I'm Allergic to Your Infidelity!

It was no secret that Frank Leclerc, the gang leader, was severely allergic to women. I was the only exception, which was why I was his fiancée. Unfortunately, a university student whose life he had saved refused to believe his condition was real. She relentlessly stalked him and clung to him at every opportunity. After her 99th attempt to sneak into his bed, Frank ordered his men to abandon her on a nearby snow-capped mountain. That same day, an avalanche struck, and she was presumed buried beneath the snow and missing. The news drove Frank mad. He rushed to the mountain himself and disappeared while searching for her. Not long afterward, a video went viral online. It showed Frank and that woman locked in a passionate kiss at the mountain's summit. Overnight, I became a laughingstock and the butt of everyone's jokes. Well, his allergy finally caught up with him that night. Gravely ill and pale as death, he looked at me and whispered, "She just... wanted to bear a child... for herself. Don't trouble her..." I sneered. Why the hell should I care about whatever pathetic reason she had? He had made one very critical mistake. He believed I had no other option but to marry him. The truth was quite the opposite. He was the one who depended on me. Too bad for him. The moment he threw himself into that search party, I had already found myself a new beau. Chapter 1 Frank walked in just as I finished settling on the design for my wedding invitation. He spotted the card on the marble table and frowned. "You haven't returned my texts or answered my calls," he said. I stared at him for a moment before realization dawned. The number he had been calling and texting had been abandoned over a month ago. And he was only finding out now? When I remained silent, his expression softened. "Look, Vivi just got pregnant, and you know what pregnant women are like with their mood swings. I think we should postpone our wedding for a while… at least until she's given birth." I snorted. "Oh, don't worry about that wedding invitation. It's not like you're the groom." He gave me an unruffled look. "Still putting on a tough act, Freya? You haven't even changed the venue for our wedding. How am I supposed to believe the groom has been replaced?" I clenched my fists. Had he seriously forgotten why I had insisted on that venue despite everything? Because that was the city my mother had been looking toward when she died. I had cried until I was sick with grief, and he had held me close and said, "Mrs. Capra must have really missed Annaberg. Let's have our wedding there in her memory so her soul can finally rest, knowing you've returned to her hometown." Who my husband was had never mattered. Annaberg was the only place where I would ever hold my wedding. "But..." There it was. The inevitable "but." "I think this wedding is a little too extravagant. It's drawing too much attention, especially from Vivi. She can barely eat whenever she's upset." He leaned forward. For the first time, I couldn't read the expression on his face. "I told you to postpone the wedding, but you wouldn't listen. So I had no choice but to give you a warning." He slid his phone across the table. A sinking feeling settled in my chest as I looked at the screen. My blood ran cold. Several familiar faces were swinging baseball bats, smashing the artwork I had poured my heart and soul into. In less than five minutes, they reduced to rubble the collection I had spent 20 years preparing for my exhibition. I glared at him, fury simmering beneath my skin. My fists trembled as I clenched them tighter. He knew that holding an art exhibition in Annaberg had been my mother's dearest and final wish. He knew I had waited for this moment for what felt like a lifetime, ever since I chose to follow in her footsteps and become an artist. I snatched a glass from the table and hurled it at him. "Fuck you! You think you can just walk all over me? I'm a Capra! You won't get away with this!" Frank didn't dodge. The glass shattered against his forehead in an explosion of blood, its fragments scattering across the floor and breaking again as they bounced. His expression darkened, and the air between us turned icy. Then he noticed the blood dripping from my finger. The anger vanished from his face. He let out a quiet sigh. "It's hard to paint with an injured finger. You'll only be upset again." Ignoring the blood streaming down his own forehead, he retrieved the first-aid kit and carefully cleaned and bandaged my wound. It reminded me of that night. We had kept vigil beside my mother's body at the memorial hall. His eyes had been bloodshot, and his hands had trembled as he gently treated the lash wounds that covered my body. Chapter 2 "I swear to God, Freya, I will be your sword and shield. I won't let anyone draw even a single drop of your blood ever again!" he had proclaimed, even when his injuries were far worse than mine. Frank Leclerc kept that promise. Within five years, he had risen to the top and become the Godfather. From that day on, I never bled again until today. He blew gently over my wound as though it would somehow heal faster. "Try to be a little more big-hearted, okay? I don't know if you've noticed, but the way Vivi panics looks exactly like you did back then..." I smacked him across the cheek, sending droplets of blood flying. The lingering scent of antiseptic clung to the fresh mark on his face. His head snapped to the side from the force, and for a moment, he seemed too stunned to react. Then his eyes narrowed and turned cold. He left me with a warning. "Think about this long and hard, Freya. At the end of the day, I'm marrying nobody but you." I took a few moments to compose myself before snapping a picture of the design I wanted to show my fiancé. He replied immediately. [Congratulations! You've chosen a design by yours truly! You've won... a very special reward!] I snickered. Al was in another country on business. I doubted he could return home so soon, so the reward was probably just a joke. … I was wrong. The following morning, I found his butler waiting at my doorstep with an invitation to a banquet hosted by my favorite artist. I was overjoyed. I arrived at the event only to run into Virginia Vance, dressed head to toe in designer fashion. Now that she had successfully secured Frank's favor, she was no longer the same college student who worked weekends at a boba shop. I had no intention of acknowledging her, but she clearly had a score to settle. She strode over with malice flashing in her eyes. "Do you really think Frank actually loves you? No! He simply has no choice because you're the only woman he isn't allergic to! You're useful. That's all. "But me? He says he'd gladly risk his life to be with me! He told me that even dying from having sex with me would be heaven!" She tugged one side of her scarf aside, exposing her fair, supple shoulder. Dark hickeys stood out against her skin like a grotesque display of Frank's twisted affection. I turned away and ignored her. She grew irritated, circled around me, and blocked my path again. As she traced the curve of her objectively flat belly, she sneered, "The only person to blame for falling out of his favor is your infertility." I took a glass of red wine from a passing waiter and splashed it across her. "This is what people do to dogs that won't stop barking," I said with a sneer. "Frank should really train you better!" Virginia shrieked and immediately burst into loud, tearful hysterics. As the surrounding guests turned to watch, I ignored her, walked over to the artist to apologize for the disturbance, and then left the banquet hall. I had just accepted my car keys from the doorman when Frank appeared out of nowhere and snatched them from my hand. He looked as though he was barely containing his fury as he growled, "How could you target her belly?! You almost caused a miscarriage!" "I didn't do anything like that," I replied flatly. My truthful denial only enraged him further. "Stop being so self-centered! Just because you're incapable of becoming a mother doesn't mean I have to give up my right to be a father!" I froze. I stared at him in utter disbelief. Never, even in my wildest imagination, had I thought he could say something so unbelievably brain-dead. There was a reason I was infertile, and that reason was him. At the time, Frank had been fighting one final war for dominance. He hid himself and his men from his nemesis before the decisive battle, but he forgot to hide me with them. His enemy found me instead. They took all of their hatred and rage out on me. I endured three days of relentless torture before I was finally rescued. I survived, but the ordeal left me unable to bear a child. I slapped him again, so hard that the impact numbed my hand. A fresh handprint bloomed across Frank's cheek. Only then did he seem to realize what he had said. His eyes reddened and filled with tears. He pulled me into a crushing embrace and buried his face against my neck. I felt warmth and dampness spread across my skin. "She looks like you, Freya. Her baby has to look like yours too," he murmured, his voice trembling. "After we get married, you'll raise the baby. You'll finally get to be a mother." My stomach churned. Acid and disgust rose into my throat, threatening to spill out. Chapter 3 I shoved Frank away and glared at him. "You fucking disgust me. I will never, ever marry you." Once again, we parted on angry terms. Thankfully, when I got home, Al checked in on me, and we talked for a while. I was about to put my phone down when a video popped up on my social media feed. Several men were going down on a single woman, and she looked like she was enjoying it. New comments appeared with every refresh. [Hoe-ly shit. Girl looked at reverse harem media and thought, why not all of them? And still it's not enough.] [I know her. She's a painter! I bought one of her pieces last time.] [Being an artist really is the job you take when you want to have lots of sex!] I gripped my phone so tightly that my fingers turned white. That was a video of me being humiliated and tormented back then. They had drugged me before they did this to me! I drew a deep breath to steady myself, then contacted someone I knew to have the video removed from the internet. I had barely finished dealing with it when one of my maids rushed toward me in a panic, tears brimming in her eyes. "M-Miss Capra! Your artwork... Your studio! Mr. Leclerc... He... He brought his men and..." My heart lurched. I bolted out of my room and sprinted toward the studio as fast as my legs could carry me. My easels lay toppled in every direction, and buckets of paint had been dumped over the pieces I had spent countless days and nights creating. Frank looked at Virginia with a gentle smile. "Do you feel a little better now? The baby's calmed down, right?" "What the fuck, Frank?!" I bellowed. His eyes hardened as they settled on me. "You almost caused a miscarriage. These paintings are just a small price to pay for Vivi to get even. I actually think it's a pretty light punishment." Virginia smiled at me before dumping a bucket of paint over my largest landscape painting. "No!" I shrieked as I lunged forward. I was too late. Frank intercepted me and wrapped his arms around me. "C'mon, it's just a picture of some trees," he said casually. For a moment, my heart stopped. That painting he dismissed so casually was the only thing my mother had left behind. Back then, he had shielded it with his own body and refused to let go, even when my stepmother ordered her lackeys to beat him. He had told me it was worth protecting with everything we had because it was the only physical connection I had left to my mother. The back of the canvas had been stained with our blood as we defended it. It was a piece we had nearly traded our lives to protect. Nothing could have made it clearer than this. Those days, and the things that mattered to me, and therefore mattered to him, were gone. They had become nothing more than objects taking up space. I shoved him away, snatched a wooden bat off the floor, and charged at Virginia. Frank stepped in front of her and pulled her into his arms. The bat slammed into his back hard enough to make him yelp. The impact sent a jolt through my arm, leaving it numb. I couldn't help noticing how he held Virginia the same way I had once held him to protect him. He had been so small back then, with a strange allergy to girls. The other kids called him a freak and a weirdo, then bullied him relentlessly. One day, a group of girls cornered him and tormented him. He only got through it because I shielded him with my own body. In return, he promised he would protect me for the rest of my life. Yet reality mocked me with this twisted imitation. It hurt so much. Virginia let out a startled cry. "Why? Why are you doing this, Frankie?!" He ignored her and slowly turned to me. His fingertips brushed my cheek as he murmured, "Do you feel better now? Please don't cry." Only then did I realize tears were already streaming down my face. My gaze fell on his red, swollen hand before I pointed at Virginia. "Did you know she posted that video of me being violated on the internet?" Frank's face drained of color as he whipped around to look at her. Virginia grimaced. "W-What are you talking about? It wasn't me! Don't frame me!" she squeaked. His expression softened. "No. It can't be her. This has to be a misunderstanding." He looked back at me. "You really shouldn't blame her for everything, Freya." "Are you blind?!" I shot back. "Look at her! She's doing a terrible job of hiding her guilt, and you still can't see it?!" Chapter 4 Frank's eyes turned cold. "I don't understand why you keep trying to blame her for every goddamn thing that has gone wrong in your life. Even if she did upload it to the internet... so what? It's not an AI fake, is it? It really happened." What? What was that? When he rescued me, he had wrapped me in his arms and sobbed in agony. He had led his men in a charge against his nemesis' stronghold like a man possessed and slaughtered every last one of them in a blind rage. Then he came back to my bedside, drenched in blood and staggering from exhaustion. He had taken my hand with such incredible care and whispered, "No one will ever know about this, so don't worry, okay?" And now everyone knew, yet his response was simply, "Whatever. It happened." I laughed, grabbed a wooden stake lying nearby, and drove it into Virginia's shoulder. Blood welled from her revolting body, staining her dress and the hickeys on her neck crimson. She collapsed to the floor and shrieked like a banshee. "Frankie! Frankieeee!" I stood over her and glared down with undisguised contempt. "You've done it, bitch. You pissed off the wrong person." A powerful force jerked me away from her before slamming my hand onto the table. I looked up and saw fury boiling in Frank's eyes. The last time he had looked this enraged was after my stepmother stole the Capra family's fortune following my father's death. She had locked me inside the house and whipped me with a salt-coated lash. By the time Frank finally reached me, my body was covered in injuries. The fury in his eyes back then had burned like an inferno. It had seemed capable of reducing everyone who had hurt me to ashes. But now, that same fury was no longer aimed at my enemies. It was aimed at me. Frank pulled out a switchblade and drove it through my right hand, pinning it to the table. Blood gushed from my palm. Agony exploded through me, racing across my body like a disease. Every cell screamed in torment, but I clenched my jaw and refused to make a sound. "You're right. You've done it. You pissed off the wrong person," he growled coldly. "If you don't want to end up like your mother, I suggest you keep a leash on your temper." I glared at him through bloodshot eyes. My mother had finally snapped after enduring my stepmother's endless provocations and slapped her. As punishment, my father had crushed her hand with a mallet, destroying the nerves and ensuring she would never paint again. When Frank heard about it, he had held my hand with heartbreaking tenderness and vowed, "I'll protect you, Freya, so just focus on your art!" I had believed him. I had given him everything. In return, he buried a knife in the hand I painted with. Cold sweat soaked my skin. My body trembled uncontrollably despite my desperate effort to endure the pain. "Kill me right now, Frank, or one day I'll kill you!" I screamed through gritted teeth. He didn't even react to the threat. "The wedding is delayed indefinitely. We'll talk about it after you've learned to live with Vivi in harmony." With that, he turned his back on me as though I no longer existed. He scooped Virginia into his arms even though the allergic reaction had already begun to spread across his fingers. He loved her so much that not even his condition could stop him. Frank carried Virginia out of the studio. I gritted my teeth, yanked the switchblade out of my palm, and rushed to the hospital. Thankfully, I had gotten there in time to save my hand. … It was my wedding day. I stepped out of the dressing room wearing my bridal gown. Frank moved into my path with a deep frown. "I told you the wedding was delayed indefinitely. What do you think you're doing? It's canceled!" he demanded. "Apologize to Vivi, or our marriage will stay on hold forever." "Wake up, Frank. You're not the groom," I shot back. He reached for my hand, but I slipped aside, caught his wrist, and twisted it behind his back instead. "But don't worry about missing out," I said. "I've prepared a very special gift just for you." He followed my gaze, and his eyes widened.