Melodramatic

After days of torture at the hands of my family’s rival gang, they offered me one last phone call. I called my brother, Matteo. I just wanted to say goodbye—while I still had the chance. “What is it now?” he snapped. “Matteo, I—” He didn’t let me finish. “Fix your own mistakes. Until then, don’t call me again.” Death didn’t hurt as much as those words did. I felt my heart slow to a stop as my brother’s words echoed in my ears. I guess you’re finally at peace now, Matteo. I won’t bother you again. And you’ll never have to see me again.

On my birthday, my fiancé used his supermarket points to get me a pair of dishwashing gloves. But at an auction, he bought a five-million-dollar gem for his first love. I was mad, confronting him, but he called me a gold digger. "I've been giving you money to spend. Isn't it only right that you take care of me? This was supposed to be my final test for you. If you passed, we'd get married. You've let me down big time." I broke up with him. He turned around and proposed to his first love. Five years later, we ran into each other on a private vacation island. Alex Thompson saw me in the workers' uniform picking up trash on the beach. He mocked me on the spot. "You turned your nose up at the gloves I got you, and here you are, scavenging garbage. Now, even if you begged me, I wouldn't give you a second glance." I ignored him. My son's social studies project was to clean up the backyard with a parent. His dad had expanded the yard all the way to the beach. Cleaning it up was exhausting.

I'm the last of my father's bloodline, the old Alpha of the Moonlit Howl Pack. To keep me safe, Dad wanted me to mate with either Rhys, the pack's bravest, or Finn, our top warrior with insane fighting skills. They were supposed to be the next Alpha. But the only one they actually gave a damn about was that pathetic, vicious Omega, Cassidy. They even spat on pack tradition and marked her, thinking they could kick me out after Dad died! So, after Mom passed, and they asked me with disgust who I’d finally picked as my mate… I didn’t choose either of them. I turned my back and walked straight to Harris, the Alpha of the Shadow-fang Pack. The Alpha they say is eaten up by an ancient blood curse, a terrifying monster. However, on the day Harris was supposed to come for me, Liam and Seth actually stood in front of my den, begging me like whipped pups to stay.

Despite a decade of marriage, Simon never once shared my bed, claiming that he had pledged himself to ascetic practices and that it was beneath him. I thought that he suffered from some shameful ailment and guarded his secret like a devoted fool, until my birthday, when I came home to find him entangled with a brothel worker before the floor-length mirror. When I lunged forward in rage, he drove a shard of that broken mirror straight through my heart. When I awoke, I was gripping my phone, its screen illuminating a message Simon had just sent: [I’ll still give you a lavish wedding, but the marriage certificate? That belongs to her.]

The heart that I had waited two years for was given to the fake heiress, Diane Bishop, by my husband. The doctor said that I only had a week left to live. So, I decided to undergo cryonics. I donated my body to Diane’s workshop. The day I signed the donation papers, my son threw himself into my arms and exclaimed that I had finally made up with Diane. My parents praised me for finally being a good sister to help out Diane. My husband was pleased when he said that I had finally let go of the grudge and had become more understanding. I chuckled. They were right, I had finally learned my lesson. I would give Diane my identity as the heir of Bishop Corporation and fulfill everyone’s wishes.

I went alone to my favorite singer’s concert. During the song selection segment, I was really excited and hoped that I would be lucky enough to be picked. But in the next second, I saw my husband, who was supposed to be on a business trip, appear on the screen. Next to him was Mia Louise, his first love. “I’d like to pick Back To The Past. I want to go back three years when I hadn’t broken up with Mia.” The entire stadium cheered and celebrated their love. I was the only one in tears. During the next song selection segment, I saw my teary face show up on the screen. “I’d like to pick Back To The Past as well. I want to return to the time when I never said yes to Samuel Gardner’s proposal.”

Everyone in the city knows Nathan Cooper only agreed to marry me because he had no choice. No matter how many times I tried to seduce him over the past seven years, he would just run his fingers over his rosary beads. Never once had he shown a trace of desire in his eyes. It isn't until that night, when I see him answer a long-distance call from his first love. Upon hearing her voice, Nathan loses control. It's as if heat was surging through his body like a live wire. The next day, Lily Hunt flies back. Nathan shoves me out of the car and drives off to pick her up. As I fall from the bridge and lose my memory, news of Nathan's proposal to his beloved sets the whole city ablaze. The next day, he shows up late to the hospital. As Nathan stands by my bedside, he says he will marry me, but only if he can hold a wedding ceremony with Lily. Then, he announces the wedding date. I lean against his bitter enemy, Luke Patton, and look at Nathan in confusion. "Sorry, who are you?"

During a round of truth or dare, my boss, Victoria Hale, leaned in and kissed my husband, Ethan Graves. As just another junior employee, I didn’t even have the chance to call her out in front of everyone. Instead, I slipped away to the restroom and asked Ethan for a divorce. He brushed it off as if I were only sulking. "Don’t take it so seriously. She’s just had too much to drink. In the corporate world, you have to entertain, play along for the sake of the project." However, in the very next round, when Victoria was dared to kiss someone else, Ethan flipped the table in front of everyone. "Touch her, and see what happens."

During a kindergarten parent-teacher conference, a rich wife accuses me of stealing her bag. I'm baffled. I bought the bag myself abroad, and it even has my name etched on it. However, when I scrutinize the bag, I discover that my name is missing. I call my husband, and he impatiently says, "I gave your bag to Jen. She's fresh out of college and needs an expensive bag to make herself look good. Even Finn said the bag is too young for you—it suits Jen more. You're too old for these things. You should be glad to even have a fake one." I bark out an exasperated laugh. I can go without having a husband, but the bag has to be returned to me.

My twin Alpha brothers believed that I have deliberately hidden the vast inheritance left by our Alpha parents so that our adoptive sister Sophia couldn’t by the medical equipment to treat her silver poisoning. For the sake of our adoptive sister, my twin Alpha brothers dragged me before the Council's tribunal. They accused me of stealing pack assets and deliberately harming pack members. If the charges stuck, the Alpha Council would strip away my Alpha power to treat Sophia. My brothers had no idea that years ago, I'd nearly died protecting them. If I lost my Alpha bloodline strength, I would die. In my own brothers' eyes, I was already a criminal beyond redemption. But when the Council used ancient magic to extract my memories for judgment, everyone wept for me. And when my brothers learned the truth, they fell to their knees, begging my forgiveness.