Being Good

Seven days before our wedding, Danny Wagner—my childhood sweetheart—got down on one knee for Mia Kant, the broke girl he'd been sponsoring. Right in front of me and his buddies. I didn't cry. Didn't lose it. Just slapped a smile on my face and said, "Wishing you two a lifetime of happiness." His buddies? Oh, they had the nerve to tell me to be generous and let Danny help Mia finish her "wish list." Danny, unsatisfied and ticked off, said I was overreacting and demanded an apology. Dismissive, he sneered, "I said I'd marry you after Mia's wish list was done. Stop being so unreasonable." I knew this was the last item on her list. I opened my notes app, scrolled to my wish list, and deleted all thirty-three bullet points. Done. Then I made a call. "I'm willing to marry you."

Connor Greene, a golden boy in Brookhaven, is unwittingly drugged, and I end up being the cure for his "predicament". It's exactly a month later when I discover that I'm pregnant during a routine medical examination. Upon learning the news, Connor offers me 50 million dollars to carry the baby to term, and then another ten million dollars to take full custody of the child. It's then that Julie Sutton, my so-called righteous friend, persuades me to terminate the pregnancy, saying, "You ought to know that money isn't everything, Queenie. If you throw away your dignity for just 60 million dollars, then you're no better than those women who entertain men in clubs!" In my past life, I had an abortion at Julie's suggestion and pursued legal action against Connor, accusing him of assault. I later sought financial assistance and support from Julie after my parents fell gravely ill, but Julie slapped me hard across the face instead. "Your parents are seriously ill, and instead of figuring things out on your own, you come running to me, huh? You're truly shameless, Queenie!" Julie broke off our friendship right then, and I also lost the lawsuit against Connor. I couldn't afford the treatment, so my parents' lives were cut short by their illnesses. In the end, the grief of losing them was too much, so I decided to take my own life by jumping off a rooftop. When I open my eyes, I find myself returning to the day Julie tried to persuade me to get an abortion.

My husband, Frank Myer, ruined himself by taking random medication and coming to me for treatment. I simply sneered at him and deliberately stalled for time, letting him end up disabled for life! In my previous life, my husband had purposely ruined himself to help his childhood sweetheart, Karen White, get promoted. I anxiously asked if he had taken anything harmful, but he swore he had not. When I asked him to do a full checkup, he accused me of having no ethics and claimed that I would even scam my own husband for a promotion. His childhood sweetheart insisted on a conservative treatment instead. I kicked out his unqualified sweetheart and performed the surgery myself. It was a total success, but she made a huge scene about it after feeling humiliated by being thrown out. She even threatened suicide. My husband was furious and lied that the surgery had failed, even reporting me for forcing him into surgery against medical advice, getting me blacklisted from the medical field. His sweetheart, however, simply dabbed some disinfectant on him, and he announced that she had cured him, instantly making her famous and earning her a promotion. When I confronted him, my husband said that if it weren't for me, he wouldn't have had to go to such lengths for her, and that I am the reason he was suffering. Then, he suffocated me with a pillow. But when I opened my eyes again, I was back to the very day he ruined himself.

On the way back to work after the New Year, my wife Liana Corn and I got into a car accident. Opening my eyes again, I realized that we had returned to the time we just started dating. In our previous life, we were married for eight years. Life was good, but she refused to have any children. Later, I learned that she had always kept her childhood sweetheart in her heart. After our regression, I decided to set us both free. We both deleted each other's contacts without a word, stopped seeing each other, and became complete strangers. Eight years later, Liana became a top investor. At our class reunion, she made a high-profile announcement with her childhood sweetheart Serge Gibson. Seeing that I had come to the reunion alone, she teased me. "Ryan Carter, I know I'm attractive. You love me for two lifetimes and still can't let go, but you don't need to cling to me like this." I pretended not to hear and took my son by the hand. Liana's face instantly turned pale, her eyes bloodshot. "Didn't you say you'd love only me for life?" she demanded. "How can you have a son with someone else?!"

My best friend and I married the Luther brothers. I married the older brother, a legendary specialist in childbirth. My best friend, Autumn, married the younger brother, the CEO of a pharmaceutical company. On my birthday, my husband’s crush, Kirsty, scared me into early labor by sending me the carcass of a rotten, dead cat. Autumn rushed me to the emergency room. The doctors had their hands tied as I went into premature labor with a case of amniotic fluid embolism. With the last of my strength, I turned to my husband for help. Instead, I was berated. “So I missed your birthday. Do you have to make a big deal out of it? Why are you lying to me? Kirsty’s pet dog is having puppies. I need to help with the birth, so stop getting in the way!” Later, Autumn took charge and operated on me. I managed to pull through, while my baby was rushed to the ICU. Autumn tearfully called her husband, pleading for the specific medication produced by his company. “Kirsty’s dog is struggling in labor. I’m making a nutritious meal for it. You sure are good friends with Bella to take turns stirring up a fuss. Don’t you have anything better to do than act out in jealousy?” In the end, I lost my child. My heart shattered into pieces. “I want a divorce, Autumn.” “I’m with you! The cheating bastards don’t deserve wives.” We filed for divorce, and the brothers panicked.

"Sorry, Chloe. I really have an emergency!" After ten years of dating, my Alpha mate, Aiden Rothschild, made yet another excuse about handling pack affairs and left halfway through our candlelit dinner. Then, I saw a post by Aiden’s childhood sweetheart, Lana, on social media. In the photo, Aiden was gently holding her foot. [Twisted my ankle a little while cleaning the roof. It got better quickly, but Aiden still rushed over the moment he heard. No matter when I need you, you're always there. That's the reason I feel more blessed than any other woman!] In the past, I would’ve definitely confronted Aiden in anger, only to be scolded for being unreasonable. This time, though, I numbly finished my own meal in silence. I had promised my mentor I would soon leave for a secluded healing assignment in the Northern Territory. It wasn’t until I got in the car to leave the pack and tried to say goodbye to Aiden one last time that I received a video from Lana. It was her and Aiden playing Truth or Dare, calling each other "baby". I wiped away my tears and simply replied, "As long as you’re having fun." However, Aiden panicked. His eyes were red as he messaged me: [Chloe, why aren’t you even mad after seeing that? Do you even love me anymore?!] He tried to confront me in person, only to realize he couldn’t find me anywhere. That day, he completely broke down.

At a company party, Taylor Kennedy plays a game of mouth-to-mouth cookie biting with his female assistant as everyone watches. I blend into the crowd and laugh along. The room instantly falls silent. The assistant bursts into tears and plays the victim. Taylor lets go of her, turns to me, and coldly scolds me in front of the entire company. He berates me for not knowing how to read the room and being a buzzkill. Then, without hesitation, he wraps his arm around the assistant and kisses her deeply as I watch. If this were before, I would've stormed over in a rage and ripped them apart. Then, I would've humiliated her in front of everyone, not caring whose pride I trampled. But now, I feel nothing. Not even as I watch them kiss. Not even though today marks my ten-year anniversary with Taylor.

Our family is planning a ski trip at a luxury resort. However, my mother gives my snow-view room to my adoptive sister and makes me, her biological daughter, stay in the storage room. I'm about to protest when my father and brother accuse me of being selfish. "We've always given Madie the best of everything; she won't be able to sleep in any other room." "Madie is our family—she's the one who's lived with us this whole time. We're a family, so we have to stay together." I'm the one who shares their blood, yet they consider me an outsider. If that's the case, they can go on vacation without me. I board a cruise and travel the world for a month without ever going home. That's when they panic.

After being condemned across the internet for plagiarism, I stood before everyone and announced my retirement from writing. My boyfriend, Carter Xavier, who had been furiously accusing me just moments ago, froze in shock. “What are you doing? Don’t you still have debts to pay?” Ruby Quinn—his precious and the so-called victim of this scandal—immediately panicked. “Vera, you don’t have to punish yourself like this. I’m willing to give you a chance to start over.” I remained firm, my expression cold and unmoving as camera flashes exploded around me. In my past life, these two had humiliated me, plotting together behind my back to steal my work. My painstaking efforts had built Ruby’s reputation as a so-called genius author. But not this time. Without hesitation, I deleted the pen name I had used for the past six years. I had spent enough time struggling in a cramped rental apartment. It was time to return home and claim my family inheritance. As for Ruby Quinn— Let’s see how you finish the rest of that stolen manuscript without me.

Trevor Farren cheated on me—with a hostess, no less. He bought her a villa, handbags, necklaces, and even whisked her away to the Maldives. Everything I had, she had too. In my fury, I resolved to retaliate. I found myself in the smoky halls of a nightclub, learning shameful, provocative moves from the women there. I would seduce him and make him fall for me all over again. I vowed to crush him in the end. I'd ruin him. Strip him of everything he held dear until he tasted the bitterness of despair, the way I had. Standing before the mirror, I traced my curves with a sly smile. "Trevor, do you like what you see?"