After She Stopped Loving Him

At 20, I became known for two things. First, I weighed over 200 pounds, yet I still ended up dating Christian Fairmont, the coldest and most unattainable man in our circle. Second, I turned down Christian's proposal, changed my name, left the country, and became the one woman no one dared mention around him—the forbidden, unattainable love he could never let go. For the next five years, Christian shut himself away in a church and refused to see anyone. Just when everyone thought he was about to become a priest, he suddenly announced his engagement. He made such a spectacle of it that even I heard about it all the way in Goldridge. That alone showed how much he valued his bride-to-be. I booked the first flight home that same night. Everyone who saw me reacted the same way. First, they stared at how completely I had changed, how much weight I had lost, how I looked like a different person. Then they sighed. "Juliana, you came back too late." Even Christian looked at me with cold, distant eyes. "When you walked away and left me behind, did you ever think that five years later, you'd regret it?" Regret? I shook my head. "I don't regret it." I was already married and had a child.

She loved him for eight years. He never chose her once. The day she finally walked away, Daniel Ashford realized the one thing he had never prepared for—losing her. But by then, Maya Voss was already gone. And the woman who came back… was someone he never saw coming. But when love returns, will she choose him again?

Jason Schwartz had been a close friend of my father's, despite the age gap. The year I met him, I was fearless, the kind of girl who thought nothing could touch her. I bit down hard on the hand he offered me. Jason just laughed. "You're adorable," he said. "Like a little wolf." On my 18th birthday, he shoved me onto the bed, his eyes red, as if he had been holding back for years. "Diana, I've finally waited long enough for you to grow up." He was the one who pulled me into that first flutter of desire, the one who led me across every line I wasn't supposed to cross. I grew into exactly the kind of girl he wanted. The day my father was hacked to death by his enemies, Jason took my hand and stepped into his place without hesitation. When I was pregnant, he brought home a girl covered in blood. "Diana, she's not like you. She's like wild grass, tough and stubborn." He said he admired wild grass. But he forgot something. He was the one who raised me into a rose that only knew the shelter of a greenhouse. Good thing I didn't need him anymore.

The love that I knew wasn't like the ones written in a book. It wasn't beautiful and magical. It doesn't bring butterflies in my stomach and it doesn't make me feel special. It doesn't feel like home, I do not feel secure. It does not make me feel safe and worthy. The love that I experience doesn't feel like love. I'm not really sure if it is love because it made me doubt, insecure and made me feel unloved. And all I experienced was pain. No it was torture. To see him love someone else when all I could do is to love him and let him love her. Now I don't know if I could ever love someone else, after him.

As human fertility rates kept falling, the government created a matching system between humans and beasts. That was how I became engaged to the Blackwood brothers—two wolf beasts who never wanted me. For a year, I made coffee for both of them every morning.The older brother, Adrian, kept his distance, but he always took the mug and thanked me quietly. The younger one, Kieran, was all temper and sharp teeth. He snapped at me, broke the mug, and acted like I was a nuisance. I told myself this was fair. If I treated them the same, maybe one day this arranged bond would feel like home. Then my best friend saw it and asked, “Have you ever thought that treating them equally might be unfair to the one who’s actually kind to you?” I thought about that all day. Then one morning, I walked out of the kitchen carrying only one cup.

For seven years, Elena Vale loved her husband quietly. She waited through missed anniversaries, cold conversations, public humiliation, and the endless shadow of the woman he could never forget. Everyone called her lucky to be married to Adrian Laurent, the untouchable billionaire whose name opened every door in the city. But they never saw what happened behind closed doors. The silence. The loneliness. The way he looked through her instead of at her. Until one night, something inside Elena finally broke. Not loudly. Not dramatically. She simply stopped waiting. And that was when Adrian began noticing everything. The untouched side of the bed. The missing messages. The absence of the woman who had loved him more faithfully than anyone ever had. But the more Elena pulled away, the more dangerous Adrian became. Because for the first time in years, he was terrified. Terrified that the only woman who had ever truly belonged to him no longer wanted to stay. And by the time he realized what he was losing… someone else had already noticed her too.