresses here that would look lovely on you. Let's pick another one for you."   The scissors snipped, opening a slit down the side of the gown.   The sound of tearing fabric felt as though something had ripped open inside me, too.   I let go of his hand and stepped back.   "Don't bother. I don't want the dress anymore. I don't want the wedding, either."

I had stayed up for 3 nights straight preparing for my wedding to Julian Cross. I had only just lain down when someone kicked open my bedroom door.   It was 3 a.m. My younger sister, Celeste Fletcher, stood there in a slip dress with a freshly opened bottle of champagne. Laughing, she flung herself onto my bed.   "Nadine, it's the bachelorette party! Why are you sleeping? Get up and have some fun!"   My head hurt so badly I thought it would split. "Celeste, I'm exhausted," I rasped. "Please let me sleep. The wedding's tomorrow."   My fiancé and my older brother, Marcus Fletcher, stood in the doorway.   "Nadine, you know how sensitive Celeste is," Marcus said coldly, his voice impatient. "Can't you give in to her for once? You're her older sister."   Julian frowned. "It's just one night. She wants to have fun. Keep her company."   They left me no choice. They dragged me to a bar for the party.   The next morning, I was late, just as I had feared. I barely had time to dress before racing to the wedding.   Julian stood there in the suit I had chosen, his arm linked lovingly with Celeste's.   When my father saw me frozen in the doorway, he strode over, his expression thunderous.   "You actually showed up dressed like that? Celeste told us you spent all night fooling around and couldn't even get out of bed this morning. Thank God she put on your wedding dress and stepped in. Otherwise, our family would have been a laughingstock!"   My mother stood protectively in front of Celeste, looking at me with disappointment.   "Nadine, how did I raise a daughter like you? You even slept through your own wedding."   I stared at the enormous wedding portrait of Julian and Celeste on the screen. Suddenly, I was so tired.   I couldn't keep trying to make this work on my own.

Before my wedding, I was searching for wedding dress tips on social media when a post caught my eye.   He's getting married, but I'm not the bride.   The photo showed my fiancé's childhood friend, Melanie Price, wearing a wedding dress. I knew the man beside her even with his back to the camera. He was my fiancé, Julian Rourke.   One of the most popular comments read:   A: [He's getting married, and he's still trying on wedding dresses with you? So you're the other woman?]   Melanie didn't delete it. She replied:   Melanie: [That woman saved his life. He's only marrying her to repay her. He doesn't love her.]   The comments exploded. Everyone wanted to know what was going on between the two of them and the bride.   B: [So she's his obligation, and you two are the ones in love?]   Melanie: [As long as we know we love each other, that's enough.]   Just then, Julian sent me a message.   Julian: I've booked the bridal appointment. Keep Saturday free.   Julian had taken charge of everything for the wedding. I'd thought he was being considerate. Now I understood. He simply didn't love me.

I had a fever of 104°F when I sent a message to our group chat.   Beatrice: Can someone buy me some fever medicine? I'm home alone, and my head hurts so much.   My two brothers, Malcolm Fenwick and Adrian Fenwick, and my boyfriend, Vincent Calder, replied one after another.   Malcolm: I'll bring you some right away.   Adrian: I'll bring you some right away.   Vincent: I'll bring you some right away.   But by evening, none of them had come. Still burning up, I had to take a taxi to the hospital myself.   In the hospital corridor, I unexpectedly saw Lydia Roscoe, the campus beauty, talking to all three of them.   "Bea said in the group that she had a high fever. Why aren't you taking care of her? Why are you here with me for my checkup?"   Vincent dismissed it. "It's just a fever. Malcolm said he'd buy her some medicine. I'll take you home first."   Malcolm immediately objected, "Bea's your girlfriend. You should be bringing her medicine. I'll take Lydia home."   Irritated, Vincent tried to make Adrian do it instead. "You were the first one in the group to offer to buy her medicine."   Adrian wasn't happy either. "Why should I go if neither of you will? I want to stay with Lydia too."   Tears sprang to my eyes. Once again, each of them was trying to make me someone else's problem.   On my birthday, they'd pretended to forget and never show up. I'd eaten an entire cake alone.   When I moved dorms, they'd all claimed they were busy and stayed away. I'd carried every piece of luggage myself.   Now I was sick, and they still hadn't come.   'If they don't care, why bother pretending in the group chat?'   With tears in my eyes, I turned to leave. I was done with a world that had room for only the four of them.

When I was twenty-six, Macey Marlowe, once my closest friend, forged my signature as a guarantor, foisting an eight-million-dollar usury debt entirely on me. Debt collectors splashed paint on our property and smashed the front door of my home. My mother was trapped in the stairwell, suffered a heart attack triggered by the ordeal, and did not survive despite emergency treatment. Macey, however, changed her phone number and vanished without a trace. Four years later, at a high-end private wine tasting event by the river, she walked over gracefully on the arm of Aldrich Prescott, the new up-and-coming tycoon of New York. Wearing a pigeon blood ruby worth seven figures around her neck, she deliberately spilled wine on my old canvas sneakers, smiling with smug, condescending satisfaction. "Clara Rockwell, I heard you're working three jobs a day to pay off your debt now? If only I'd known, I would have lent you two thousand dollars back then to get you through the rough patch." She thought I had long been crushed into the mud, there for anyone to trample on. But what she didn't know was that the secret creditor behind the debt collectors who showed up at my door that day was none other than Aldrich. What she was even less aware of was that over the past three years, I had helped Aldrich short three companies we had made bets against, and had quietly arranged for my ex-husband, a compulsive gambler who was exceptionally good at sweet-talking women, to end up at her private club. Later, Macey's embezzlement of funds from the Prescott family's business to cover my ex-husband's gambling debts came to light. She was cast out of the Prescott family, and left with a joint debt of ninety million dollars in her name. Debt collectors broke her leg. She lay in the rain and rotting vegetable scraps like a pile of mud, screaming at me at the top of her lungs. I crouched down and flicked two thousand dollars in cash right in her face. "You owe me way more than two grand from back then, but keep this money, go buy yourself a stretcher with it."

I had been married to Felix Carter for 5 years. We spent three years doing IVF. Over 300 injections. Four egg retrievals. And finally, Zach was born. I thought the worst was over. Until the car accident. The nurse said our son's blood type was AB. Mine was O. Felix's was A. The day the paternity test came out, I sat in the hospital hallway all afternoon. At the same time, I found an old phone hidden in the lining of my husband's bag. It had only one message: The crash didn't kill her. Next time, don't go easy on her.

Liam Parker had been attached to me ever since we were kids. His family had everything money could buy. When he was little, he once used one of his mother's custom couture dresses as a canvas for his drawings. She was furious, but couldn't bring herself to punish him. Yet the only things Liam truly treasured were the gifts I gave him. Even something as small as a piece of candy I'd casually handed him would end up carefully stored in a glass jar. The adults always teased that he'd grow up and marry me. I believed it too. Until the day I came back home. At a restaurant, I saw my half-sister, Arlene Young, having dinner with a handsome man. Liam stared at the man through gritted teeth. "Delia, his name is Ronald Carter. He's violent, he's terrible with women, and Arlene deserves better. I need you to seduce him. Get him away from Arlene before she gets hurt."

My husband, Patrick Harlan, had lost his first love. All he had left of her were her sister, Teresa Dyer, and her daughter. To keep Teresa at the company, he shot down my proposals one after another so that hers would win. A proposal everyone raved about got rejected. Teresa's AI-generated pitch won instead. Looking at the result, I called another shareholder. "Pull your investment. My team and I are leaving with you."

Halfway through the wedding march, Calvin Lockwood vanished just as he was about to put the ring on my finger.   My bridesmaid, Vanessa Bancroft, disappeared with him.   No matter how hard the officiant tried to cover for them, laughter rippled through the guests.   I knew they were playing hide-and-seek again.   Without warning, wherever we were, they would disappear and watch me search frantically for them.   Once, on a beach vacation, we had agreed to watch the sunrise together.   Instead, they left me on the rocks as the tide came in. I couldn't swim.   By the time a rescue team pulled me off the rocks I'd been clinging to, I was shaking all over.   Only when I went looking for them did they emerge from behind the palm trees.   "We were playing hide-and-seek. Whoever gets found first loses."   On the day I tried on my wedding dress, I pulled back the curtain, full of excitement, to find the couch empty.   I stood there for 2 hours in a heavy gown with a long train while strangers stared.   Only when I was about to call the police did they come laughing out of a hidden corner of the fitting room.   Calvin straightened my crooked veil, sounding fondly exasperated. "Giselle, it was just a little game. Don't be mad."   Vanessa chimed in. "That's right, Giselle. You're too uptight. Life's supposed to be fun."   I'd thought that if we made it to our wedding day, the games would end.   But as I stared at the empty end of the aisle, my dress suddenly felt like a net I couldn't breathe through.   If this was his idea of love, I was done looking for him.

At my high school graduation party, my childhood sweetheart, Graham Pomeroy, shoved me into the ornamental pool.   Water splashed everywhere. The guests burst out laughing.   Graham clapped his hands and raised an eyebrow at Melanie Hensley, who was giggling behind her hand.   "I told you Evelyn could swim. It's too shallow for her to drown, but you wouldn't believe me."   Underwater, my calf hurt so badly it went numb. I reached out to grab the hem of his shirt.   "Graham... help me. I can't move my leg."   He knew perfectly well I'd injured it saving him 4 years earlier.   Then Melanie slipped and fell into the water, too.   Graham had been watching for fun. Now he went pale and jumped in without a second thought.   He slammed his foot into my shoulder, using me as a foothold to reach Melanie.   "Evelyn, how low can you get? Pretending to drown wasn't enough? You had to take Melanie down with you?"   My brother, Victor Hensley, was frantic. He lay on the pool's edge, his eyes red, reaching only for Melanie.   "She's so frail! What if she chokes on the water?"   The relatives crowded around her, fussing over her and taking the opportunity to attack me.   "She's so calculating. Graham was just playing a joke, and she used it as an excuse to try to drown Melanie."   "She's not their real daughter, after all. 18 years, and she's still an ungrateful outsider. No one in the Hensley family can stand her."   I used every last bit of strength to drag myself out.   Victor met me with a look of disgust. In front of all our older relatives, he snapped, "It was a joke. Did you have to make the whole family miserable? You're filthy and you stink. You've disgraced us enough. Get back to your room!"   I held back my tears and turned away. Then I called the head of admissions at Wetherby University.   "I'll sign the enrollment agreement for the combined undergraduate and medical degree program."

Ever since my husband started staying at his late partner's widow's house on every day off, our 7-year-old daughter had been telling everyone her dad was dead.   The first time her teacher called, she sounded painfully careful.   "Mrs. Carter, Mia says her father died in the line of duty. But he's still listed as one of her emergency contacts."   I held the phone and said nothing for 2 seconds.   "She isn't wrong."   In Mia's heart, her dad had been dead for a long time.   Before Father's Day, the teacher asked every child to make a card for their dad. The other children drew ties, baseballs, and superheroes.   Mia folded a paper airplane and wrote on its wing:   To Heaven.   On parents' night, the classroom walls were covered in essays titled My Dad. Mia had written only four sentences.   My dad was a rescue captain. Then he went to save Erin. Erin was always crying, so Dad had to stay with her all the time. After that, he never found his way home.   Every time Mia finished an essay like that, she gripped her eraser until her palm was slick with sweat. She wouldn't let go.   Then my husband hurried home with flowers and a birthday cake, promising to make up for the birthday he'd missed.   His smile froze the moment he opened the door.   On the coffee table lay Mia's newest essay. It had just earned full marks.   Its title was "If Daddy Were Still Alive."

The day before my cousin's wedding, one of the bridesmaids dropped out.   The bride asked Mitchell Driscoll to find a replacement, preferably his girlfriend.   We'd been together for a year. I thought he would ask me.   Mitchell leaned back on the couch and waved a hand with a smile. "I don't have a girlfriend."   The other groomsmen started teasing him. "You're the only single guy among us. It'll be pretty sad if you have to stand up there alone tomorrow."   He paused. His gaze passed over me and settled on the doorway. "What about the bride's cousin, Gemma Sewell? She looks so lost standing in the corner by herself."   Someone pushed Gemma to his side. She blushed, unsure what to do.   The bride laughed and said, "Perfect. You two make a beautiful couple. You'll look great together tomorrow."   I watched as everyone gathered around them.   For the past year, he had kept telling me it wasn't the right time to go public.   We worked for the same corporate group. Office relationships weren't banned, but couples working on the same project were subject to recusal rules.   He said he wouldn't risk my career. So I'd gone along with it.   My phone vibrated. Mitchell had sent me a text.   Mitchell: Baby, don't read too much into it. Gemma's never been to anything like this. I'm just walking her through the schedule.   I turned off my phone.   I'd planned to tell him who I really was after the wedding.   But if he couldn't even acknowledge our relationship in front of our families, I didn't want it anymore.

My mate was in the Northern Territories, helping eliminate a rogue wolf incursion, so I had to attend my best friend's wedding at the Silver Moon Pack alone. I'd barely stepped across the threshold of the banquet hall when a sharp snicker cut through the hum of conversation. "Hey, isn't that the Omega who used to cling to Darian Blackthorne back in the day, only to get publicly rejected by him in front of the entire pack?" "Wait, did she hear Darian would be here, too? Did she drag herself all the way back just to beg him to take her back?" I hadn't even had a chance to say a word before they were already gossiping nonstop, practically tripping over one another to voice their speculations. "Wait, didn't she take Darian's rejection like a total champ back then? Where'd all that backbone go?" "Oh, come on. Darian is the Alpha of the Silver Moon Pack now. Can you blame her for regretting letting such a catch slip away?" "Too bad for her, though. He's about to marry the daughter of the neighboring pack's Alpha. Even if she threw herself at his feet and begged, she'd never get the chance to become the Luna of the Silver Moon Pack." They had no idea that after I left the Silver Moon Pack, the Moon Goddess herself had blessed me with a second chance. But the man who treated me like his most precious treasure, who would move heaven and earth to lay the entire world at my feet, was the Alpha of the Nightshade Pack, a man even Darian Blackthorne wouldn't dare cross. Oh, and one more thing: outsiders called him the most powerful Alpha in all the Northern Territories.

My husband, Clive Doran, was one of the best pastry chefs in the business. Yet our daughter, Marcie, and I never got to eat his desserts. His contract with a dessert company allowed him to make them outside work only three times a year. That year, he'd used one of those occasions to make hand-pulled taffy for his coworkers and another to bake custard tarts for Felix, the son of dessert critic Pamela Keene. Our daughter was about to turn 7. I'd penciled her birthday into his calendar three months ahead so he could make her a cake. He'd promised her one three years ago. But on her birthday, a store-bought cake sat in the middle of our dining table. "Pamela's blood sugar dropped, so I made her some caramels," he explained. "That was my third time this year. If I make you a cake now, I'll be breaking my contract. The penalty is $300,000. Think how many cakes that could buy. Only three months left in the year. Come January, I'll make you a gorgeous mirror-glaze cake." "This one'll have to do for now." He opened the box. Half the cake was gone, and the rest was a mess. Clive paused. "Looks like Felix got into it." Marcie didn't cry or throw a tantrum. She just looked up at him. "Last year, on my birthday, you made Felix a cake with whipped cream frosting. You grabbed me a pack of gummy bears at the gas station. The year before, you made Pamela chocolate croissants. You brought me a Dove chocolate bar. "Earlier this year, when Mommy was in the hospital with a bad stomach, all she asked for was a bowl of your homemade custard. You said you couldn't because of your contract. "Now Felix gets a birthday cake when it isn't even his birthday. And Pamela gets homemade caramels, even though she has candy all the time. I don't think Mommy and I are your family, Daddy. I think they are." Clive went quiet. Then he shot me a look. "What have you been telling her?" I held his gaze. "She's a kid, Clive. She's not stupid. Come on, Marcie. Grandpa made you some cakes. He's waiting for us." If Clive's rules only ever made room for Pamela and her son, Marcie and I were done waiting for him to come home.

At the parent-teacher meeting, every kid gave their mom a rose. My daughter gave hers to my husband's old flame. I asked her why, fighting back tears. She looked up at me, dead serious. "Pretty flowers should go to pretty people, right? Vanessa doesn't have yucky stretch marks on her tummy like you. She's the prettiest model in the whole world, and she has the best body. I want to be just like her when I grow up. No husband, no babies. I'll be my own boss. I'm never gonna be a stay-at-home mom like you!" Then she ran off to find Vanessa Keane. Afraid she'd get lost, I followed. What I saw next broke my heart. At the amusement park, Vanessa pulled my daughter into her arms and coaxed her into calling her Mommy. "Sweetheart, when that frumpy woman was having IVF, your daddy secretly swapped her eggs for mine. I'm your biological mother." Beside her, my husband nodded, sounding almost sorry. "That's right. Vanessa wanted to focus on her career. She didn't want kids. Why else would I have married Audrey?" All he'd ever wanted from me was a child. I'd give the three of them the family they wanted. I only hoped they wouldn't regret it.

Before we started college, my boyfriend, my best friend, and I decided to get tattoos together.   We would tattoo each other's initials somewhere meaningful on our bodies.   I spoke first.   "I got Bri's initials on my forearm, just above my wrist. I want our friendship to last forever."   Brielle Sutton beamed at me.   "I got yours on my wrist. You're the one who kept my dream of becoming an artist alive."   I smiled, touched.   Then she rested a hand over her heart. "And I got Wesley's initials here."   Uneasy, I looked at Wesley Holt.   But he was gazing tenderly at Brielle.   "Bri's initials are over my heart, too. She's closest to my heart, the one I want to share my good life with."   Brielle blushed as she met his eyes.   I looked up at him, my eyes red and swollen.   "What about me?"   He rubbed his nose guiltily and pulled up his pant leg.   "Audrey, I got your initials on my calf.   "You'll walk every mile with me. We'll face the hard times together."   For a moment, I could only stare. Then I gave a bitter smile.   If neither of them wanted to share the good times with me, why should I stay and suffer?

The night before our engagement party, I caught my fiancé with the woman who'd stolen my place in my family. They were having sex on the deck of his yacht.   She let out a startled cry, then ordered his groomsmen to stuff me into a suitcase and zip it shut.   "Since Serafina likes hide-and-seek so much, let's leave her in the shallows overnight. She can come back for the engagement party tomorrow."   As the suitcase sank into the freezing water, I clawed at the lining and screamed for help.   My fiancé stood on the deck above me, blowing smoke into the night.   "It's only chest-deep. She won't drown. A cold bath might cure her jealousy."   They sailed away without noticing the tide rising. Soon, the water had swallowed the suitcase.   Just as I began to lose consciousness, someone forced it open and pulled me to the surface.   The next morning, the guests gathered for the engagement party while my fiancé waited anxiously for his bride-to-be.   Then the ballroom doors burst open.   His uncle stood in the doorway with me. I was soaking wet and wrapped in his suit jacket. He ruled their family, and no one dared cross him.   He fired a shot into the champagne tower on the stage.   "Who gave you the right to try to drown my fiancée," he said coldly, "and let an impostor take her place?"

For 20 years, my twin sister and I had shared one birthday cake.   The first year, both our names were on it.   The second year, mine was squeezed into a corner.   Eventually, only my sister Stella's name remained. This year, she made a hazelnut cake.   She remembered her own lactose intolerance but somehow forgot my severe nut allergy. When I refused to eat it, my family accused me of competing for attention.   Dad had the doors locked. My brothers held my hands down. My fiancé shoved the cake into my mouth himself.   By the time they gathered around Stella and went outside for the fireworks, I had stopped breathing.   At midnight, my fiancé lost patience waiting for me to join the family photo. He sent one last message.   Marcus: Come out and apologize to Stella, or the wedding's off.   I hovered behind him, watching the screen light up.   The wedding should've been called off.   From now on, the birthday he should have celebrated with his bride would be the anniversary of my death.

Backstage at the auction, my fiancé cornered me in a dressing room and kissed me until I could barely breathe.   He nipped at my earlobe and slipped a blood-red amber ring onto my ring finger. It had just sold for a fortune. "Corinne," he murmured, his voice rough, "when we get married next week, I'll put all of Amberleigh Estate in your name."   Just 30 minutes later, his Rolls-Royce Cullinan was rocking in the underground garage.   I stood outside the car window. Through the thick glass, I could still hear a young woman pleading with him, her voice choked with tears. Blaine Voss, usually so cool and aloof, let out a low, indulgent laugh. "Why are you crying? You weren't so shy up on that stage, staring at the amber on her hand."   The window lowered a crack. He tossed out the ring he'd put on my finger 30 minutes earlier. It rolled to a stop at my feet.   His voice drifted out, lazy and unconcerned. "Corinne Whitmore, since you've followed me down here, pick that up and clean it. This is the first time she's asked me for anything. Let her have this one thing, okay?"   I looked down at the amber in the dust. Suddenly, I just didn't care anymore.   Instead of picking it up, I texted my brother. I would marry the heir to the Wycliffe family in Kingsford, as our families had proposed.   Then I smiled at the half-dressed man inside the car. "Leave it there. Once something's filthy, I don't want it back."

I had once been the youngest instructor in the police department's Undercover Training Division.   During a class, a recruit asked me, "Ma'am, what do we do if we run into a ruthless mob heir who doesn't trust anyone?"   I turned toward the large screen, which was showing an underground fight in Frosthaven. Nikolai Voss was leaving the ring after beating his opponent half to death.   I gave a short laugh.   "Watch closely. I'll show you how to defang a man like that and walk away unscathed."   Within 3 months, he'd laid a map of his smuggling routes in front of me. Within 6 months, he'd taken me to a safe house no outsider was allowed to enter. In our second year, he'd personally branded my collarbone with the star that represented the Brotherhood's highest authority.   Everyone thought my demonstration had become the stuff of legend.   Only I knew I'd lost control of it.   That demonstration had lasted 5 years.   I threw away my badge, helped him eliminate police informants, and became a real mob wife.   I thought abandoning my assignment meant breaking my oath, but at least I'd gained his unconditional love.   Then, in our fifth year, Nikolai brought home a stripper who'd been forced to sell herself.   He said that in a world full of schemes, she alone was as pure as the first snowfall.   "She's different from you. She doesn't weigh everything she stands to gain or lose. She doesn't even know who I am. She just begged me to let her live."   I looked at the woman trembling with her head bowed and smiled.   She was the last officer I'd trained before cutting off contact with the department.   She'd once asked me, "Ma'am, what's the best cover for taking down a mob heir?"   I'd told her, "Never let him see that you have anything to offer. Make him feel a sick need to protect you. Once he trusts you enough to turn his back, call for backup."   Looking at her now, I pressed the concealed latch inside my drawer.   'Congratulations. You're in. Now it's my turn to take all the evidence of his crimes to my handler.'

They'd forgotten my birthday for four years. This year, my boyfriend and my childhood friend Sophie finally promised to make it up to me with a trip to an amusement park. But Sophie headed straight for the immersive haunted house, insisting she wanted a thrill. Noah paid for the tickets. "Come on. I'll go with you." Lucas, my brother, went to hold our place in line. My boyfriend, Julian, ruffled Sophie's hair. "You're brave now. Don't come crying to me in there." No one noticed the sweat on my palms. I had a heart condition. Frights and enclosed spaces were dangerous for me. I caught Julian's sleeve. "I'm scared. I really can't go in." My voice shook. He frowned. "You're not going in alone. Stop being dramatic." Lucas sighed. "You wait until we're at the door to say something? Way to ruin it." They pushed and pulled me inside. The place was pitch-dark. The three of them surrounded Sophie, laughing with her, while I was squeezed to the back. My vision blurred. Their flashlight beam receded. No one looked back. I stumbled out through the entrance and crouched in the bushes, retching. When I looked up, Julian was reading the park guide. "We're short on time. Skip the carousel and do Sophie's favorite roller coaster. We'll take you next time." I coughed up blood. On my 18th birthday, they'd brought gifts only for Sophie. On my birthday two years ago, I worked late and came home to cake scraps. Sophie was wearing the gift meant for me on her wrist. I'd thought this outing meant they felt guilty. But once again, it was all about Sophie. Watching them walk away, I stopped. There was no room for me in this friendship of five. If Sophie was all they cared about, I was done.

Killian Rourke hasn't spoken a single word to me in ten whole days.  It all started when I was tidying the study and accidentally spilled water, soaking a scenic postcard that Kendall Kesswick had sent him. He swept his cold gaze over me then, eyes sharp as shards of ice. "Get out, Wynne Kincaid."  I didn't try to explain. I kept my head down, left the room quietly, and even closed the door gently behind me.  Killian has an overwhelming need to be in control, and his favorite way to punish me is the silent treatment. He wants to see me panic. He wants to see me tiptoe around him, trying so hard to please him. He wants to watch me lose myself completely. What he doesn't know is that my fear is all an act. Every single day, he gives me the cold shoulder. His personal assistant transferred twenty thousand dollars to my secondary card, calling it "compensation."  Ten days. Two hundred thousand dollars in total. I stared at the deposit alert on my phone, unable to stop a smile from spreading across my face. I changed my clothes and headed straight for the oldest and largest jewelry store in the city center. "Ma'am, please make me forty solid-gold beads, pure gold, and make them nice and round." The woman behind the counter, who knows me well, smiled and took my card. In less than half an hour, forty plump, gleaming gold beads were resting inside my velvet pouch.  When I stepped back out onto the street, the sunlight was bright and sharp, but I felt lighter and freer than I had in ages. I returned to the house, this cold, silent mansion perched on the hillside that felt more like a mausoleum than a home. I locked myself in our bedroom and pulled out a large custom glass jar I'd hidden deep in my closet.  A thick layer of shining gold beads already lined the bottom.  I tipped my new batch in on top and listened to the clear, ringing sound they made as they settled against one another. What sound could possibly be more beautiful than this?! 

My birth parents found me the day I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I thought life was finally giving me something back. On my first night home, Mom put our family portrait in the living room. My sister, Lauren, said she was having a depressive episode and swallowed an entire bottle of pills. When Dad tried to go to my award ceremony, she held a knife to her throat. After that, no one in the house dared mention my name. When I passed out from the pain, Mom only frowned. "Stop pretending. She just fell asleep. Are you going to keep moaning until you wake her up?" Last night, I was feeling my way along the wall, looking for my painkillers, when I heard my parents arguing in their bedroom. "Have we been too hard on Audrey?" Mom asked quietly. Dad was silent for a long moment. "Lauren's adopted. It's only natural that she feels insecure. Once she's used to having a sister, we'll make it up to Audrey." I stayed outside, one hand braced against the wall. They didn't know the doctor had given me only 1 month to live.

Four years after losing my memory, on Christmas Eve, I caught my fiancé Vincent kissing another woman. She was the newly appointed principal ballerina of Luminelle—beautiful, proud, and with a look in her eyes almost identical to the one in my old photographs. A friend asked him, "You went to such lengths to get that woman back then—how did you get tired of her so fast?" Vincent smiled and said, "What I liked was that she wouldn't bow her head. Too bad—once I broke her with my own hands, it just wasn't interesting anymore." I clenched the six-week pregnancy diagnosis in my pocket. Mia leaned against his chest and asked with a smile, "So if she finds out about us and breaks up with you, what then?" Vincent looked as if he'd heard a joke. "She doesn't even remember who she loved before. Besides me, where else could she possibly go?"

Our boss was a miser. He even put timers in the restrooms: take more than 1 minute to pee or 5 minutes for a longer visit, and he'd dock your pay. Then one day he announced, "In line with the new labor guidance, we're moving to a 5-day workweek with weekends off." The office erupted. Everyone thought he'd finally grown a conscience. I resigned that night with my junior assistant. Our coworkers called us fools who couldn't appreciate a good deal. A week later, at my uncle's business, they were begging me in tears to let them leave.

Whenever my adoptive parents' biological daughter had a sleepwalking episode, she never wandered anywhere else or smashed anything.  Her episodes only began when she reached my bed. She held a pillow tightly over my face, hacked off chunks of my long hair with scissors, and once forced my head underwater in the bathtub. In my previous life, everyone in the family told me to put up with it.   "She's traumatized from all those years away from us. She's asleep. She doesn't know what she's doing."   "You're the adopted daughter who took her place. Can't you be a little more understanding?"   "You're still alive, aren't you? That's better than making her condition worse."   I gave in again and again. Yet after all that, the night before my college send-off party, she crept into my darkened room and emptied an entire bottle of sulfuric acid over my face. I rolled on the floor in agony, trying to call for help, but my adoptive father clamped a hand over my mouth while my adoptive mother locked the windows. Afraid their biological daughter would end up with a criminal record, they only called the family doctor to put ice on my injuries. They waited until I went into shock from the pain before secretly taking me to a back-alley clinic. By then, my face had been destroyed, the acid had spread throughout my body, and I was already dead.   When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day before my college send-off party. This time, I said nothing. Before night fell, I quietly swapped the room-number plate on my door with the one on my adoptive mother's.

For a whole month straight, my personal head of security had been missing every single one of my highest-risk trips. Lucius Ainsworth, whom I had just installed as the new don, had the gall to call me high-maintenance.  He scoffed, "The gang war in the neutral zone never touched your main route. You could make it back with just two low-level goons." Then came that storm-soaked night. Rival families were exchanging gunfire right out on the streets, leaving me stuck hiding in a derelict warehouse for two whole hours. A stray bullet whizzed so close to my cheek it singed my skin, leaving a raw, bleeding cut in its wake. I dialed Lucius's satellite phone over and over. All I got was endless, infuriating beeps, with no answer at all. Then, around the corner, I ran straight into him. Lucius was holding an umbrella over his first love, Mia Wescott, personally escorting her to my custom bulletproof Cadillac. It was the one assigned exclusively to me. My own head of security pulled the car door open, acting all fussy and attentive. He said, "Miss Mia, the Don was worried you would get a fright, so he pulled every last elite guard to escort you." Mia pouted playfully. "Won't Yvette Bexley be mad if she finds out you gave her whole core security detail to me?" Lucius practically purred, his voice thick with fondness. "Family resources go to whoever needs them most. She is not that delicate." They both turned to get in the car, and that was when they spotted me, soaked to the bone and covered in grime. Lucius froze for a split second, then scowled, "What are you doing out here? Mia got a death threat tonight. I was just giving her a ride since I was in the area." I did not even acknowledge the handkerchief he held out. I just spun on my heel and strode right back out into the lashing rain. I got back to the Bexley Estate, the heavily fortified compound no one dared trespass on, alone in the dead of the early morning. Samuel Quillan, the butler, gave me a formal kiss on the hand in greeting. "Donna, I take it you are finally ending that upstart's trial run." I nodded, and with a single sharp tap on my tablet, I wiped all of Lucius's access authorizations to the Cadillac's system. Lucius had a point. I was not nearly as fragile as he thought. I was simply planning to strip away all the leverage I had spent the last two years quietly amassing to prop him up in his position as Don, though.

My boyfriend was the only member of his rescue team to make it out of the uninhabited mountain region alive. He came home unhinged.  He couldn't remember our dog's name, refused to go near any appliance that gave off heat, and even modified our cooling system to bring the temperature below freezing. Whenever a blizzard howled, he stood beside my bed with an ice axe raised over me.  But he never brought it down. When I asked what he'd seen on that snowy summit, he stared at me and murmured over and over, "I saw the Snow Woman." Everyone said the lack of oxygen in those extreme conditions had left him with severe mental health problems. Then I secretly contacted the guide who'd been there years earlier and learned that seven survivors had returned from those mountains over the past 50 years. Every one of them had lost his mind. Stranger still, they all had claimed to have seen the Snow Woman after coming home. And on the 10th day after each man's mind began to unravel, his girlfriend had frozen to death in the middle of summer.

Back in my hometown, a wedding wasn't considered complete until the groom had driven the bride around town once.   We had barely reached the main road when Conrad Whitmore slammed on the brakes. He said he had to pick up his childhood friend's dog and take it to the vet for surgery.   I clenched my fists. My throat tightened, and it took me a moment to get the words out. "Conrad, this is our wedding day. If she needs to get to the hospital, she can call a cab..."   He frowned impatiently and pushed open the passenger door.   "Tessa has a good heart. She can't bear to see a dog suffer. How can you be so cold? Can't you show a little compassion for a dog?"   I reached for him, but my foot caught in the hem of my wedding dress. I stumbled and fell onto the roadside. A long tear opened in my skirt, leaving the fabric trailing in the dirt.   He drove off, and the groomsmen followed in the other two cars.   I stared at the blood seeping from my palm. After a stunned moment, I dialed another number.   "Last night, you said you'd come and take me away from the wedding. Does that offer still stand?"

3 days before my engagement party, the Shaw family found their biological daughter, who had been missing for 10 years. In front of both families, Adrian Grant crossed my name off the engagement agreement himself. "The Grant family agreed to marry the Shaw heiress, not an impostor like you." The real heiress ran her fingers over the gown I had just finished altering and smiled. "You took my place for 10 years, Natalie. Shouldn't you return my room, my gown, and my fiancé too?" I did not argue. That very night, I had the staff clear out my room for her. The next day, I accompanied her to a physical, helped her try on gowns, and even revised the menu for her engagement party. Before I left, I organized Adrian's dietary restrictions and daily habits into a spreadsheet. Everyone praised me for being sensible. They thought I loved Adrian so desperately that I was swallowing my pain to make him happy. Even Adrian shoved a black card into my hand. "Consider it compensation. The PIN is your birthday. Stop making trouble." I accepted it with a smile and climbed into the car waiting outside. He had no idea I was the one who had found the real Shaw heiress. After playing the fake daughter for 10 years, I had finally collected my severance pay. With $500 million in hand, I could officially retire.

The second I found out I'd bombed the promotion interview for the third time, I didn't hesitate for a single second before breaking up with my boyfriend, who also happened to be my boss. I was shoving my stuff into a duffel bag with my back to him, the crinkle of paper and thud of personal items filling the quiet between us. The jerk didn't even bother softening his usual cold, snarky tone. "You failed because you just don't have the skills to cut it," Levi Ammen said, his voice entirely devoid of warmth. "Don't go thinking you get special privileges just because we're dating." He crossed his arms, leaning back against the edge of his mahogany desk. "You've flunked every single one of these attempts. That's proof you don't have what it takes to be a leader. If I were you, I'd kill this stupid little fantasy of climbing the corporate ladder and stay in your lane." I straightened up, twisted around to look at that handsome, ice-cold face of his, and let out a sharp, sudden laugh. He had a point, actually. Failing over and over again just meant this place was never right for me. And as for Levi, that two-faced snake who leaked my promotion proposal to his perfect little obsession? He wasn't right for me either.

After another 2 weeks of Marcus Foster giving me the silent treatment, I finally gave in. Ignoring the dull ache in my stomach, I filled the table with his favorite dishes. Flora Foster, our 5-year-old daughter, propped her chin in her hands and looked at me with innocent curiosity. "Mommy, why do you always have to ask Daddy to talk to you again?" I forced a smile and stroked her hair. "Because Mommy loves Daddy very much." Flora nodded as if she understood, then said matter-of-factly, "Oh. Then Daddy must not love you." Children have no filter. But every word cut like a knife, slicing straight through the lie I'd spent 7 years telling myself. At that exact moment, Marcus walked through the door and heard her. He frowned immediately. "What have you been telling her? I've been dealing with an important project lately. I don't have the energy to deal with you overthinking everything again." The impatience in his eyes was the same as ever. Usually, I would have rushed to explain myself, hurt and desperate for him to understand. This time, I didn't. I calmly took the medical report confirming my late-stage stomach cancer from my bag, along with the divorce papers I'd already signed, and slipped them both beneath his plate. Marcus was right. Neither of us had the energy for this anymore. So this time, I wasn't going to wait for his permission to leave.

On my daughter's 12th birthday, she threw her arms around me and called me Mom when Conrad Walker pried her hands off me in front of everyone. "Vera, that's not right." Then he pushed her toward his ex-wife, who had just returned from overseas. "Your mom is right here. From now on, call her Aunt Sabrina." I had raised Vera for 7 years. For her, I had even given up the chance to have a child of my own. That night, Conrad still held me in his arms and tried to soothe me. "Just 3 months. Once she's gone, everything will go back to the way it was." And suddenly, I found myself wondering. What if, 3 months from now, I didn't want him anymore?

Shaun Radcliffe said he'd never make a good father. The toxic patterns he'd picked up from his childhood were so harmful that he never dared risk passing them down to a kid of his own. I thought long and hard about it, and in the end, I agreed to spend the rest of my life with him. Just the two of us, no kids in the picture. My best friend called me an idiot for it, but she still went and named me her daughter's godmother anyway. That all changed on the kindergarten's Family Fun Day, when I offered to drop off my best friend's daughter's performance costume for her. When I got backstage, I spotted Shaun crouched down right in front of the kid, tying her pigtails in messy, lopsided little sections. The little girl caught sight of me in the mirror and immediately clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes going wide. "Daddy, Godmom's here." Then she looked at me with a curious expression and asked, "Um... You aren't gonna come home with me and Daddy again today, are you?"

On our wedding night, my husband, Vincent Ford, got a sudden order to be stationed in the Southlands. That was how our long-distance marriage began. We spent far more time apart than we ever did together.   Back then, I had just found out I was pregnant.   Vincent pulled me into a tight, guilty hug and murmured that he was sorry.   I didn't blame him. He was working himself to the bone to build a better life for our little family.   I rented an apartment on my own, went to every prenatal checkup alone, and even gave birth to our son without him by my side.   His eyes were red when he told me his pay had been cut because of poor performance. He barely made enough to cover his own expenses.   I understood. The economy was struggling, and keeping a job was hard for everyone.   As soon as I recovered from the delivery, I took a remote accounting job. I juggled taking care of our son and earning money alone.   My best friend kept calling me stupid.   But I truly believed that if our family stuck together, we'd build a bright future eventually.   That all changed one day when I was working from home and stumbled across a random post online:   For our third anniversary, my husband bought me a 2,153-square-foot luxury apartment. Only my name is on the deed.   Thousands of commenters were losing their minds over it.   A: [Dude's that rich? He's gotta be old and ugly, right?]   The poster quickly uploaded a photo.   Poster: [I cuddle up to him every night, and I still think he's hot.]   The man in the photo was handsome, dressed in a tailored suit.   I froze.   The man in that picture was my husband, Vincent.

Vincent used to be a perfect husband. Whenever I had an upset stomach in the middle of the night, he would personally prepare my medicine for me.   On our wedding anniversary, he would reserve the entire top-floor restaurant at Crownspire Tower, kiss me tenderly, and tell me that I was the light of his life.   But it was only after I married into the Valemont family for 3 years that I finally understood something. Whenever it came to the promises he had made to his ex-wife, he would abandon me without hesitation.   Every Halloween, he would leave me behind and go to Norwyn to spend the holiday with his ex-wife and daughter.   Even when I called him because of an emergency, he would simply hang up on me.   Until one day, more than a dozen black widow spiders crawled out of the mystery box sent by his ex-wife.   Those venomous spiders bit me.   At the time, I was already pregnant. After being poisoned, I fell down the stairs, then began bleeding heavily and eventually lost the baby.   Enduring the unbearable pain, I called Vincent 19 times in a row.   He finally answered, but his voice was filled with impatience.   "Wendy, are you seriously making up something as ridiculous as being bitten by spiders just to get my attention? Emily had just fallen asleep, and your calls scared her awake. I have to stay here with her."   After saying that, he hung up immediately.   The emergency doctor rushed in with the surgical consent form.   "The patient suffered a threatened miscarriage after being bitten by venomous spiders. The baby can't be saved! She is still bleeding heavily, and we can't stop it. We have to perform a hysterectomy immediately to save her life!"   I stared at the ceiling, completely losing hope.   Then, calmly, I signed my name on the surgical consent form.   'Since you have already chosen them, I no longer need to remain Mrs. Valemont.'

6 months ago, a car crash cost me my legs and my unborn child.   On our wedding anniversary, my husband, Neil Ward, took me to a mountain resort to get some fresh air.   He said the air was good there, and the trip wouldn't wear me out.   My whole family had already made arrangements for me.   Mom had booked an accessible suite.   Dad had arranged for a doctor to travel with us.   My younger sister had marked every incline along the route.   Neil pushed my wheelchair the whole way, tucked the blanket snugly around me, and even made sure I always had water within easy reach.   I held his hand, my eyes filling with tears. "I'm so lucky I still have all of you."   He bent to kiss my forehead. "Alma, I'm here. I'll always be here."   Late that night, an alert from his watch woke me.   The screen showed a message.   Mom: Alma's sound asleep. The dose will keep her out until morning.   My sister replied right away:   Kelly: The fireworks are ready. We're just waiting for you at the boardwalk.   Dad sent a photo of them together.   Neil had a woman in his arms, with fireworks filling the night sky behind them.   That woman was his childhood sweetheart.   She was also the driver who had hit me 6 months earlier, causing my miscarriage and leaving me paralyzed.

After 7 years of marriage, Brett Ellwood gave me away to his first love's brother, who had been in a coma for a year, for $300 million. The Bramwells wanted a bride who would supposedly bring him good luck.   Brett said Ellwood Group was out of options. All he needed was for me to give up one year. I believed him.   Only later did I learn that I was the only one who had no choice that day.   A year later, Brett stood outside the Bramwell house holding our wedding ring. "Lena, I've come to take you home."   I handed him a notice that I'd acquired $316 million of his company's debt. "Sorry, Mr. Ellwood. I'm here for the company."

The fake heiress had only sneezed, yet the whole family had rushed her to the emergency room at the top-tier private hospital as if it were a major crisis. My father walked over holding a form, his brows furrowed as he looked at me. "Iris has always been frail since childhood. The doctor says a cold could easily lead to complications. Go and give 800cc of blood to be kept in reserve, just in case." I stood frozen in place, feeling utterly absurd. Three years ago, when I had just been brought back home, it was my father who had insisted he wouldn't put me through the pain of a blood test and refused to take me to determine my blood type. From that day on, I had been mocked by the fake heiress for three years as an illegitimate girl with no real standing in the family. Yet now, simply because the fake heiress had caught a cold, he wanted me to give blood to serve as her personal reserve? The fake heiress leaned back on the VIP hospital bed, her gaze holding a look of entitlement and defiance. "Skye, I'm suffering so much, what does it matter if you give a little blood? When you first came back, I even gave you the bedroom with the south-facing windows!" My father's face darkened where he stood nearby, his tone firm and leaving no room for refusal. "Skye, you're the younger sister. She's weak right now, can't you just give in this once?" Give in again. Every single time, whenever Iris was involved, he always pressured me to back down. This time, I did not back down. I turned to the nurse and said, "Could you please pull the bone marrow matching record from when I first came home three years ago?"

In our sixth year of marriage, my husband suddenly decided to accompany his female assistant to Germany for a one-year work assignment. A friend teased him, "What about Mireille? Didn't you two agree long ago that next year you'd wrap up your affairs here in Boston and move to Europe for a while?" Ignatius Dawson seemed to remember me only then. He paused, then smiled in a careless, offhand way. "Mireille? It's fine. She even knows the combination of my suitcase. If she finds out I've changed plans, she'll hand in her resignation and follow me there herself. She can't bear to be apart from me anyway." I stayed silent for a very long time. Then I slipped away quietly, pretending I knew nothing at all. That day, I never reopened the resignation letter I'd already written halfway through. Nor did I return the call from the headhunter in Germany. Instead, I signed my name to a different document, Aurel Architects, Copenhagen Branch, Equity Partner. Term: five years. What he didn't know was this, he might cross oceans and continents for someone else, but I too had a sky of my own to fly toward. Even that dream I'd fought for through countless nights and days was never really just about him.

Just before our skydiving plane ran into trouble, I got a call from my future self.   "Celia, remember this: Glen's parachute isn't broken. No matter how he begs, don't give him yours."   The voice on the other end, identical to mine, suddenly faltered.   "I already trusted him once for you."   Then the call cut off.   A second later, the plane tilted, and the instructor told everyone to prepare for an emergency exit.   I was afraid of heights. I'd boarded a plane for the first time only because Glen wanted me to skydive with him.   Now he pushed through the swaying crowd and rushed over to me.   "Celia, my chute's broken. Give me yours."   I looked at him without moving.   He reached for my harness buckle, his voice gentle.   "Listen to me. You're afraid of heights. You might not survive the jump anyway."   But I could see clearly that his chute wasn't broken. Beth Quinn's was.   I caught his hand and pried his fingers away, one by one.   I stepped back beside the instructor and looked at the pack on Glen's back.   "If you want to save her so badly, give her your own."   If my life mattered so little to him, he could have his grand love story without me.

The day we buried my mother, I asked my father for only one thing. I wanted the key to the apartment she had left me. It was not family property. At barely 650 square feet, it did not even come with a garage. But it held everything I had owned since childhood, along with a photograph my mother had left me before she died. In front of the entire family, my father handed the key to my younger brother instead. He said Ethan was getting married the following month and could use the apartment as his new home. I reminded him that it was the one thing Mom had left me. He frowned as if I were a spoiled child. "Elena, your brother is about to take over the family. Can't you give him one apartment?" Standing beside his fiancée, Ethan pretended to speak up for me. "Dad, if Elena really can't bear to part with it, I can give her some money." They thought I would give in, just as I always had. This time, I refused the money. I took only my mother's framed photograph from my father's hands. "He can have the apartment. He can have the family too. I'm taking only one thing Mom left behind." What he did not know was that the one thing I took could cost the entire Grant family its place in Yorkshore.

I was born with buck teeth.   Because my family struggled financially, I had never been able to afford braces.   During the loneliest period of my life, I ate alone and did group projects alone. I had no friends by my side.   That was until I met Ethan Rivers.   Ethan told me that looks didn't matter. He said he hated people who only judged others by their appearance.   Compared to a beautiful face, he said he cared more about who I truly was inside.   Until the day his group chat accidentally exposed a "Ugly Girl Poll."   There were seven guys and one girl in the chat. Including Ethan, all eight of them had voted for me.   His best female friend, Chloe Bennett, laughed uncontrollably.   Chloe: Evelyn Carter really has been holding the number one spot this whole time, hahaha. How do you even put up with her?   Ethan immediately replied. Ethan: What do you know? Girlfriend material from the neck down.   The group chat was flooded with laughing emojis.   My fingers trembled as I sent Ethan a message, demanding an explanation.   He quickly deleted the message, then replied with obvious impatience.   Ethan: I just sent it to the wrong chat. Do you really need to take it so seriously? Chloe was only joking.   Only at that moment did I finally understand.   The so-called special treatment, the so-called appreciation of my inner self—none of it had ever been real.   Since that was the case, I would no longer keep pretending along with him.

Where we lived, everyone seemed to get married over the fall holiday weekend. It was common for two wedding parties to book the same hotel on the same day.   The understanding was simple. The two grooms would share a toast to both couples' happiness, then return to their own tables.   But Colin Barrett picked up his glass and never came back.   He sat down at the other bride's table and drank for Vanessa Sutton, glass after glass.   My relatives began teasing me.   "Someone's stolen the groom!"   My bridesmaid leaned over to reassure me.   "Don't worry. Colin doesn't drink. He'll have a couple for her and come right back."   I smiled and said nothing.   Colin really didn't drink. In the 3 years we'd dated, I'd seen all the ways he turned alcohol down.   When his boss offered him a drink, he said he had a bad stomach. The first time he met my father, he said he was on antibiotics. Even at our engagement party, he'd raised a glass of water for the toast.   Now he was downing one glass after another, his face turning red.   Vanessa's coy voice drifted over from the next table.   "Colin, stop drinking. I can manage on my own."   He smiled and held her glass down.   "You don't need to drink. I'll do it for you."   So it wasn't that he couldn't drink. Until now, no one had been worth drinking for.   I gathered up my skirts and walked over to the other wedding party to raise a glass to Vanessa's groom.   If she was keeping mine at her table, wasn't it only fair that I borrowed hers?

It was in the fifth year of my marriage that I finally learned Julian Hawthorne had been preserving the future he and his ex-wife had left behind every single year. That night, we were cooking dinner in the kitchen. A notification suddenly popped up on the medical account Julian was logged into on the family tablet. Notification: The two embryos you and Ms. Brooks preserved together will expire in 72 hours. Would you like to continue storage? Before I could finish reading the notification, he had already dried his hands and taken the tablet. "Continue for another year." He tapped the confirmation button without the slightest hesitation. I stared at his profile. "What embryos?" He paused for a moment. "The ones I preserved with Madeline Brooks before. You knew I was married before, didn't you?" Of course I knew. But I had never known that 7 years after their divorce, the two unborn children were still being preserved. I had never known that for the past 7 years, he had never once stopped renewing the storage. He had renewed it on the day we registered our marriage. He had renewed it on the day we moved into our marital home. 3 years ago, when I first asked him when he wanted to have children, he held me in his arms and told me to wait a little longer. That day, I had even bought a pair of white socks with little rabbit patterns on them and asked him to return them for me the next day. When he came home, he told me he had already returned them. But that very night, he renewed the storage for another year for a different future. It turned out he wasn't unprepared to become a father. There was simply one future he refused to let expire.

The day I found out Adrian Foster was cheating on me with my best friend, Claire Bennett, my mother held me tight and stopped me from confronting them.   She bought me fertility medication and a pile of sexy lingerie, telling me to cling to Adrian every day.   2 months later, two red lines appeared on a pregnancy test.   After that, Adrian came straight home from work every day, went with me to every prenatal appointment, drove me to the baby store every few days...   My mom smiled.   "See? It worked!"   I nodded, resting a hand on my belly with a smile.   Then, one day, I happened to pass a baby store. The moment I stepped inside, I froze.   Adrian and my mother were gathered around a pregnant Claire, chatting happily.   Claire thanked my mom, "Aunt Margaret, thank you for stopping Evelyn from bothering me and my baby."   Adrian handed my mom a bank card.   "Mom, this is a little something from Claire and me, to thank you."   My mom accepted the card with a smile.   "We're family. There's no need to thank me."   My whole body went cold.   All their concern for me had been an act. They had only been trying to protect Claire and her unborn child.   In that case, I would give them what they wanted and get as far away from them as I could.

The school held a Father's Day event, asking every dad to write a letter. Chase sat there staring at the blank paper for a long time, then handed me his phone. "What do girls like to hear? Teach me." I laughed at him for being a dad for seven years and still not knowing what to say, but I still sat down to help him think. "Write about how she was scared of thunder when she was little and always crawled into your bed. Write about the first time she rode a bike, and you chased her for two blocks." Chase noted it down seriously, then asked, "What about the ending?" I thought for a moment. "Just write that if someday someone makes you feel like you don't matter, remember to come back to Dad first." The next afternoon, the school held the Father's Day event. Chase had a last-minute meeting, so I arrived at the auditorium first. My daughter opened his letter with anticipation. There were only three sentences. "Study hard." "Grow up healthy." "Dad loves you forever." She froze for a moment. "Mom, didn't Dad write for a long time last night?" Before I could answer, Mia on stage was already reading aloud. "When we first moved back, you were always afraid to turn off the lights at night..." Six months ago, Heather divorced and came back with Mia. Since then, for parent-teacher meetings, sports days, and spring outings, Chase always had our daughter "lend Dad to Mia for a day." Our daughter even made a "Dad-Borrowing Book." Last night I taught Chase how to write a letter a child would remember. Now, those carefully written words were being read aloud, one sentence after another, from Mia's mouth. Finally, Mia, with red eyes, threw herself into Chase's arms as he arrived just in time. "Dad!" Heather immediately stood up. "Mia, you can't call him that." But Chase wiped her tears. "She's happy today. Don't scold her." He didn't correct her. Our daughter looked down and crumpled her own letter. After a long time, she asked me, "Mom, Dad wrote for so long last night. Why did he only give me three sentences?"

At a friends' gathering, we were playing Truth or Dare. My boyfriend, Lucas, drew the question: "Without saying their name, describe the person you have your eye on in three words." Lucas answered casually, "Poised and classy, loves to laugh, long straight hair." The atmosphere froze in an instant. "Lucas, nice one. That detailed, huh?" Charlie let out a dry laugh. His gaze flicked over me, then away, avoiding my eyes. The others chimed in, their laughter barely hiding the awkwardness. My mind went blank. I instinctively ran my hand through my newly done loose waves. We had been together for three years. Because of one line from him, "I love seeing your curls," I had my hair permed three times a year. And the only person in the room with long straight hair was Avery, who had returned from abroad half an hour ago. Lucas didn't notice. Instead, my silence made him impatient. "Didn't you used to have straight hair too? It's just a game. Why are you taking it so seriously?" I picked up the ice water in front of me and took a sip, forcing down the bitterness in my chest. Since his attention wasn't on me, there was no need for me to stay. I lowered my lashes and texted my boss. Ivy: I'll take the director position in Harborview. I can fly over in three days for the handover.

Edward Kingsley was uncompromising when it came to managing his time.   When we married at St. Aurelia Cathedral, he made his scheduling rules part of our household rules.   If any personal matter delayed his plans by more than three minutes, he canceled it immediately. His decision was final.   But on the day we were due to fly to the Coral Isles for our anniversary, I reached the private tarmac five minutes late because of a severe, acute stomach bleed.   By the time I looked up, Edward had already ordered the pilot to retract the boarding stairs.   Beside a cabin window, Vivian Stone was swirling the champagne that should have been mine.   It was the third time something like this had happened.   Whenever I failed to arrive before the countdown ended, he had his deputy, Vivian, take my place.   The fourth time, I was held up at customs for two minutes while retrieving his allergy medication. He boarded the cruise ship to Frostholm with Vivian.   The sixth time, I suddenly developed a high fever and rested at the hotel for five extra minutes. He took Vivian to the exclusive gala at Wrenwood Tech Center.   The ninth time, my car broke down in a blizzard, making me 90 seconds late. His armored convoy drove away with Vivian.   "My schedule is timed to the second. Since you were late, the resources for this trip have to be reallocated."   Curled up alone on the cold, empty tarmac, I suddenly vomited a mouthful of black blood.   With a trembling hand, I called Edward's satellite phone.   He declined the call. I tried again. He declined it again.   On the third attempt, he finally answered.   "Vivian gets a little claustrophobic at altitude. I need to calm her down. Call the private doctor yourself."   I stared at the blood on my cashmere coat and tore up my pregnancy test report.   Edward, in all your precisely timed plans, you had never spared a single minute to save my life.   So this time, I would remove myself for good from the life plan you valued above everything else.

To hide from hunters, Breccan Blackmoor, heir to a North American werewolf clan, became my husband. I was just a girl from the slums. The day his family came to take him back, his grandfather spoke in a cold, sharp tone.  "Breccan has been betrothed to a vampire princess since he was a boy. But I will give you a chance. If you can make my grandson fall in love with you before the princess returns, I will call off the union and let you be together." But five years passed. No matter how often I tended to him and calmed him when his wolf form raged out of control, Breccan stayed distant and cold. Then his moonlight, Maelle Lennox, woke from her long sleep and came home from Europe. For the first time in five years, Breccan bared his fangs at me. "Joanna, sign the papers. We are ending our blood bond." I set down the medicine I had made myself to steady him, my heart trembling hard in my chest. "Breccan, all these years… have you never felt anything for me at all?" His face twisted with disgust. "You used me to keep me safe, and yet you always act like you care, playing the poor pitiful thing. I am sick of it!" He snatched the vial and tossed it straight into the trash. "I have always loved Maelle. She took a silver bullet for me once, to save me from the hunters. She was hurt so badly she slept for five years. Now she is awake. I will break this bond, and I will marry her as I promised." I watched Breccan walk away. Then I pressed my hand to the scar over my heart, the mark left by that very same silver bullet. The girl who took that bullet for him, the one he cannot stop thinking about… it was never Maelle Lennox. It was me. It has always been me. 

Ethan Lancaster's female best friend was a wedding planner. She replaced the roses I had originally chosen with lilies and threw the roses straight into the trash. The gold-embossed white invitations we had already ordered were also replaced with black cards, with the words "Forever Lost, My Love" printed on the cover. I was furious, but Ethan didn't care. He simply comforted me. "The wedding needs some excitement to have a good atmosphere. Just be a little more understanding. Come on, that's just how she is. I promise she won't come with us on our honeymoon. It'll only be you and me." Thinking about their 10 years of friendship, I swallowed my anger and let it go. Until the day of the wedding, when she suddenly put on a vintage lace bridal dress identical to mine, wore a white veil, and sat on our wedding bed. She wanted to play a "bridal mystery box game." "You'd better look carefully. Once you pick the wrong person, there's no taking it back. The wedding ceremony is about to begin. Don't accidentally mistake me for your wife and marry me instead!" Through the veil, I watched Ethan walk toward her. Then he wrapped his arms around her. Amid the laughter of everyone around them, he blushed shyly. I silently clenched my nails into my palms and sent the same message to three people at once. Me: Come quickly. Stop the wedding. In this day and age, who doesn't have a few male best friends?

Three years into crushing, clinical depression, my AI therapist got axed. Permanently. No warning. Just... gone. All because my parents' adopted daughter declared, "She is way too hooked on that AI. If we really want to cure her, we have got to force her to quit cold turkey." That AI was my lifeline, the one thread that yanked me back from the brink every time dark thoughts swirled in my head. And now, every message I sent simply vanished into the void. No reply. Nothing. I was an island again, utterly alone. That evening, I pasted on a smile and joined them for a family dinner, chatting and laughing, then wished them goodnight with a kiss on the cheek. Then I slipped back to my room, and without a second thought, I swallowed a whole bottle of sleeping pills. Right then, my phone pinged with a news alert. On the screen, my parents beamed with triumph, their faces flushed with excitement as they announced to the press: "To prove this AI works, we used our own daughter as Patient Zero. After three years of treatment, she acted normal today. Her depression is officially cured! We owe it all to our adopted daughter's desensitization protocol! This AI product will now launch to the masses, dedicated to bringing relief to every family with a struggling loved one!" So that was it. Three years of an unending nightmare, and it was nothing but a product test. I stared at their confident, triumphant smiles on the screen, my eyelids growing heavier and heavier. 'Dad, Mom, your product really is a success. Just carve "Hero" on my tombstone.'

My younger sister, Emma Bennett, died the day she turned 18. Before it happened, she called us 99 times, and not one of us answered. That night, I had told my parents to get some sleep so we could wake up early to decorate for her birthday party. Just like that, I became the one to blame. My parents grabbed me by the throat and snarled, "You're nothing but bad luck. If it weren't for you, your sister would still be alive..." Crushed by guilt, I developed depression and gave up on studying abroad. I tried to take my own life several times, and each time my boyfriend saved me. He took away my scissors, installed safety rails on the balcony, and even checked on me if I stayed in the shower for more than 30 minutes. His unwavering care made me decide to marry him. But before the wedding, I saw the sister who had supposedly been dead for years. She had earned a PhD and was thriving. Beside her stood my parents, beaming with pride, and my boyfriend. "Thanks to all of you, I was able to fake my death and steal her chance to study abroad. She may be smarter than I am and get better grades, but I was determined to beat her anyway." My parents nodded approvingly. "Good. You have nerve and ambition. That is our daughter." My boyfriend smiled gently, too. "Emma, I'll keep an eye on her for you. I won't let her threaten the future you've built." My blood ran cold. I had thought my boyfriend was my salvation. Instead, he had been another abyss all along. 'Fine. If that's how it is, I'll destroy Emma's life myself.'

"Terminate the pregnancy, take the compensation, and leave Avermont City forever."   This was the last recording my husband, a top secret service agent, left behind before his plane crashed.   I touched my belly and cried so hard at the memorial service that I nearly fainted.   "Mom! Stop crying! My no-good dad isn't dead at all!"   A voice suddenly rang in my head, and for a moment, I thought I was hearing things.   "He's holding his former partner in his arms and drinking champagne on a private island! Stop crying. I know the key to his offshore account in Montavia. The password is his first love's birthday.   "While he's faking his death, let's hurry up and transfer away that $50 million. Then we can live like kings in Bellmont. Isn't that awesome?"   I stopped crying, ripped off my black veil, and glared at the uniform in the coffin.

5 years ago, I left Holden Chase because of a scandal. 5 years later, I became his child's nanny. He was disgusted. In front of everyone, he poured wine all over me. But late at night, when no one was watching, he tied my hands. "Vivian Reed—$5,000,000, if you have my baby."

My husband, Ethan Hayes, had a habit. Every year on our wedding anniversary, he'd buy me an insurance policy. Year 1: accident insurance. Year 2: critical illness insurance. Year 3: term life insurance. My friends said I married a wonderful man. It wasn't until Year 5, when he took me to the insurance company, that I found out. The beneficiary on the first four policies had long since stopped being me. I confronted him, asking why. He gave me an impatient glance. "You have a salary and pension. Lily just graduated. She has nothing." And today, he was going to change the last one too, giving it all to his "sister".

I had a crippling fear of the deep sea and couldn't bring myself to go near a beach.   Arthur Lockwood, the tycoon of Bellmont Street, had once filled every pool on the estate for my sake. He had gone down on one knee and sworn he would always be my shoreline.   Yet on the eve of our engagement ceremony aboard Monte Carlo Cruise, he suddenly dragged me onto a powerless lifeboat by myself.   The cold wind howled around us as Arthur took a knife and cut the cable linking the lifeboat to the cruise ship.   "Mia said your pathetic fear of the deep sea was nothing but an act to win me over. Darling, prove her wrong."

After drinking a glass of spiked red wine, I accidentally slept with the founder of my company. To keep the scandal quiet, he was pressured into marrying me, while his first love was transferred to a remote branch. 3 years later, she fell to her death during a dispute over unpaid wages. From that day on, my husband treated me like his mortal enemy.   For 10 years, I was trapped in a marriage where I might as well have been a widow. He stripped me of every stock option I had and reduced me to a slave. When I finally died in agony in a hospital bed, he didn't even bother to arrange a funeral. He sent a single message instead.   Ethan: Sophia Bennett, a thief like you should have gone to hell a long time ago.   When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the company's annual gala, right at the moment everyone was raising a toast. I had just picked up my wineglass when he knocked it from my hand. Red wine splashed across my blouse, and the hostility in his eyes told me all I needed to know. He had been reborn too.   This time, in front of every senior executive, he pulled his first love protectively behind him. "Send Sophia Bennett to clean up the mess at the Northreach subsidiary. My fiancée isn't going to suffer through that kind of hardship."   The conference room fell silent. Everyone was waiting to see me humiliated. I tugged lightly at the stained hem of my blouse and nodded calmly. "Fine. I'll go."

When I walked out of the fitting room in my wedding dress, my fiancé, Julian Mercer, was gone. All that remained on the couch was his phone charger and a voice message: "She's drunk. I'm going to pick her up. Be back in 20." The store assistant awkwardly held up the hem. "Should we wait for him to come back?" I was about to say yes when my best friend's video call came through. On the screen, Sophie Hale was wearing my bathrobe, sitting at the dining table in the apartment Julian and I were supposed to move into after the wedding. Julian had his back to the camera, fixing something for her hangover. When she said she was cold, he draped his jacket over her legs. She smiled at me. "Sorry, he insisted on bringing me back here. How's the dress fitting going?" I noticed the extra chair behind her and suddenly remembered what Julian had said 6 months ago, when Sophie had just gone through her breakup. "Just 3 days." 3 days turned into a week. A week turned into 6 months. She used my cup, wore my pajamas, and sat in my chair. And every time, Julian would kiss me and say, "Don't overthink it. You're the one I'm marrying." Last month, when I had a high fever, he only told me to take a cab to the hospital myself. But the moment she said she was drunk, he couldn't even wait for me to finish trying on my wedding dress. This time, I didn't wait either. I handed my veil to the assistant. "Cancel the dress." She froze. "What about the wedding?" I pulled off my engagement ring. "Cancel that too."

Lucian Pierce was a chief pilot with a reputation for being obsessive about time.   I was three minutes late for a date, and he gave me the cold shoulder for three days. I worked overtime and kept him waiting for five extra minutes, and from then on, he stopped picking me up after work.   Yet on our wedding day, when the wedding convoy reached the bridge near his house, Elowen Rowan stepped in front of it. "It's tradition. The groom has to carry his best friend across this bridge before the wedding."   But Lucian's carefully planned schedule said we should reach the bridal suite in 12 minutes.   Lucian still shrugged off his coat, stepped out of the car, and crouched down in front of Elowen. "Hop on."   My brother, Cedric Summers, got out of the car behind us and came over to my window. "Elara, don't read too much into it. This really is one of their traditions."   Lucian's parents joined in, trying to reassure me. "That's right. It's supposed to bring good luck. We should honor the tradition."   Lucian carried Elowen across the bridge and back while she draped herself over his shoulder, laughing the whole time. When her shoe slipped off, he stopped, picked it up, and put it back on her foot himself. The entire wedding convoy waited for her for 30 minutes.   By the time we reached the bridal suite, the makeup artist had gone to touch up Lucian's parents first. We were already behind schedule. I went looking for him, only to hear his mother say from inside, "What tradition? Wasn't it Elowen who asked you to carry her across the bridge on your wedding day?"   Lucian let out a weary sigh, "Once I carry her across this bridge, we'll have nothing left to regret. Elara doesn't have parents, and Cedric helped me smooth things over. She won't take it the wrong way."   He already decided I wouldn't make a fuss. But unfortunately for him, I decided the wedding wasn't happening.

After the Plunder System forcibly possessed me, I became a crippled outcast in a remote fishing village, bullied by everyone. Facing cruel foster parents and a drafty thatched hut, I refused to accept my fate. By day, I hauled fishing nets out at sea. By night, I studied by the light of an oil lamp. The day my college admission letter arrived at the village entrance, I thought I had finally climbed out of hell. But the girl wearing my face, dressed in a lavish gown and flanked by bodyguards, cornered me at the dock. She pushed me into the churning deep sea with her own hands. "Why couldn't you just die quietly in the mud? As long as you're alive, I'll never be secure in my seat as the billionaire heiress." Icy seawater closed over my head. I heard the piercing alarm of the Plunder System. "Host's original heart has stopped beating." "Binding failed. The plunderer's lifespan ceiling has been cut to 24 hours." She spat toward the sea. "Who are you trying to scare? She won't survive anyway. I win." The tide receded. I jolted awake in my own sprawling bedroom, in a bed large enough to fill a suite. The system's body-swap countdown had 3 hours left. "Since you love that broken body so much, this time, I'll let you rot inside it until you stink."

After my family's downfall, I, Audrey Mercer, was married off to Julian Ashford, CEO of Ashford Group. For a year, he was never home. Lately, he'd been more distant than ever. Then his best friend let something slip, and I finally understood why. Julian had a woman on his mind. Grace Harper. The kind of girl who played humble like it was a religion. Every other woman who got close to a man like him wanted the black card, the gifts, the lifestyle. Not Grace. She refused every luxury he offered. Pushed back his money. Looked him dead in the eye and said, "I don't want your money. I fell for you, not your wallet." So I followed the trail to the apartment he'd set her up in. The second I pushed open the door, a Hermès bag came flying at my face. Inside, the two of them were locked in a standoff. Julian, firm and frustrated. "I'm giving this to you. Just take it." Grace, stubborn as ever. "I won't take anything I didn't earn. It's you I want, not your money." I caught the bag mid-air, steady as anything, and smiled. "Honey, if she doesn't want it, I'll take it all."

At our engagement party, the ring slipped right off my finger as my fiancé slid it on. My best friend bent down to pick it up, her eyes bright with anticipation as she asked to try it on. My fiancé slipped it onto her finger, and it fit perfectly. Our friends laughed and joked that those two were the ones who actually belonged together and that he should have dumped the deaf girl long ago. Joy flickered in my fiancé's eyes, but when he turned to me, he signed that he would love me forever. None of them knew my hearing had already recovered. I heard every single word. There was no point in going through with the wedding anymore.

I once coveted the wealth and status of a powerful family. To steal the true heiress's place, I destroyed her identity papers. I also schemed to spread scandalous rumors about her to win my adoptive parents' favor, ruining her reputation. Worse still, I claimed the heiress title that was rightfully hers and married the most reputable, untarnished heir among Penbrooke's elite. For seven years, I played the part of a delicate, pitiful, and ditzy beauty in front of him. We had been married for years, and we were deeply in love. Then the true heiress, with nowhere else to turn, knelt before him. She laid bare every wicked deed I had ever committed. Pointing at me with desperate hatred, she said, "If she hadn't usurped my place, I would have been your wife. How could you let a venomous woman like her be your wife?" Daniel Reed was utterly disgusted with me. Not only did he defend the true heiress, but he also flung the divorce papers in my face, his eyes brimming with revulsion. "If I had known you were such a twisted person, I would never have married you." As my eyes fluttered open, I was back on the day when the Reed family came to choose a bride for their heir. This time, I willingly stepped back and pushed the true heiress, Olivia Gray, right in front of Daniel. "Olivia is as brilliant as she is beautiful, and she would truly be the perfect match for this arranged marriage."

The night I came home with an ultrasound image confirming I was 6 weeks pregnant, I found Luke DeLuca pinning my best friend, Viola Marino, against the wine cellar door and kissing her. He lowered his voice and begged, "Viola, how much longer are you going to punish me? You told me to go back to her and be a good husband, and I did. She may never get pregnant again, but our baby is innocent. Don't get rid of our baby." Viola pushed him away through her tears. "It's been 5 years. We've been betraying Bella all this time." The ultrasound image slipped from my hand onto the carpet. 5 years ago, when Luke first betrayed me, Viola had held me in her arms, crying as she urged me to give him another chance. 5 years later, she was carrying his child, yet she had been the one pushing him back into my bed. I thought nothing could be more disgusting. Then Luke stepped in front of her and slapped me across the face. "Whatever we owed you, we've paid it back over the last 5 years." That same night, my name vanished from the estate security access list. The next day, the attorney I trusted most told me I had already "voluntarily divorced" Luke 1 week earlier. The official records now listed Luke and Viola as husband and wife. Everyone waited for me to pull a gun, lose my mind, and threaten my own life to force him back, just as I had before. But this time, I simply took off my wedding ring and walked into the snow with the child he knew nothing about. Luke thought he'd only gotten rid of a troublesome wife. Then his two most profitable dock crews stopped turning over their earnings, and his consigliere told him in a closed-door meeting, "The Bellini pact went with her." For the first time, Luke put a bounty on his own wife. But by the time he finally believed I hadn't lied, the hospital had already issued a death certificate and documented a miscarriage. Only then did he understand that some doors would never open again, not even at the Don's command.

My husband's secretary had been splurging on luxury goods with a card on my account, and she'd even had the nerve to mock me as a frumpy housewife.   Furious, I froze the card on the spot. She was left awkward at checkout when the payment was declined.   When my husband Malen Hart found out, he earnestly promised that nothing like that would ever happen again.   The very next day was our fifth wedding anniversary, and he took me to an upscale banquet hall with a stunning panoramic view of the city lights.   We were halfway through our candlelit dinner when his secretary, Josie suddenly showed up, claiming she needed to give him a work report.   She practically glued herself to Malen's side, showing not a hint of concern for the professional boundaries that should have existed between a boss and his secretary.   Not long after Josie left, Malen received an urgent message from the company.   "Something came up at the last minute. I'll go handle it real quick. I'll be right back, okay?"   The dinner had already tasted like cardboard for ages, so I grabbed my purse and got ready to leave.   Just then, a waiter approached my table.   "Ma'am, Mr. Hart didn't prepay for tonight's meal, so we'll need you to take care of the bill."

Before the 4th of July holiday week, I lost my job, and my fiancé, Ethan Whitmore, offered me a position at his company.   He had always valued competence. He often said, "The more capable you are, the more responsibility you should take on."   When an intern landed a project, he promoted them to manager on the spot.   When his childhood sweetheart, Avery Collins, delivered results, he was even willing to give her an off-cycle raise.   But when it came to me, he said he had to "avoid the impression of nepotism".   A coworker said my proposal could rescue a project that was losing money.   Ethan frowned. "You just happened to catch the market at the right time."   When the department director put me forward for a promotion, he stalled on approving it.   "As my fiancée, you have to be extra careful not to look like the company plays favorites."   I thought he was only trying to avoid office gossip.   It wasn't until the meeting ended that I heard him instruct his assistant, "Sienna Parker doesn't need to remain in her current position. Move her to a nonessential role where she won't disrupt operations. And since it's the 4th of July holiday week, have her cover for Avery."   The engagement ring bit into my finger.   I slipped it off and left it on his desk with my resignation letter.   I no longer wanted this job—and this man.

I held a pregnancy test report in my hand and called him to ask him to pick me up. Vivian Reed's weak cough interrupted his answer. Then the call ended. I stared at the screen and sighed to myself. 'That was close. I almost told him I am the daughter of the richest man in Averton.'

On our wedding day, Evan Foster went up the mountain himself to pick the flowers for my bridal bouquet, only to vanish without a trace. I was nearly frantic. Just as I was about to head up the mountain to look for him, a video arrived on my phone.   It showed a wedding in progress. The bride was Natalie Bennett, my half-sister in name only. Her white wedding gown skimmed the slight curve of her stomach, and the man beside her, his arm linked with hers, was my fiancé, Evan.   Someone quietly asked him, "Evan, you left Mia at her own wedding just to hide the truth about who fathered Natalie's baby. Aren't you afraid she'll raise hell if she finds out? You two have already registered your marriage."   "She won't find out," he said lightly. "I'll go back tomorrow and tell her I fell down the mountainside. She's softhearted. A little coaxing and she'll let it go. Besides, the marriage certificate she has is fake. Mia has everything she could ever want, but Natalie has spent her whole life branded an illegitimate daughter. I can't bear to let her child go through the same thing. Mia will just have to be the one who loses out this time."   His voice came lightly through the phone, but every word cut me to the bone.   I calmly stopped the video without crying or making a scene.   By the time Evan finally realized something was wrong and came looking for me, I had already married someone else.

When the fire broke out in our new home, I was seven months pregnant, trapped in a smoke-filled room. Seraphina had misused a pressure cooker, and flames raced from the stove up the cabinets. My mother rushed in and swept Seraphina into her arms. "Go hide in the bathroom. Seraphina has asthma. I need to get her out first." My speed dial was my boyfriend, Callahan Hayes—he was a fire captain. But as I stared at the door frame glowing red, I paused for a few seconds and dialed 911 instead. When the firefighters broke through and found me, I was curled in the corner of the bathroom, cradling my belly, my nightgown blackened by smoke. When I opened my eyes again, the nurse said I lost the baby. Callahan stood beside the bed, his voice tight with suppressed anger. "You knew I was nearby. Why didn't you call me?" I didn't answer, already counting down in my mind. The hospital room door swung open, and Seraphina stumbled in, her eyes red and brimming with tears. "I'm so sorry, Callahan. It's all my fault Elara lost the baby. I really didn't mean for this to happen." Callahan immediately turned to steady her. I watched them both and said quietly, "You don't need to apologize." After all, this wasn't the first time they'd left me behind in danger. Only this time, they had left my baby behind too.

The security guard outside my boyfriend Julian Hart's therapy clinic mistook me for a lunatic.   The guard stopped me. "Miss Bennett, you've wandered off again. Are you having another episode?"   But I was only there to see my boyfriend.   I froze for a moment. Studying his expression, I realized he did not seem to be lying.   "Why are you stopping me? That woman is wearing my boyfriend's lab coat and his name badge. I have to ask her what's going on."   The guard looked at me with pity.   "She's Dr. Hart's girlfriend."   Everything had been turned upside down.   Trembling with anger, I pulled out my phone to complain to Julian Hart.   But the guard called him first.   "Dr. Hart, Miss Bennett is having another episode."   In a panic, I ran into the clinic's hallway and saw the staff photos displayed on the wall.   Holly Morgan's picture was among them.   She wore a nurse's uniform, a gentle smile playing at the corners of her lips.   I stood there, stunned, for a long time.   Could the woman in Julian's lab coat have been Holly?   Holly was a scholarship student the Hart family had supported for eight years.   I had never expected to find her here.   I clearly remembered that when she graduated, she sent Julian a thank-you letter.   In it, she wrote that she wanted to pass on that warmth by teaching for two years in a remote area.   Why was someone who was supposed to be teaching far away now working at my boyfriend's clinic?   What was even stranger was that everyone at the clinic seemed to know her.   As if I were the only one who did not know the truth.

The day my mother died saving someone, I was only 4 years old. Everyone called her a hero and held a moment of silence in her honor. The boy she'd pulled from the water knelt beside her body, sobbing, swearing he would take care of me. Years later, on the anniversary of her death, I could only get two hours off work. I knelt before her grave in my restaurant uniform, carefully wiping the dust from her photograph. "Mom, it's just me again this year." My stepfather said the child my mother had saved with her life had long forgotten about us. I should stop waiting. But just as I tucked the yellowed middle-school withdrawal notice beneath the flowers, a man in a suit appeared behind me, holding white lilies. Looking at my name tag, his eyes slowly turned red. "You're her daughter, aren't you? All these years, I've been sending $200,000 a year—$3.4 million total—for your education. Why are you working at a restaurant?" I clutched the withdrawal notice, too stunned to speak for a long moment. "I dropped out when I was 14."

My father was critically ill, and the doctor said I needed to sign the surgical consent form before they could operate. I immediately submitted a leave request. Pointing to the critical condition notice attached to my request in the HR portal, I told my boyfriend, Derek Walsh, "My dad is dying. The hospital says he needs surgery within 1 hour. I need to take time off and get to the hospital."   He rejected the request without even opening the attachment. "Emily, the annual company retreat is this afternoon, and there is still prep work to finish. If I approve your last-minute leave request, won't everyone say I'm playing favorites?"   His female best friend, Megan Price, laughed beside him. "You're not making this up just because you don't want to go to the company retreat, are you?"   But I had finished all my work days ago. Before I could argue, Derek stood and patted Megan on the shoulder.   "Didn't you say you had a salon appointment? Go on. I'll approve your leave. Just dump the venue work on Emily. Even if her father is dying, I'm sure he'll rest easy once he's gone, knowing how hard his daughter is working for the company."

On the day of our wedding rehearsal, Nolan told me to meet him backstage. He said he was wearing the suit I had carefully chosen for him and warned me not to mistake him for someone else. When I reached the dressing room, I saw a man with Nolan's build standing with his back to me. I wrapped my arms around him from behind and called Nolan's name. 1 second later, the room erupted in laughter. The man was Nolan's best man. Katherine held up her phone and laughed so hard that she doubled over. "Elena got the wrong man again. It's a good thing the wedding hasn't started, or she might hug the wrong groom." I let go, my face burning. The best man made a show of adjusting Nolan's tie pin. "Nolan lent me this pin, Elena. I didn't think it would actually fool you." My brother, Marcus Hayes, slapped the table as he laughed. "I told you she would never recognize him." My mother took Katherine's phone and laughed as she replayed the video. "Elena has always been like this. She can't remember faces, yet she still calls people by the wrong name with complete confidence." Nolan stood in the doorway with a grim expression. I thought he was going to defend me, but he only glanced at me. "Could you try paying attention for once?" My mother pulled Katherine behind her as though she were afraid I might hurt her. "She meant well. How was she supposed to know you would be so sensitive?" I stared at the diamond earrings in Katherine's ears. They had been Nolan's engagement gift to me. She had worn them on purpose. She had switched to my perfume on purpose. She had persuaded the best man to wear the suit I had prepared for Nolan on purpose. They had known all along that my face blindness didn't keep me from recognizing people altogether. I could identify them by their voices, their scent, and the way they walked. They had replaced those clues one by one and then waited for me to make a mistake. Smiling, I removed my engagement ring. "The wedding is off. After all, I have face blindness. Apparently, I can't tell my fiancé or the mistress he's kept close all along."

Grant Holloway had always believed words were inefficient and trust was silent, so he never explained himself. He forgot my birthday. When I asked him about it, he merely glanced at me and went back to his study. When we fought and I packed my bags to leave, he blocked the doorway without saying a single word to make me stay. He simply carried my suitcase back inside and shut the door.   One of his friends laughed at him. "Can't you just coax her a little?" Grant leaned against the sofa with his eyes closed. "She'll sort herself out. It's been 6 years. Hasn't she always come around on her own?"   Then his childhood friend, Phoebe Dyer, returned from overseas. At her welcome-home dinner, she tilted her head at him. "Grant Holloway, my flight landed at 3 p.m., and you didn't even come pick me up. Some friend you are." Everyone at the table expected him to fall silent the way he always did with me. I was already preparing to smooth things over out of habit: Grant didn't like explaining himself, so they shouldn't take it personally.   To everyone's surprise, Grant spoke. "I was on an international conference call at 3 p.m. and lost track of time." Phoebe pouted. "So the meeting mattered more than I did?"  He paused. "I couldn't reschedule it, but next time, tell me in advance. I'll clear my calendar." I dug my nails into my palm and forced back my tears. So there were exceptions to his rule against explanations. I just wasn't one of them.

On the eve of my wedding, my younger sister, Eva Ford, clung to Ben Ward's arm and said sweetly, "Ben, I want a set of bridal photos too."   Ben immediately called the makeup artist over and had her put Eva in a white wedding gown.   Mom adjusted Eva's veil with a smile. "Your sister really does make the better bride."   Dad's eyes reddened as he watched her stand beside Ben in front of the camera. "If only she were the one getting married today."   I stood off to the side, still clutching the wedding schedule.   All my life, I'd had to give Eva any toy she liked. If she wanted one of my dresses, I wasn't allowed to wear it. When I won an award, my parents would say, "You're the older sister. Be mature and don't embarrass Eva."   Now she wanted a share of my boyfriend too.   During the shoot, she looped her arm through Ben's and smiled radiantly, as if the wedding had always belonged to her.   In the end, my entire family chose the photo of Ben gazing tenderly at her for the wedding invitations.   Eva laughed. "Amy, control your man."   Ben pointed at the photo and said carelessly, "This one looks good. Besides, you sisters look alike. After a little editing, the guests won't be able to tell the difference."   I stared at the photo and thought of the wedding I'd spent three months preparing.   So Eva was still the leading lady after all.   I slipped off my ring and dropped it into the water glass. "I'm not marrying you."

When I was 9 years old, I was shoved into the mud by my uncle because I asked for $20. That day, I swore that one day I would have a home of my own. So when Harrison Ford pulled me out of a dark alley late that night, I took his hand without a second thought. He took me to high-society galas, arranged for people to teach me etiquette and business. In Kingsport, everyone called me "Mrs. Ford". Even I began to believe that I'd finally found my place in this glittering harbor. Until the front-page headline hit: "Harrison Ford Shows True Devotion to His First Love, Quietly Marries Recently Divorced Heiress Vivian Shaw." When I saw that newspaper, Harrison wrapped his arms around me from behind and swapped it for a property deed to a mansion. "Sweetheart, it's just a fake marriage. Her family's in trouble. I have to help. The house is yours now. Don't make a scene." I looked at the deed and smiled. But the next second, tears spilled over. "Harrison, I wanted a home with you." He thought I was throwing a tantrum. He kissed the top of my head and murmured soft reassurances. I closed my eyes and wiped my tears against his suit jacket. He didn't know this was the first time in my life I'd ever given my heart to anyone. And it would be the last.

At a charity gala, the women were playing a game called the "Perfect Husband Challenge".   The rules were simple: call your husband, tell him your child had been hurt, and see whether he would rush over right away.   When it was my turn, I called Daniel Carter.   "Honey, Mia fell and hurt herself at the gala. Can you come pick us up now?"   There was a two-second silence before his impatient voice came through.   "Call the driver. Grace has a fever tonight. I need to stay with her."   Before I could respond, a woman's soft, coquettish voice came from the other end of the line.   "Daniel, hang up already. Didn't you say it was our night?"   The entire room fell silent.   I stared at the name on my phone—the man I had been married to for five years—and finally understood that the "poor distant cousin" he kept talking about had never been his cousin.   I took off my wedding ring and dropped it into my wine.   "Then let the driver come. Starting today, my daughter and I won't be waiting for you anymore."

After my husband's first love returned from abroad, he moved her into our master bedroom and banished me to the children's room. He said, "You already have me. She has nothing right now. Why can't you just let her have this?" Later, his first love claimed she'd lost the ability to have children and wanted to experience a family vacation. So he took our three-year-old daughter without telling me and played happy family with her. When our daughter was rushed to the hospital with a high fever and severe dehydration, he stayed on the beach to comfort his first love. He always thought that since I had a home, a career, a child, and him, I should be the one to make sacrifices every single time. After I left with our daughter, he finally realized that all the things he'd always treated as handouts, I hadn't taken a single one. And this time, I walked away from him too.

Every anniversary, my boyfriend would invent a new secret to put my love to the test. A deadly illness, a mountain of debt, a criminal past. And every time, I stayed by his side.   On our 8th anniversary, he told me his childhood sweetheart was carrying his baby. I slipped off my ring, and the two of them immediately broke into laughter.   "It was all an act."   "We only wanted to know if your love had a breaking point."   My boyfriend looked at me, disappointment written all over his face.   "So I guess you never loved me as much as you claimed."   I picked up my suitcase and gave a quiet nod.   "Those things were fake before. But this time, falling out of love with you is real."

My husband, Ezra Vance, and I had been childfree for eight years. In our eighth year of marriage, he suddenly mentioned wanting to adopt a daughter. "It doesn't matter if she isn't biologically ours," he had said. "This way, you won't have to go through the pain of pregnancy." My parents-in-law and my best friend, Sarah Bennett, were even more invested than I was. They spent twenty-one consecutive days at Oakridge Children's Home, helping me choose a child. Mrs. Vance sent me photos every day, insisting we find a girl who shared a special connection with me. Mr. Vance pulled strings to run background checks, demanding that the child's history be absolutely spotless. Sarah took it even further, screening candidates round after round to ensure she made the right choice for me. "We have to find you a sweet little angel who's meant to be yours," she told me. On the day we finally decided on a child, I was so excited that I arrived at the orphanage half a day early to pick her up. Clutching a custom silver locket in my hands, I pushed open the door to the playroom. Instead of a standard greeting, I saw my usually arrogant husband crawling on the floor. A little girl was riding on his shoulders, hugging his neck and calling him Daddy. Beside them, my mother-in-law was holding the hand of Camilla Thorne, a girl I had once sponsored. "You and your daughter have suffered for three years," Mrs. Vance said warmly. "Today, you can finally come home." Sarah's eyes welled up with tears as she added, "Camilla, you've endured so much for three years, and your hardships are finally over." The laughter in the room came to a dead halt the second they noticed me standing in the doorway. Ezra instinctively stepped in front of Camilla and the child, shielding them behind his back. I looked at this picture-perfect, happy family and offered a faint smile. "It seems this child already has a mother, so I won't take that title from her," I said quietly.

Three years into our marriage, Luca Vitale fell in love with his chief assistant. For her, he was willing to give up the penthouse in Manhatton, his family trust, his shares in Vitale Holdings, and even the path his father had spent more than 20 years paving for him. On the night of his daughter's first birthday, he stood in the study of the Vitale family's estate and slid a stack of signed renunciation papers across the desk toward me. "Elena, I'm sorry. I'm sorry to you, and I'm sorry to Nina. But I love Claire. A life without freedom means nothing to me." I stared at him for a long time before asking just one question. "Are you sure? You're really willing to give up everything?" "Yes." I lowered my eyes and signed the divorce agreement. Luca thought he had finally escaped a family that had spent his entire life binding him with money, his last name, and endless rules. What he didn't know was that the most untouchable old man in New Yorken was standing right outside the study. Dominic Vitale glanced once at the daughter in my arms, then said only one thing to the lawyer. "Starting today, restructure the beneficiaries of the family's legitimate businesses, the family trust, and everything I can legally pass down." He paused for two seconds, his voice completely devoid of emotion. "As for Luca, cross his name out."

Three years into our marriage, I, Claire Bennett, still could not share a bed with Ethan Whitmore.   Because on our wedding night, I had been assaulted.   Whenever I tried to overcome my fear and accept Ethan, my body would seize up, and I would vomit uncontrollably.   Not only did Ethan never resent me for it, but he would comfort me with red-rimmed eyes.   "Claire, no matter what happens, I love you. Don't force yourself."   "We have plenty of time. I'll stay by your side until you get better."   I was deeply moved and worked even harder to cooperate with treatment.   The day I finally recovered, I came home early.   But I found Lydia Parker sitting on Ethan's lap, panting heavily.   "Does Claire please you the way I do?"   Ethan gripped her waist, looking thoroughly satisfied.   "She's my wife. She doesn't need to please me like that. So be good. Don't cause trouble in front of her."   Only then did I understand that the nightmare of the past three years had trapped not only me, but him as well.   We had both suffered long enough.   It was time for me to let go.

After we finished trying on wedding dresses, Liam Ashton's best friend asked him something in French. "The marriage certificate is fake, and the little thing you're keeping in the Hamptons is pregnant. Aren't you afraid Lena will find out?" Liam answered in French, "My little girl has a temper. She refuses to be a mistress and keeps making a scene, so I had no choice but to get legally married to her first. As for Lena, I'll use a fake certificate to keep her happy. I'll drag it out for as long as I can." My mind went blank. I stared at him in disbelief. Liam's best friend let out a mocking laugh. "So what does that make Lena now? Your mistress on the side?" Liam gave me a tender smile, his French words floating casually through the air. "She already got to wear the wedding dress. I'll even throw her a wedding. It's not like she's losing out. And I'll make sure she never finds out." I stood among the racks of wedding dresses, my fingernails digging so hard into my palms that they left bloody marks. Liam thoughtfully gathered up my train and switched to English, his voice soft and gentle. "Lena, what's wrong? Your eyes look a little red." I swallowed my tears and shook my head. "Nothing. The dress is just really heavy. I've been standing for too long, so I'm a little tired." He ran his fingers through my hair, just as gently as he always had. He didn't know. I'd secretly spent two years learning French for him, just so I could answer the priest's vows in French on our wedding day and surprise him. I wouldn't need to anymore. Whoever wants this wedding dress can have it. I don't want it.

Caleb Reed's stepsister had suffered a head injury in a car accident that impaired her mind, leaving her hostile toward every woman around him, especially me, his fiancée. To avoid upsetting her, Caleb was never affectionate with me in front of her. Even our originally scheduled wedding had been repeatedly postponed. It wasn't until my wedding dress could barely hide my baby bump that Caleb finally decided to send her away. But on our wedding day, she burst into the dressing room and doused me in red paint. The sticky liquid ran from my hair down my neck, staining the wedding dress with a shocking scarlet. I couldn't take it anymore and was about to call the police on the spot. But Caleb stopped me, his tone weary and impatient. "You know Stella is ill. Why do you always have to be so petty? You can always buy another dress. We can always have another wedding. Can't you just humor her?" Looking at the man frowning before me, I suddenly felt it was all so pointless. "Fine, I won't call the police, but on one condition. I want a divorce."

At one in the morning, I came across a photo on Instagram. The woman in the photo was wearing my husband's black dress shirt, sitting on our bed with her bare legs exposed. Three buttons at the collar were undone. And fastened to the left cuff was a silver wolf-head cufflink. I stared at that cufflink for a full five seconds. Only one person in the entire Vitale family was allowed to wear the wolf-head crest. The head of the family. My husband—Matteo Vitale. And I knew the woman wearing his shirt, too. Sophia Rossi. The "benefactor's daughter" who had lived off the Vitale family's money since she was eighteen—attending private schools, going to college, and moving in New York's high society as though she had been born into it. The caption was even more interesting. Some places are destined to belong to certain people from the very beginning. People were already stirring things up in the comments. A: [Sophia, are you finally going to become a Vitale?] She didn't deny it. She only replied with a coy smiley face. I was instantly wide awake. Beside me, Matteo was still fast asleep. I reached over and patted his cheek. "Wake up." The moment his eyes opened, his right hand instinctively reached toward the nightstand. He stopped halfway when he realized it was me. "What's wrong?" I shoved my phone in front of his face. "Mr. Vitale." "Someone just announced your new wife for you."

My husband, Adrian Parker, and I were kidnapped during a trip to East Veridia. When our captors let us send three messages home, every one of Adrian's messages was about my best friend, Wendy Cole.   Adrian: Don't let Wendy come looking for us. She's timid and gullible.   Adrian: The unlimited credit card I gave Wendy is hers to use. She can spend whatever she wants.   Adrian: The downtown Westbridge condo titled in Wendy's name belongs to her. She can move in immediately.   With those three messages, he secured Wendy's future without making a single call for help.   Terrified, I demanded an explanation. Adrian squeezed my hand.   "A kidnapping in East Veridia means we have almost no chance of survival. I couldn't let everything we own go to some stranger, could I? If we don't make it out, I'll die with you."   After we were rescued, Adrian didn't take me to the hospital despite my injuries. He contacted the embassy first so they could tell Wendy he was safe.   Only after severe blood loss left me faint did he remember that I needed a doctor.   When I confronted him, he offered the same excuse again.   "Don't read too much into it. We were missing for so long. If we didn't tell Wendy, she'd be devastated when she found out you were hurt."   I clenched my fists. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw what was on his phone.   He was shopping for a comfort gift for Wendy.   A sharp ache spread through my chest, then dulled into numbness. This time, I was done making excuses for him.   The day we returned home, I bought a ticket to Southvale.   I was walking away from the marriage that had somehow come to revolve around three people.

I was Chloe Bennett. My fiancé, David Whitmore, was an extreme eco-conscious minimalist who strictly forbade any form of material desire in our lives.   My wardrobe contained nothing but secondhand clothes, and our dates were limited to free public parks.   He had even made my engagement ring from the pull tab of a discarded soda can. Buddy, the golden retriever guide dog is the courage I regained to step out of my home after going blind, and also the family member who has never left my side over these ten years, whether I was poor, in a sorry state, or being scolded by David. Last week, Buddy, who has been with me for ten years and helped me through the years of blindness, suddenly suffered heart failure and urgently needed fifty thousand dollars for surgery.   In tears, I begged David to use the house fund in our joint account to save my dog.   But he clutched the bankbook tightly and lectured me with an air of moral righteousness.   "Birth, aging, illness, and death are all part of the natural order. Trying to use money to forcibly prolong a life is a shameful act of capitalism."   In the end, all I could do was watch my dog die in excruciating pain.   But just moments ago, a notice concerning an asset audit arrived from the Revenue Service, requiring David's signature.   I opened the envelope and found a proof of payment enclosed. It showed that the money had been used to purchase a ten-million-dollar villa and a private yacht at Silverpine Mountain.   The name listed as the owner was unmistakably that of his luxury-loving ex-wife, Elena Prescott.   A receipt also slipped out of the envelope. It was for a custom-made necklace worth one million dollars.   My tears stopped instantly. My heart throbbed with pain so intense that I could smell blood with every breath.   Calmly, I walked over to the fireplace and tossed the soda-can tab into the flames.   Then I contacted a lawyer and demanded the division of our joint assets.   He had demanded that only I live frugally while giving someone else a life of luxury.

As a substitute bride, I was pregnant with the only heir of the boss of the Mistwick Mafia. But the wolf clan was tearing itself apart over succession. To protect the sole heir from assassination, I used a concealment bracelet to mask my scent and endured ten full months playing the part of an ordinary pregnant woman within the family. Just tonight, I hid in the secret chamber Leon set up to give birth in secret, thinking I finally secured the future leader. But as the crisp cry rang out, I saw no golden‑eyed wolf pups. Instead, two completely ordinary human infants lay there, showing no sign of beast form. So I frantically turned them over and checked their tiny backs, yet found no pureblood totem mark. Instantly, cold sweat soaked my back, and I trembled uncontrollably. My mind flooded with the brutal image of Leon throwing family traitors into the open ocean to feed the sharks just days before. Just then, Leon's low, amused voice came through the heavy iron door. "Darling, why's the door locked? Can I come in and take a look at the babies?" he asked.

My best friend Ella Moore sat in my fiancé's passenger seat for the first time right in front of me. The car automatically lowered the seat for her and switched to the vanilla latte scent. Even the playlist was full of her favorites. I froze for a second. Matthew Harris explained offhandedly, "The car remembers passenger habits. She's been in it a few times before." Ella ran her hand over the center console screen, smiling. "Cars are so smart these days. I'll test all the features for you first, so you won't have to figure them out later." I didn't think much of it, not until the drive back from the family dinner before the wedding. That night, the car flipped in the downpour. I was trapped in the back seat. Ella was trapped in the passenger seat, blood pooling beneath her skirt. We both called out to Matthew for help. He only glanced at me before cutting her seatbelt and carrying her out of the car. I grabbed his sleeve with all my strength. "I can't move my leg." He pulled my hand away. "She's been bleeding the whole time. I'll take her first. Wait for rescue." Just as he finished speaking, the car's display suddenly lit up: Frequent passenger Ella identified. Gestation: sixteen weeks. Infant protection mode activated. Sending location to the designated maternity hospital. Matthew's face turned deathly pale. I looked at the twelve previous routes to the maternity hospital on the screen and suddenly laughed. So this car had already memorized the route to another home for them. I took off the engagement ring and threw it far, letting it land at his feet. "Take her to the hospital. Don't come back." 'But Matthew, from now on, I'm done waiting for you. I don't need you anymore.'

The day my daughter was wheeled into the operating room, the nurse urged me to pay another eighty thousand dollars for the surgery. I called my husband, Robert Martinez, twenty-seven times. His only response was a text. Robert: Something happened at the new store. Figure it out yourself. I was about to sell my gold bracelet at a loss when I came across a livestream from a small-town food account. On screen, Robert was wearing a new suit, with his arm around his first love and her child as they cut the ribbon on his eighteenth branch. The child hugged his leg, calling him "Daddy" in a bright, childish voice. My mother‑in‑law stood nearby grinning from ear to ear, and put the gold pendant meant for my daughter around the child's neck. Immediately, debt‑collection texts started flooding my screen. 3.06 million dollars in loans, all in my name. The seventeen profitable stores had already been transferred into his first love's name. I confronted him with the loan statements, and Robert's buddies burst out laughing. One of them sneered, "Emily, all you know is tossing a skillet. Without Robert, you couldn't even sell pancakes." I didn't cry. I just took off the apron I'd worn for twelve years. They had forgotten that all the restaurants' sauces came from my kitchen. That night, I cut off the supply and went back to street vending with nothing but a cast‑iron skillet. A month later, lines stretched three blocks outside my stall, while his restaurants closed one after another. Robert knelt in the rain and begged me to take him back.

Dylan Evans had always been the devoted boyfriend who would do anything for me, practically to the point of submission. No matter how outrageous my request, even when I made him dress up as a bunny boy, he'd lie on the bed, cheeks flushed, wiggling that fluffy tail as he waited for me. I thought that was because he loved me. Until I saw the onscreen comments. A: [The secondary female lead still hasn't got a clue. If he weren't just trying to survive, how could the male lead—a cold, aloof CEO—ever stoop to something like this? She doesn't actually think he's doing all this out of love, does she?!] B: [The male lead obviously can't stand her, but he's tethered to a system that forces him to farm affection score. He has to swallow his disgust and play the part of the perfect, doting boyfriend. At night, he even has to play bunny boy, cuffed while she has her way with him.] C: [Can't be helped. The male lead's got a terminal illness. If he doesn't win her over, he won't see 25.] D: [Good news is, the affection score's already at 99%. As long as he maxes it out to 100% before his birthday in a month, he can break free from the system and live a normal life.] E: [Then he can finally be with our darling female lead. As for that side character—she's hogged him for way too long, even making him wear black stockings and play bunny boy, humiliating him like that. When the time comes, we'll just serve her a lovely care package of bankruptcy and homelessness.] I trembled. I glanced down at Dylan's flushed face beneath me. Then I scrambled off his toned abs.

After I caught my boyfriend cheating on me with my best friend, we broke up. Three years later, my best friend tearfully apologized to me, saying that she had done something wrong back then. She introduced me to my current fiancé and solemnly promised me, "This time, I'll make sure to vet him carefully for you." On the night before our engagement, my ex suddenly sent me a text with a photo of a hotel key card: Keep an eye on your fiancé. He's just as foolish as I was back then. When I rushed to the room, my fiancé was zipping up the back of my best friend's dress. My ex sat on the sofa, his eyes bloodshot. Yet my best friend was unusually calm. She walked up to me, smiled, and said, "See? It's not that I stole your men. They all like me." My fiancé chased after me to explain. "It was only a moment of weakness. The wedding can still go ahead." My ex also blocked the elevator. "Now you understand that it wasn't my fault back then, right?" I pressed the close-door button. "I understand. The three of you really are perfect for each other."

My husband was a surgeon whose life revolved around professionalism and scientific rigor.   He scheduled intimacy twice a week, with no more than 6 minutes each time. He said the data showed that was the most scientifically sound schedule.   When our housekeeper added an extra quarter teaspoon of salt to dinner, he coldly called her unprofessional and fired her on the spot.   After I developed postpartum depression, he ordered an AI humanoid robot to take care of me.   "Its comprehensive postpartum care program will be more professional and effective than anything I could do to comfort you."   I thought he was simply reserved by nature, the kind of man who kept his feelings tightly controlled.   Then the robot arrived and began making one dangerous mistake after another. She set my baby's bathwater to 122°F, mixed his infant formula with tap water, and poured laundry detergent into a cooking pot.   When I asked to send her back, Nathan shook his head, dismissed the incidents as isolated malfunctions, and insisted on keeping her.   Then I came home early from a business trip and heard my husband's ragged breathing through our bedroom door.   Through the crack, I saw him clutching a woman's waist as they moved together. She tipped her head back and kissed him deeply.   My breath caught, and my fingers froze around the doorknob.   Her face was identical to the robot's.   "Nathan, wasn't my robot act convincing? That idiot never suspected a thing."   Her moans lasted all night.   I watched the hands of my wristwatch and lost count of how many 6-minute intervals passed.   So he did know how to lose control. He had simply never wanted to with me.   I slid to the floor outside the door. After a long while, I made a call.   "I'm giving you a chance to become my son's stepfather."

My mom was the biggest stickler for "fair parenting" in our entire family.   When I was five, she forced me to eat mangoes. My whole body broke out in itchy, angry red hives, but she brushed it off like it was nothing.   "Your little brother gets to eat mangoes, so you do too. I don't favor boys over girls. It's just an allergy. It'll clear up in a few days."   When I was 10, I was bedridden with a raging fever that wouldn't break. My mom arranged herself and my little brother for a 10-day overseas vacation.   "Lauren, I took you on a day trip to a nearby city before, so it's Ryan's turn to go somewhere this time."   When I turned 18, I got into Westbridge University, one of the best schools in the country. My mom claimed she couldn't afford my tuition. Then she turned around and signed Ryan up for private tutoring that cost 1,000 a session.   Three classes a day for 60 straight days came to a staggering 180,000, more than enough to cover my entire college tuition.   "You only got into Westbridge because I poured time and money into you. Now it's Ryan's turn to prepare for college. Figure out your own tuition. Ryan doesn't need college money right now, so obviously, we can't give you any."   I completely lost it. I sobbed and screamed at her, asking if she'd ever even seen me as her daughter.   She only frowned, her face twisting with irritation. "I'm just being fair. Everything Ryan has, you've had too. If Ryan doesn't have something, I can't give it to you either."   I never threw another fit after that.   The moment I left for college, I never set foot in that house again.   That was until this Thanksgiving Day, when Mom called Ryan and me home to discuss how we were going to divide up the family's apartments.   Only a few days after I returned, Ryan was ambushed and brutally beaten in the middle of nowhere. He was beaten so badly that someone even cut off his genitals while he was still alive.   After all, that was only fair.   I didn't have that, so Ryan couldn't have it either.   That was what Mom called fairness.

Ethan Brooks was late to pick me up on our wedding day.   I couldn't reach him no matter how many times I tried.   After yet another call went straight to voicemail, I stood there at a loss. Then my best friend suddenly cried out beside me.   "Why is Ethan at Vanessa Reed's place?!"   In the Instagram photo, Ethan was wearing his groom's suit as he carried Vanessa downstairs on his back.   Vanessa: My forever family came to give me away today!   The moment I saw the smile on Ethan's face, I could no longer hold my expression together.   It was supposed to be the happiest day of my life, yet no one in the room dared to speak.   With the ceremony time fast approaching, I slipped on the wedding shoes I had hidden for the bridal game, trembling all over, and took a cab to the hotel with my bridesmaid.   Ethan had already reached the reception hall. When he saw me, he offered no explanation. He merely said our ceremony had to be delayed by an hour.   He needed to stay with Vanessa until her ceremony was over.   "Who starts a wedding ceremony at 1 p.m.? What are your relatives going to think of me?" I demanded in disbelief.   Besides, my family had chosen that time especially for good luck.   "Vanessa and I grew up together. I promised I would never miss an important moment in her life, so how could I break that promise on her wedding day?" Ethan said solemnly.   "If you go, we're over," I said with a bitter smile.   Ethan paused, then took my hand as if to soothe me. "It won't stop our wedding from happening. The same goes for this morning. I still made it back in time, didn't I?"   Smiling, I pulled my hand free.   "Then there won't be a wedding."

My fiancé, Leon, had one unbreakable rule: every Sunday, he had to spend the day alone at his wilderness cabin. He called it the mental detox every Wall Street executive needed, and no one was ever allowed to disturb him. Not even last month, when an ectopic pregnancy left me hemorrhaging on the bathroom floor and desperately begging him for help. He listened to my fading sobs over the phone and answered with icy indifference, "You've crossed a line. Learn to call an ambulance yourself." I spent 10 hours fighting for my life in the ICU and lost one fallopian tube. He did not even send flowers. Then today, while organizing our tax documents, I accidentally logged in to his family cloud account. In a hidden private album, I found hundreds of surveillance videos from those Sundays at the cabin. In the footage, the severe germaphobe who couldn't stand noise was down on all fours, letting a 5-year-old girl ride him like a horse. The woman laughing behind the camera was his first love, Selena, who was supposedly remarried. As I touched the vicious scar on my abdomen, I no longer had the strength to cry. I sat on the couch and watched in silence until sunset. At sunset, I bundled the videos together and sent them to Leon's mother. Then I called the church and canceled next month's wedding ceremony. His private refuge had been crowded all along. All I felt was disgust.

Seven years ago, in the prom hallway, Dante Romano pushed me to the ground in my disheveled state in front of the entire Family and classmates. He accused me of drugging him for money, leaving me to be mocked, photographed, and gawked at. That night, I went from being his girlfriend to becoming the laughingstock of Goldenbay. My apartment was splattered with paint; someone jimmied my door open in the dead of night. I fled in panic with my mother, and was gone for seven years. Seven years later, I returned to Goldenbay six months pregnant. My husband, Luca—Godfather of the Oakham Moretti family—stood behind me, watching calmly through the falling snow as Dante lost control, demanding to know whose baby it was. Luca had waited seven long years for this moment. Ever since those nights when, delirious with fever, I called out Dante's name, he had sworn to erase it from my memory.

On the way to the airport to pick up Justin Litt, I casually came across a post about catching a cheating boyfriend in the same city.   After three years of long-distance, my boyfriend cheated. I'm catching the two of them in the act tonight. How should I punish the other woman to get my revenge? The comments went wild, and the poster replied one by one. Poster: [His flight lands tonight, and I heard that the other woman will be there to pick him up.] Poster: [I want to catch her in the act and make sure she never forgets the shame.   Poster: [By the way, her license plate is H3288.] In the next moment, I hit the brakes hard. That was my plate number.

Julian Foster was celebrating Vivian Hayes's birthday in the middle of our wedding, while I stood there clutching a confetti cannon like an unpaid extra.   I still hadn't figured out what kind of "surprise" he'd planned for Vivian when Julian barked at me.   "Eve, are you deaf? I told you to crouch down! You're blocking Vivi's dress!"   I looked at Vivian, dressed to the nines, then at the guests around her. Not a single person looked surprised.   Before I could ask what the hell was going on, Julian's cousin shoved me off the stage.   No one cared that the bride had just hit the floor with a heavy thud.   The emcee turned to Julian, who had just finished taking photos with Vivian and was holding her birthday cake for her to blow out the candles.   "Mr. Foster, since you chose to celebrate Ms. Hayes's birthday today, are you planning to help her find a boyfriend while you're at it?"   Julian intertwined his fingers with Vivian's and flashed a carefree smile.   "If she's looking for a boyfriend, shouldn't I get first dibs?"   The crowd erupted into cheers.   With a smug smile, Vivian tilted her chin. "That depends on whether Mr. Foster can impress me."   The emcee had only meant to ease the awkward atmosphere, but he hadn't expected the two of them to openly flirt on the wedding stage.   Left with no other choice, he awkwardly continued the ceremony.   "Ms. Eve, do you take Mr. Julian Foster to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health..."   Before he could finish, Julian cut him off. He looked down at me sprawled beneath the stage, impatience written all over his face.   "Hurry up and say yes."   I looked at the giant screen displaying "Happy Birthday, Vivian", then at the family and friends surrounding her as they showered her with blessings.   The wedding I'd spent so long looking forward to had become nothing more than the backdrop for someone else's celebration.   Seeing that I still hadn't responded, Julian frowned and urged me again.   I caught the microphone he tossed at me and said through gritted teeth, "I won't."

On the day the Mafia Godfather was crowned, I completed my 10,000th dark-web bounty. I had finally scraped together fifty million dollars to buy that private island he'd always dreamed of and put it in his name, as a celebratory gift. But when I returned to the castle bruised and battered, I saw Chris pinning the family crest, the symbol of the matriarch, to my sister's dress. "I've already put the island in your name. Play around however you like; it doesn't matter if it doesn't make money, as long as you're happy." Shirley didn't say thank you. She just gave a cold nod. His eyes were filled with infatuation, but when he turned to me, his face turned sinister. "Today is my coronation. You came empty-handed?" he asked. I stared hard at that crest. "That island was earned with my blood, sweat, and tears," I retorted. He sneered. "Every day, for a bit of cash, you're on the dark web sucking up to those scumbags. Why get so worked up over dirty money like that? Shirley is noble and pure by nature. It's an honor for you that she spends the money you earn." He didn't know that Shirley wasn't my biological sister, but merely a high-end android I had customized, nor that dark web bounties had always been just my side gig. Because he preferred the cold and aloof type, I had programmed her to be cold and distant. I couldn't be bothered to argue, simply smiling indifferently. I took out my phone and opened the Chief AI Officer job offer from Austeris Space Exploration Headquarters. I glanced at the instruction to leave immediately and tapped "Accept" without hesitation.

Three years ago, Grant Whitmore destroyed me in front of all our alumni. He accused me of taking his family's money while pretending to love him. That night, I left in the pouring rain, fell down a stone staircase, and permanently damaged my right knee, ending my career as a dancer forever. Three years later, I returned—with a wedding invitation in my hand. When I handed it to Grant at our alumni reunion, he stopped me. He asked the waiter to turn off the AC behind me, just like he used to care. Then he pressed my invitation against the table and asked with red-rimmed eyes. "Who said you could marry someone else?" What he didn't know was that my groom was sitting at the head table, calmly watching him lose control. And he had been waiting for this day for seven years.

While Beryl Hill was playing League of Legends with me, my boyfriend, Elvis Wood, suddenly sent her a shirtless mirror selfie, his abs on full display. Beryl laughed and replied with a single question mark. Beryl: Seriously? Have some self-respect. Your girlfriend is literally sitting right next to me. Elvis texted back almost instantly. Elvis: I lost a dare. Otherwise, why would I send you a picture of my abs? He even attached a smug little meme. After the match, the three of us headed to our favorite barbecue spot. The owner grinned the moment he saw them. "The usual?" Elvis nodded. Without thinking, he slipped the hair tie off his wrist and handed it to Beryl. "No iced soda for you today. You're on your period." "Oh, come on." Beryl rolled her eyes. "Soda without ice isn't even worth drinking." "When you're curled up crying from cramps later, don't expect me to carry you to urgent care." I sat quietly in the corner, watching them tease each other, a dull ache slowly spreading through my chest. I'd been dating Elvis for five years. Beryl had been my best friend for just as long. The smoke drifting off the grill stung my eyes until they watered. For a second, I couldn't tell who the third wheel really was.

When I was rushed into surgery with a ruptured appendix, my husband, Dante Moretti, the Don of the Moretti Family, was in the same private hospital, staying by Bianca Vitale's side. She knowingly ate half a peanut-filled dessert despite having a severe peanut allergy, then burst into tears, claiming someone had tried to poison her. I called Dante seventeen times before he finally answered. He told me to lock the doors and wait for his private physician. Even after I told him I was in so much pain that I couldn't even stand, he still chose to believe it was just another stomach flare-up. In his eyes, I was always safe, always strong, and someone who would never leave. The next morning, I signed the divorce papers and walked away with the design portfolio that had been gathering dust for three years. Six months later, I stood on the stage of an international design awards ceremony as Adrian Cole slipped a ring onto my finger. Meanwhile, Dante sat alone in the last row, his eyes red as he finally admitted the truth. It was never that he didn't love me. He had simply mistaken my love for a loyalty that would never run out. As for the woman he'd spent seven years protecting, she was ultimately convicted of plagiarism, commercial fraud, and arson, and it was Dante himself who turned her over to federal authorities, sending her to prison.

On the night of our pre-wedding party, I showed up in the sexy swimsuit my fiancé had prepared for me—only to discover that everyone else was dressed in formal wear.   Every mocking gaze in the room turned toward me, leaving me frozen in humiliation.   Ethan Hart stepped in front of me. His tone was easy. "Chloe can be a handful. She switched the theme last minute and forgot to give you a heads-up."   Before I could answer, the lights came on. Ethan's female best friend, Chloe Reed, appeared in the doorway wearing the wedding gown I had ordered 1 year in advance.   Ethan pushed me aside without hesitation and walked toward her with a smile.   So the new theme was a mock wedding.   Chloe wore my gown, held on to my groom, and walked to the wedding march I had chosen.   As she passed me, she tilted her head and smiled. "Claire won't mind, will she? I'm just asking my best friend to help me fulfill my dream of wearing a wedding dress."   Ethan answered for me at once. "Why would she mind? She loves me. Learning to indulge you is mandatory."   The groomsmen whistled and shouted, "If we're doing a mock wedding, we have to do the whole thing! Kiss! Kiss!"   Chloe smiled sweetly and kissed the corner of his mouth. Ethan lowered his head and held her waist so she could lean on him and kiss him more easily.   I slowly removed my engagement ring and asked one of his close friends to give it to him.   That was one mandatory lesson I had no intention of learning.

3 months after the car accident, I had just finished rehab training when I lost control of my bladder again. The caregiver had barely helped me back into bed when Ethan Hale's assistant, Tessa Reed, barged in with several coworkers. She stared at my exposed lower body and soaked incontinence brief, covered her nose, and shouted, "God, that stinks! Claire, you're a grown woman. How can you still wet yourself?" Their stares made my eyes burn. I grabbed my water glass and hurled it at them. "Get out!" The glass never came close to Tessa, but she screamed, clutched her forehead, and collapsed to the floor. Ethan arrived a moment later and saw only the mess. He hurried over to cover me with a blanket, then turned to help a sobbing Tessa to her feet. "Tessa brought everyone here because she was worried about you. How could you attack her? Apologize." I stared at him in disbelief. Hidden behind him, Tessa gave me a smug little arch of her brow. Rage flared in my chest. If she was going to turn my hospital room into her private stage, I would drag her and her whole performance into the spotlight. And since Ethan wanted an apology, I would make him watch the woman he protected destroy her own reputation before I sent him crashing down with her.

On the night of our tenth wedding anniversary, I sat alone in front of a candlelit dinner that had long gone cold. A short video suddenly popped up on my feed, trending with millions of views. The clip showed a couple's ten-year transformation, from riding around in the beat-up delivery van to upgrading to the Mercedes. The caption was pure sentimentality: Is the person sitting in your passenger seat today still the same girl who was willing to suffer beside you all those years ago? I smiled and reached to hit the like button, but my eyes caught on the top comment instead. [I never suffered alongside my man. But I'm already sitting in the Mercedes.] Attached was a photo taken from the passenger seat of a Mercedes, showing a pair of legs in black stockings crossed at the knee. The interior of that car was identical to my husband Cassian Voss's, down to the last detail. Right then, Cassian pushed through the door, carrying the faint trace of perfume on his clothes. I tilted my phone screen toward him and held his gaze. "Cassian, didn't you say you were working late at the office tonight?" His eyes darted away. He tugged at his tie. "Stop overthinking everything." I lowered my gaze, my fingertip slowly tracing across that photograph, and I smiled. He had probably forgotten that I was once that girl too, the one who sat in the beat-up delivery van beside him, waking before dawn and working until dark, willing to endure anything.

"Ms. Scott, this isn't carpal tunnel syndrome. It's Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS." I rubbed my stiff wrist and forced out a shaky smile. "Doctor... can it be cured?" He didn't answer directly. "You'll start dropping things. You'll fall more often. Swallowing will become difficult, and eventually..." He paused. "Please have your family come in. We need to discuss a treatment plan as soon as possible." My mind went completely blank. "If I stick to treatment... can I still compete in swimming?" That gold medal was supposed to be a birthday gift for my brother. The doctor looked up. "You have a biological brother?" I nodded. "He should get genetic testing. There's a chance he could carry the same mutation." Just then, my phone buzzed. Best Brother Wyatt: Doris, I'm on a business trip with Mom and Dad. I'll bring back a gift for you. I didn't want my family to worry. So I secretly searched If the younger sister has ALS, does her brother have it too? Before I could finish reading the search results, a breaking news alert slid across my screen. "Police Bust Major Human Trafficking Ring—Rescue the Scott Family's Real Daughter" The video played automatically. My family surrounded a girl I'd never seen before. She clung to my brother, sobbing into his shoulder. I stared at the screen without blinking. Then I let out the biggest sigh of relief. So I wasn't really related to the Scott family by blood. That meant my brother wouldn't inherit this disease. What I never expected was that after I died, my brother would hold my urn in his arms, over and over again, whispering through tears, "Doris... why did you leave me behind?"

Kevin performed far better than expected in his interview and received an offer from Nexora Systems, a major technology company based in Silvercrest.   At the family celebration, he demanded that I pay for a luxury condo for him and his girlfriend in Bayhaven. If I refused, he threatened to tear up his offer letter.   To earn the money, I worked for 7 days without rest and suffered a fatal heart attack. While I lay dying, Kevin and my husband, Derek, moved into the condo I had bought, together with Derek's mistress, Vanessa, and her daughter, Chloe.   When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day of Kevin's celebration dinner.   I snatched the offer letter from his hand and tore it to pieces.   "Don't worry, Kevin. You don't have to work for Nexora. I believe in you. You can collect trash and support yourself just fine."

On the day of my sister's grand wedding, an Omega collapsed onto the red carpet, screaming and sobbing that she'd been abused.   Everyone immediately took the fragile Omega's side. Without a shred of proof, they threw my sister into the pack's coldest dungeon.   When I finally saw her again, there was nothing left but a broken, unrecognizable corpse.   Her face had been destroyed. Every rib had been shattered. Every fingernail had been torn away. Her entire body had been drenched in blood.   I was the strongest Beta in the BloodShadow Pack, her twin, her reflection, and the one who should have protected her.   But while my sister suffered, I was locked away in a psychiatric ward, branded as a dangerous mad wolf.   The moment I learned the truth, I ripped through the iron bars with my bare hands.   The beast inside me finally awakened.   Those bastards who had caused my sister's death must pay—I was coming for all of them!

The day I was supposed to pick out my wedding dress with my boyfriend York Grant, my best friend Summer Hayes showed up uninvited, saying there was an urgent project at work that needed his attention.   Before I knew it, the two of them were deep in an endless, heated discussion about the deal, leaving me completely forgotten.   From our college days to the corporate world, York and Summer had always been seen as the perfect pair. Everyone admired how well they worked together.   But I had poured my heart into studying economics, only to realize I could never truly fit into their world.   York simply tried to comfort me with his gentle voice, saying, "Once Summer and I close this deal, you can start preparing for the celebration party, okay?"   I was exhausted.   My talents were never meant for their world. Why should I keep pushing myself to exhaustion just to chase after them?

The most feared Mafia matriarch in Ashford made a public offer. Whoever could cure her cold-blooded son's crippling fear of women and give the Vitale family an heir would receive50 million dollars. To pay off my family's overwhelming debt to loan sharks, I spent my days selling burgers from a food cart on the streets of Westhaven. The moment I heard about the reward, I couldn't get it out of my mind. So I became exactly the kind of woman the heir hated most: a shameless gold digger who pretended to be hopelessly in love with him. I barged into his private casino, threw myself into his arms, and refused to take no for an answer. At first, the ruthless Mafia boss looked at me like I was nothing but trash. Without the slightest change in expression, he ordered his men to cut me apart and dump my body into the river. But somewhere along the way, everything changed. He locked me inside his bulletproof penthouse and held me in his arms all night, like a wild beast guarding its most precious possession. If another man dared to flirt with me, he would pull out his gun without hesitation. Eventually, I completed the mission. I got my 50 million dollars. Without looking back, I asked his mother to arrange a smuggler and escaped overnight. Just as I was about to board a cargo ship and vanish forever, Mafia helicopters surrounded the dock. Rain poured from the sky. Nero Vitale walked toward me across the blood-stained pavement. He lifted my trembling chin with the cold barrel of his gun. His blue eyes burned with an obsession intense enough to destroy everything in his path. "You took 50 million dollars from me. You stole my child. And now you think you can run?" He tore off his tie, bound my wrists behind my back, and leaned close enough for me to feel his breath. A cold smile curled across his lips. "Chloe, today I'll teach you exactly what happens when you betray the Mafia Boss." His voice lowered. "When you die, the only grave you'll ever have is in the Vitale family cemetery."

Every woman in the city coveted the job of special assistant to the mafia boss Theodore Vitali. Only I knew that the Van Cleef & Arpels jewelry and lucrative contracts were merely ornaments on the gilded cage. Outsiders saw only the glittering facade. They never saw how I risked my life for him every day—how I suffocated under his iron grip, driven by one single, burning goal: escape. Then a new intern arrived, casting contemptuous looks my way and eagerly trying to push me aside, treating me like an old hag who had no business being there. But secretly, I felt a surge of delight. Finally, someone was willing to step into Theodore's gilded cage and take my place.

A century earlier, the ancestors of the Chase family slew the werewolf Alpha, stripped off his skin, and crafted armor from it. They saw it as a symbol of glory, but with his dying breath, the Alpha cast a blood curse upon them.   From then on, every man born into the Chase family turned into a savage beast on the night of his 27th birthday. Coarse fur spread across his body, his wild nature consumed his reason, and blood poured from every opening until he died in torment.   The only way to break the curse was to bind himself to a woman blessed with a rare natural scent, one that could soothe the beast within and keep the curse under control.   In my previous life, my sister, Siana Cape, claimed she carried that rare scent, but I called her out. The Chase family ended up forcing Julian Chase to marry me instead.   Furious, Siana ran off to Frostholm. When they finally found her, sulfuric acid had ruined her face and body beyond recognition. Julian blamed her for everything and took me away on our honeymoon.   Yet on our wedding night, Julian seized my jaw and forced an entire bottle of concentrated acid down my throat. Hatred filled his eyes as he cursed, "Serena, Siana was the only woman I ever wanted. She died because of you. I'll make sure you suffer exactly what she went through!"   My organs were burned apart. I died in unbearable pain, trapped in that foul smelling pool of acid. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day the Chase family came to pick one of us as Julian's future wife.   This time, anyone who wanted to marry him was welcome to. All I wanted was revenge.

I had a strange illness.   I was not pregnant, and I did not have a boyfriend, yet my breasts produced large amounts of milk every day.   To save enough money for my mother's surgery, I had no choice but to wrap myself tightly in a chest binder and work the night shift as a cleaner in Mansfield's most prestigious office building.   Until one night, I got trapped in an elevator with a billionaire CEO who owned a black card. In the chaos, the binding around my chest suddenly came undone.   The milk quickly soaked through my uniform, and a faint milky scent spread throughout the elevator.   The next day, a contract offering a monthly salary of fifty thousand dollars was placed in front of me.   The job was to be the private wet nurse for his three-year-old son.   I thought this life-saving money had come far too easily.   But I never expected that the real nightmare had only just begun.   That night, after midnight, he locked me inside the study, pinned me down, and began sucking my milk.   He said, "My son is full now. It's my turn."

Three years after I began dating my CEO boyfriend, Niels Nicholas, the whole world knew how hopelessly devoted he was to me. Even though people believed I was nothing more than a pretty ornament with no value to offer him, he was still willing to spend billions on custom-made jewelry just to see me smile. After all, words could be fake, but a man's money never lied.   But the day before I was about to reveal my true identity as the heir to a mafia family, I received intimate photos of Niels and his first love, Helena Rossetti. The proud and domineering CEO who had always stood above everyone else was actually kneeling on the floor, serving her.   Helena: He only spends money on you because he has more than enough to spare. But with me, Niels isn't the powerful CEO everyone admires. He's just a tame puppy who only begs for my attention whenever I call. How sad! You can't even hold on to your own man.   I didn't respond. I simply made a phone call. "Tell my father the inheritance ceremony will continue as scheduled. I'll be there."

Only 8 hours left before the wedding. Ivan Wood's face was buried against my neck when he suddenly spoke. "I met a girl. She's timid as hell. I want to marry her." His lips brushed lightly against my ear. There wasn't a trace of passion in his voice. The ache between my legs hadn't even begun to fade. I stared at him, my throat tightening until I could barely force out the words. "It's... our wedding tomorrow." He simply leaned over and kissed the corner of my mouth. "I bought you an apartment near the house. You'd make a great mistress." Then Ivan chuckled softly, like he'd just remembered something that made his heart melt. His whole expression softened. "She's sensitive. If she sees me marrying another woman, she'll cry." The tenderness in his eyes...  It wasn't for me. I clenched my trembling hands beneath the blanket, forcing myself not to fall apart. My brother was right. Ivan was never worth it—the chance to be the richest man's sister.

My best friend, Chloe Jones, and I reached adulthood together. Today marked the moment we would fully awaken to the illustrious witch bloodline that kept the town alive. The town's leader, Countess Elizabeth, presented us with two male slaves, destined to be our loyal companions until we evolved into sovereign witch rulers.   In our previous lives, Chloe had boldly chosen the mesmerizing vampire, while I was left with the brutish werewolf. Chloe's bond with the vampire granted her the gift of immortality, yet she remained unaware that her noble witch lineage had been irrevocably corrupted, reducing her to a mere servant of the vampire. She was compelled to aid him in his quest to become the Blood Ancestor, forever banished from the sun. When the blood hunters invaded our town, she met her end at the hands of silver bullets and holy water while defending the vampire. In contrast, I had always been safeguarded by the werewolf and, with the guidance of the male witch priest, had awakened early, emerging as the most powerful witch ruler. In her final moments, jealousy consumed Chloe, and with her last ounce of strength, she cast a witch's curse, leading to our simultaneous demise.   Suddenly, I found myself back at the male slave selection. Seeing Chloe share a knowing look with the male witch priest, I knew she was back too. She ensnared the werewolf and shifted the vampire onto me. Unbeknownst to her, the werewolf carried a poison in his blood—savage by nature, and on the night of the full moon, driven into a madness that nothing could stop.

Everybody in Empire City knew tycoon Leon Sterling couldn't touch women during sex. The scent of one, or the sight of a face, and he'd vomit until nothing was left. He'd spent millions just to find one woman with a natural scent—a masked woman who could ease his skin hunger.   By day, I got files thrown at my face and was called a low-level assistant reeking of poverty. At night, I was pinned under him, his teeth biting the tender skin of my neck, pushed until my whole body shook in uncontrollable spasms.   I was the only cure that drove him mad with obsession.

Ever since I gave birth to the twins three months ago, my husband, Ryan Wood, hadn't slept with me once. He said I was loose—like a torn sack—and that sleeping with me felt like nothing at all.   He forced me to see his father, Brian Wood, the city's top OB-GYN, for postpartum recovery. I lay on the exam table, legs spread, waiting for the speculum to go in. But what entered my body wasn't cold metal. It was a hot, burning manhood. My mind went blank and my whole body started shaking.   Brian, with gold-rimmed glasses, got emotional and said to me, "You're so perfect. The one who's sick is Ryan. Will you join me to make him wish he were dead?"

My President husband, Frank Gold, was known for being a cold workaholic. Before the wedding, he laid down three rules for me—his clingy, codependent fiancée: "First, maintain your independence. Do not ask me to accompany you to any social events. "Second, be sensible and obedient. No using your status as my girlfriend to guilt-trip me. Handle your own business. "Third, give each other enough space. No tantrums, no unreasonable drama." He said that enough personal space would make love last longer. I believed him. That was until I saw his Telegram account, still logged in on his computer. He had only one contact on his favorites list: his first love, Lily Jones. Lily wanted to see the Northern Lights—he cleared his entire schedule and took her to Southreach. Lily got blackout drunk at a club at three in the morning—he left me in bed to go pick her up. There were dozens of pages of chat logs. They exchanged "good morning" and "goodnight" every day. They shared everything under the sun, from meals and daily routines to deep conversations. Their flirty banter was so thick it was suffocating. So, Frank Gold wasn't cold or slow to warm up. He'd just poured all his warmth into another woman. I didn't make a scene. Instead, I sent a text to someone I hadn't contacted in three years: Gwen: I'm done being Mrs. Gold. Come get me and take me home.