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.

When I heard those words today, I couldn't help it.

I laughed. Not out of humor, but disbelief. The kind of laugh that slips out when something absurd brushes too close to the truth.

The clatter of plates, the sharp scent of hot sauce, the steady hum of late lunch chatter around us—all of it faded to the background. My voice broke through the stillness between us.

"Samuel, after all these years, we've practically eaten every dish on this menu. The only one I've never touched is the stir-fried lamb offal. I don't like organ meat. I never have. So tell me… was the person you just described really me?"

He didn't answer right away. His hand paused mid-air, utensils hovering above the last of the cold noodles.

For a moment, nothing moved. Then, with care, Samuel set his utensil down beside his plate. He exhaled a long, steady breath, the kind that carries the weight of something final.

"Since you're asking so directly," he said, "I'll tell you the truth."

He looked at me then, unblinking.

"You're right. It wasn't you. It was her."

And just like that, he lifted his hand and pointed toward the entrance.

I turned to look.

My heart slammed against my ribs as I quickly turned around.

But there was no one standing there.

Samuel wasn't pointing at a person at all. His finger aimed at the crowded photo wall, at a candid picture of the two of us taken years ago.

He stared at it for several seconds, his expression softening with a quiet, almost bittersweet affection, before he looked back at me with a helpless smile.

"Leslie… come on. This place? It's ours. You really think I'd bring someone else here?"

He gave a soft laugh, half-shrugging.

"Look, I'm in my thirties. My memory's not what it used to be, alright? I forgot you don't like organ meat. That's all it was."

He paused, his voice softening.

"Those other women were just distractions. They never meant anything. The only person I've ever wanted for real, for forever, is you. Can't you believe that?"

The server, familiar with us for years, likely thought we were having a lovers' spat.

He intervened gently, attempting to help.

"That's right, Ms. Hutton. Plenty of customers have taken photos here, but the one of you and Mr. Grant is the most popular. People always say you look perfect together. And just look at how he gazes at you. You can practically see the affection. I can swear he's never brought another woman here."

I looked up at the photo and felt the world tilt for a moment.

I grew up in an orphanage. They told me my parents and older brother had been killed by business rivals, and our family's company was destroyed.

So, whenever I stood next to someone as dazzling as Samuel, I always felt a bit small.

But Samuel insisted that, in his eyes, I was the best.

When I had terrible period cramps, he'd cancel work, drive overnight from another state, and show up at my door with heating pads and a mug of warm brown sugar water.

When other students mocked me, calling me a bastard or a hillbilly, he defended me so fiercely that no one dared touch me again.

I fell for him, and I fell hard.

He told me he kept all those other mistresses only to avoid being pushed into a political marriage by his grandmother.

He said he didn't touch them because he didn't love them. And he didn't touch me because he treasured me. He wanted us to save our first time for our wedding night.

In the photo the server took, I had just accepted his confession.

My face had been burning red, too shy to look at him, staring at my food instead. And Samuel had rested his chin on his hand, gazing at me with warmth and affection overflowing from his eyes.

But later, it was that same man who shattered my belief in love.

That same man who ended my life with his own hands.

I stared at the photo on the wall. The colors had faded a little over time, but the memory it captured hadn't. My voice came out low, almost more to myself than to him.

"And what about Rhian?" I asked quietly. "She was your first love. If you had walked into her room that night by mistake... would all these words you just said be meant for her instead?"

My eyes stayed on the photo, but I could feel the weight of his silence behind me.

"After all, she and I were the only ones living on the second floor. Identical doors. Right across from each other."

I finally turned to look at him.

"You're barely home. Mixing them up would make sense. Otherwise, why would you tell us to decide ourselves who should carry your child?"

The hand he had placed on my shoulder tightened slightly.

Samuel let out a quiet laugh, the kind that carried more disbelief than amusement. He shook his head slightly, as if even recalling it now felt absurd.

"I dated her for, what, a few days in high school? We didn't even hold hands. Once we figured out we weren't a good match, that was it. She was a tomboy back then. Honestly, I don't think she even knew if she liked me or just thought of me as one of the guys."

He looked at me carefully, his voice dipping lower.

"Later on, she only started clashing with you out of spite. You know that, right?"

He took a breath, the weight of old choices flickering across his expression.

"When I said what I did, it wasn't because I felt anything for her. I didn't want her to get competitive and stir up drama that would hurt you. I was trying to protect you."

A silence settled between us before he added, almost gently, "Now there are five days left. Whatever happens between you two, I still want you to give me a child."

He leaned forward slightly, his eyes meeting mine—the edge of frustration melting into something more vulnerable.

"You little troublemaker. You got jealous for no reason, made me sit in ice water all night, and then told me you slept with someone else. Do you know what that did to me? I thought my heart was going to fall apart."