After He Chose Her, I Chose Myself
On Thanksgiving Day, I prepared a feast, waiting for Edward to come home. Without a glance at the spread, he went straight to packing his bags and said coolly, “I won't be spending Thanksgiving with you this year.”
I remained silent, nibbling on the pulled pork on my plate. At midnight, Ruby, his old flame, posted a picture on Instagram. She was beaming, perched on Edward's back, with a full moon shining through the window behind them. Her caption read, “Toasting the moon, two shadows become one.”
I didn’t fire off a barrage of questions like I might have before; instead, I just hit 'like' on the post. Edward called, sounding flustered, “Don’t read too much into it. I swear I’ll spend next Thanksgiving with you…”
I paused, then chuckled softly without replying. Next time? Oh, Edward. There will be no next time.
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Chapter 4
Lying in bed, I scrolled through Ruby’s Instagram post: “Another birthday gift from you this year. Thanks for always being here for me.” In the comments, Edward’s friend Lewis wrote, “So sweet. Seeing Ruby happy makes my day.” I noticed all of Edward's friends and their girlfriends had liked Ruby’s post.
Edward’s circle has always looked down on me, viewing me as an outsider between him and Ruby. Without me, they believed Edward would be much happier. As I read Edward's comment on the post, for once, I couldn't help but see their point. He had commented, “Happy birthday, my princess.”
I stared blankly at their affectionate exchange and noticed another comment from one of Edward's friends: “Stop posting, or Sabrina might see it. You know how she is; she'll make a fuss.” In the past, I had gently suggested that Edward maintain some distance from Ruby since they were close friends of different genders, to prevent any misunderstandings.
Edward’s friends mocked me, calling me jealous and accusing me of being too controlling, even denying him the simple right to have friends. Edward just nodded along with them and turned the blame on me, saying that I should be more understanding.
Contrary to what his friends expected, I didn’t react. I quietly logged out of Instagram and switched to Pinterest, eventually falling asleep.
By the time Edward came home, I was already fast asleep. He woke me up, frustrated and yelling, “Sabrina, your boyfriend’s out late, and you don’t even care? My friends’ girlfriends call them non-stop, but you didn’t call me once. What’s going on with you?”
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9.8
Four years ago, I was drugged on a luxury yacht and ended up pregnant with twins.
I raised them in secret, enduring my stepfamily's daily abuse, until the billionaire West family patriarch cornered us at the airport.
He instantly recognized my son's face—an exact replica of his ruthless grandson, Bernardo West.
My malicious stepmother and stepsister immediately leaked to the press that I was a delusional gold-digger using fake kids to trap a billionaire.
They wanted the West family to destroy me to save their own social standing.
Bernardo himself looked at me with pure disgust, demanding a DNA test.
"If you ever lie to me, I will take the children, and I will make you wish you were never born."
I didn't want his money. I was a victim of that night too, left with a crescent-shaped bite mark on my collarbone and zero memory of who set us up.
Why did someone drug us? And how could I protect my babies from a corporate predator who could crush me with a snap of his fingers?
But when the DNA test came back 99.9999% positive, I didn't cower.
I showed him the scar he left on me, looked the most dangerous man in the country right in the eye, and made my demand.
"If you want to claim your heirs, you have to marry me."
7.2
Nicole Bush spent three years devoting herself to Samuel Green and loving him like crazy, never believing he would ever cheat on her. Not until, Nicole found out Samuel's ex girlfriend had returned and she was even pregnant for him.
As if that was not heartbreaking enough, Nicole was forced to divorce Samuel by his girlfriend and she got burnt in a flame afterwards.
Nicole returned five years later as a famous designer and a better version of herself. Not only that, but she also brought a child with her.
Now, her only mission is to take revenge on the people who maltreated her and had a hand in her death in the past including her heartless ex-husband, Samuel Green.
7.4
My marriage ended the way the world found out about it: on a police report that landed on my desk. I was a prosecutor who had moved back to San Francisco to save my political marriage to tech billionaire Hilton Austin.
When I confronted him at the hotel, I found my husband on one knee, not proposing, but tenderly tying his influencer mistress' s shoe.
That night, he abandoned me on a dark highway to rush to her side, causing me to miscarry the child I was secretly carrying. At the hospital, he publicly accused me of faking the pregnancy, slapped me, and then cut my arm with a piece of broken glass.
"Now you have a reason to be in the hospital," he said coldly.
The love I' d held for him since I was sixteen didn't just fade; it was murdered. He thought he had broken me, but he only created a monster.
I used my family's power to have him thrown in jail. When he begged for a second chance, I brought in my childhood friend, Adrien, and delivered the final, killing blow.
"The baby wasn't yours," I said, my voice like ice. "It was his."
8.2
During the eight months I was pregnant, Dominick and his secretary booked hotel rooms nearly two hundred times. Despite knowing the precious child growing inside me, I chose to ignore the situation entirely. However, the night before my due date, I inadvertently overheard Dominick whispering on the phone to his secretary in the stairwell:
"Relax. We used your eggs through IVF, so the baby won't inherit Bridget's health issues. Once the baby arrives safely, I'll think about divorcing her. Just give me a little more time, alright?"
After enduring this marriage for seven years, this revelation tore open old wounds, cutting deeper into the scars on my heart. Exhausted from years of arguing, I called my father directly:
"I've repaid the debt to Dominick's family. Now it's time for you to fulfill your promise."
---
"Bridget, you're about to become a mother. If there's a problem with Dominick, talk it out. You’re both adults; why joke about such serious things?" My father dismissed my words as mere venting, believing I was just frustrated with Dominick.
8.3
After twelve years of marriage, my millionaire husband fell for the new receptionist at his company. Approaching forty, she wasn’t as attractive as me, nor did she have my figure, yet in just half a year, she had given him immense emotional support. Calvin looked at me, exhaustion written all over his face, and said, "If we divorce, you can have the house and the car. Amaia, just let me go." I lowered my gaze and replied calmly, "Okay." Then, I bought a calendar and circled a date. The countdown to divorce: 30 days. When I handed Calvin the divorce agreement, only 40 minutes had passed since he told me about the affair. As per our arrangement, the house, the car, and custody of Noah would be mine. He would give me a one-time payment of $3 million for compensation and child support. After that, Noah and I would no longer be involved in his life. Calvin was in the middle of a conference call.
7.2
Stepping out of the women's correctional center, Karli took her first breath of freedom in three years.
But the luxury SUV waiting for her didn't bring her home. Instead, her adoptive parents tossed a prenuptial agreement onto her lap.
They demanded she marry a violently unhinged, disfigured man so their company could secure a massive commercial deal.
When she refused, her adoptive mother slapped her hard across the face.
The blow brought back the suffocating nightmare from three years ago—how they had drugged her, framed her for a crime she didn't commit, and sent her to prison just so her stepsister could steal her fiancé.
Now, to break her again, her adoptive father ordered his bodyguards to drag her into the estate's freezing, pitch-black basement.
"You can rot in the dark without food or water until you sign that paper!"
Sitting on the damp cement, bleeding and shivering, a white-hot fury burned away Karli's panic.
They had stolen her youth, her reputation, and her grandfather's inheritance. She would rather die than be their sacrificial lamb again.
She smashed the basement window with a hammer, dragged her bleeding body through the shattered glass, and sprinted blindly into the stormy night.
Under the flickering neon sign of a convenience store, she grabbed the sleeve of a terrifyingly cold stranger.
"Are you single? Marry me right now."
She just needed a legal marriage to escape her family, entirely unaware she had just proposed to the most ruthless billionaire in Chicago.