Am I The Ahole

My husband was the long-lost heir of the Riso mafia family. In my previous life, my husband Titus Holt's childhood sweetheart, Melissa Gunther, falsely accused me of stealing her family heirloom bracelet. It happened two days before I was set to leave the slums. Just as I was about to defend myself, Titus forcefully dealt with this matter and led Melissa and me out of the slums and back to the Riso family. I thought Titus did so because he trusted me, but then I heard Titus tell Melissa, "Noelle may not be honest, but she's Christian's mother. I can't let her bear the reputation of being a thief." Looking troubled, Christian also commented, "I don't want a thief as a mom. Dad, why did you bring her back? Wouldn't it be better to have Ms. Gunther as my mom?" I felt a chill run through me. It turned out Titus had not done all this out of trust; he just felt I was too embarrassing. Even my son had hated me his whole life. In the blink of an eye, I was reborn back to the day Titus suppressed public opinion. I silently booked a ticket to Swizor. On the day Titus took my son and Melissa back to Napple, I would leave and never see them again.

Whenever Rachel Cooper loses it, I know I'm about to get divorced again. I close my eyes. "We are divorcing for the ninth time." Marcus Miller massages his temples and says regretfully, "Vivian, Barry died all of a sudden, leaving his wife and her unborn baby behind. I can't ignore them. Relax. Once the baby's born, we'll remarry. We won't separate ever again!" I remain silent. I already heard this promise eight times before. Barry Miller's sudden death is the reason for Rachel's breakdown. It also caused Marcus and me to divorce for the first time. Back then, Rachel was already pregnant, prompting Marcus to divorce me. He will remarry me once he has comforted her. Over the past nine months, we have married and divorced eight times. Everyone mocks me by calling me the Eight-Ring Wonder. I also find it ridiculous. After I accept the divorce certificate, one of the court staff secretly asks me, "When are you getting married again?" I answer calmly, "There's no next time."

I gave birth prematurely, just twenty days before the due date. Two hours after I entered the surgery room, I had a stillborn baby. I did not cry at all. I did not even spare a glance at the dead baby. I endured the pain from childbirth and calmly walked into the hospital nursery. After the door was tightly shut, I turned down the temperature of the air-conditioning. The temperature inside the nursery would be too cold for newborns to bear after an hour. The doctors and parents were begging me on their knees to let their babies live. They screamed and cried. They said I was a mother and hoped that I would understand. Instead, I laughed and said, “Yes, I was a mother. But my baby died!” The gynecologist knelt on the floor and begged, “We may be at fault for not being able to save your baby, but these babies are innocent! “Please don’t be reckless just because you lost your baby! You’re so young. You’ll have more babies in the future.” I gritted my teeth and roared, “But my baby isn’t dead! “She’s still alive. I’ll give you one hour. Bring her back to me!” But I was unsure if she would still be alive after an hour.

On our wedding night, my wife led my younger brother onto our marital bed. He was wearing nothing but his underwear. She expected him to consummate our marriage in my place. "Sweetheart, I feel awful about your legs and what the doctors said about your infertility," she said softly. "Elliot will just have to help us for one night." My face hardened as I stepped forward. I was ready to throw Elliot Charlton out of the bedroom. However, my parents immediately sided against me. "You're the one who can't fulfill your role as a husband," they said sharply. "Elliot is willing to sacrifice himself so that you can have a child. What's wrong with that?" Even my brother laughed at me. He said I was not a real man and told me to accept things while I still could. According to him, I should be thankful to gain a son without doing anything. They even suggested that I stay and watch, claiming it would prove the two were only trying to conceive a child and nothing else. I clenched my teeth until my jaw ached, then turned and called my wife's greatest rival. "You win," I said quietly. "The Wallace family's investment will be transferred to your account tomorrow." After ending the call, I raised my eyes and looked at Janet Wallace. "You share his bed tonight," I said. "Tomorrow, we get divorced."

My fiancee, Isabelle Bailey, engages in a passionate kiss with her stage partner, Shawn Sanders, in a theater play. While the audience is wholly touched by the romance depicted by the main characters of the play, I know for a fact that the actual script doesn't feature the kissing scene at all. Guilt flickers across Isabelle's face at my confrontation. But she argues, "We were just acting! Are you saying that I can't act out romance scenes anymore?" I no longer demand answers from Isabelle like a hysterical fool. Instead, I give the roses that are cultivated from a new breed to the background actors. After leaving the afterparty, I call my mentor, Patrick White. "Professor, I'm willing to travel to the northwest to plant roses there."

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.

The night before my wedding, my mom got into a car accident—she needed a blood transfusion, fast. Her blood type was rare. Mine matched. I was pregnant, but I didn't think twice. I donated. While I was bleeding out, losing my baby, my fiancé, Joffrey Habsburg, and his brother—my so-called childhood friend—Mateo, were busy holding Nancy's hand during her cosmetic surgery. I begged Joffrey to save my mom. Only then did he bother to pick up a scalpel. When it was over, he said, "Surgery failed. She's gone." Two days later, I overheard Nancy purring through the door, wrapped around the Habsburg brothers. "Mateo really is a racer—he hit that old hag dead on. And Joffrey? You were amazing too, making sure she didn't survive the surgery. Thanks to you both, I got Lori's blood for my operation."

I stared at the Vercetti marriage contract my father pushed across the table. Without hesitation, I wrote my half-sister’s name, Demi, and slid it back. My father froze. Then his eyes lit up with ridiculous excitement, like he’d just won the lottery. "How can you give such a perfect chance to your sister?" Last life, my marriage was a joke for everyone around me. I was the red-haired, untamed little witch who dared to climb into the orbit of Cassian Vercetti, heir and leader of the old-blood Vercetti crime family. I was never perfect nor obedient. He loved goddess gowns. I wore mini skirts and danced on tables. He demanded missionary, traditional, orderly intimacy. I wanted to climb on top, ride him, lose myself completely. At a gala, society wives laughing at my hair, my dress, my “wildness.” I thought he would at least pretend to defend me. He didn’t. “Forgive her. She’s not…properly trained.” Trained. Like a dog. I spent my entire last life suffocating under his rules, bending myself bloody to fit the shape he wanted, until the night our house caught fire. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the moment I learned of the arranged marriage. I looked at the contract in front of me. This time? I think the nightclub boys suits me better. But the moment Cassian realized the bride wasn’t me, he shattered every rule he’d ever lived by.

On the first day of our marriage, Abyron, the Snake King, and I formed an empathic bond. It was thus impossible for me to doubt his love for me. However, on the seventh day, he slept with two rabbit girls. I collapsed completely. It felt worse than death. He sighed and said, “Yoelle, snakes are naturally lustful. It’s not that I don’t love you. You simply can’t satisfy me. You may deal with the women around me however you wish, but I won’t divorce you.” At first, I killed the women he favored out of jealousy. Later, I stopped caring at all. Then he dismissed his entire harem for a human woman named Xena Lane. That was when I asked for a divorce. It was not because of jealousy. It was because my little lover was demanding his place.

The 99th time Owen Anderson slides a ring onto my finger, his adopted sister, Monica Morgan, calls again. And just like that, for the 99th time, he ditches me at the altar to be with her, who's having another depressive episode. I'm fed up. I yell after him as he walks away, "Go ahead! Walk out on me, and I swear I'll marry someone else!" He doesn't even flinch. Instead, he snaps, "Can you stop being so unreasonable? We can get married anytime, but Monica's the only sister I've got." Then, he turns and walks away, leaving me standing there like a complete fool. What he doesn't realize is that this time, I mean it. Later, when he gets down on one knee for the 100th time, his older brother, Chris, slips an arm around my waist and says, "Sorry, Owen. She's your sister-in-law now."