Karma X Okuda

The yacht I'm steering crashes into a huge wave, scaring my husband's junior, who has a heart condition. So, my husband orders someone to tie me up and dangle me in the ocean by a rope. He even tells the captain to head straight into the waves. "You know Wren has a heart condition, yet you still scared her! How can you be so evil?" I beg him to let me go and tell him that I was following a charted path; I didn't mean for anything to happen. However, he just mocks me. "You've been a yacht driver for so long. Haven't you experienced anything like this before? I'll make you go through what Wren did! Let's see whether you'll pull this again!" After a day and night of this torment, he relents and decides to pull me back up. It's too bad he doesn't know that the waves have already torn me to shreds.

Everyone thinks Jimmy Hudson, my college roommate, is the typical brutally honest and socially clueless guy who just has zero filter sometimes. A friend and I meet up to go boxing and practice our hooks, but he calls it a hookup when texting the group chat about it. He even nonchalantly says he won't be deleting his message. When I meet my boxing buddy, he says I'm meeting my hookup buddy. He even has the nerve to say, "It's just a joke. Don't be overly sensitive and read so much into it." Thanks to a few more of his dirty tricks, my reputation is ruined, and the entire class ostracizes me. But Jimmy doesn't stop there. He slips sleeping pills into my drink, which leads me to miss an exam. Later, he claims it was just a careless mistake and blames it on his scatterbrained tendencies. Eventually, he dumps crushed cherry pits into my water bottle, which ends up poisoning me to death. This all happened because our campus belle, whom he has a crush on, helped me with my luggage on our first day on campus. All of a sudden, my eyes open again. I've returned to the first day of my freshman year at college. This time, I'm going to let Jimmy get a taste of what it's like to have his life ruined with a helping of some social cluelessness of my own.

The girl my family sponsored was a manipulative opportunist. She had my childhood friends wrapped around her finger. I helped her out of pity for her poor background, but she climbed her way up, slowly taking my place. She faked innocence in front of the brothers while sabotaging me behind my back. When they found out, they called me petty rather than blame her. I got fed up, married my college crush, and moved on. But they flew in overnight, begging for forgiveness.

Everyone called my sister Alessia a prodigy. I was the only one who knew she was a thief. From the day I moved back into the brownstone, she started taking from me. Quietly. Carefully. My designs. My sketches. My drafts. Everything I created would appear under her name before I even had time to finish it. The family stood behind her. Always. My father, Salvatore Lucchese, head of the family, his word law itself, said he believed Alessia. So I became the liar. The plagiarist. The disgrace. They threw me out of the outfit's front shop. Blacklisted me from the industry. Erased my name. Then one of her loyal admirers ran me down in the street. That was the end. Or it should have been. When I opened my eyes again, it was the day before the national jewelry competition. This time, I didn't draw a single line. Let's see what my darling sister delivers… when the well has run dry.

On the day Ethan Moore and I are supposed to marry, his adoptive sister, Hazel Moore, threatens to jump off a building. Ethan abandons me in my wedding dress and leaves me jilted for her. As the guests watch me mockingly, I boldly announce, "I'll marry anyone who dares walk down this aisle to me!" Three years later, Ethan returns to the Moore residence with Hazel. I'm seated on the couch and enjoying some oatmeal while watching TV. Ethan stares at my baby bump and snarls, "Who's the father of that child in your belly?" I sip my oatmeal and smile faintly. "A member of the Moore family, of course."

My husband, Liam, got his terminally ill ex-girlfriend, Chloe, pregnant. He said it was to grant her dying wish of becoming a mother. On the day she gave birth, Liam's sister, Isabella, hired a security firm to guard the hospital, claiming it was to prevent me from causing a scene. Isabella stood by Chloe's bedside. "Don't worry, I have people posted at the entrance. If Ava dares to show up and make trouble, we'll have her thrown out immediately." Liam, seeing I hadn't come, breathed a sigh of relief. "Chloe, just focus on delivering our baby safely. Don't worry about anything else." He truly believed that since he was only fulfilling his dying ex's last wish, I would never be so unreasonable as to make a fuss. Looking at the tiny, rosy infant in his arms, he sent me a text: "Darling, I did this for you. I had her carry a child for us, so you could finally be a mother." He thought that as long as I accepted it all, this child was my ultimate reward. But what he didn't know was that I had just surrendered my residency. In one week, I would be in Kenya, working as a volunteer on a project of biomedical research. It was meant to be a final goodbye—a world away from Liam, forever. But he was searching for me like a madman, pleading for me to return.

I'm the last of my father's bloodline, the old Alpha of the Moonlit Howl Pack. To keep me safe, Dad wanted me to mate with either Rhys, the pack's bravest, or Finn, our top warrior with insane fighting skills. They were supposed to be the next Alpha. But the only one they actually gave a damn about was that pathetic, vicious Omega, Cassidy. They even spat on pack tradition and marked her, thinking they could kick me out after Dad died! So, after Mom passed, and they asked me with disgust who I’d finally picked as my mate… I didn’t choose either of them. I turned my back and walked straight to Harris, the Alpha of the Shadow-fang Pack. The Alpha they say is eaten up by an ancient blood curse, a terrifying monster. However, on the day Harris was supposed to come for me, Liam and Seth actually stood in front of my den, begging me like whipped pups to stay.

My daughter is gravely ill, and her medical bills cost a bomb. My husband gives up on treating her. Then, he turns and runs into the arms of his childhood sweetheart, Chelsea Davies. Amid my despair, my first love, Elliot Cox, transfers five million dollars to my account. He cares for my daughter with me. However, my daughter ultimately fails to escape death. Six years later, Elliot and I have our own child. When I head to the hospital to visit one of my friends, I accidentally hear Elliot's conversation with a doctor. "You and Ms. Baxter have your own child now, Mr. Cox. What if she finds out the truth of what happened back then?" "Chelsea was gravely ill at the time; I had no choice but to pull some tricks to have the child's heart transplanted to her. Besides, Holly's pregnant again now, isn't she? It's high time she lets go and moves on." Only then do I discover that my daughter was misdiagnosed on purpose. Elliot took her heart and had it transplanted in Chelsea's body.

My best friend, Emily Summers, who had always been terrified of dogs, suddenly told me she was planning to buy a pet dog. That’s when I knew that she had been reincarnated too. In my previous life, I bought a pure white toy poodle from a pet shop. From the moment that little dog came into my home, everything in my life turned around. Morgan Hale, our manager who had always been at odds with me, suddenly offered me a promotion and a raise. Even the client I’d been struggling to win over for months personally requested to sign the deal with me. But the most unbelievable change of all? Silas Sullivan, the company’s tall, rich, and handsome CEO got down on one knee and proposed to me after a party, saying he wanted to marry me. I had said yes and even invited Emily to the wedding to witness my happiest moment. However, driven by jealousy, she stabbed me to death on the day of the wedding. "Why should someone like you get to marry a CEO while I’m stuck working three shifts a day like a damn slave?" The next time I opened my eyes, I was back at that moment, standing beside her, at the pet shop, looking at dogs…

Two years after I return to Cendria, I unexpectedly run into my daughter, whom my ex-wife had taken with her when she left me. "Do you regret everything you've done?" she asks, her voice dripping with arrogance. "If you apologize to my new dad, Liam, I'll try to convince Mom to forgive you." Before I can respond, an adorable little boy throws himself into my arms. "School's finally over, Dad. I missed you so much!" he exclaims. I take his hand and turn to leave. My ex-daughter is furious. "If you walk away from me now, I'll disown you!" she yells after us in frustration. I remain unbothered. She's free to do whatever she pleases. After all, none of it matters to me anymore.