She Chose Herself This Time

I plan on ordering some food using my husband's phone, yet I've noticed a remark that's been saved on the delivery app. "The food is for a pregnant lady. Please make sure to be hygienic and use less oil and salt when making the dishes." I can feel my heart sink. I turn my gaze toward the bathroom, where my husband is. I can't figure out why my husband, who's been firm about not wanting a child, has been ordering meals for pregnant women. After a moment of hesitation, I scroll through the delivery app's order history with shaky hands. Numerous orders have been placed with the same restaurant, one that specializes in making exquisite dishes designed for pregnant women. Each of these food orders costs more than ten thousand dollars. My husband's company address has been chosen as the delivery address, and he's also the recipient. … After exiting the delivery app, I sit on the couch and stare into space. As I look at my husband's well-defined muscles, I recall how he, who's about to hit 40, is suddenly quite invested in getting in shape over the past year. I blurt out asking, "Have you been ordering food to your office often lately?" My husband freezes for a split second. Then, he fixes me with a gentle gaze. "I do that once in a while. Why are you suddenly asking about that? By the way, I haven't had the sweet and sour meatballs you make in a long while. Can you make some for me so that I can bring them to the office for my lunch tomorrow?" I smile at him and agree to his request. Still, I toss and turn in bed as the remark about the pregnant lady in his phone keeps gnawing at me that night.

My marriage to Dante Moretti shocked everyone. I’ve got a fiery temper and I don’t back down. Three years into our marriage, the entire Chicago underworld knew we were at each other's throats. Except in bed. There, our bodies just fit. The only time we weren't at war was when we were tangled in the sheets, lost in a storm of desperate kisses and raw pleasure. Countless times, he’d tell me he was obsessed with my body, always right as he was sinking into me. I thought it was his way of saying he was falling for me. That all came crashing down at an auction, when he snatched my mother's heirloom from me, only to give it to her—a fragile-looking girl named Ava. That’s when he showed me a cruelty I’d never seen. "It's time for a reality check, Elara," he’d said, his voice cold as ice. "Marrying you, fucking you… it was all just to keep the peace between our families. Ava is the one I want to protect." But the day I finally left Chicago, the day I announced our divorce to the world… That cold, calculating Mafia Don hunted for me like a man possessed.

I've waited five years for my mafia fiance, Daniele Moretti, while he keeps pushing our wedding back again and again. I've turned down every man who approaches me and put up with all the snide comments from high society. On the eve of exchanging our marriage alliance contract, thanks to a bet with his lover, Daniele decides it's hilarious to switch the groom's name. He replaces himself with his uncle, Samuele Moretti, a man who is practically on his deathbed. Daniele laughs as he brags to his friends, "Regina's obsessed with me. When she finds out, she'll cry and beg me to change it back." I stand just outside the door and hear every word. On the day of the wedding, I take Samuele's arm—the "sickly wreck" Daniele keeps mocking—and walk him up the aisle. When Daniele finally shows up late with his lover and tries to turn the ceremony into a spectacle, I slap him across the face. Now he's the one who has to call me Aunt Regina.

The afternoon my critical condition notice was issued, Silas Stenson popped a bottle of champagne in the lab. On social media, a photo showed him and Wynter Keller standing side by side in the golden sunset, their white coats bathed in light. The caption read only one line—'Ten years—it finally worked.' Everyone said he was devoted, that he'd spent ten sleepless years trying to save me. When the nurse, her eyes red, showed it to me on her phone, I was staring at the wavering lines on the monitor. No one knew that the drug had already been perfected a year ago. And I was the only candidate who wasn't allowed to receive it.

Natalie is ecstatic to be mated to her childhood crush but after two years in a loveless union, her love morphs into hatred. Two years of being bound to a man who neither loves nor cherishes her is enough for her to make up her mind. She is done. She prepares for her divorce, expecting Kian to happily let her go but his reaction is unexpected. Kian Zephyr is more than just an Alpha – he is a force to be reckoned with, a man ruthless on and off the battlefield. A man who is wealthy and powerful, Kian has the world at his feet. When his grandfather forces him to take the starry-eyed girl who has chased after him from childhood as his mate, he does so with reluctance but when said girl decides she no longer wants him, hell breaks loose. When Kian wants something, he takes it and when he claims someone, they stay his. And he has claimed Natalie. To Kian, Natalie is a constant, a person who will be by his side until death but Natalie is done with him. She spent years believing she meant nothing to him but the moment she decides to leave, she realizes Kian would never let her go without a fight. Yet, she is not one to lose. Natalie is determined to escape Kian and with her mind set, even a man like Kian has trouble holding on to her. Desperate and filled with regret, Kian would do anything to win back his mate but the harder he tries, the harder she pushes him away. With blades aimed at their necks and enemies disguised as friends, will Kian’s love reach Natalie or is he destined to lose her forever?

A week before our marking ceremony, I told Ethan Stormwind I wanted to break up at his friend's party. Everyone laughed. They all knew that for the past six years, my life's goal had been to become his marked Luna. With only a week left until the ceremony, how could I possibly want to break up? Even Ethan thought I was being unreasonable. "Just because I need to take Selene to the healer for her follow-up on our ceremony day, you're throwing a tantrum about breaking up?" "We're both adults. Can you act more mature? You could just reschedule the ceremony. Why do you insist on that specific day? I don't have time for your jealous games." I nodded silently. Yes, something needed to be changed. But it wasn't the ceremony date. It was him. I was going to accept someone else's mark instead.

After her first love died, Sophia Hayes hated me for ten years. I tried to win back her favor every day, but she only responded with cold sneers. "If you really want to make me happy, why don't you just die?" Her words were like daggers to my heart. It was a shock when she died in a pool of blood while trying to save me from an oncoming truck. With her final gaze fixed on me, she whispered, "If only I had never met you." Her mother was inconsolable with grief at the funeral. "I should have let Sophia be with Ethan Brooks. I never should have forced her to marry you!" Her father also looked at me with hatred in his eyes. "Sophia saved your life three times. She was such a wonderful person. Why couldn't it have been you who died instead?" Everyone regretted that Sophia had married me—myself included. I was driven away from the funeral, completely devastated. Three years later, I traveled back to the past after a time machine was invented. This time, I chose to sever all connections with Sophia, giving everyone the version of history they truly desired.

I bring Selena Bloomberg home because I find her pitiful, and I treat her very well as if she were my own younger sister. However, I didn't think that she would end up impersonating me as the Bloomberg family's heiress and kill me afterward before getting rid of my body. Now that I am reborn, I refuse to let the same tragedy happen again. I swear that I will make her pay. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth!

My fated mate, Alpha Cullen, fell for the lies of his first love, Donna, and planned to kill me. But in a twist of fate, we were ambushed by rogues and died together. But with his last breath, he whispered another woman's name: Donna. In that moment, I knew the truth—it had always been her, his real love. When the Moon Goddess gave me a second chance, I was reborn on the day I first met him. One look at the hatred in his eyes, and I knew: he had been reborn, too. So before he could speak, I rejected him in front of the entire pack. Years later, when we met again, he sneered that I was nothing more than a pathetic rogue who tinkered with flowers. But he didn't know I had found a new mate: Orton, the Alpha of Alphas. It wasn't until our son ran to me, wrapping his little arms around my leg and crying, "Mommy!" that Cullen's façade finally shattered. He grabbed my arm, his voice cracking as he begged, "This can't be happening! I'm your fated mate! You still love me… right, Juliet?"

At my wedding rehearsal, my fiancé's colleague, Haley Rhodes burst in and tore apart the carefully arranged decor. "Ryan promised he'd marry me!" she shrieked, storming closer, "Who do you think you are?" Without warning, she lunged, grabbing hold of the wedding gown, which was worth a fortune. But she only got so far—she was too heavyset to even squeeze it past her head. I let out a mocking laugh. "Don't tell me you're too big to fit even a plus-size wedding dress?" That really set her off. With grim determination, she forced herself into the gown. But as soon as she did, the delicate fabric tore, leaving absurdly stretched holes across her back and waist. "Too bad the dress is ruined now. But who cares?" she sneered triumphantly. "Ryan loves me. He’ll buy me another wedding gown, anyway." But when the actual wedding began, she got the shock of her life. The groom walking down the aisle wasn’t Ryan at all. It was their boss — Ryan and Haley's boss. Well, I never said this was my wedding.