Hypocrisy

I discover Quilton Fuller's affair before our wedding, so I lie to him about having aborted our child. He hates me for that and gets engaged to a woman who looks just like me. On his wedding day, he video-calls me, wanting to show me his bride. However, he's greeted by the sight of me bloody and battered after being tormented by abductors. I beg him to at least save the baby in my womb, but he says to the abductors, "You'd better kill her and her child."

In my past life, my sister's secret lover says he wants to see a meteor shower. So, she takes all the family bodyguards and drives out to the countryside to create a romantic night under the stars for him. But she doesn't realize that an old enemy she once ruined sees the opening. They break into our home, seeking revenge and planning to wipe out the entire family. My mother throws herself over me to protect me, taking the brunt of the attack. She's critically injured and is barely hanging on. I call my sister again and again, begging her to come home. She eventually returns with the bodyguards, but it's too late. The enemies are caught, but then news comes in from the outskirts—her lover has disappeared, leaving behind a suicide note. In it, he blames me, accusing me of deliberately luring my sister away so that he would suffer at the hands of her enemies. Ultimately, he takes his own life. My sister burns the letter without a flicker of emotion. She says, "Don’t overthink it." Later, the blame falls on her. Our father promises to hand the family business over to me. But after the celebration banquet, my sister murders me in the bedroom. She stares at me with a blank face and snarls, "Someone as cruel as you should've died long ago. It should've been you who died, and the family inheritance should've been mine!" I die with a heart full of rage and disbelief. When I open my eyes again, I hear our enemies breaking down the villa doors.

My boyfriend has depression. To help cure him, I pass on the opportunity for a recital abroad. Instead, I accept commercial gigs so I can rake in the cash. After one performance, I see my boyfriend holding hands with a woman who looks like me in a private room. He wears a sharp suit and smiles so brightly that he doesn't even look ill. The people around him cheer and tease him. "You really are different with your true love back in the country. When are you two going to make things official?" "I heard you'd been dating another woman for seven years, though. Do you love her?" Charles Foster smiles indifferently. "I was just having some fun with her. Only an idiot like her would take me seriously." I sob with devastation while hiding behind a door. Suddenly, I feel like a fool for spending seven years with him. I call my mentor, who suggested that I take part in the international piano competition. "I will take part in the competition."

Not long after getting married to my husband, he says he wants to teach me how to scuba dive. My leg cramps when I'm practicing alone in the deep sea. However, my husband, a swimming instructor, chooses to save his unattainable love—she's jumped into the sea to commit suicide. I don't ask him for help. Instead, I allow myself to slowly sink. In my past life, I stopped my husband from leaving. He saved me with gnashed teeth and allowed his first love, Millie Quirke, to drown. By the time he went to save her, she'd already disappeared in the water. He comforted me and told me it was okay, that he was glad he'd saved me. However, one night, he brought me back to the seaside. Just as I let my guard down, he grabbed my neck and plunged my face into the water. Then, he dragged me out before I could suffocate. "You were just cramping—it would've passed! But Millie got dragged away by the current because of you! You can remain in the ocean with her!" When I open my eyes again, I'm back to the day I was scuba diving.

On the fifth year of our hidden marriage, I died on the operating table of a hospital belonging to Allen Jones. Before I died, I called him ninety-nine times, begging for help. The last time, he finally answered. His voice was heavy with impatience. "Enough already. First, it's pregnancy, now it's liver cancer. Can you stop making a scene? I'm exhausted from work. "Mia, when did you learn to lie? Do you know how disgusting you are right now? "I'm warning you—if you keep this up, I'll divorce you. Don't even think about coming back home until you admit you're wrong." But this time, I could never go back. Just before the call ended, I heard him comforting Sadie with a gentleness he had never shown me. "Don't be afraid. The surgery will be over soon, and you'll be fine. Once you're out, I'll take you to see your favorite movie and eat at your favorite restaurant. I promised you, and I'll make it all come true." After he hung up, I called him for the hundredth time. He didn't answer. Later, when Allen saw my body on the operating table, he broke down completely.

Grayson Harmon's childhood friend, Sophia Lexton, got into a car accident. She didn't just lose her memory—she came away with some post-traumatic stress disorder, too. That's what the doctors called it. They said we had to keep her calm, avoid anything that might upset her. So, for the sake of her recovery, Grayson asked me not to argue with her. To let her have her way, no matter what. She took my engagement necklace and moved into the little love nest Grayson and I had made our own. And on our wedding day, she threatened to kill herself, forcing Grayson to take her to the hospital. He looked at her bleeding out and said to me, calm as ever, "Brianna, I'll make it up to you after the wedding. I'll throw you an even grander one. Sophia is dying." Then he picked her up and walked away, never once looking back. If he had—just once—he might have seen something was wrong. He might have seen the blood soaking into my wedding dress.

I never thought I'd end up severely injured and lose my baby on my wedding day. That day, I walked toward my husband full of excitement, only to watch him rush right past me and straight into the arms of his secretary. Confused, I turned around and saw someone in a wedding dress lying on the ground, blood pooling beneath her. It was his secretary, Quinn Fable. Steve York, my soon-to-be husband, panicked and scooped her up, but Quinn stared at me with tearful eyes, crying, “Summer, I ate the candy you gave me… Why would you want to hurt my baby? Please, Steve, save our child… please…” Steve was beside himself with rage. Without a second thought, he kicked me hard in the stomach. I collapsed into the champagne tower, shards of glass embedding into my skin. Blood poured from between my legs. Yet, they still clung to each other, crying bitterly as if I didn't exist. When the ambulance arrived, they didn't even hesitate to push me aside to save her first. “Forget about her!” Steve shouted. “Save Quinn! She's lost so much blood. She must be in terrible pain! As for Summer, that vicious witch… she deserves to die!” Due to the delay, I suffered a ruptured uterus and missed the window for proper treatment. And as if that wasn't enough, Steve personally announced that our marriage was null and void. He marched straight to the clerk's office with Quinn and made it official. On my ICU bed, I received a text from him. “Pack your things and get out. Quinn wants you out of her sight.”

I'm already half-blind in my left eye, but Cedric Thompson forces me to donate my right cornea to his childhood sweetheart. Her parents berate me. "She's blind now! It's not like you'll die without one eye's cornea!" Cedric consoles me. "We're only taking the cornea for one eye. It won't affect anything." I'm forcibly placed under anesthesia. I lose all hope in life before my eyes slide shut. I would never have married him if I'd know he would treat me like this. He has no idea I can barely see with my left eye now.

My husband sponsored a poor female college student. While I was being dragged into an alley by a criminal, he was helping her pick out lingerie. While I was hospitalized with serious injuries, he used the money my mother left me to buy her a limited-edition handbag. I confronted him in a heated argument, but he accused me of being unreasonable. "I thought your injuries were so serious, but look—you didn’t even die! Besides, your money is my money. I’ll spend it however I want!"

I lost my eyesight thanks to a sudden car crash. In order to fund my treatment, I took up the position of a blind spectator, as per my friend's recommendation. The job scope was… challenging to put into words, to say the least. To make things worse, one of the clients was my boyfriend.