To rise from being just a mistress to becoming the official wife of the Grant family, I spent five years fighting Samuel's so-called 'beloved' from the northern countryside.

Evelyn Grant, Samuel's grandmother, once declared that whoever became pregnant first would become Samuel's wife.

That very night, Samuel, drugged and delirious, stumbled into my room.

I was in my fertile window, so I got pregnant pretty easily.

After we married, he spoiled me endlessly and personally oversaw my entire pregnancy.

Everyone said I was blessed.

But on the day my water broke, he tied me down and cut my stomach open with his own hands, leaving me to bleed out.

"If you hadn't slipped me the antidote," he said, sounding almost irritated rather than enraged, "how else was I supposed to return to the woman I actually love?"

He didn't even look at me as he spoke.

His attention was entirely on the crying infant he'd torn from my body. "Now that the heir is born," he added, voice turning cold and final, "I'll raise him with her. You can die now."

In my second life, I shoved that equally fertile 'first love' straight into his room.

"Go on. Your blessing is waiting for you."

The next day, I walked away on my own, alive at last.

Yet a year later, while traveling up north, I saw her again. She was begging on the street.

Her face was slashed, her limbs broken. She was freezing to death on the sidewalk.

She grabbed my hand, sobbing, her voice shaking with cold and misery. "Blessing my ass. That bastard only treated me like a breeding machine. He said his lover was born infertile. He stole my kid, didn't give me a penny, and threw me back up north to beg."

The moment she finished speaking, she died.

When I opened my eyes again, in my third life, I was back on the night Samuel had been drugged.

As I stared at the doors of the other sixteen mistresses, the first love and I shared the same dreadful thought:

'Which one of us is the woman who can't have children?'

——

Inside the room, Samuel was groaning nonstop like a tomcat in heat. No matter how loudly he called, Rhian and I clung to the doorknob as if guarding our virtue in some over-the-top melodrama.

It wasn't until Evelyn heard the commotion that she marched over, dragging all sixteen other mistresses with her.

"Middle of the night, and you two aren't sleeping. What kind of circus act is this?"

Once she understood what was happening, she brushed past us and shoved the door open.

Samuel was sprawled across the bed, flushed and tugging desperately at his shirt.

Evelyn turned back and flicked both of us on the forehead.

"You fight every day trying to move up, and now that the chance is here, you're suddenly playing shy?"

She crossed her arms, clearly losing patience as she eyed the two of us as if we were defective merchandise.

"Both of you are very fertile. Whoever goes in tonight is going to get pregnant. Figure it out and get in there."

She was desperate for a great-grandchild, and Samuel spent most of the year on business trips.

Of course, Rhian and I were the leading candidates.

We exchanged a look, but neither of us moved.

We both knew the truth.

If I went, I would die.

If she went, she would die.

So the best solution is to send in the woman he actually loves.

But with eighteen mistresses living here, who on earth knew which one she was?

Thinking that through, I spoke up carefully, keeping my tone sweet. "Madam, everyone is watching. Isn't it unfair to choose like this? And… shouldn't we consider Mr. Grant's preferences too?"

I turned slowly toward the bed, testing the waters.

"Mr. Grant… who would you like to choose? It's alright if she doesn't get pregnant the first time. We wouldn't want to upset the one you actually care about."

In my first life, when I secretly gave him the antidote, everyone else had been fast asleep.

Now, his beloved was right in front of him. Surely he would not willingly hurt her.

But to my surprise, Samuel looked straight at me and forced out a strained answer.

"Then… Leslie, you go."

Listen to that: reluctant, helpless, almost resentful.

Evelyn nodded approvingly.

"Leslie, go. Consider your wish fulfilled."

She wasn't wrong. Marrying Samuel had always been my dream.

Back in my senior year of college, a group of thugs cornered me in an alley outside campus. They wanted to violate me.

It was Samuel who saved me that night.

Afterward, he looked after me in every possible way, checking on me constantly, comforting me with gentle words, and showering me with gifts until my hands were full.

As an orphan who grew up in a group home, even the slightest bit of warmth was enough to make me fall.

Even when people warned me that Samuel was a player who would never settle down with someone like me, I still became his seventeenth little mistress.

In my previous life, after we married, he dismissed all the other women and personally cared for me throughout my pregnancy.

I had been so happy I felt like I was going insane.

Until the day my water broke.

He tied me up and dragged me into the basement. Without anesthesia, he cut me open himself to take the baby. He knew I had a clotting disorder, but he still refused to take me to the hospital. He watched, cold and detached, while I screamed in agony.

"The one I love was never you. I only married you to fulfill a promise to Grandma. Now that the heir is born, your purpose is finished. You should die. I'll raise him with the woman in my heart."

With my remaining strength, I asked in a thick accent if that woman was Rhian, his first love.

Samuel gave a faint, calm smile. "You'll know when you see her."

Just as the words left his mouth, a figure stepped through the doorway. But I only managed to turn my head halfway before everything went black.

I died of blood loss before I ever saw her face.

Cold sweat broke out on my palms as I recalled the memory.

I shook my head firmly. "I can't go."

Evelyn blinked in confusion, clearly baffled. "Why not? Haven't you always wanted to become my grandson's wife?"

I hesitated, then spoke with a steady seriousness that felt too honest for the moment.

"There was a misunderstanding earlier. I mixed up gratitude with love. To be honest, I slept with another man last month. I'm already pregnant with someone else's child."

A vein throbbed on Samuel's forehead as he clenched his jaw, fury seeping through every line of his face.

"Leslie, you're really something."

His gaze then moved toward Rhian. He didn't even need to speak before Rhian took a step back, flailing her arms wildly.

"Don't look at me! I can't do it either!"

"Oh? What, you cheated too?" Samuel sneered.

Rhian, who a moment earlier had been scrambling for any excuse, suddenly brightened.

She nodded rapidly and jabbed a finger in my direction. "Yes, yes! We did it together. Same guy as her. I'm pregnant too!"

Evelyn nearly fainted from anger.

If we risked carrying someone else's child, then our fertility didn't matter—we were considered useless.

Right then, she pointed at both of us, her finger shaking.

"You two little sluts will pack your things and get out tomorrow morning!"

Still fuming, she turned worriedly back to Samuel.

"Sam, how about letting the others—"

Before she could finish, Samuel cut her off sharply.

"No."

Rhian and I exchanged a bewildered glance.

Oh, we understood now.

He thought using any of the others would be disrespectful to his beloved.

'Tsk. Truly devoted.'

That night, Samuel soaked in an ice bath until he finally recovered.

Meanwhile, Rhian and I went back to our rooms, happily counting the savings we had stashed away over the years and daydreaming about our new futures.

We slept soundly and peacefully.

...

The next morning, we came downstairs early with our suitcases.

What greeted us, however, was Samuel standing in front of the door.

He took two blood test reports from his assistant and tossed them at our feet, his expression dark and icy.

"Neither of you is pregnant. Yet you dared to team up and lie to me."

So that was why we had slept so well.

Good grief. He played dirty.

A Northeastern girl's temper is blunt.

Rhian stiffened her neck and snapped, "So what? We just don't want to have your kid!"

The Grant family was one of the most influential in Harbor City.

Yet here they were, being rejected by two mistresses.

Evelyn's expression turned frosty.

"Sam, if they don't appreciate the opportunity, then forget it. There are still sixteen girls left, aren't there? You've been too busy all these years to have children. As long as you keep putting in the effort, eventually someone will get pregnant."

At Evelyn's words, Samuel let out a cold laugh.

"What a joke. No woman has ever dared reject me. Do you want our family to become a joke to everyone?"

Then, he turned to Rhian and me and said, "You don't want to give birth? Fine. Then I'll choose between the two of you specifically."

Because he had drenched himself in cold water the night before to suppress the drug's effects forcefully, the doctor said he had damaged himself badly. He needed at least a week of rest before he could have sex again, or he risked permanent dysfunction.

Before leaving, Samuel threw one last freezing warning over his shoulder.

"Then wait one week. Don't even think about running. I'll drag you back no matter where you go."

The other mistresses were all displeased. None of them seemed like his mysterious beloved, and it was impossible to tell who she really was.

It could be because, this time, they no longer had to fight over the same man.

A moment later, Rhian burst into my room without knocking, slapping her thigh in frustration.

"What the hell do we do now? How did we manage to poke his damn competitive streak?"

"That bastard is desperate to turn the two of us into breeding machines, all to clear the path for his precious sweetheart. I refuse to die for that!"

I thought for a moment, then lifted my phone.

"There might actually be a way. I just talked to a friend. Women like us, who get pregnant easily, mostly have exceptionally strong uterine structure."

"Samuel probably has no idea how any of that works. If we find that beloved of his who can't conceive, I could donate my uterus to her. That should satisfy him, right?"

Rhian's eyes widened. She gave me several enthusiastic thumbs-ups.

"Damn, girl, that's genius. Take mine too. Let those two pop out babies like pigs, stop bothering me."

So under the pretense of 'team bonding,' I secretly arranged complete medical exams for the other mistresses.

However, when the test results came back, I was utterly stunned.

All sixteen of the other mistresses were infertile.

"Holy crap! Are you kidding me? This is way too much of a coincidence. We only have two uteruses between us. How are we supposed to split them?"

"We can't just pick someone at random, right?"

Of course not.

Unless the individual were Samuel's beloved, she would suffer the same tragic fate that Rhian and I endured in our previous lives.

Even I still had a baseline of morality.

If only I hadn't died so quickly last time, maybe I would've actually seen the woman's face.

As for Rhian, her situation was even worse. Rumor had it that Samuel's lover hated her for looking 'not quite male, not quite female,' saying she made her uncomfortable.

Rhian never even got the chance to meet that woman. Samuel had her disfigured, broken her limbs, and dumped her back up north.

We would have to get the answer directly from Samuel himself.

While Rhian was capable of lighthearted conversation with the other mistresses, she couldn't possibly outwit someone as shrewd as Samuel. So the next day, she volunteered herself, marching off with several bags of seeds and fruit, swearing she would interrogate all the mistresses one by one.

She was determined to figure out which woman Samuel's beloved was.

While she attacked the problem from that angle, I made my own move.

I checked the calendar and headed straight to the little diner near our old university.

When I arrived, Samuel was already there.

As usual, the table was filled with dishes.

After I sat down, he smiled and pointed at the plate of charred lamb hash.

"Knew you'd show up. You must be hungry. Eat plenty."

Then he added, "I remember the day we first met. You inhaled half that plate by yourself. So I order it for you every anniversary."

He was right. Today marked our fifth anniversary.

This was the diner where he had taken me the night he saved me, when we had shared our first late-night meal.

The place was simple, but the food was excellent.

It was here that I had agreed to his confession.

Every year afterward, we returned for our anniversary, lingering in those sweet memories.

Back then, I had been too wrapped up in the warmth of his gaze to notice which dish he kept pushing toward me.