Mistress

My secretary replaced me on my wedding day, walking down the aisle in a white wedding gown. The man I had loved for ten years threw the bridesmaid dress in my face and ordered me to wear it instead. "She is the bride now. You'll be next," he said coldly. My grandmother was so furious that she fell ill on the spot. Meanwhile, he and the secretary smiled brightly as they completed the wedding ceremony. After the grand wedding, the secretary posted photos of herself in her wedding gown on social media. The comments were overwhelmingly congratulatory. [Today is such a beautiful day, I finally got what I wanted. I hope those who try to ruin someone else's relationship will wake up soon.] She wrote. Chester Morrison replied to her post: [It is a great day. Don't ruin your good mood by some trash.] When I returned home, holding my grandmother's photo, who had passed away, I found them tangled together on the bedspread my grandmother had lovingly sewn for me, the one with a pair of Swan that symbolizes eternal love.

On Valentine's Day, my husband Ethan Scott’s assistant, Taylor Winston, gifted me 360 used condoms. She leaned close to my ear and whispered that this was Ethan’s favorite brand. Then, in front of everyone, she teased, "Valentine's Day calls for some explosive fun. I hope you don't mind, Claire." Disgust churned in my stomach, and I couldn’t hold back—I vomited on the spot. Embarrassed that I had humiliated him, Ethan snapped, "It was just a joke. Why are you making such a big deal out of it?" Three months pregnant, I was so enraged that a patch of red stained my pants. I begged him to take me to the hospital. But Taylor chimed in, "It's just her physiological reaction." Furious, Ethan heartlessly locked me in the car. He spent three carefree days with Taylor before finally remembering me. But when he saw me again, the usually composed CEO of Scott Enterprise completely lost his mind.

Zacharias Goldman's second-in-command was a young and beautiful Beta. His friends, thinking he had never done anything to the Beta, often laughed at his incompetence. "She's a cute female. Are you sure you can hold it back?" Zacharias leaned into the back of the couch lazily. His voice was oozing with nonchalance. "I can't. She's… delicious." That shocked the crowd. Mikhail Crosswing, his best friend, whistled. "And I thought you were loyal to the end. Loyal to Lucilla. She's going to raise hell if she finds out." Zacharias chortled. "Ah, yes, she can be a headache when she does that. That's why you boys need to cover for me. The bonding ceremony is in three days. I don't want anything to go wrong." The boys cackled and promised they would keep their mouths sealed. I was standing right outside the door. I heard everything, but all I did was leave in silence. The mate ring was still in my hand, but the bonding ceremony was not going to happen.

When I was twenty-two, my grandmother’s best friend Emma Bray—the richest woman in the country—places several photos of her granddaughters in front of me. She wants me to select one of them as my wife. Surprisingly enough, I decide to choose Raven Bray. Everyone is stunned, to say the least. After all, they all know that I have a crush on Lenora Bray instead. The feelings I have for her are so strong that I've decided that she's the only woman I'm willing to marry. In the previous life, I got to marry Lenora as I wished. She was able to inherit most of the assets from her grandma thanks to the marriage. But after our marriage, Lenora cheated on me with my older brother, Jerome Hatfield. Enraged, my parents sent Jerome overseas. Lenora thought I was the one responsible for Jerome's disappearance, so she hated me with all her heart. Since then, she had kept a bunch of lovers by her side. All of them resembled Jerome in a way. Because of that, I became severely depressed. To make things worse, Lenora swapped my medication out for poison. Eventually, I died because of the slow-acting poison. Now that I'm reborn, I decide to grant Lenora and Jerome's wish of being together. But what I don't expect is… for Lenora to be reborn as well.

My adopted brother made a name for himself during the potion competition by using a potion he had stolen from me. No one expected the competition to be a ruse, but it turned out to be a scheme to find a husband for the serpent clan's youngest princess. She was born barren, cruel, and hideous. That very night, the serpent clan delivered a marriage contract, demanding that the creator of the potion take the princess as his wife. When my fiancée heard the news, she panicked and bonded with my adopted brother on the spot. After sealing their bond, he lifted his shirt, proudly showing me the wolf mark carved into his back. "Your fiancée's mine now, bro. What are you going to do? You'll turn twenty-five in three days. If no one marries you by then, you'll be randomly matched to one of those older, violent nomad beastwomen." He was wrong. I still had one choice left. I found my parents in the front hall, once again cleaning up the mess he had made. "If he won't marry the serpent princess," I said, "then I will."

At the celebration where Lorenzo Alvarez is crowned the new mafia boss, his men arrange a few performances. A dancer in a backless top and short skirt twists around the pole under the lights. "Don't look," he murmurs, covering my eyes with his hand. "This kind of cheap entertainment isn't worthy of you." His men jump in immediately. "Lorenzo still spoils Ms. Valenti after all these years. That kind of devotion is rare. We're so jealous." "A man as loyal and single-minded as Lorenzo is hard to find." I rest a hand on my belly, planning to tell him tonight that I am pregnant. But when I return from the restroom, I see the same man who had just held me in his arms leaning back in his chair while the dancer straddles his lap. Lorenzo slips his business card and a thick fold of cash into the waistband of her skirt. He laughs, relaxed and unbothered. "Isabella is wonderful, sure, but life needs a little passion. This ragazza is just something new. A bit of fun. "Keep your mouths shut. Don't go running to Isabella and upset her. Otherwise, you'll have a problem." Cold rushes through me. I do not approach or confront Lorenzo. I simply take out my phone and answer the email I have been avoiding for days. "I agree to participate in the confidential experiment."

I discover that I'm a homewrecker after dating my boyfriend for a decade. We're looking at marital homes when his wife seeks me out. She beats me up in public and rips my hair out, yet all he does is hurry to her after I've pushed her to the floor. Why? Because she's pregnant. Later, he gets a divorce and begs me to marry him. "I'm begging you, Madison. Forgive me this once."

Everyone in Oceanton knew that mob boss Jared Pierce was deeply in love with me. No one feared my disappearance more than he did. Even if bullets were raining down on him, he'd still find a way to contact me, just to make sure I felt safe. But on the night before our wedding, he didn't come home. When he finally returned, he dropped to his knees, a bruised and weakened woman cradled in his arms. "Rosalia! Melody took the drug just to save me! I can't just watch her die! So I had no choice but to sleep with her." Terrified that I wouldn't forgive him, Jared drew six wounds into his arm. Blood soaked through his shirt in an instant. As soon as the wedding banquet ended, I heard his men chuckling and teasing. "The boss didn't even take off his wedding outfit before rushing to see Melody. Just how seductive is his lover?" Jared’s low, sultry voice followed. "Last time I stayed with her, I didn’t come back for three days and nights. Take a guess." In shock and despair, I called out the system. "I want to leave this world!" The system's cold voice replied, "After your exit, this world will erase all traces of your existence. Counting down… Seven days."

When my wife brought her lover home for the fifth time, I decided enough was enough. I said nothing, not a word of complaint or protest. Instead, I superglued the windows shut and locked the bedroom door from the outside. From the bedroom came the muffled sounds of her little escapade, breathless and feverish, carrying through the walls like a shameful melody no one asked to hear. Calmly, I sat in the living room, picked up the phone, and called my mother-in-law. "Jessie," I said, putting on my best tone of urgency, "it's bad—real bad! Your daughter's locked herself in the bedroom and says she's gonna end it all!"

On the eve of our wedding, Trevin Hoffman's childhood sweetheart, a mercenary who had vanished for five years, was struck by a deadly love spell during a mission. When her teammates dragged her back to him, she was covered in blood, barely clinging to life. Trevin, usually calm and composed, lost control. Ignoring my protests, he locked himself in with her for the entire night. I sat outside that door, sleepless until dawn. The next morning, when I demanded an explanation in hysteria, he shielded her with his body and snapped, his mask completely gone. "I couldn't just watch Wren die. One wild night before marriage, what's so wrong with that?" At that moment, I was disillusioned. My love for him vanished in an instant.