Chapter 01
Everyone imagines their final moments at least once.
Will it be an accident or a natural cause? How old will I be then? Such trivial thoughts.
I used to entertain such idle fantasies when I was young.
But after my family fell from grace, and I was essentially sold off into marriage, I no longer had the luxury to daydream. My grueling life as a married woman began almost immediately.
Maybe because I’m near death, old memories of my imagined last moments flashed before my eyes.
But none of them even remotely resembled my current reality.
Of course.
“Bel? Beloni? Are you still breathing?”
I never imagined my final moment would involve catching my husband in the act of cheating and collapsing from the shock.
That’s right.
My useless husband had been caught having an affair.
After paying a small fortune to a high-end hotel manager to obtain the key to a room, I found the stark truth staring me in the face. The protagonists of this sordid drama? None other than my husband and his mistress.
And to top it all off, the woman screamed and clutched the sheets to cover her protruding belly. It felt like someone had grabbed me by the collar and slammed me into the harsh reality.
“Ian. I’ll give you a chance to explain.”
“Beloni, listen. This is, uh, well…”
Ian stammered, casting desperate glances at the woman as if hoping she’d speak up for him. But when I pressed him again, he reluctantly opened his mouth.
“She’s… my lover.”
His introduction was painfully concise and brutally honest.
I was too stunned to process it.
I’d been exhausted from running my growing business and disappointed in Ian countless times over the past five years. All I wanted was to escape this unbearable situation.
“Ian. You’d better end things with her immediately. This is my last act of kindness, mercy, and patience.”
His response?
“She’s carrying my child. How could I keep her as a mistress? You should step aside.”
That. That was it. Rage ( uncontrollable emotion of anger) boiled over.
I was about to shout and ask if he intended to throw me out and make her the countess when my vision went white, and I collapsed.
Lying on the floor, I could barely make out Ian nervously pacing near me.
I wanted to scream at him to call a doctor, but my body wouldn’t move.
“Ian! Let’s get out of here!”
“But… she’s still breathing…”
“What will people think if they see this? They’ll think we killed her!”
The mistress clutched her belly protectively.
“You wouldn’t want to make me, the mother of your child, a murderer, would you?”
“Of course not!”
“Right? No one will know. She came here alone without even a maid.”
Damn it. She was right. My loyal maid, Marina, had stayed behind at the mansion as I instructed.
“You were planning to give me her position anyway. Isn’t this better? Widowing is less scandalous than divorce.”
“That’s true. I don’t want any bad rumors.”
Oh, for the love of…
Outrageous, juvenile remarks like that made me instinctively want to press my fingers to my temples and shake my head. Of course, I couldn’t move, but I imagined doing so in my mind.
While I lay there, the pair quickly fled, and I realized why I’d collapsed.
The crushing weight on my chest, the sensation of wanting to cough up blood.
It was the stress I’d bottled up since marrying into the family.
I was so furious that I couldn’t speak, and the pent-up rage overwhelmed me.
The weight on my eyelids grew heavier. The tension I hadn’t even noticed began to release.
“This is so unfair…”
It was utterly unfair.
After enduring a nosy mother-in-law, a meddlesome sister-in-law, and an incompetent husband, I had painstakingly rebuilt the crumbling family name.
Yet not a single person was grateful.
“My dear, why are you so stingy about 100 gold? Were you this cheap in your own family?”
My mother-in-law and sister-in-law constantly demanded extravagant allowances for their appearances.
“Beloni! This time, I swear, my business idea will work! Real men take risks in business! Don’t you think so? So lend me some money.”
Ian would take money for his harebrained schemes and fail every single time.
Everyone else splurged like money grew on trees, so I had no choice but to save every coin.
I never even got to spend the money I earned.
The most heartbreaking part? I was dying because of the stress they caused me.
I didn’t want to die.
At least, not like this.
I didn’t imagine my final moments to be so miserable.
I wanted to spend the money I earned, do what I loved, and live happily before passing on without regrets.
“If only I had another chance…”
If that chance ever came…
“I’d make sure to take down my husband first.”
As the eldest daughter of the Jerem Marquis family, my life had been far from fortunate.
The family name carried prestige, but it was all thanks to our ancestors. From my grandfather’s generation onward, useless heirs had been born one after another, and within just 30 years, the Jerem family crumbled.
My father was incompetent, and my mother and younger sister were indulgent spendthrifts.
The only saving grace was that the family got along well—excluding me, of course.
I was an illegitimate child my father had with his fiancée before marriage. My birth mother died during childbirth, and my father registered me in the family registry before quickly marrying another woman.
So I had always been an outsider.
I’d long given up on seeking affection from them.
After my coming-of-age ceremony, my stepmother sold me off at a high price. I ended up married to Ian, chosen for my “ideal childbearing appearance.”
And then, I spent years enduring a terrible marriage, secretly building a business, only to die at 25 from stress.
That was the tragic life of Beloni Jerem.
“Lady Beloni?”
When I opened my eyes again, the face I swore to destroy was standing before me.
“Are you coming in?”
I stared at Ian in confusion, then stepped back.
Only then did I take in the situation.
Ian and I were standing in a waiting room. He wore a familiar formal suit, and I was dressed in a gaudy, outdated gown.
“Of course, it’s that dress.”
My mother-in-law had forced me to wear her wedding dress instead of the one I prepared.
“Is this… a dream?”
But it felt far too vivid.
The horrifying memory of that dress was etched into my mind.
“Lady Beloni, what are you doing?” Ian asked, annoyed.
“Hey.”
“Are you talking to me?” Ian looked stunned.
I remembered my last thought before dying.
If I ever got the chance…
“I’d take down my husband first.”
“You bastard!”
Without hesitation, I swung my fist.
Thwack!
“Argh!”
As Ian clutched his cheek and fell, I stared at my hand, impressed.
It felt real—so real.
“You’ve lost your mind!” Ian screamed, his face turning red with anger.
“Keep yelling,” I muttered and aimed another punch. Thud!
Ian, panicked, began to plead.
“I’m sorry! Stop! At least tell me why! Ow! Don’t hit the same spot twice!”
“Oh, I’ll hit it again!”
Kicking him with my pointed shoe, I watched as Ian groaned, his face a mess of tears.
“I won’t marry you! I only agreed because my mother made me!” he screamed, humiliated.
I let out a cold laugh.
“Perfect. I don’t want to marry you either. Get lost.”
