Waters First

When I had only three months left to live after taking the cursed blade meant for my husband Lucian, his first love Lily returned. When I endured the pain and prepared a dinner to commemorate our anniversary, he did not come back, he was having a steamy car session with Lily. When I went to the hospital alone to buy medicine, he was accompanying Lili for her pregnancy check-up. I pretended not to have noticed, I just silently played the role of a perfect wife, and wrote him four letters as a gift for our anniversary. After I die, he saw the gifts I left behind and went completely insane.

The emergency center I worked in went haywire as the typhoon closed in on our town. That night, my husband’s first love made seven emergency calls in a row to me. However, she did not say anything when I picked up. By the eighth call, I thought it was a prank caller, so I gave them a piece of my mind. Then, I heard my husband’s angry voice. “Melinda! This is the eighth time Sadie's called you for help! Haven’t you made her suffer enough?!” After that fiasco, he decided to avenge Sadie by taping my mouth, tying my wrists and legs up, and throwing me into our basement for three whole days, despite it being flooded with seawater, I begged for mercy, but it was to no avail. “You knew Sadie couldn’t talk because she hurt her throat, yet you still hung up on her! I'm going to make sure you feel the same hopelessness she felt!" Those three days left me with a collection of severe infections. I ended up having to remove my kidney. Even after all that, that man still had the gall to kneel by my bed and beg me to give him another chance.

My husband, Mark Thompson, and I went hiking. After eating some wild berries I picked, he was poisoned and died. When I got home, a woman named Sarah Miller and her son, Tommy Miller, showed up at my door. It turned out Mark had given them our house and car. On top of that, he owed them a huge amount of money. I ended up giving them all the savings I had. To care for my sick mother-in-law, Judith Thompson, I worked three jobs. I was surviving on basic meals like bread and butter. After years of exhausting work, I collapsed in the hospital. Judith told the doctors to stop my treatment. Just as I was about to die, Mark walked into the ward with Sarah and Tommy in his arms. He tossed five dollars at me. “Thanks for taking care of my mom all these years.” That was when I realized Mark had faked his death just to be with Sarah and their love child. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day we went hiking together.

ONE NIGHT. THREE BILLIONAIRES. A FORTUNE SHE NEVER KNEW EXISTED. Elena Marshall's life implodes in a single evening—cheated on, fired, and left with nothing. When a mysterious stranger rescues her from an attack, their night together awakens something wild and desperate inside her. But one night of passion becomes three dangerous obsessions. Ryder Cross—the reckless rebel who makes her forget everything on the back of his motorcycle. Dante Moretti—the possessive protector who installs her in his safe house and watches her with predatory intensity. Julian Hayes—the charming hotelier who makes her feel precious for the first time in her life. Three powerful men. Three explosive connections. And Elena caught in the middle of their ruthless competition. But as their pursuit intensifies, cracks appear in her reality. Someone is following her. Her past doesn't add up. And a letter arrives addressed to "Elena Ashford"—a name that doesn't belong to her. Until she discovers it does. Twenty years ago, billionaire Marcus Ashford was murdered and his five-year-old daughter vanished. Now Elena's memories are returning in violent fragments: blood on marble floors, a man dying, someone carrying her into the darkness. She's the missing heiress. And the three men desperate to claim her? They all have ulterior motives tied to the night her father was killed.

My husband, Jonathan Rivers, was a notorious playboy in Polesburg's elite circles. Beautiful women surrounded him constantly, yet he claimed to have fallen for me at first sight, saying it was a love that would last forever. He dismissed all the other women around him for my sake. Everyone said I was his destined soulmate. Seven years into our marriage, I had seven abortions for him, simply because he said he did not like children. Then on Father's Day, I saw him on his secretary's social media feed. The same man who claimed to be away on business was there with a child beside him, calling him "Daddy" loudly. It turned out that when he said he did not like children, he meant that he did not like children with me. I dialed his number through tears. "Do you want another wife?"

My boyfriend of eight years secretly plans the grand wedding I've always dreamed of. Just as I'm overwhelmed with joy, he sends me to a landslide zone to replace his true love. Turns out, the entire wedding is for her. Heartbroken, I walk away. But just as I enter the experimental site, a second landslide hits. At the wedding, he finally panics when news breaks that I've gone missing.

The night before my wedding, I was in a terrible car accident. I fell into a coma, and my body was broken and bruised. While I lay unconscious, my fiancé called off the engagement and married his childhood sweetheart instead. My mother went to demand justice on my behalf—but never made it back. She died in a sudden, brutal accident along the way. In that moment of chaos, it was my childhood friend who stepped in. He knelt on one knee outside the hospital with a wedding gift of a hundred thousand dollars and quietly handled my mother's funeral. I was wheeled into surgery. I lived, but was left with a permanent disability. And still, he promised to stay by my side, for life. I was deeply moved. We got married. But five years later, I overheard him talking to his secretary. "Mr. Davidson, you arranged for someone to hit your wife with a car, just so Lucy could marry the one she loved. Aren't you afraid she'll find out?" "For Lucy, there's nothing I wouldn't do. I've already given Ruby the rest of my life. Isn't that enough?" I covered my mouth, holding back a sob. Only then did I realize—the marriage I believed in had been a lie all along. So be it. I'll disappear and let him be with the woman he truly loves.

I've been in a relationship with Ralph Green for seven years. However, he tells me he's sick of me. He finds himself a younger and prettier woman. I don't break down or cause a scene this time. I merely turn and leave. He's confident that I won't leave him because of how much I love him. Later, he finally finds a way to contact me. "Has it been fun pretending like you've gone missing, Mabel? Hurry up and come back once you've had enough of this fit." I'm not awake. The person beside me, Ambrose Steele, takes my phone away. He holds the phone up and deliberately leans down to kiss my cheek. "Mabes can't come to the phone. She's exhausted from last night."

I throw myself into cryogenic research so I can keep my only family on this Earth. However, halfway through it, my fiancé embezzles all the funds to propose to Sophia Kensington, his true love. I panic when I see the ice in Mom's brain start to melt. I have no money to continue with the research. I'm in utter despair when Leonard Shaw, a rising star in the biomedical field, comes to me with millions of dollars in funding. The research can continue. Just three days later, something goes wrong with the experiment. Mom explodes in cryogenic chamber. I'm shattered by this, but Leonard stays by my side throughout it all. He helps me move past this and continue with my research. I think he's the light of my life until I overhear his conversation with his secretary. "Is it worth it marrying someone you don't love for Ms. Kensington's sake, Mr. Shaw?" "Sophia is my life. I'm willing to do anything as long as she's healthy and happy." "But will Mrs. Shaw still continue helping Ms. Kensington if she learns you tampered with the data and killed her mother?" "She'll never find out. Besides, I'm already using the rest of my life to make it up to her. That's more than enough…" It turns out Leonard's love is just a conspiracy. My heart turns to ashes in that moment. I sign an agreement to seal my body cryogenically. He'll never find me ever again.

To help Sean pay off his high-interest loans, I sold my house. He hugged me tightly, crying, and promised to marry me on next year's Valentine's Day. It happened to be Valentine's Day when I paid off the last of his debt. However, what I saw shattered me—he was in bed with another woman. He arrogantly mocked me: "What are you staring at? You're not much different from her, are you? Go buy some rubbers for us." That's when it hit me—he had lied to me. Later, I agreed to marry the man my parents had chosen for me before they passed away. On the wedding day, Sean and his friends came to mock me: "Ella, do you think that I'll marry you if you just wear a wedding dress and follow me around? You're so shameless!" However, everything changed when the priest announced the exchange of rings. At that moment, as Sean's uncle knelt and placed the ring on my finger, I saw a flash of fear in Sean's eyes.