Story Romantic

I dropped my car off for maintenance at the service center. When it was finished, I told the staff to put it on the tab of my cousin, who ran the shop. The staff member nodded and started to process it, but then the female manager stepped in. "We don't do tabs here. You've got to pay up now," she said, slapping the bill down right in front of me. Premium Diagnostic Scan: $80,000 Exhaust System Sound Enhancement: $100,000 Engine Harmony Calibration: $100,000 Total: $280,000. I laughed at the absurdity. Since when did my cousin start running a rip-off operation? The manager crossed her arms and gave me a snooty once-over. "Always trying to mooch off Chad. I've seen plenty of broke relatives like you. If you can't swing it, don't act like you can." Unwilling to argue with her, I pulled out my phone and called my cousin. "You have ten minutes to fire the manager, or your shop is finished."

Carl Anderson doesn't show up for our engagement party. I finally find him in a bar's private room after night has fallen. "I only think of her as a sister. Who would've expected her to want to latch onto me like that? There's no way I'll marry her in this lifetime!" He downs his drink. Later, when he and Angela Moran get married, he tells his friends to stop me at the entrance. He's afraid I'll crash his wedding and ruin it. "Keep an eye on Iris, guys. Don't let her crash the wedding!" he says. As soon as the words are out of his mouth, I show up with Henry Moran. "Don't even dream of stepping in there, Iris!" Carl looks at me warily. "You're so rude! You have to call her Aunt Iris now!" Angela greets me warmly and leads me inside.

The nanny, Polly Jackson, pushes me down the stairs when I'm seven months pregnant. I suffer from major blood loss and go into premature labor. Before I can question her about it, Zachary Campbell brushes me off with a lame excuse. "Polly didn't mean it. You and the baby are fine, so don't be so petty about this." I get out of bed to move around. I'm at the bathroom door when I hear Zachary and Polly's conversation. "Are you sure that wretch can stay alive, Zachary? Switching it out won't be that easy if it dies." "Don't worry about whether Daisy Jameson's baby can live, Mom. Either way, mine and Danielle's child will be the Campbell family's sole heir." I pretend I've never heard this and raise my son for 18 years. During a banquet held in honor of a share ownership transfer, Polly suddenly shows up with my mentally impaired daughter. She cries, "Mason is my grandson! It's high time he's returned to his rightful place after being raised by the wrong family for so long!" I'm unfazed. I even laugh at her words. "Fine, then!"

I'm severely allergic to many things, so my husband buys a separate villa for me. It's supposed to be sort of a nursing home. When my future daughter-in-law learns about this, she thinks my son is cheating on her. She breaks my bones to vent her anger. When she finds out I'm her future mother-in-law, she caresses her belly and looks at me smugly. "I'm already pregnant with Shawn's child. Think about whether you want this child to make it into this world." What she doesn't know is that the Ziegler family's fortune belongs to me and that Shawn Ziegler is only my adoptive son.

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 girlfriend called me frantically out of the blue, saying her mother's water had broken. She begged me to take them to the hospital. But I lazily hung up the phone and turned away, buying myself an ice cream bar instead. In my previous life, her mother had also gone into labor late in life. I had risked everything to rush her to the hospital, running twelve red lights, pushing my car to the limit until the fuel gauge nearly burst. Yet, despite all that, her mother had lost the baby. Worse still, she turned around and accused me of killing the baby. My girlfriend had hated me for it, blaming me for her mother's inability to have children again. That very night, she and her shameless relatives took over my family's house, forcing my parents into such anger and despair that they ended up in the hospital. My company went bankrupt, and as if that weren't enough, I was beaten so severely that both my legs were broken. In the end, I fell into a deep depression and took my own life. But when I opened my eyes again, I found myself reborn. This time, I uncovered the secret her mother had been hiding.

After my daughter, Mia Powell, was declared brain-dead, my husband, Liam Powell, urged me to sign the organ donation consent form. I was drowning in grief and my mind was on the verge of collapse. That was when I accidentally discovered that her attending doctor, Blair Lincoln, was Liam’s old flame. They had lied about Mia’s brain death, just to trick me into signing the form and steal her heart to save Blair’s daughter, Sophia. I watched as Liam picked Sophia up from the hospital. The three of them smiled together, like a perfect, happy family. When I confronted them, they pushed me off a building, and I died from the fall. Given a second chance, I had returned to the day I was supposed to sign the organ donation form. As I stared at Mia lying in that hospital bed, I silently vowed. This time, that scumbag and that wretch would pay with their lives for what they did to Mia.

My boyfriend and I set out on a graduation trip, but in the remote wilderness, we were kidnapped. The abductors had cruel intentions toward me, and to protect my boyfriend, I played along, buying time for him to escape and get help. After our rescue, though, a video of my assault spread online, turning me into a target of vicious gossip. "She's the woman who got it on with two guys in the wild!" "Kidnapped but so into it? What a freak!" "How does she even show her face? Shameless!" When I confronted my boyfriend about the video, he dodged the question and broke up with me. "I'm about to start at a top company. I can't be with someone so tainted." Heartbroken, I was pushed off a rooftop to my death. But when I opened my eyes, I was back on the day of the kidnapping, given a second chance to rewrite my fate.

The day before my fifth wedding anniversary to my husband, the jewelry store manager called me. He reported that the expensive jewelry I had commissioned for my husband had been accidentally damaged by the staff. However, the shop was willing to pay a penalty for breach of contract. He hung up before I could lose my temper. I immediately received a message from my husband and $6 million in compensation. [So you're the shameless homewrecker. How dare you keep my husband's contact information! I'm warning you: I've given you the money, now get lost! Otherwise, I'll have to teach you a lesson!] The woman smugly sent me an intimate photo to follow up on her threats. Looking at the familiar side profile, I immediately called my biological parents, who were high-ranking businesspeople. "Dad, Mom, put the Shelby family's investment on hold for now. I'm getting a big gift ready for them!"

I was shattered to learn that my precious child was not mine. My own flesh and blood was gone forever. I was not going to crumble under the weight of the revelation or consume myself with hysteria or grief. Instead, I channeled my pain into putting my mother-in-law behind bars and breaking my husband before moving on with my life.