Melodramatic

After being reborn, I'm taken back to the day I confessed my love for my childhood friend. In my past life, I had to plead and beg before he begrudgingly agreed to marry me. "You look pathetic when you beg me for anything, Annabelle." That was what Hayden Gulman always said to me. He was so cold to me that he even canceled the part where we read our vows to each other during the wedding. When I was eight months pregnant, he took a photo of my belly covered in stretch marks. Then, he complained to his true love about the unhappiness he faced after marrying me. When I went into a difficult labor due to my agitation, he and his true love were on vacation. At that moment, my heart finally died. It turned out my one-woman show couldn't be considered love at all. Now that I've been reborn, I smile when I see the disdainful look in his eyes. I say, "We have nothing to do with each other from this moment on. I only wish to be happy."

On the day our son, Lucas Smith, turned one month old, my husband, Xavier Smith, learned that his precious childhood sweetheart, Wendy Xander, had been kidnapped. The kidnappers made an outrageous demand. They wanted him to personally cut off our son’s legs. He acted indifferent, as if it didn’t matter. But behind my back, he drugged my drink with a heavy dose of sleeping pills. Dazed and barely able to stay awake, I forced myself toward the nursery. That was when I overheard his conversation with his bodyguard. “Mr. Smith, there’s a good chance Miss Xander staged this whole kidnapping. Are you really going to do this? What if something happens to Lucas?” “It’s just a kid. If he dies, he dies. “Even if this is all fake, I won’t take a single risk when it comes to Wendy.” My hands trembled as I gripped the doorframe. So this was what I meant to him. Eight years together. His own flesh and blood. And none of it mattered more than Wendy.

I discovered my Alpha mate Ethan's secret. The ring he gave me on our wedding day was actually used to track and monitor me. But I didn't cry. I pretended my eyes hadn't healed, and witnessed firsthand how Ethan and his mistress clung to each other, entangled in affection. Ethan's voice was low and husky: "Let's be quick. Selene usually wakes up after an hour of rest." The mistress covered her mouth and giggled softly: "She's just a blind wolf. What does it matter if she wakes up? As long as we don't make any noise." Hearing this, Ethan glared at her in warning. "Even though Selene has lost her sight, she's still the person I love most, and she's my bottom line. If you disrespect Selene again, whatever is between us ends right here." But what he didn't know was that my blindness had been cured. I could see everything clearly now. After getting out of bed, I wiped away my tears and made a phone call. "Tell the Alpha of the Shadow Pack that I'm willing to become their Chief Healer."

When news of my arranged fiancee's death arrived, I didn't cry or make a scene. Instead, I quickly reclaimed her shares and had the death certificate issued. I did it because I've been reborn. In my past life, Dad was worried that women would eye my fortune as the heir to the wealthiest family. So, he arranged for me to marry one of three women he personally picked. I chose the most outstanding one, Monica Harris, and married her. However, just three days after our wedding, she died suddenly. Heartbroken, I was persuaded by the remaining two women to give up on marriage and remain single for life. At 80 years old, when I returned to our special place in Sunmere Valley to reminisce, I saw Monica. She should have been dead for 60 years! She stood beside Liam Rogers, my driver who'd gone missing decades ago, surrounded by their children and grandchildren, living a picture-perfect life. I realized I'd been deceived my entire life. The shock sent my blood pressure soaring, and I died of a stroke on the spot. When I opened my eyes again, I was transported back to the day I died. This time, I'm going to find out exactly how someone who's supposedly dead keeps on living.

The explosion wiped out my parents—and their company. All I had left was some insurance cash and a pile of patents nobody cared about. I begged their old partners to back me. Crickets. Then Alex Ross strolled in, played the hero no one asked for, and proposed. Five years deep into our marriage, after my 99th FDA rejection, I finally cracked. I was in the garage when I heard his phone on speaker. Mark's voice came through: "Dude, you're still handing Lily Emma's blueprints before she even files? How many times has she flopped now? Girl's relentless, huh?" Alex? Straight-up ice. "Ninety-nine. She'll quit soon." "You're really tanking your wife to boost Lily's brand? Worth it?" "Lily's launching her new product tomorrow at the Boston Medical Summit. Patent number 100. Watching her blow up from nothing... makes me proud." "But it's all Emma's stuff. Your dad made you marry her for her brain, didn't he?" "Don't bring up my father." His voice turned sharp. "He forced me to dump Lily. I just played along." I sank into the driver's seat, frozen. I wasn't a partner. Just a pawn—revenge bait for his dad and backup fuel for his ex.

Just before our fifth marking anniversary, I found out I was pregnant. I was about to share the good news with my Alpha mate, Ethan Hart, when I accidentally overheard something that shattered me. He was planning to hold a marking ceremony with another woman. It turned out that the grand marking ceremony he gave me five years ago was a lie. The mark he left on me wasn’t even real. It was just an ordinary bite. He had saved the real marking ceremony for someone else. Back then, I had gone against my parents’ wishes, left my home pack, and followed him to the Silver Moon Pack. I gave up everything for a marriage that ended up being a lie. My heart was crushed. If I was never his true, legal mate, what reason did I have to stay? It was time to give up the title of Luna and return to my true home. Ethan had no idea I was the only daughter of the Alpha King from the Dark Moon Pack. I had given up my birthright to be Alpha Female all for him. In a week’s time, the Dark Moon Pack would welcome their new leader.

My father was the CEO of a major corporation, and I was his illegitimate daughter—the one no one was supposed to know about. Growing up, I was the child nobody cared for. My father didn’t love me, and my mother wasn’t much better. From a young age, it was just me and my little brother looking out for each other. When I got into college, my father’s family decided to take my brother in. However, only a few days later, I received the news that my brother was dead.  I knew, deep down, that his death wasn’t just some accident. From that moment on, I worked even harder, determined to succeed. When I finally returned, I had a special gift prepared for my father’s family. This one’s for my brother!

Everyone in Sparrowville said that Margaret Chapman was the happiest woman in town. Gavin Hartley showered her with gifts—a sapphire ring, an asteroid after her name—treating her like she was the center of his universe. Margaret had always believed it, too. Until the day she accidentally discovered the woman he had been hiding in his villa. For ten years, he had kept her there—his childhood sweetheart. After she lost herself to schizophrenia, she had said, "Margaret is me." And so, for nearly seven years, Gavin had courted Margaret and cherished her, playing out a love story that had never truly been hers. Margaret's heart crumbled to ash after she found out the truth. She left without looking back, moving to a country thousands of miles away. But she never imagined that Gavin would lose himself to rage, his eyes burning red as he nearly tore Sparrowville apart. "Where the hell is Margaret?!"

I was in a car accident on my way to my son, Nathan’s piano competition. Ignoring my injuries, I limped to the venue just in time for the awards ceremony. Nathan won the gold medal. With excitement shining in his eyes, he ran toward me. But as I smiled at him, he turned and placed the medal around the neck of my husband’s first love, Janine Beck. My husband of ten years, Christopher Frost, looked at me with irritation. “Look at what you’re wearing! You’re filthy, like a beggar,” he said cruelly. “Don’t come to Nathan’s celebration dinner tonight—he’s embarrassed by you!” I stayed silent and went alone to the hospital to have my injuries checked. Later, I returned to the villa, drenched in the rain, only to find the doors locked against me. I knocked on the door in the pouring rain for the entire night. At dawn, when the first light broke across the sky, I sent Christopher a message: [Let’s get a divorce. As you wish, I will no longer be an eyesore in your lives.]

Maude Ellington's fiance sends a message to his first love before their wedding. "You've always been the one I wanted to marry." With their wedding fast approaching, Maude watches him meticulously plan every detail with his first love in mind. She quietly lets it all go. Because she no longer wants the wedding. And she no longer wants him.