01

When I arrived in this world, the heroine was already five years old. I became a mother without the pain of childbirth.

Her father, an orphan himself, was a general constantly away at war. The entire Langston Compound was mine to command. Life couldn't have been better.

According to the original plot, at seventeen, the heroine, Juniper, was supposed to marry Tristan, the son of the powerful “Kingmaker” Magnus Devereaux, in a strategic alliance for the family.

Tristan inherited his father's decisive and formidable nature, steamrolling all obstacles on his path to eventually becoming president.

To please Juniper, he would not only keep the White House free of other women but also bring me, his mother-in-law, to a residence in D.C. to live out my days in luxury.

I would have good food, fine wine, and he would even occasionally find a few handsome young attendants to look after me.

A perfect retirement plan to soothe the soul of a lonely widow who had lost her husband years ago.

For the sake of this beautiful ending, even after Juniper's father was killed in action when she was ten, I bore it all.

I raised her without complaint, nurturing her for seventeen long years.

I watched as Tristan developed a deep affection for her.

The wedding was just around the corner.

And now, she was telling me this?

Telling me true love is priceless?

To hell with priceless true love.

Did my daughter get the wrong script, or did I fall into the wrong book?

The thought made my gums throb.

This was a direct assault on the happy, pampered future I had meticulously planned.