How Now, Brown Cow?

After the chairman announced my appointment as general manager, a barrage of floating comments suddenly appeared before my eyes. [The supporting female character slept with some old guy just to steal the female lead's big client. How shameless!] [Good thing our clever female lead already collected the evidence. Once she becomes department manager, she and the male lead can finally start their sweet life together!] [I can't wait to watch the female lead and the male lead build their empire together!] The so-called female lead, Cindy Carlton, stood there with tear-filled eyes. "Shannon, how could you steal my client?" I was so stunned by the floating comments that I didn't react right away, but she was already crying pitifully. "Even if you wanted the deal, you shouldn't have sold your body for it! If you'd talked to me properly, I would've given you the client!" The comment section popped up again. [Our female lead is way too kind!] Even my longtime boyfriend stepped forward to defend her. "Who knows how many men you have slept with over the years? This time, you have to give Cindy's deal back to her!" While everyone hurled insults at me, I helplessly pulled out photos of the thousands of cattle and sheep grazing across my family's massive ranch. "Is selling beef and lamb to clients illegal?"

After dating for seven years, I proposed a hundred and one times to my boyfriend, Jason Brown. However, he always told me that he was not ready, rejecting my proposals. This continued to my 28th birthday. In his suit pocket, I found a ring box. Thinking he was about to propose to me, I was overjoyed. However, to my horror, I saw him going down on one knee to propose to his assistant, Marcella Hopkins. Right before my eyes, he placed the ring I had yearned for so long on her finger. When one of his buddies asked what he planned to do with me, Jason wrapped his arm around his new love and chuckled. "Dude, I don't think I can bring myself to marry a woman who wants to get married that badly. She's so needy. However, if I do get a second wife, I might consider her. After all, she is hopelessly in love with me." He was sure I would wait for him, and he even placed a bet with his friends that I would crash his wedding. However, on his wedding day, I never showed up. Moments before his wedding ceremony was about to start, he suddenly noticed me, fully dressed up in a wedding gown in a separate banquet hall. Seeing me about to marry someone else, he almost went crazy.

My family was so poor we owned exactly one decent coat between us. The day it was my older brother's turn to wear it out to dig wild greens, a princess out hunting spotted him and took him straight into the palace as her consort. I went to the wedding feast when my brother married the princess. The most beautiful woman in the capital, the Chancellor's daughter, looked at me once. The very next day, sixty-six carriers of betrothal gifts piled up outside our thatched hut. She'd marry no one but me. When my old teacher heard the news, he showed up at our door. He'd been a widower for years, raising his son alone, and now he offered to adopt me as his son and give me a proper wedding to be proud of. In my last life, I'd wept with gratitude and said yes. I never imagined that on my wedding day, my teacher and the Chancellor's daughter would be fished out of the lily pond stripped bare and locked in each other's arms. She fainted from the shock. He screamed that he'd been framed and tried to throw himself against a rockery to end it all. Her reputation was ruined beyond saving, so she had no choice but to marry him instead. He climbed straight into the chancellery on the back of it, while I picked up a hoe and went back to my village to keep digging up wild greens. A year later, word came from the princess's estate that my brother had drowned. I rode through the night on a donkey to get there, and found wedding decorations hanging from every doorway of the estate. My teacher's son, it turned out, had been comforting the grieving princess with cup after cup of wine. One drunken night, she'd mistaken him for my brother and kept him till morning. He became the new consort. Ten years later, I saw them again. Father and son were dressed in silk and dripping with power, while life had ground me down to nothing. The two of them tossed a handful of copper coins at me out of pity, then swept off surrounded by servants. I froze to death in the street that winter, clutching my brother's photograph. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day my teacher came to ask to adopt me as his son.

My younger sister Ruth and I got a do-over, reborn to the day we were about to be adopted. Ruth clung to Jeremy, the butcher who'd taken me in during my last life, and begged, "Please, Mr. Butcher, let me be your daughter!" She thought she had it all figured out—Jeremy Butcher was set to rise to power, while the rich couple adopting her would crash and burn. It was clear—she was gunning for the life I built in my last run. I just smiled. She had no clue. Jeremy's success? Yeah, that was all me. Without my help, he'd stay a small-town butcher forever. From day one, Ruth was chasing a dream that was already doomed.

My son, Jasper Cole, won the gold prize in an art competition. When I took off my apron and rushed to the award ceremony, I found that the painting titled 'Mother' was not of me but Maeve Leighton, my husband's secretary. Maeve pretended to be troubled as she told my son, "Your mom will be sad when she sees this painting." However, Jasper was unperturbed. "What does her sadness have to do with me? She's an ordinary-looking and incompetent housewife, always nagging me about what I can and can’t do. She's too strict with me. It's annoying! Maeve, I wish you were my mother. My dad doesn't like my mom at all. He's only happy when he's with you. He's only with my mom because he feels obligated." My heart broke at that moment. Since he no longer wanted me as his mother, it was pointless for me to stay. I called my dad. "Dad, I want to go home. Can you pick me up?" My dad could not believe it. He answered after a long pause, "Of course. I'll come pick up my brilliant daughter in three days."

"What's happening?"The color of the once dead petals opened up to me, the brown and shriveled leaves, matching the petals in unbelievable harmony. A sight to behold.Who said moving could change anything? Wrong. For Kamara Kidjo, moving changed everything. New friends, new crush, new attitude. New powers?Ageline Kidjo knew the powers Kamara possessed but how long can one keep a secret? The truth as they say, will always prevail.