u/Ill_Gap_3889

I was born with a natural milk scent that calmed any baby who came near me.

The owner of a postnatal care center was so amazed by my gift that he offered me a job on the spot, with an annual salary of $120,000.

Instead, I turned him down and left for Switzerland to study financial engineering.

That’s because, in my past life before I was reborn, I had been a live-in newborn care specialist for Arthur Sterling, the wealthiest man in New England.

I was hired to care for his daughter, who had just given birth, and her newborn baby girl.

At the hundred-day party for the baby, a woman’s lace bra that carried a strange scent fell out of Arthur’s live-in son-in-law’s suit jacket.

When confronted, that bastard swore I had tried to seduce him, and that when he turned me down, I planted my own underwear in his pocket to get back at him.

I tried my best to explain, but because the bra carried the exact same scent as my body, Arthur’s daughter had me dragged outside and set her Belgian Malinois on me.

When my parents came to demand justice, they were weighted down and dumped into the East River.

When I opened my eyes again, I turned down that six-figure salary, crossed the ocean, and worked my way up to become a chief investment strategist.

I landed a job at a global finance firm with an annual salary of five hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I was invited to the hundred-day party of my company’s partner’s grandson, which I attended as part of a professional assessment.

But at the party, that same bra fell out of Arthur’s son-in-law’s jacket again.

When Arthur confronted him, he stayed calm, scanned the crowd, and pointed directly at me.

“She climbed into my bed. I rejected her, so she shoved her own underwear into my pocket to frame me.”

“I swear under oath, I have never done anything to betray Sierra.”

The door was heavy. I shoved it open with force.

The man and woman in front of the exam room heard the noise and turned back together.

They saw me.

When Adrian Whitmore realized it was me, panic flashed through his eyes, but in the next second, it became concern.

“Nora, are you sick?”

Adrian crossed the distance in a few strides, grabbed me, and anxiously checked me from head to toe. Only when he saw I was fine did he let out a breath.

“You scared me to death. I thought you weren’t feeling well, baby.”

He cared about my health more than I did.

My father had died of cancer, and the doctor had said there was a chance it could run in the family.

Adrian had been so scared he couldn’t sleep for days.

If I sneezed, he would watch me like I might break.

I looked at the man in front of me. The worry in his eyes didn’t seem fake.

“Nora, when did you get to the hospital?”

He asked carefully.

I stepped slightly out of his arms.

“Not long ago.”

“Didn’t you want a child?”

“I came in for a checkup.”

I lifted the form in my hand.

“What did the doctor say?”

He held his breath.

“Everything’s normal.”

“Who is she?”

I pointed at the woman who had stood up nervously the second I appeared, looking like she wished she could disappear.

Adrian kept his eyes on me. He didn’t even spare her a glance.

“Her?”

“She’s someone Julian knows. She wasn’t feeling well, and I happened to pass by, so I drove her to the hospital.”

He lied without changing his expression.

Julian Foster was a friend he had grown close to over the past few years.

Without a sound, Adrian pushed the woman onto Julian.

He looked so honest. If I hadn’t heard the conversation between them, I wouldn’t have found a single trace of anything wrong.

He fooled me like I was an idiot.

I forced down the ache in my chest and kept my face calm.

“So she’s Julian’s friend.”

Adrian saw that I was suspicious. He put his arm around me and turned to the woman across from us.

“Sorry, Miss Shaw. My wife isn’t feeling well. I’ll take her home. You can contact Julian.”

The woman raised her head, a gentle smile tugging at her lips.

“Okay. I already called Julian. I’m sorry, Mr. Whitmore, I took up your time.”

“Thank you for helping me. I’ll thank you properly another day.”

Her gaze landed on me without the slightest hint of discomfort, as if she had never known who I was.

“Mrs. Whitmore, I’m sorry for the trouble.”

Considerate, graceful, polite.

No one would ever imagine there was anything between them.

My engagement dinner with Elias was simple. We had only invited our parents and a few important relatives from both sides.

The plan was to have a meal together and make our marriage plans official.

If nothing went wrong, we would file our civil marriage paperwork that afternoon, hold the wedding afterward, and I would become Donna of the Whitmore branch.

Not the Vittori Family.

The Whitmore branch.

It had all happened too quickly, and I still felt a little dazed.

Elias, the man who was about to become my husband, was sitting beside me, carefully peeling shrimp for me.

When the relatives teased him for already doting on his future wife, he only blushed and laughed softly.

He placed the peeled shrimp in a small bowl, pushed it toward me with easy composure, and mixed a dipping sauce for me.

At that moment, like so many moments before, I felt lucky that I had met someone as good as him.

I was about to put a sauce-dipped shrimp into my mouth when the door to the private dining room was suddenly shoved open from the outside.

Everyone turned toward the door almost at the same time, and I was no exception.

But the moment I saw who had come in, I froze for a second. Then I calmly looked away and turned my head to the side.

Dominic’s voice reached my ears. “Rafe? What are you doing here?”

My first reaction was confusion. Why did Dominic know Rafe?

The Whitmore family was an old-line family in the Manhattan underworld, but compared with the Vittori Family, which ruled Manhattan, they were still worlds apart.

By all rights, they should not have belonged to the same circle at all.

“Your son is getting engaged. How could I not come?” Rafe said. “Isn’t that right, Dad?”

He bit down hard on the word “Dad.”

I couldn’t help looking up at Elias’s father, Dominic. When I looked closely, Dominic and Rafe did share a slight resemblance.

He was Rafe’s father?

Then didn’t that make Elias Rafe’s brother?

After all those twists and turns, I had somehow become my first love’s sister-in-law?

My boss had a nasty habit of tricking me into wearing tight, short skirts to serve drinks to sleazy clients. Then she’d drop hints that I was single and available, practically encouraging them to put their hands on me.

She called it a “character test” to see if they were worth doing business with.

Once the client took the bait, she’d burst in like a righteous avenger, throw a drink in his face, and then give me a tearful lecture, “Are that desperate for money? You’d throw away all your dignity for a sale?”

She loved stepping on my face to build up her own image as a classy, powerful woman.

This time, she’d specially prepared a gown with a neckline so low it was almost illegal. She was pushing me to toast a big-shot client with powerful connections, threatening to dock my perfect attendance bonus for three months if I refused.

But when I saw that familiar, cold face at the head of the table, I was the one who almost laughed.

If my brother saw me toasting in this outfit, the company would probably have my last name on it by tomorrow.

After marrying the same man three times, I still hadn't learned a damn thing.

So when I came downstairs and found his secretary in my kitchen — again — wearing an apron and cooking breakfast like she owned the place, I went straight to the dining table and flipped it over.

A stream of comments flashed across my vision.

[The FL totally earned this rebirth!! One tiny move, and the villainess nuked her own marriage for the third time. She's killing it!]

[This drama queen villainess is always bossing the ML around and playing the divorce card every five seconds. She's FINALLY burned through all his patience.]

[After divorce number four, the villainess just sits around like an idiot, waiting for the ML to crawl back the way he always does. She has NO clue the FL already locked him down with a baby. Then the villainess dies alone in some crappy rental lol]

The words knocked me off balance. But my anger moved faster than my shock — I aimed a slap right at Julian Vance's face.

Jason Hayes realized I was no longer obeying his every whim.

For the new semester's scholarship, I only remembered after filling out the form that I hadn't asked him if I should yield it to someone else.

When the department organized a team-building trip, I paid my own fee and didn't go to his house to act as a free maid.

Even for my weekend part-time job, I negotiated the hourly wage and shifts all by myself.

As a wealthy heir, Jason was visibly displeased when he found out.

"Why didn't you tell me you were short on money?"

"Give me your QR code, I'll transfer some to you."

I blurted out instinctively: "I can make my own money. I won't trouble you, Mr. Hayes, thank you."

As soon as the words left my mouth, we both froze.

After all, just half a month ago, I was still the tail-wagging, begging dog he called me.

The day our SAT scores went live, I had dinner with Leo Calloway's family to celebrate.

　　　　His mother Diane Calloway said, half-joking, “Sasha, any plans to date in college? If so, you two should coordinate your applications. And honestly, you could do a lot worse than our Leo, you know.”　　

　　The secret I’d buried deep inside me was suddenly dragged into the light.

　　My face flushed hot, and my eyes instinctively flicked toward Leo.

　　He didn’t look up.

　　But I caught it, an unmistakable flicker of disgust on his downturned face.

　　In eighteen years, it was the first time I’d ever seen that expression on him.

　　I stood there, frozen, completely at a loss for how to respond.

　　“Oh, come on, love is personal. Let’s not meddle with the kids.”

　　My mom smoothed things over and steered the conversation elsewhere.

　　Leo didn’t say another word for the rest of the meal.

　　That night, I went home, opened my list of target schools, and quietly crossed off the one I’d copied from the back wall of our classroom, Leo’s dream college.

Chapter 1 Christmas Eve. Ethan Vale — my boyfriend of three years — invited me to his family's home for dinner.

He drugged me before we even sat down to eat.

"Elena, they'll cut off my hands if I don't settle my marker."

"I didn't have a choice. I had to hand you over to the Bellandi syndicate."

"Don't blame me for this. Blame your face. You're a dead ringer for the woman our Don's never gotten over."

"My marker gets wiped, and you? You could end up living like a queen. Everybody wins."

The Vales drove me to an estate I knew too well, my head still swimming from whatever they'd slipped into my water.

Because unless I was seriously wrong, this was my uncle's own turf.

My uncle adored my mother — his own sister. In his entire life, no woman had ever mattered more.

The last man foolish enough to cross my mother had been my own father. My uncle shipped him to the Ashwood Mines for months on end.

So who was really screwed here? Take a wild guess.

To celebrate my husband making it safely through another one-week memory-reset cycle, I slipped our anniversary ring onto his finger myself.

He wrapped his arms around me, but the next words out of his mouth froze me where I stood.

“Babe, the ring is beautiful, but I can’t keep it.”

I let go of him in shock. “Why?”

He took the ring off and placed it back in my palm, his expression calm, almost relieved.

“I fell for the grad student I supervise. We spent the whole night in the lab last night. We slept together, and now I have to do right by her.”

“She’s all I can think about. If I celebrate our anniversary with you and keep wearing this ring, she’ll cry.”

My throat tightened so hard I couldn’t make a sound.

That girl was the underprivileged student I’d sponsored through college for four years. She was also the woman who had knowingly become the other woman and destroyed my first marriage.

His voice was apologetic, yet somehow innocent. “Tessa, I know this is unfair to you, but she’s really pitiful.”

“She’s been the only thing on my mind these past seven days. Now I finally understand why your ex-husband chose her back then.”

“You helped her once already, so why not see it through? Be generous and accept her, okay?”

The ring hit the floor, and something in my heart broke with it.

But he had forgotten one thing. I had only ever given him ten chances. If he still wasn’t better by the tenth, I was done with him.

Good for him.

This was the tenth.

The cops had barely finished scattering my street stall when my ex-husband pulled up.

Jason Harrington got out, looked at the mess, then at my daughter Lily, and sighed.

“Let’s get remarried,” he said. “She’s too young for this.”

I didn’t even think about it. I said yes.

After that, I stopped picking fights. I stopped losing my mind over every little thing.

Lily stopped clinging to his leg every time the daughter of the woman he grew up with came near him.

When he stayed out all night with Emily and Hailey Dawson, we didn’t call. Didn’t text.

When we ran into them in public, we just quietly turned the other way.

We became the version of us he always claimed he wanted.

So why did his eyes go red?

“Jess,” he said, his voice rough, “why aren’t you angry?”

Then, to Lily, “Sweetheart, why don’t you come give Daddy some love anymore?”

“Your mother was the other woman, so what does that make you?”

Elliot Ford slid the custom wedding ring onto my finger, then asked me that out of nowhere.

I stared at him in shock. “Elliot, what are you talking about?”

“That makes you the other woman too, baby.”

I had no idea what he meant, but he looked completely serious. “Why don’t you become my secret mistress?”

“We hired a new executive assistant at the company. She’s capable, she’s beautiful, and I want to marry her.”

“Then what am I supposed to be?”

A fake look of apology spread across his face. “Your mother knew he was married and still chose to be the other woman back then. Why can’t you do the same?”

I bought myself a companion-model succubus and tried to get him into bed nearly every night.

He turned me down every single time.

I'd tried everything to break through his defenses. I begged, I schemed, I came dangerously close to crossing a line.

When none of it worked, I messaged customer service. All I got back was one frantic apology after another.

[So sorry, hun, we checked and it turns out we shipped you the wrong model! He's a domestic-type succubus. He doesn't do… that.]

[Please, PLEASE do not try anything with him again. By law, a succubus can't be forced — if he hits his breaking point, he could snap and seriously hurt you!]

A chill crawled down my spine. I grabbed Liam Quinn's pillow and blanket and tossed them out of my room immediately.

What I didn't expect was him showing up at my door. The man who had never once sought me out was suddenly there, knocking, his voice low and roughened at the edges, with something in it I almost didn't recognize.

“So, what — you don't want me in here anymore?”

***

“N-no. I mean — yes.” My eyes went everywhere except his face, shame flushing hotly up my neck.

I scrambled for an excuse. “I haven't been sleeping well lately. I need the bed to myself for a while.”

Liam held my gaze for a beat, a crease forming between his brows. He didn't say anything.

He turned and headed for the guest room.

Relief slipped out of me in one quiet breath. But right behind it, something small and aching curled up in its place.

The truth was, I'd always felt it — the distance Liam kept between us. He flinched from every touch I initiated and shut down every pass I made.

Sharing my bed was something he'd only agreed to after I'd stooped low enough to threaten him. I pulled the owner card, told him I'd get another succubus if he wouldn't even sleep in the same room.

That got him through the door, but barely. He'd show up scowling and take the very edge of the mattress every night.

He'd curl up with his back to me, like my nearness was something he just had to put up with. I used to tell myself I'd just ended up with some rare slow-burn model, the kind you had to be patient with.

I figured he'd warm up eventually. Turns out, he was never going to feel a spark for me at all.

He wasn't playing hard to get. He was genuinely, completely off-limits.

And he'd never felt a thing for me, either. Every shameless thing I'd done over the past few months came rushing back all at once, and my face burned at the memory.

Another message pinged in from customer service.

[We're SO sorry, this was totally on us!! Please don't leave a bad review.]

[Would you like us to process a full refund?]

“No,” I typed back, still a little dazed. “He's not what I ordered, but honestly, he's kind of amazing at everything else.”

Because Liam was. He made pancakes so fluffy they practically floated off the plate, made the sheets smell like they'd been dried on a clothesline in the middle of some meadow, and somehow ironed my clothes so flawlessly I never had to deal with a single wrinkle.

I'd gotten used to having him around. More attached than I wanted to admit.

[Got it, hun! Then we'll send you a replacement companion-type succubus on the house~ ]

I wish I could say I hesitated. A companion type was what I'd wanted from the start.

If Liam wasn't an option, there was nothing stopping me from having someone else, right?

I fired off an “OK” before I could second-guess it. The ache in my chest eased, just a little.

During college.

Lorenzo brought two breakfasts every single day.

One for me, one for my roommate Camilla.

But mine never changed: a croissant and black coffee.

Camilla’s was always lavish—eggs Benedict, smoked salmon, fresh raspberries, even hand-poured coffee.

On my birthday, he gave us both gifts.

Four years straight, I got nothing but cheap greeting cards.

Camilla got VIP concert tickets, a custom diamond-studded photo, a white gown, and a tiny Cartier ring.

Then came graduation trip. We three arrived at the station.

They swept through the gate, but I was left standing outside.

Lorenzo slapped his forehead and forced a guilty smile.

“I only booked tickets for Camilla. I forgot yours.”

“We’re already through. Don’t waste money. I’ll take you somewhere nice next time.”

Camilla patted her chest and grinned.

“Don’t worry, babe. I’ll keep an eye on him for you.”

I watched them walk away together, laughing loud.

A bitter laugh burned in my throat.

I didn’t want to play dumb anymore. I called my father—the Don of the Rosetti family.

“Dad. That marriage you wanted after my graduation? I accept.”

“That internship for Lorenzo, the one I recommended… take it away from him.”

My sister, the pack's beloved future Luna, was dying of kidney failure.

Axel, the Supreme Alpha and the man I had secretly loved my entire life, used his Alpha Command to force the pen into my trembling hand.

"Sign the papers, Jana," he growled, his eyes glowing with a predatory red light. "Stop being selfish. Kyleigh needs a transplant, and you are the only match."

I tried to beg. I tried to tell him that I couldn't survive the surgery.

I tried to tell him that I had already secretly donated a kidney to our father five years ago-a sacrifice my sister had claimed credit for.

But Axel threw a stack of falsified medical scans in my face.

"Stop lying to save your own skin," he spat. "You are a useless, Wolfless Omega. This is your only chance to be of value to this pack."

He didn't know that Kyleigh had been poisoning me with Wolfsbane for a decade to suppress my inner White Wolf.

He didn't know that the anesthesia wouldn't work on my poisoned body.

I felt every inch of the silver scalpel as they cut me open to harvest my only remaining kidney.

I died on that table, listening to the man I loved call me dramatic.

But death was not the end. My spirit floated above the chaos, watching as the surgeon's face turned pale with horror.

"She only had one!" the doctor screamed, holding up the blackened organ. "Alpha, look at the old scars! We just ki**ed her!"

Only after my heart stopped did the scent-masking dr**s fade.

Axel fell to his knees in the bl**d-soaked room, finally smelling the scent of rain and pine he had been searching for his whole life.

He realized he had just butchered his true mate to save a liar.

"Jana?" he howled, clawing at his ch**t.

But I was already gone.

Rumor had it that Ezequiel Keigher, Chicago's golden boy, was hopelessly smitten with his fiancée, Octavia Dickra. Word was he had dropped a fortune on a private island just to make her smile.

But no one saw what really happened behind closed doors. Every night, Ezequiel returned to his hillside estate, taking Camille Faragher with ruthless intensity until the early hours—just to shatter the last remnants of her pride.

"Go to Tavi's studio later and stay on your knees. And don't you dare upset her," he said coldly, sliding into his pants.

The intense sex left Camillie exhausted, her body aching as if every bone had been crushed. She lay motionless on the cold silk sheets, eyes tracing the fresh scratches she'd left on his back.

Then she lowered her gaze, her long lashes shadowing her eyes. "I understand, Mr. Keigher," she said, her voice hoarse. She sounded completely defeated—meek and submissive, with none of the passion they had shared just hours before.

In this house, even the maids knew exactly what she was—a plaything kept in the shadows, a breathing blood bank for the woman he actually loved.

Three years ago, Octavia suffered a shattered right hand while protecting Ezequiel during a car crash—an injury that eventually triggered a rare blood rejection disorder.

Everyone blamed Camillie, claiming she had tampered with the car's brakes out of jealous spite.

Seeking revenge, Ezequiel spared her a prison sentence but kept her confined, under his control.

Camille was meant to have a brilliant life with Stephen Whately, her first love of four years.

The two of them had planned to marry after she won that year's International Jewelry Design Award.

But Ezequiel cruelly destroyed everything, forcing her into a life of humiliation and atonement.

Camillie once knelt in the torrential rain outside the Keigher's residence, begging Ezequiel to let her go. "I didn't touch the car," she cried. "Please, just look into it..."

Ezequiel stood there under a black umbrella, looking down at her as if she were nothing but trash.

"Tavi lost the use of her hand because of you, and she could die at any moment. Camillie, your life belongs to her from this day on."

The following day, the core laboratory where Stephen worked was accused of leaking trade secrets. He was suddenly hit with crushing damages and ten years of jail time. As Camillie, now wasted and frail, clutched the indictment, her fingers trembled uncontrollably. For the first time, she let her pride crumble, yielding to the all-powerful man.

At the banquet celebrating my third anniversary with my fated mate, Alpha Silas, the pack presented him with a gift, a fox shifter that looked exactly like his first love.

I shattered the composure I’d kept for years. I smashed my glass on the floor,ruining the entire celebration.

Then I walked out on the Howling Wind pack.

Everyone said Luna Clara, an orphan with no place to call home, wouldn’t last three days before crawling back in shame.

Silas didn’t seem to care. “A lone wolf leaving Howling Wind? Where would she even go?”

But three days passed. Then a week. Whispers began that I must be dead.

That’s when Silas first tried to reach me through our mind-link.

He found nothing.

Later, at an art exhibition hosted by the Alpha King, a portrait in profile made Silas freeze.

He made a high offer to buy it.

The Alpha King offered an apologetic smile.

“I’m afraid that’s my mate. It’s the best portrait I’ve ever done of her. Not for sale.”