After Rebirth, She Picked The Right Guy
Everyone knew Caroline loved Jacob, the frail man in a wheelchair, even giving up her chance at marrying into wealth for him.
She devoted everything to his recovery, enduring hardship and humiliation to help him stand again.
When he finally recovered, they were praised as perfect together-until danger came.
Faced with saving her or her sister, Jacob chose the latter without hesitation. Only in her final moments did Caroline realize his heart was never hers.
Reborn, she made a different choice, choosing power over love.
When Jacob later begged, she looked down coldly. "I have no interest in men who can't stand on their own."
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Chapter 5
Caroline lifted a brow, yet chose to remain silent.
Tears kept rolling down Vivian's cheeks as she spoke. "Jacob's condition has gotten worse lately. I've been with him these few days, and the way he looks now... Caroline, I'm only twenty. I don't want my whole life tied to someone like that."
Still, Caroline gave no response.
Taking her silence as indifference, Vivian broke down even more. "Jacob's brother, Alec Lloyd, doesn't treat him like family at all. He humiliates him, calls him useless, a burden. His wife is even worse. She never misses a chance to insult me and bring up my background. I can't stand it anymore."
At first, Vivian believed Jacob's affection would secure her a comfortable and wealthy life within the Lloyd family.
However, reality proved otherwise. Jacob had no authority in that household.
He couldn't even stand up for her.
Time and again, he stayed silent while his sister-in-law picked on her.
Thinking of that, Vivian wiped her tears and looked at Caroline with desperation.
"Caroline, please help me get a divorce. And ask Braydon to find a better man for me. I don't need a rich one. I just want someone kind. I don't want anything to do with the Lloyds anymore."
Caroline looked at her, sneering inside.
In her previous life, she had gone through the exact same humiliation after marrying into the Lloyd family.
Alec once pointed at her and called her a fool. His wife even dumped leftovers onto her plate and told her, "The Lloyd family doesn't support freeloaders. If you want to eat, then work."
She took care of Jacob and handled everything for him, yet they still accused her of pretending to be devoted just to get their money.
And back then, where was Vivian?
Vivian married Braydon and lived in luxury. Occasionally, she would visit, dressed in expensive brands and covered in jewelry, looking down on her. "Caroline, if you had listened to me, you wouldn't have ended up like this."
Now their roles had reversed, and Vivian was the one crying.
Letting out a soft sigh, Caroline put on a conflicted expression. "Vivian, it's not that I don't want to help. I'm barely managing my own situation right now."
Shock flashed across Vivian's face. "What do you mean? Didn't you marry Braydon?"
"I did, but he has no feelings for me," Caroline replied with a bitter smile. "We didn't even have a wedding. After we registered the marriage, he left me at the villa and never gave me any allowance. If I want to buy something, I have to figure it out on my own."
That explanation was only partly true. It was true that there was no wedding, and he hadn't given her money. But none of that mattered to her.
Vivian hadn't expected that answer at all. She forgot to wipe her tears. "Then... what should I do now?"
Caroline shook her head lightly. "I'm barely managing things on my end. How could I go to him and ask him to find you a new husband? And with someone like Braydon, asking for favors would only make him look down on me more."
Panic flashed across Vivian's face. She bit her lip, then suddenly grabbed Caroline's hand. "Caroline, please. I'm begging you. You have to help me!"
Inside, Caroline felt nothing but disdain, yet she didn't let it show. "I'm sorry, but I don't know how to help you."
"Caroline!" Vivian clutched her hand more tightly. "I'm your sister. Can you really stand by and watch me fall into this? Please help me. I'll do anything, as long as I get a divorce."
Caroline watched her in silence for a moment. After a brief pause, she sighed and patted Vivian's hand. "Alright. I'll think of something."
Hope instantly lit up Vivian's eyes. "You mean it?"
"Of course." Caroline nodded. "You mentioned earlier that Jacob isn't well?"
Vivian nodded quickly. "He's been sick for days, and no one's taking care of him. When I visited, he was alone in his room. No one even gave him water."
After thinking it over, Caroline suggested, "Then that gives you even more reason to step in and take care of him."
Vivian stared at her, confused. "What do you mean?"
"Think about how the Lloyd family sees you right now."
A hint of frustration crossed Vivian's face. "His brother and sister-in-law both dislike me."
"Right. So what should you be doing now?" Caroline's tone softened as she guided her. "From what I know, Jacob's mother rarely interferes in family matters. First, take Jacob to the hospital. The Lloyd family has strong ties in the medical field, so once she hears about it, she'll definitely ask questions. That's your chance. Tell her you want to move out with Jacob so you can care for him properly. Most importantly, you need to mention that he's been mistreated by his brother. Once she finds out her youngest son has been suffering, she won't stay calm. Then you'll take him for treatment and look after him. She'll see you as thoughtful and responsible."
Vivian hesitated. "But..."
"No buts." Caroline cut her off. "Build your reputation now and get the Lloyd family on your side. That way, you'll have leverage later. When you say you can't endure it anymore and want a divorce, they won't be able to force you to stay. Do you understand?"
Vivian fell into thought.
Caroline added casually, "Besides, you're taking him for treatment anyway. What if he actually recovers? If he can walk again, you might not want to divorce him anymore."
Hope flickered in Vivian's eyes. "But what if his condition can't be fixed..."
"Even if he never recovers, you still come out of it with a good name." Caroline gave a small smile. "When you ask for a divorce, people will blame him for not cherishing such a devoted wife. No one will accuse you of leaving him for a better life. Do you understand?"
Vivian nodded quickly. "I do! Caroline, you really think things through. But... I don't have much cash right now."
Caroline let out a soft sigh. "I'm not exactly well-off either, but I've saved a little. The treatment shouldn't cost too much at the start. I can give you fifty thousand. Will that be enough?"
A bright gleam lit up Vivian's eyes. "That's more than enough. Thank you, Caroline!"
Caroline gave a small nod, grabbed her phone, and sent her fifty thousand.
After thanking her repeatedly, Vivian finally left.
Once she was gone, Caroline leaned back and allowed a slow smile to form.
In her previous life, the moment she married Jacob, she took him for treatment right away.
She went from one hospital to another across Praginia, pleading with every doctor she could find. Yet no matter what she tried, his condition only worsened. His legs never improved, and his overall health declined further.
It was only later that she uncovered that Jacob and Alec didn't share the same mother, and Jacob was an illegitimate son.
Years back, Rory Lloyd, Jacob and Alec's father, got a woman pregnant after a drunken fling. To hide the scandal, he claimed the child was his wife's son and brought the baby home.
His wife, Stacey Lloyd, despised that illegitimate child, and Alec hated him even more for threatening his share of the inheritance.
Alec was the one who had shattered Jacob's legs.
And as for Jacob's worsening condition, Stacey had been tampering with his meals all along.
They didn't want Jacob to die outright. That would raise suspicion. Instead, they kept him weak and bedridden, letting him fade away slowly.
Now, Vivian was about to step in and push for his treatment, digging into the cause of his illness.
How would the Lloyd family react to that?
A faint smile appeared on Caroline's lips.
"Vivian, now it's your turn to go through all the pain I endured before."
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8.1
She thought patience would earn her love.
She was wrong.
After years of waiting for her best friend to finally see her, she meets the one man she should never want-his older brother. Dark, forbidden, and dangerously perceptive, he sees through every excuse she's ever made for being overlooked.
Now she must choose between a safe fantasy that keeps breaking her heart and a dangerous truth that offers no escape once it begins.
Because the brother who looks at her like that?
He doesn't believe in halfway love.
7.1
The last thing I remembered was the blinding flash of my starship crashing. But instead of a rescue crew, I woke up tied to a wooden post, surrounded by hostile beastmen.
My universal translator kicked in just in time to hear their priestess, Chelsea, declare that I was a cursed demon who ruined their hunt. To save the clan from winter starvation, I was to be burned alive.
The flames were already blistering my legs, and jagged stones hurled by the crowd gashed my forehead. I barely negotiated a three-day reprieve to find them food, venturing into the deadly primeval forest.
I found a massive supply of wild potatoes and even gained the protection of Bronson, a terrifyingly powerful saber-toothed tiger beastman.
But Chelsea wouldn't stop.
She labeled my food as poisonous, tried to sentence me to starve in a penitent's cave, and when my agricultural knowledge proved her wrong, she invoked an ancient law. She incited the tribe's savage warriors to fight over me, turning me into breeding property.
I was a scientist offering them endless food, yet their primitive ignorance and one woman's vicious jealousy kept pushing me toward a brutal end. I was terrified, completely powerless against their monstrous physical strength.
As five ruthless challengers drew their bone axes to claim me, I begged Bronson to leave me and run.
Instead, he pulled me against his scarred chest and kissed me fiercely in front of the entire clan.
"She is my mate," he roared, unleashing a soul-crushing aura. "Anyone who wants her, come at me together."
7.5
For five years, I was locked away in the freezing royal dungeon, starved and used as a bloody plaything by the kingdom's sadistic Cabinet Minister, Brandt Fischer.
He tortured me daily for one twisted reason: I simply looked like someone else.
When he visited my cell to casually announce my father's execution and drag a silver dagger across my neck, he expected me to beg.
Instead, I laughed, sank my teeth directly into his carotid artery, and was violently thrown against a jagged stone wall to my death.
As my skull cracked and my blood stained the moss, I thought about my so-called family. The moment Brandt had demanded me, my father, the Duke, handed me over without a single hesitation to save his own political career.
I was nothing but a disposable pawn, left to rot in the dark while the monsters who ruined my life thrived.
I died suffocating on my own blood and absolute, destructive vengeance.
Then, I opened my eyes.
I was lying in my silk-sheeted bed, reborn as my fifteen-year-old self.
Today was the exact day Lord Daryl Langley, the God of War, would be ambushed and crippled—the event that allowed Brandt to seize ultimate power.
I immediately stole a horse, rode to the palace gates, and threw myself directly in front of Daryl's moving carriage.
"I just didn't want to see a hero die like a slaughtered pig."
I didn't care if I had to shatter my own ankle to hijack his convoy. This time, I was going to save the general, and he would become the blade I use to slaughter them all.
7.6
I woke up to the suffocating smell of copper and sulfur, my fingers wrapped around a blood-soaked leather whip.
Hanging from an obsidian cross in front of me was a boy with silver hair and dead, golden eyes.
His pale chest was torn open to the bone.
I recognized those eyes immediately. I had spent three years describing them on my laptop.
He was Kamari Monroe, the tragic, overpowered protagonist of my own web novel.
And I wasn't just a bystander. I was Benedict Guerrero, the sadistic academy headmaster. The ultimate villain.
A reel of images flashed in my mind: my original ending. Kamari, fully awakened, skinning me alive and burning my soul in a furnace for forty-nine days.
My loyal attack dog, Gideon, stepped forward with a basin of glowing green liquid.
"Headmaster, let me wake him up with this bone-rot acid so you can resume."
If that acid hit Kamari, his hatred would become permanent. My gruesome death would be sealed.
But if I broke character and apologized, the magical world would sense the shift, and Kamari would just think it was a sicker, more twisted trap.
How was I supposed to survive a death sentence I wrote myself?
I couldn't show weakness. I had to play the monster to survive.
Suppressing my terror, I smashed the acid basin, healed his ruined flesh with agonizing dark magic, and lied straight to his face.
"Someone had to be the monster to push you into the fire."
This time, I will rewrite my own fate.
7.5
I thought my best friend Mila and my lover Preston were my only salvation from Essex Langley, the ruthless billionaire who kept me caged in his estate.
I trusted them blindly when they planned my grand escape.
But it was all a cruel setup.
Mila deliberately leaked the plan to Essex's guards to win his favor, and Preston only wanted my family's shares to pay off his massive debts.
When we were caught in the rose garden, Preston shoved me toward the guards and ran for his life.
"You're insane if you think I actually loved a freak like you!"
I was dragged back into the manor, my ribs cracking under heavy boots.
I bled out on the freezing marble floor, staring into Essex’s unhinged, mad eyes as I took my last agonizing breath.
Until the moment I died, I couldn't accept it.
I had ruined my own life, adopting a hideous punk look with fake tattoos and piercings just to make Essex hate me, all for two people who saw me as nothing but a sacrificial lamb.
Why was my blind rebellion rewarded with such a brutal betrayal?
Opening my eyes again, the white-hot pain was gone.
I was back in the freezing bedroom on my eighteenth birthday, the very night Mila would come to orchestrate my ruin.
I looked at the rebellious, smudged stranger in the mirror.
This time, I calmly washed off the black makeup, took out my lip ring, and put on a pristine white dress.
If fighting the devil got me killed, then in this life, I would tame him and make them all pay.
7.9
Cora Foster was a brilliant archaeologist, but a jagged burn scar across her face made the world treat her like a contagious monster.
During an elite excavation of a Gilded Age crypt, touching an ancient artifact triggered a terrifying memory. She remembered being Seraphina Beaumont, a socialite brutally buried alive by her vain, cruel sister, Isolde.
When the team pried open the crypt's pristine mahogany casket, they cheered, believing the mummified corpse inside was Seraphina. But Cora recognized the onyx hairpin and the angular jawline. It was Isolde. The sister who had stolen her life, mocked her agony, and left her to suffocate in the dark. Her colleagues scoffed at her forensic proof, dismissing her as a scarred, delusional liability.
Worse, the ruthless billionaire funding the expedition, Julian Montgomery, was the spitting image of Alistair—the man Seraphina had deeply loved. Why was Julian staring at her ruined face with such intense, inexplicable recognition? And why did Isolde take Seraphina's most precious silver ring to the grave?
Driven by a century of agonizing grief, Cora secretly pried the tarnished ring from the mummy's stiff, dead fingers and dropped it into her pocket.
"What are you looking at, Foster?"
Julian's deep voice vibrated inches from her ear, his cold, predatory eyes locked directly onto her half-open pocket.