Married By Chance, Loved By Choice

Married By Chance, Loved By Choice

Kao La

5.0
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My godmother Eleanor, ever the matchmaker, sat across from me with a stack of glossy portfolios, ready to choose my future wife. But a cold dread washed over me, sharper than any D.C. winter. I remembered it all: Veronica, "Ronnie" Sterling, my ex-wife, handing me divorce papers with a chilling smile. "I never loved you," she'd said, after ten years of marriage, revealing her secret second family in Napa. Then came the blinding headlights, the deliberate act that ended my life, leaving me betrayed and alone in a dark alley. That was my past, a lifetime of humiliation culminating in my death. And now, I was back. Back to this exact moment, facing the same conversation that had once damned me. This time, I wouldn't make the same mistake. My judgment had proven tragically poor, I admitted, forcing a bitter smile. Instead of carefully curated choices, I demanded a blind draw, a lottery with names in a hat. Three times I reached in, three times I pulled the same slip: "Captain Maya Ramirez." Despite Eleanor's protests about Maya's "unconventional" choice and "career-ending" injury, I knew this was fate. This was my second chance, a new beginning, a destiny I was determined to embrace.

Introduction

My godmother Eleanor, ever the matchmaker, sat across from me with a stack of glossy portfolios, ready to choose my future wife.

But a cold dread washed over me, sharper than any D.C. winter.

I remembered it all: Veronica, "Ronnie" Sterling, my ex-wife, handing me divorce papers with a chilling smile.

"I never loved you," she'd said, after ten years of marriage, revealing her secret second family in Napa.

Then came the blinding headlights, the deliberate act that ended my life, leaving me betrayed and alone in a dark alley.

That was my past, a lifetime of humiliation culminating in my death.

And now, I was back.

Back to this exact moment, facing the same conversation that had once damned me.

This time, I wouldn't make the same mistake.

My judgment had proven tragically poor, I admitted, forcing a bitter smile.

Instead of carefully curated choices, I demanded a blind draw, a lottery with names in a hat.

Three times I reached in, three times I pulled the same slip: "Captain Maya Ramirez."

Despite Eleanor's protests about Maya's "unconventional" choice and "career-ending" injury, I knew this was fate.

This was my second chance, a new beginning, a destiny I was determined to embrace.

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I'm Just A Substitute Wife For Your First Love?

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5.0

My engagement party was supposed to be the start of my fairy tale with Liam, the handsome CEO, my everything for three years. His arm was tight around my waist, his whispered "I love you, Liv" filling my heart. Everything was perfect. Then his phone rang. His face changed, his easy smile replaced by a tension that radiated from him. He took the call in a quiet corner, and when he returned, he looked wild, frantic. "Liv, I have to go. It's an emergency. A family emergency." He said it was about "Chloe," a childhood friend who had just woken up from a ten-year coma. He practically ran out, abandoning me at our party, telling me to wait at home. The humiliation burned. My perfect world shattered. I was devastated, but I followed him to the hospital, only to overhear him confessing passionate devotion to Chloe. When I confronted him, he hid me from her, telling her I was just "a friend from work." He then asked me to move out of our shared apartment, claiming it was a "family tradition" before the wedding, so Chloe could move in. Day after day, I watched him choose her, lie for her, put her first, while I became a secret, a temporary inconvenience. I was heartbroken, but a cold realization began to dawn. I found an old photo album, hidden away, showing a teenage Liam with Chloe, intertwined and deeply in love. Her face, eerily similar to mine. Then, a newspaper article: Chloe Hayes, the sole survivor of a tragic car crash that killed her parents ten years ago, a crash Liam was in. He wasn't just her childhood friend; he was her first love, the man who was with her when her world shattered, and his family adopted her. I wasn' t the love of his life. I was just a substitute, a temporary replacement for the girl he lost. I was seeing red. How could he have used me like this? How could he have built our entire relationship on such a cruel, agonizing lie? I looked at the wedding dress I was supposed to be wearing for our photoshoot, then at the man who had seen through Liam's deception from the start. Ethan, Liam's rival, had been a quiet, steady presence. When Liam abandoned me at the photoshoot, claiming Chloe had tried to kill herself, and then told her in the hospital, "I'm here to marry you," I knew. I had to end this. "Are you free in ten days?" I asked Ethan. He blinked. "Marry me."

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The sterile white of the operating room blurred, then sharpened, as Skye Sterling felt the cold clawing its way up her body. The heart monitor flatlined, a steady, high-pitched whine announcing her end. Her uterus had been removed, a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding, but the blood wouldn't clot. It just kept flowing, warm and sticky, pooling beneath her. Through heavy eyes, she saw a trembling nurse holding a phone on speaker. "Mr. Kensington," the nurse's voice cracked, "your wife... she's critical." A pause, then a sweet, poisonous giggle. Seraphina Miller. "Liam is in the shower," Seraphina's voice purred. "Stop calling, Skye. It's pathetic. Faking a medical emergency on our anniversary? Even for you, that's low." Then, Liam's bored voice: "If she dies, call the funeral home. I have a meeting in the morning." Click. The line went dead. A second later, so did Skye. The darkness that followed was absolute, suffocating, a black ocean crushing her lungs. She screamed into the void, a silent, agonizing wail of regret for loving a man who saw her as a nuisance, for dying without ever truly living. Until she died, she didn't understand. Why was her life so tragically wasted? Why did her husband, the man she loved, abandon her so cruelly? The injustice of it all burned hotter than the fever in her body. Then, the air rushed back in. Skye gasped, her body convulsing violently on the mattress. Her eyes flew open, wide and terrified, staring blindly into the darkness. Her trembling hand reached for her phone. May 12th. Five years ago. She was back.

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