I Won't Be Your Perfect Wife Again

1: 1

I gave up my family's inheritance to marry Leslie Heath, and for twenty years I was the perfect, devoted wife and mother. Everyone praised how capable and devoted I was, said he was blessed to have won me.

In the end I dropped dead from exhaustion, and left behind nothing but a good reputation.

But the moment I died, Leslie turned around and married his first love, Julia Finch. He hired a housekeeper specifically to run the household so she'd never have to lift a finger.

After the wedding he signed half of everything in his name over to her, and drew up a will naming Julia's son as heir to the family business.

My son was thrown out of the house, and died on the roadside with no one to care.

Reborn on the day of our wedding, I withdrew my renunciation of the inheritance.

Then I sent Leslie a text:

"Something's come up today. Let's call off the wedding for now."

......

I looked at my young face in the mirror. Nothing like the worn-out woman in her forties. Now I was young, and I still had time, still had strength.

I really had gone back twenty years.

A second later Leslie's call came through. The instant I picked up, he was already tearing into me.

"Have you lost your mind, Mercedes Butler! Every relative is coming today, and now you're telling me something's come up? What is that supposed to mean!"

He was roaring down the line, unable to understand what had gotten into me.

"Our engagement ceremony. You had company business too, didn't you, and we pushed it back three days?"

My voice came out cold. In the past I had always put Leslie first. He'd shown up three hours late to the engagement dinner, kept my parents waiting all that time, and finally strolled in with a breezy little "something came up."

And I still spoke up for him, still smoothed things over with the relatives, even agreed to his unreasonable demand to postpone.

The memory pulled a cold laugh out of me. After all I did for him, I never once got so much as a thank you, as if every bit of it was simply my duty.

Leslie went quiet, at a loss for why I'd suddenly bring up the engagement.

By the time they all came looking for me, I was still at the office, still in my work clothes.

"Mercedes!" Leslie stormed in, face like a thundercloud, and reached to snatch my laptop away.

Crack!

I raised my hand and slapped him, told him to give the laptop back. Disbelief spread across his face as he wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, that handsome face gone terrifyingly dark.

The other relatives who'd rushed over were horrified. They hurried to pull us apart, assuming the two of us were just quarreling, and started in on the reconciliation talk:

"Whatever it is, deal with it after the wedding, Mercy. Give your man some face in public. You're the wifeyou don't hit your husband where people can see."

"Exactly. You're going to go back to the home once you're married anyway. What's the point of all this effort now? You're just working for your brother."

They talked over each other, one line after another, and not one of them said a word about Leslie being at fault.

I couldn't stop the cold laugh rising in me.

It hadn't been like this in my last life. On the day Julia married him, Leslie fussed over her endlessly, said everything would come second to Julia's career, that it wasn't easy for a woman to have something of her own to stand on, and he wouldn't let the relatives tie her down with all their old-fashioned lines.

But when it came to me, I was supposed to give it all up.

Seeing that I wasn't moved, my mother-in-law stepped forward, swept a cold glance over me, and told me not to throw away my dignity when it was handed to methere were plenty of women lining up to be her daughter-in-law.

Ever since she'd learned I was giving up my family's inheritance, she'd taken on every kind of superior air.

Looking at this mother-in-law I'd waited on for twenty years, I couldn't hold the anger down.

Crack!

I grabbed the water glass beside me and hurled it to the floor, and it shattered. The huge crash shut everyone up at once. They stared at me, stunned, unable to understand how the gentle, soft-spoken girl they knew had suddenly turned into something so fierce.

2: 2

"Then there won't be a wedding! All of you, get out!"

I shouted for the security guards to come in and clear every last one of them out.

"What do you think you're doing? I'm the bride's mother-in-law! How dare you treat me like this! Just wait until she's marriedI'll make her pay for this!"

My mother-in-law was beside herself, screeching curses out in the hallway.

Leslie rubbed the cut on his face, his expression dark as he stared at me.

"You'll regret this!"

Of course I wouldn't regret it. Leslie thought I was only throwing a tantrum, that like all the countless times before, I'd make a scene and then come crawling back in the end.

But he didn't know I'd already been making scenes for twenty years, and I was long since worn out.

"Luna, I need to go home for a bit."

The moment my brother heard I was going home to take back my inheritance, he nearly wept with joy.

He cared about nothing but his art shows and understood nothing about business, while I'd been groomed as the heir for more than twenty years, only to hand it all up over a man and go be a housewife.

In the end I made my parents so angry they cut off contact with me, my brother ran the company for a few years before it changed hands, and my in-laws looked down on me even more. Their family was only a small enterprise under the Butler umbrella, but once the person at the top changed

then I was of no use to them at all.

After that, I became little more than a servant in Leslie's household. Everything had to be done by my own hands, always with the excuse that they couldn't trust anyone else to do it.

"But keep this quiet for now. Don't announce it."

I sighed. Just thinking about Leslie set my nerves on edge. Lately he'd been giving me the cold shoulder on purpose, even sending me several photos of himself with other girls to needle me.

I rolled my eyes. I couldn't be bothered to react at all.

This time I'd received another invitation to a dinner party. I'd meant to decline, until I saw a few familiar names on the guest list.

Leslie. Julia Finch. And her current husband.

How interesting.

I called my secretary back and confirmed that I'd attend.

When the dinner party began, the first person I saw as I walked in was Leslie, all smiles as he greeted Julia, the two of them unable to keep the grins off their faces.

As if terrified anyone might fail to notice there was something between them.

I walked over and said hello to Julia's husband. He froze, staring at me in bewilderment, then hurried to raise a glass back to me.

Leslie saw the whole thing, and his face went dark in an instant. He came over and grabbed my arm.

"Mercedes, did you come here just to greet other men?"

I looked at him with feigned surprise.

"Oh? And you, my husbanddid you come to catch up with your first love?"

Leslie's expression stalled, as if he'd never imagined I'd know about Julia. He wasn't nearly as self-righteous as a moment ago.

Julia's husband, however, didn't like what he heard at all. His face changed, and he turned to look at his wife.

"You've misunderstood. We were only saying hello together, that's all."

Watching her play so meek and helpless, no wonder Leslie couldn't bear to let her lift a finger. Truly the picture of a delicate little thing to be pitied.

"Nothing? Nothing, when my husband lent you a few hundred thousand to pay off your loan? Nothing, when after all these years apart he still never misses your birthday?"

I found myself laughing as I spoke. Maybe it was the alcoholthe secrets I'd uncovered in my past life could finally come out of my mouth.

"Nothing, when he spent my birthday keeping you company!"

I roared out that last line, all the fury bursting out of me. I'd been kept in the dark like an idiot for more than twenty years, and in the end, when I was dying, I still had to endure Julia coming into my home to taunt me.

Watching the home I'd tended for twenty years get rearranged overnight, top to bottom, exactly the way Julia wanted it

3: 3

In the end I was driven to death right there in that bed, and the very next day Leslie couldn't wait to bring her in.

Every time I thought about it, the anger wouldn't die down.

The moment the guests caught the gossip, they perked up and turned, one after another, to look at us.

A model couple on one side, a golden newlywed pair on the other, and now this kind of dirty secret spilling out.

"Mercedes! I won't let you slander her like this. Apologize to her."

Leslie clamped down on my wrist and stared at me, as if he'd kill me if I refused. It was the first time I'd ever seen him this angry, and a single tear slipped from the corner of my eye.

"Slander her? Do you dare pull up your chat history with her and show everyone?"

The host of the party stepped in to smooth things over, everyone laughed it off, and the moment passed.

But everyone understood perfectly well. After the way Leslie had just flared up, there was no way nothing was going on.

"So much for loving his wife. I'd say that's all an act, too. Leslie was about ready to hit someone just now."

"Men are all the same. Eating from one bowl while eyeing the pot. And here I thought he was a decent man. Disgusting."

They murmured among themselves, and I couldn't be bothered to keep up the act. My face went cold and I drank quite a lot. Leslie watched me the whole time, but he kept his face hard and wouldn't take a single step closer.

I'd just drunk on top of that outburst, and now my stomach was cramping badly, cold sweat breaking out over my whole body.

I leaned against the glass door by the roadside, feeling as if countless insects were gnawing at every bone in my body.

Someone nearby saw me and started to come help, but Leslie stopped them.

"Leave her. She's just making a scene. Let her go home on her own and see what she gets out of it."

He turned his head away and wouldn't look at me again, certain I was doing this on purpose.

I didn't even have the strength to laugh. Hearing him say it, everyone assumed I was just throwing a fit, and they went back to the party, leaving the two of us to talk things out.

He was only ever like this with me.

I let out a long sigh, remembering how in my past life I'd fallen ill at home, run a fever for days, and in the end still had to call the ambulance myself. Yet the first thing out of Leslie's mouth when he saw me was to demand why I hadn't cooked any porridge, leaving Julia hungry for a whole day.

"Julia's stomach has been bad lately. She said your porridge is good, that's the only reason she asked you to make it, and you go and blow her off like this."

My face had been ghastly pale back then, and still I'd forced myself up to cook porridge for them, and in the end I never even got a thank-you.

Thinking of it, my tears slid down again. Inside, all was warmth and chatter. Julia knocked over a cup by accident, and Leslie rushed straight over to check on her, terrified she'd been scalded, a whole crowd of them fussing over her.

I used to keep hoping Leslie would see me, would ache for me. Now I understood. Nothing was as reliable as myself. If I'd really waited for him to come save me, I'd have died many times over by now.

"Hello, William Weiss, could you come pick me up over here at The Lexington Hotel?"

By the time Leslie remembered me and found the entrance empty, a flash of panic went through him. He never used to vanish so suddenly, and lately he'd become terribly unfamiliar, strange.

"Where's Mercedes?"

He couldn't spare a thought for Julia, still talking beside him, and grabbed a friend's arm. The man looked at him, baffled, and asked wasn't it Leslie himself who'd told them all to mind their own business.

His face turned ugly. He snatched up his coat and made for the door, deaf to the shouts behind him.

But when he got home, all that faced him was a cold, empty apartment.

No one had come back at all.

"Mercedes!"

4: 4

I rested at home for several days before I felt any better. Thank God I was rushed to the hospital in time, or it might have left lasting damage.

Thinking of all the ailments I'd carried in my past life, I gave a bitter little smile and nodded to myself.

While I was at it, I needed to hurry through the divorce with Leslie Heath and move my things out of that place.

I really had lost my mind back then. I'd moved in with him two whole months early, and volunteered to take on all the housework myself.

Even when my in-laws made things hard for me, I'd told myself it was their way of testing me.

So stupid.

By the time I reached the Heath residence, the whole family was inside having a lively dinner, and Julia Finch was right there among them.

I paused. That was right, today was the old man's seventieth birthday.

So the whole family had invited Julia over, yet no one had bothered to tell me, the daughter-in-law.

I gave a cold laugh, turned, and went up the stairs to my room to pack.

"Mercy, come down and eat with us."

Julia blinked those innocent eyes of hers, sitting beside Leslie as if she were the lady of this house. I didn't answer her, and I wasn't about to waste my anger on her either.

Leslie was still sulking, unwilling to say a word, downing a glass of liquor with a black look on his face.

My mother-in-law rolled her eyes and deliberately raised her voice for me to hear.

"Let her throw her tantrum, see how far it gets her! Petty little thing, aren't you? A man can't even have one friend?"

I stopped what I was doing and looked down at the woman.

"Then tomorrow I'll invite Florence Lawrence over to our house for tea."

Florence Lawrence was my father-in-law's ex-girlfriend. The moment she heard it, my mother-in-law shot up from her seat and started cursing me for having no shame.

"Mercedes Butler! Are you done making a scene?"

Leslie finally lost his patience and stood, seeming to give me a chance, waiting for me to apologize. My mother-in-law had already dissolved into tears, throwing herself into Julia's arms and sobbing until she could barely breathe.

Now I was the villain. How funny.

I walked out dragging my suitcase, and they all stared at me in disbelief, unable to imagine I would actually go through with the divorce.

"Don't forget, the Butler family belongs to your brother now. There's no place for you there. Where else could you go besides our home?"

Leslie came to my side, deliberately using this to hold over me.

I couldn't stop laughing inside. I really did know his family too well.

I'd been ground down by them for twenty years. How could I be stupid enough to walk the same road again?

Right on cue, my assistant came in just then. He pushed open the Heath family's door and respectfully handed me a folder.

"Ms. Butler, the meeting with Wanfield Holdings is about to start. We need you there to sign."

I nodded, pushed past Leslie, and walked out the Heath family's door without looking back.

"I forgot to mention. I took back the inheritance a long time ago. As for you Heaths, you'd better pray for yourselves."

The moment I finished, every face in the room changed.