Fragile A Christmas Story

My fiance, Dante de Rossi, is the heir to a mafia family in Manhorne, and he loves me dearly. Yet, a month before our wedding, he says his family has arranged for him to have a baby with his childhood friend, Isobel de Luca. Despite my refusal to agree to it, he brings it up daily and tries to push me into it. Half a month before the wedding, I receive a pregnancy report. I find out that Isobel is over a month pregnant. I have yet to give Dante my permission. This is when I realize just how fragile our years-long relationship is. I cancel the wedding and destroy everything he has ever given me. On the day of the wedding, I set off for Etolia to further my medical career. I accept a role with an international medical organization, severing all ties with the mafia. From that moment onward, he and I no longer have anything to do with each other!

Being in a Contract marriage with an illegitimate daughter is one decision that Alaric cannot change but manage with. Desperate to make his betrothed wife give up on the marriage without having any share of his property made him and his mistress drug her and set her up in a one night stand with a stranger. Not only did she get pregnant for an unknown man,it cost her marriage and also rendered her homeless. Faced with no choice than to search for the man that not only took her virginity but also made her a mom. Was her search successful? Who was the identity of the man she had a night stand with?

At my three-year anniversary dinner with Vincent Hartwell, his secretary deliberately poured red wine over my head. I finally reached my breaking point and slapped her in front of all the guests. That very night, the incident spread like wildfire through high society circles. When my mother saw the leaked bedroom photographs of the two of them, the shock triggered a heart attack. She collapsed and died on the spot. When I learned the news, I sank to the floor and cried all night. Meanwhile, Vincent stayed by his secretary's side, comforting her. When he came home, he brushed past my disheveled state without a glance, loosened his tie, and spoke in that careless tone of his. "I've already buried the story. Don't let it happen again. "I have a meeting tonight. Pull yourself together and get to the villa within thirty minutes. Madison needs you." As he walked toward the door, he added over his shoulder, "She's fragile right now because of the pregnancy. If you do anything to harm my only child, I won't forgive you." I listened without crying or arguing. However, after he left, I pulled the divorce agreement from my drawer that I had prepared weeks ago. Beneath it lay my own positive pregnancy test. 'Vincent, I'll leave to find my biological father in three days.' This time, I was really leaving. I would make sure my father paid for every grievance I had endured over the last few years.

In a world ravaged by global nuclear fallout, I struggled to survive alongside my fragile, sweet-faced best friend, dodging one radiation storm after another. The route to the Central Safety Zone was blocked—we had no choice but to use two detonators to blast open the tunnel. Otherwise, we would be caught in the storm, our bodies rotting away until we either dissolved into blood sludge or turned into zombies. … In my previous life, I had risked everything to secure those detonators, only for my best friend to hand them over to a complete stranger without hesitation. "They have elderly people and children on their side too," she said earnestly. "One detonator can save many lives. Iris, you can't be selfish." I was so furious my blood pressure nearly exploded, but with no other option, I went straight into a horde of zombies to steal backup detonators. I lost an arm in the process, drenched in blood and barely standing. Yet, she complained that I was covered in gore and had frightened the children. After finally regrouping with the main convoy, I rushed to deliver the formula for anti-radiation medicine to the research institute so that more people could be saved. But she accused me of stealing supplies and trying to flee, which led to my expulsion from the base, and death, my body rotting away under the radiation. When I opened my eyes again, there was still one hour left before the radiation storm hit. I looked down at the two detonators in my hand, then at my pitiful, tear-brimmed best friend—and I smiled. Since she loved being a good person so much, this time, I would let her be one to her heart's content.

As Christmas drew near, my little sister claimed she’d seen Santa Claus in the house. “He had four legs, real long, like dead branches. He crawled on the floor like a dog. His mouth was full of teeth, and I saw him with my own eyes, climbing out of the chimney. His bones were making this clicking, clacking sound.” The Santa she described was nothing like the legends. My parents and I thought it was just her imagination. Until I posted about it online. A user named “NocturneNotes” insisted my sister wasn’t lying, and that the thing was dangerous. Panicked, I asked him what we should do. He gave me three rules: “On Christmas Eve, from 11:30 PM to 2:00 AM, the entire family must ‘sleep’ by the Christmas tree.” “You can’t actually fall asleep, or you’ll die in your sleep.” “No matter what you hear or feel, you absolutely cannot open your eyes or stop pretending to be asleep. Once it hits 2:00 AM, it will leave on its own.”

My girlfriend called me frantically out of the blue, saying her mother's water had broken. She begged me to take them to the hospital. But I lazily hung up the phone and turned away, buying myself an ice cream bar instead. In my previous life, her mother had also gone into labor late in life. I had risked everything to rush her to the hospital, running twelve red lights, pushing my car to the limit until the fuel gauge nearly burst. Yet, despite all that, her mother had lost the baby. Worse still, she turned around and accused me of killing the baby. My girlfriend had hated me for it, blaming me for her mother's inability to have children again. That very night, she and her shameless relatives took over my family's house, forcing my parents into such anger and despair that they ended up in the hospital. My company went bankrupt, and as if that weren't enough, I was beaten so severely that both my legs were broken. In the end, I fell into a deep depression and took my own life. But when I opened my eyes again, I found myself reborn. This time, I uncovered the secret her mother had been hiding.

Our bridal room was set on fire, and my husband, a firefighter, was grievously wounded while trying to save me. I sent him to be saved at the hospital where Winnie Sloan, his childhood friend worked, but the surgery ended up being a failure, and my husband passed away. After the announcement that my husband was deceased, Winnie told me that his dying wish was that he wanted a child. Hearing that, I powered through my grief and used the sperm he had previously frozen to conceive a child through IVF, raising my son to be enrolled in the most prestigious university in the area. On the day of the celebration party, my son kicked me out and invited my husband and Winnie onto the stage as his 'biological parents', and that's when I found out that my husband had faked his death. All those years ago, he and Winnie had swapped out the embryo I'd conceived in secret. The son I had painstakingly given birth to and raised turned out to have no blood relation to me whatsoever. Meanwhile, my husband had been enjoying a luxurious life overseas with Winnie while waiting for a chance to reconnect with his son. In my rage, I confronted them and demanded an explanation, but ended up dying because they pushed me down the stairs. When I came to, I was back to the day of the fire.

While preparing for the SATs at the library, my brother is accidentally shot and injured, causing him to bleed profusely. I pass by this scene but turn a blind eye and quicken my pace to leave. This is because in my previous life, when I saw him, I rushed him to the hospital in a panic. He had intracranial hemorrhaging, and he urgently needed surgery. I quickly called my mom, the top neurosurgeon in the city, begging her to come to the hospital as soon as possible. However, she thought I was jealous that she had taken my adopted sister to the beach instead of spending time with me. She also believed I had fabricated the story about my brother's injury, and thus refused to return. By the time my dad and the rest of the family hurried to the hospital, it was too late for rescue efforts—my brother had passed away. The whole family blamed me for his death. They were convinced that I had deliberately misled my mom and delayed his critical treatment. When my mom returned from out of town, she lost her composure and pushed me down the stairs, watching coldly as I bled to death. After opening my eyes again, I had returned to the day my brother was shot at the library.

My boyfriend and I set out on a graduation trip, but in the remote wilderness, we were kidnapped. The abductors had cruel intentions toward me, and to protect my boyfriend, I played along, buying time for him to escape and get help. After our rescue, though, a video of my assault spread online, turning me into a target of vicious gossip. "She's the woman who got it on with two guys in the wild!" "Kidnapped but so into it? What a freak!" "How does she even show her face? Shameless!" When I confronted my boyfriend about the video, he dodged the question and broke up with me. "I'm about to start at a top company. I can't be with someone so tainted." Heartbroken, I was pushed off a rooftop to my death. But when I opened my eyes, I was back on the day of the kidnapping, given a second chance to rewrite my fate.

When vampires attack the border, my mate's childhood female friend and I both end up trapped in the camp. My mate, Damon Aldridge, shifts into his wolf form and rescues her without a second thought, leaving me alone to face the flames and vampire assault. The next day, I submit a request to the council of elders to sever our mate bond. Damon shows up with a stormy expression, demanding, "You have a priestess bloodline. You can heal yourself. Lydia's more fragile, so I rescued her first. Are you seriously jealous over this?" I meet his eyes calmly. "Yes, but none of that matters anymore."