Mistress

I once believed Sarah Weller was the love of my life. For her, I planned a once-in-a-lifetime wedding; for her, I launched a “True Love” jewelry collection worth over a billion. However, with only seven days left before the wedding, she calmly told me that she needed to fulfill her first love’s late mother’s final wish to marry him first, and only then marry me. As if it were a matter of fact, she said, “For Tim, all of this can be sacrificed. If you can’t even bear to lose that little bit of money, you can find someone else to marry right now.” Only then did I understand. In her world, I and everything I had built could be pushed aside at any moment for her so-called first love. So, I turned around without another word and called home. “Penelope,” I said to my sister-in-law, “the wedding will proceed as scheduled. Just do me a favor and replace the bride.”

Eight years of loyalty—wiped out by three days of her batting her lashes. At the bonfire, I swore the Alpha would finally mark me. Instead, I watched him fasten a sparkly little pendant around her neck. When the fire broke out, he ditched me—flames snapping at my heels. Said I could "handle myself," then played hero carrying her out. She showed up at my herb shop all smug, called me a "mutt no one wants." Then he showed up—Alpha on his knees outside my door, begging for another shot. I nodded toward my shelves. "These heal every wolf in Stormborne... except the Alpha who couldn't see what was right in front of him."

The Ashford family opposed my relationship with Everett Ashford. To separate us, they drugged him, and his fiancée ended up pregnant with twins. Everett threatened suicide if I left him. He begged me to stay, swearing he would never see them again. He even told me the pregnancy had been terminated. Three years later, I spotted him at a parent-teacher conference. Enraged, I kept the twins after school and, on their way home, they were kidnapped. Everett blamed me for everything. To force me to reveal where the twins were, he strapped my mother onto a high tower ride. However, my mother had a heart condition. I sobbed that I did not know anything. Everett screamed at me. "I've been good enough to you! Why the hell would you go after those kids? Tell me where they are right now or I swear I'll push your mother off this thing!" He shoved her toward the platform's edge. The safety harness hung loose on her frail body. I had no idea where the twins were. Everett shoved my mother off anyway. Just then, someone found the twins. Everett walked away without looking back, leaving my mother dying of a heart attack. While he rushed to pick up his children, I stood in a hospital room pulling a white sheet over my mother's face. That was the moment I finally stopped loving him.

After dying in a fire, Janelle Erwin and I open our eyes to see ourselves standing at a wedding venue. This time, Janelle chooses to marry her childhood friend, Lance Huff, who has just returned to the country. She's extraordinarily resentful of me, so she doesn't hesitate to kick me out of her company and let Lance take over my position there. "I will never marry a loser like Wesley! On top of that, he's just a mutt who belongs to the Erwin family!" But right after Lance takes over North Hill Corporation, the company keeps losing bids one after another. At one point, it was even dragged into a murder case. Janelle asks me for help again. But this time, she wants me to become the scapegoat for Lance's crimes. After witnessing my rejection, she starts using the deeds of kindness she's done for me in the past just to emotionally manipulate me. But I just guffaw in Janelle's face as I stare at her. "I've already paid the Erwins back for their benevolence in my past life! Now, you're the ones owing me in this life!"

On the day of my prenatal checkup, I found out my husband Don had booked me a termination surgery instead of a postpartum care package. I thought he had placed the wrong order and was about to tease him, but Vincenzo spoke flatly. "I didn't book it wrong. I need to come clean with you about something." "I've been keeping another woman. She's a good girl. She doesn't want a title or to take your place as Donna." "But she got pregnant recently. I've already made her suffer enough. I can't let her child suffer too. I have to give the child the Moretti family name." I froze on the exam table, my voice shaking uncontrollably. "Then why did you abort my child?" He wiped the ultrasound gel off my belly and smiled. "I just want you to adopt Giuliana's child. I'm having yours terminated because I'm afraid you'll play favorites and treat her kid differently." He handed me the consent form, calm and composed. "I promise you will always be Donna. No one will ever take your place." I gave him a long, hard look, then was wheeled into the operating room. "Never mind." "Vincenzo Moretti, you're going to regret this every single day for the rest of your life." He didn't know it, but I was the only woman in the world who could ever give him a child.

Three days into the silent treatment, Derrick—my fiancé and CEO—greenlit his assistant's pitch for a self-driving road trip. He expected me to flip, like always. I didn't. A month later, he came back and saw it—I wasn't the same. He backed Molly, stole my project, and thought I'd explode. I didn't. I just helped her draft the proposal. He trashed everything I built, just so she could snag her year-end bonus. I didn't fight back. Took the blame, took the hit. Molly was all smug. "See? Told you. You can't go at Yara head-on. Give her the silent treatment—she folds. She's scared of losing you. That's why she's playing nice." Derrick ate it up. Called her smart. Then he pulled me aside—offered a raise, a promotion, even a fancy wedding. First time he'd ever brought it up. But he missed one detail: he'd already signed off on my resignation while he was off playing road trip king. And I'd already dumped him. That was it. Clean cut. Nothing left.

Finnegan Churchill grabs me by the hair and drags me to a staircase with 99 steps. He orders me to crawl my way up as an apology to his true love, Colette Brooke. At the same time, I'm supposed to pray for her. He has no idea I'm the one who cared for him during the three years he was blind.

My in-laws accidentally fall off a cliff in the middle of a mountain hike. But my wife, Stella Covington, who's also the leader of the search and rescue team in charge of that area, refuses to accept the rescue mission. Instead, she sets off fireworks with her junior, Noah Reid, to celebrate her birthday. By the time my in-laws are found, they've already died. Their corpses are left broken and battered. Only then does Stella call me on the phone casually. "Have your parents' bodies delivered to my team. Noah needs to dissect two more bodies in order to receive his license as a forensic doctor." It turns out that Stella thought my parents were the ones who died. I just chuckle in return. After that, I have the mangled and unrecognizable bodies delivered to Stella's team.

It had been the fifth year of my marriage, and I was about to reveal everything to my husband after pretending to be poor for so long. However, his childhood sweetheart had just returned from studying abroad. With a cruel smile, my mother-in-law sneered, "Claire and Thomas are a much better match. "Not like some trash who isn't even fit to show up in public." She and my sister-in-law had waited for the perfect moment, drugging me and teaming up with the childhood sweetheart to accuse me of being a mistress. The result? I had lost my baby. In a single night, I had lost everything. The position as a vice president of a major company, our lakeside mansion, the limited-edition sports cars... I would make sure it was all gone! I would make them beg for my mercy. I would make sure they came crawling on their knees!

On the day I was supposed to try on wedding dresses with Charles Jaspier, the mafia leader I had loved for seven years, I walked into the boutique carrying a pregnancy test report—my heart full of hope. Instead, I overheard a conversation that shattered everything. "Registering the marriage with Ellis Olsen was a temporary measure," he said calmly to his closest confidant. "My brother died in a shootout. She's carrying the Jaspier family's only heir. Without a legal status, neither she nor the child would survive in this family." "Everyone would bully them." A cigar rested between his fingers. His voice was cold, edged with resignation. "Zoey Qandor can't have a title—but I can give her everything else. My love. My money. This must never reach her ears." I clenched the pregnancy report, my heart turning to ash. With my best friend's help, I created a new identity—one that ensured Charles would never find me again—and disappeared from his world. If he could not give me and my child a complete family, then this love—built on responsibility and lies—was better cut cleanly, once and for all.