Sweethearts Cradle

I've been with Hansen Fullerton for seven years. One day, he tells me he's sick of me and dumps me for a younger, more vivacious woman. I don't kick up a fuss this time. Instead, I throw away my ring and cut up the wedding gown I've just bought. Then, I take a red-eye flight away from Gold City. His friends place bets on how long it'll take for me to return and beg for reconciliation. Hansen sneers. "She'll be back in less than three days, crying and begging me to take her back." However, more than three days pass without any news from me. Hansen loses his cool and calls me for the first time. "You'd better come back once you've had enough of this, Christine." All he hears is a man's low chuckle on the other end of the line. "You shouldn't have taken this long to pacify a woman, Mr. Fullerton. Look at how someone's already taken her away from you." Hansen snarls, "Tell Christine to answer the phone!" Landon Shore lowers his head to kiss me. "She can't—she's still out of it. I have to kiss her awake first."

News of my groom's death arrived, but I shed no tears. Instead, I quickly reclaimed his shares and had his death officially recorded. Why? I was reborn. In my previous life, my family had adopted three boys to accompany me since childhood, all of whom were potential candidates to be my husband. As the heiress of the wealthiest family in the country, my father feared I wouldn't be happy marrying someone else we weren't familiar with. I chose Jayden, the most capable of the three brothers—but just three days after the wedding, he passed away. In my grief, I gave up on remarriage. With Jesse and Joel's persuasion, I lived the rest of my life as a widow. Upon reaching eighty, I went to Massalia, where we once pledged our love. There, I encountered Jayden…who had supposedly died sixty years ago! He was living with my maid, who had gone missing decades ago, surrounded by children and grandchildren, living a happy and contented life. When I realized I had been deceived my whole life, I was so enraged that my vision suddenly darkened. I died of a brain hemorrhage on the spot. When I awoke, I had returned to the day the news of his death had arrived. Let's see how a man who should have died intended to continue living!

Two marriages. Four lives. One tangled web of betrayal, secrets, and revenge. Justin and Kyla were once college sweethearts who had nothing but love and ambition. Together, they built everything from the ground up—a business, a home, a life that seemed unbreakable. Ella and Zach, on the other hand, were forced into a loveless marriage to merge empires and protect family wealth. With money to burn but no affection between them, their union was a gilded cage. One summer, a chance meeting between Justin and Ella at a luxury hotel ignites a reckless affair. What should have been a fleeting fling spirals into something darker—an obsession neither of them can walk away from. But when Kyla and Zach cross paths—two wounded hearts bonded by betrayal—their cold business deal begins to spark with unexpected fire. They both want justice. They both want payback. But what if, in the process of destroying the people who broke them, they find something neither expected? Something dangerously close to love. But could anything happen between these two?

When I'm 25, I learn about Hendrick Jefferson living it up with my stepsister, Yvette Rivera. So, I go to my father and ask to marry Hendrick's brother, Jeremy Jefferson. In my past life, I married Hendrick as I wished, yet he hooked up with Yvette the day after our wedding. He brought her everywhere with him, announcing to the world that she was his female companion. He told her to smash the necklace my late mother left for me and indulged in her when she pushed me into the pool. He even hired online trolls to spread rumors about me. Yvette came to me to gloat. "I'm the one Ricky loves—he only married you to make his family shut up! He didn't want to touch you when you were younger, let alone now that you're 25 and old. You need to learn to know your place!" Now that I've been reborn, I decide to give them what they want. Unexpectedly, Hendrick crashes my wedding with Jeremy, claiming that I'm the one he truly loves.

My girlfriend keeps saying that she comes from a poor family, but she gives her childhood sweetheart a yacht on our anniversary. I text her to ask about this, but all she does is berate me. "Who do you think you are? How dare you stick your nose into my business! I'll give anyone whatever I want. My money, my call. Get lost!" Unbeknownst to her, I'm covered in blood on the other end of the line.

Due to one phone call, Carl Lorde left me behind in a deserted area on the highway, even though I had been pregnant for four months. I walked to a rest area to ask for help, but in the end, I was unable to keep the baby. I broke down and called Carl, but he kept rejecting my calls. The next day, his childhood friend posted an intimate photo of them lying side by side in bed, with a caption. [With just one call, you’d come over to my side no matter what.] Everyone was waiting for me, Carl’s girlfriend, to make a joke of myself. However, I just wiped away my tears, liked the post, and commented, [Congratulations, you two are a match made in the trash dump. I hope you rot in hell together.]

Running late for work, I had no choice but to call an Uber. As luck would have it, my boss turned out to be my Uber driver. We stared at each other awkwardly. He raised an eyebrow and asked, "Let me guess... running late?" Me: ... Later, he docked my pay. I gave him a one-star review.

It was on our wedding night when my husband stole my heartblood to save his childhood sweetheart. His lips were on my forehead as his dagger carved my chest open. "Good girl. This is the last time, I promise," he breathed bewitchingly, his scalding tears dripping on my skin. "Once she's better, let's consummate our marriage." That was what he said, but I had heard it countless times before. In my despair, I used my last ounce of strength to tug on his sleeve. He urgently drained my blood to save another woman, not even looking my way as he did. What he didn't know was that it was my last drop of heartblood. And I was going to die.

Leonard Burton and I are childhood sweethearts, bound by a family-arranged marriage. After we marry, we live a loving, harmonious life. In a terrible accident, he even gives up his only chance at survival to save me. After Leonard's death, we find a journal among his belongings. In it, he records the three years he was missing after falling off a cliff—years spent with another woman he deeply loved. But his parents had forcibly separated them and arranged our marriage instead. Unbeknownst to anyone, he had continued to protect that woman from afar, silently and faithfully. At the funeral, Leonard's mother, Charlotte Newman, is inconsolable. "Leonard, it's all my fault. Would you still be alive if I'd let you marry Yelena back then?" His father, Samuel Burton, glares at me with hatred. "He fell off that cliff saving you. He died in that crash shielding you. Why do you bring him nothing but harm? Why aren't you the one who's dead?" Yes, why is it not me who's dead? I look at Leonard's familiar, smiling face on his gravestone before running at it and smashing my head on it. When I open my eyes again, I'm taken back to when he just returned from that small fishing village. This time, I choose to let him go and give him what he wants. Finally, I see Leonard again.

When my son asked me about his father while crying once again, I pointed at the television. Samuel Shaw, who had just made it into the top three of the wealth rankings, was being interviewed. He said he had achieved fame and success, and the person he hated most was his childhood sweetheart and ex-wife. “She abandoned me when I was gravely ill, all for the sake of money. But it was that very betrayal that pushed me to rise from the ashes in my darkest hour.” The reporters grew excited and suggested contacting me on the spot. "She must be filled with regret, begging Mr. Shaw to take her back!" My phone rang right then. I answered and immediately asked for money. "Samuel, my son is sick. Could you lend me sixty thousand dollars?" He abruptly hung up the phone and said with a cold laugh, "Knowing she's living so miserably gives me peace of mind." Looking at the kidney failure report in my hand, I silently wept. Six years ago, I secretly donated one of my kidneys to Samuel. Now, his son was suffering from the same disease and didn't have much time left.