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.
