What Does 'In My Next Life I Hope You Love Me' Mean?

From as far back as I can remember, I knew my mom hated me. She gives me sleeping pills when I'm three. When I'm five, she tries pesticide instead. But I'm hard to get rid of. By the time I'm seven, I've already learned how to fight back. If she refuses to give me food, I flip the table so no one can eat either. If she beats me up until I'm on the ground, writhing in pain, I go after her beloved son the same way, leaving him bruised and bawling. That's how we stay locked in battle until I turn 12. Everything changes when my youngest sister is born. I'm clumsily trying to help with her wet diaper when Mom suddenly shoves me against the wall. The look in her eyes holds both disgust and fear. "What were you trying to do to my daughter? I knew it. You take after that monster of a father. Why didn't you just die with him?" I hold my aching head. For the first time, I don't fight back. I believe she's right. My existence is a mistake. I should never have been alive.

When the Earth slipped into a relentless, record-breaking heat, I exhausted everything I had to develop a constant-temperature shelter. Yet, my fiancée, Janine O’Connor, insisted on wearing a bikini and going out to sunbathe with her personal secretary. In my previous life, I stopped her. I warned her that an apocalyptic heatwave was coming, and that countless people would be burned to death simply by being exposed to the heat. However, her personal secretary looked as though he had suffered a great injustice. “I’m sorry, Will,” he said. “But I can’t bear to see Miss Janine stuck in a shelter for the rest of her life. I’ve done my research. This is a period of natural selection for the Earth. Only by adapting quickly to the environment can people truly survive.” Even so, I threatened my own life and forcibly brought Janine back into the shelter. Relying on the shelter I built, Janine survived the apocalypse and rapidly built a survivor base. However, on the second day after she became the base’s leader, she had me hanged outside the shelter and burned alive. “If you hadn’t forced me to come back, Mark wouldn’t have been devastated and killed himself in the heat! He was about to develop a new type of shelter, yet you stole all the credit! I’ll make you pay with your life!” Even after my death, her hatred didn’t fade. She ordered someone to skin me and turn my hide into a rug, stepping on it every day. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day I tried to stop her from sunbathing with Mark Davis.

I am the daughter of the Silvermoon pack's Alpha. In my past life, I loved Kael blindly and became his mate. The one who was sent as an arranged mate to the ruthless Alpha of Frostfang pack was my foster sister, Lyra. After Lyra's sudden death, Kael never spoke to me again. Yet, when an avalanche struck our pack, he still threw himself to save me. Even then, at the moment of death, he never once looked my way. His hand clutched only the wolf fang Lyra had given him. "Lyra, I'll protect you no matter what if there's another lifetime," he swore. It was only then that I understood that I could not force love. When I opened my eyes again, my father and the elders were already discussing who would be sent as the arranged mate to the Frostfang pack. This time, I choose to fulfill Kael's wish to be with Lyra. I step forward before anyone else and volunteered. "I am willing to become the arranged mate of Alpha Volf of the Frostfang pack." Just when I had already let Kael and Lyra be, he fought his way into the Frostfang pack. Why did he risk everything, only to beg me to come back?

I saw someone who has been with me for a long time in a different light. But I was afraid to love. I've always been.

It was New Year's Eve. We were streaming live when my brother called. I spoke first, "I wish you peace and a happy, long life." He gave a cold laugh. "Yeah, well, I don't want you to have any of that. I hope you spend the rest of your life in misery." I'd cut him off the year he was flat broke. Now that he was successful, this was the first thing he did—get back at me. I kept my tone calm. "I wish you peace and a happy, long life." He sounded annoyed. "Cut it out. There's no way I'm wishing you well. If I have to say something, then I hope you stay miserable forever." The host hesitated, then chimed in, "Ben, that was just a recording of Hailey's message. And yes, when she left… she was in a lot of pain and quite miserable, just like you hoped for."

Mira Leigh doesn’t have the luxury of falling apart. Not when she’s juggling jobs, raising her teenage brother, and holding together the pieces of a family wrecked by her mother’s addiction. One bad morning, and one delayed coffee order, throws her straight into the path of Cade Reeve. NBA’s highest-paid playboy. Tabloid obsession. Cade is everything she swore to avoid… but when he offers her a job as his personal assistant, the paycheck is too good to refuse. What she doesn’t see coming are the late nights, the blurred lines, and the way Cade can pull her close with one look, only to push her away the next. She’s caught in a game where the rules change without warning. And it’s costing her more than she can afford. Until Zayne Reeve. Cade’s older brother. Two brothers. Two very different kinds of love. One choice that will change everything.