Mistress

To save money for a house, I had been living a frugal life with my boyfriend, Desmond Wood. When Desmond received a twenty-thousand-dollar bonus, he bought me a branded bag. I was delighted, but I felt that he did not need to spend so much on me. Hence, I brought the receipt and the bag to the shop for a refund. The shopkeeper told me that my bag was fake. However, the receipt was real.

Imagine my shock when I found out that my husband, a professor who had proudly embraced a childless life for half of his years, had an affair with one of his own students. She even had his six-year-old son. The day I planned to report him to the university, Zia Thompson came to my door with the child and knelt in front of me. "Maybe you and Zeke were in love once," she said. "But he's over forty now. Who doesn't want to have a child? A legacy?" "I don't need a title," she went on. "I can give up the child too. I just beg you, don't tear our family apart." I looked at my husband, who stood protectively in front of them. I felt terrifyingly calm. "Cut ties with them," I said, my voice flat, "or prepare to be reported to the university. You choose." Without a moment's hesitation, he tore the report letter into shreds. I thought that was his answer. But on the fifty-second night of a bed grown cold and a home echoing with silence, he still hadn't returned. Instead, I received news that Zia was pregnant again. She had graduated by then. The report I never sent no longer posed any threat to them. Zeke didn't bother to hide his fatigue and irritation anymore. "Treat Zia and the kids well," he said, "or keep living alone in that empty house. It's your choice." My heart was already a wasteland. "I have one more option," I said. "I choose divorce."

My husband, Jacob Morris, wrongly believed that I had pushed the woman he loved down the stairs. So, he locked me in the basement to make me reflect on my actions. He hired people to punish me, trying to break my spirit. I suffered inhumane torture. My tendons were cut, and my face was disfigured. Four years later, he finally remembered me and let me out. But by then, I was too broken to love him anymore.

My mom and I work our butts off in order to clear Gregory Hudson, my boyfriend's crippling debt. Because of that, Mom even contracts lung cancer. But when I rush to the hospital to pay off the hospital bills, I find out that she's already taken her life by hanging herself. All she leaves is a suicide note. "I can't hang on anymore, Hailey. You should use the money to pay off the debt. Gregory is a good man. I know he loves you; it's just that he's stepped down the wrong path. "Once the debt is cleared, both of you should stay together and live a good life." After collecting Mom's ashes in an urn, I entrust the 300 thousand dollars—the money that Mom has earned with her blood, sweat, and tears—to Gregory. When I return to the company, I accidentally overhear the conversation between Gregory and a few of his debtors. "Mr. Hudson, Ms. Jackman has already passed all of your trials so far. What other arrangements do you have for her?" Gregory's childhood friend, Sophia Wagner, suddenly speaks up. "Even though Hailey can endure all the suffering with you, we still need to test if she can still handle living a good life with you." Gregory purses his lips. "Next, I'd like to know if Hailey's love for me is pure and sincere. If she doesn't pine for my wealth and doesn't become materialistic after finding out about my identity, I will marry her." As I look down at Mom's ashes, I can't help sobbing like a lost child. Both my mom and I are wrong about Gregory. I don't want to marry him anymore.

The day before our wedding, my fiancé Cyrus eloped with his long-lost love. I chased after him, but he shoved me away viciously, causing me to lose consciousness. When the doctor called him as my life was on the brink, all he did was scoff and say, “She’s just pretending again. In a coma? Hah, she’s still alive, isn’t she?” That moment, my heart shattered. After I was discharged from the hospital, I cancelled the wedding, just as he wanted. But then he began to regret it…

The world snapped back into focus, the memories of my brutal end crashing into the present. I was back—right here, right now, the exact moment Jarrold Jameson was trying to hand me that obscenely expensive purse. In my past life, he'd had a nasty fight with his precious Cindy Mayford. To make her jealous, he decided to use me as his pawn. I'd been stupid enough to love him once, but my pride had revolted. I'd refused to be a stand-in. It didn't matter. He kept engineering "accidental" run-ins, crafting one public misunderstanding after another, all to get a reaction from Cindy. I had done nothing wrong. I gained nothing. But I became Cindy's enemy. Her jealousy festered until it turned lethal. She had me kidnapped. The men she hired left my body shattered and broken. And Jarrold? He held his sobbing darling close and whispered those unforgettable words, "She got what she deserved." In the end, they stepped right over what was left of me and walked off into their picture-perfect life. Now, staring into his smug face, a cold clarity settled over me. This time, everything would be different. I snatched the handbag from his grasp. "A present for me?" I asked, my voice sweet, a sharp, calculated smile on my lips. "I love it. But just so you know, for next time… I've always preferred the classic design from her family's brand. That's the one you should be buying me."

For the hundredth time, my dad hints at us that he really wants to become a grandfather during New Year Eve's dinner. Lydia Cooper, my wife who has insisted on living a childless life for the past decade, just smiles before placing more food on his plate. After dinner, she ducks out to the balcony and murmurs into her phone, "Be good, now. Mommy will visit you a few days later." I can feel my blood running cold in my veins as I stand in the living room with a glass of water. As I approach Lydia, I do my best to keep my voice light and teasing. "I just heard you say the word 'mommy.' Do you have an illegitimate child out there somewhere?" Lydia rubs her nose, her tone now awkward. "You might be hearing things. It was just my friend's child…" My heart plunges into my stomach pit at her words. I've been in love with Lydia for ten years. It's only natural that I know how she acts whenever she's lying.

After reliving my life for the third time, Soren Vantrell still died at 28. Unwilling to accept it, I started over again, meeting him and falling in love as before, until a sudden turn changed everything. He began claiming his mental state was unstable, using it as an excuse to visit his psychologist, Dr. Nadia Pembroke, again and again. Until one day, I caught them kissing inside her consultation room. With a light, mocking laugh, Soren said, "You might think I’m crazy if I told you this, but I really have died three times. Every single time, I died right next to Sloane Hartwell. "I was originally curious to see how she would try to save me this time. Now that I think about it, she must have been bad luck. Once I stayed far away from her, didn’t I end up living just fine?" I quietly stepped back. In this fourth life, whether he lived or died has nothing to do with me anymore. This time, I was going to live my own life.

"I don't want to go with you on this business trip," Lucy Landon said at the dinner table. Her voice was calm, so calm that no one could sense anything unusual. Steven Cooper's trip was set for June 1st. It wasn't their wedding anniversary, nor was it anyone's birthday. Just an ordinary Children's Day. Three days ago, she had stumbled upon a voice message on Steven's phone. A child's soft and childish voice had said, "Daddy, for Children's Day, I want to go to Maldove to see the fishes!"

I never thought a dance could bring me disaster Tonight, at the annual Moon Goddess Festival, my brother, the heir of the Silver Moon pack, Aiden, and I performed a dance together. We won a lot of applause. Aiden made me the star of the festival. Unexpectedly, after the dance, Aiden's mate came with a group of sorority members to bully me. "How dare you flirt with Aiden? Omega! "Break her legs!" “No!No!No! I am Aiden’s sister!” I tried to explain, but they gagged me. I struggled desperately, but it only provoked an even more brutal beating. "If she's so horny, strip her naked and throw her into the boys' restroom," Bella said, standing nearby with her arms crossed. Tears of despair streamed down my face. Just then, Aiden arrived. "I'll make every one of you pay for this!" he roared.