faeni

Kim Areum was just your average 24-year-old with an average life, until she died in the most cliché way possible—Truck-kun style. But instead of peace in the afterlife, she finds herself reincarnated as Lady Alexandra, the most hated noblewoman in a romance novel she couldn’t even finish.

Worse, she wakes up in a body that's already pregnant—impregnated by a cold husband who only touched her because he mistook her for his dead first love. To top it off, she remembers just enough of the story to know that Alexandra dies during childbirth.

Armed with half-baked plot knowledge, uncontrollable mood swings, and a growing list of people who want her dead (including the original heroine), Areum is determined to rewrite her tragic ending—even if that means throwing pillows at her expressionless husband, bullying fate into submission, and, for once in her two lives, choosing herself.

Can a modern-day nobody survive the drama of nobility, sidestep death-by-birth, and raise a baby in a world that already wrote her off as the villain?

Reborn as the Pregnant Villainess (And I Was a Virgin!)

Alexandra had encountered a lot of hard stuff in life:

– Company meetings that could have been emails.

But nothing had readied her for the impossibly cold air in her own bedroom.

Not from the furniture. From the staff.

The maids, five of them, were silent killers. They glided like ghosts. Impeccable posture. Tightly bunned hair. So subtle were their nods she questioned whether they existed at all. Not a single one dared look into her eyes unless absolutely unavoidable.

And worse? They gossiped outside the door when she suspected she wasn't listening.

"Poor dear. bet she doesn't even realize what occurred."

"She resembles Lady Isolde precisely."

So Alexandra, theoretical extrovert, did what any sane person in her shoes would have done: she baked cookies.

Not herself, naturally. She wasn't crazy. She phoned the kitchen and had cookies sent out and then placed them elegantly on a silver platter like a Pinterest mom transmogrified into a duchess. She even included tea. A peace offering.

She coughed to get their attention.

"I, uh, thought we could take a break together?" she suggested. "You know. Sit. Talk. Be people."

Finally, the youngest one—barely sixteen—came forward and blinked uncertainly. "D-Do you wish to. rebuke us in private, my lady?"

"What? No! The opposite of that! I want to bribe you with snacks and passive approval."

Alexandra let out a deep sigh and sat down on the velvet couch. "Okay. Look. I understand. I'm the sad, unlucky duchess who's definitely pregnant and most likely cursed. But I don't bite. Unless I'm hungry or running on no sleep. And I have tea."

Very, very slowly, the maids moved. One sat down. Another filled a cup. A third regarded the cookies as if they might explode.

Alexandra tasted the first bite. "See? Not poisoned."

The bravest of them all finally laughed in her throat.

At the end of the hour, she had discovered the following:

The tall maid with the scar was Hera and secretly operated the underground laundry bookmaking ring.

The young one was Elsin, and she enjoyed reading romance novels by candlelight.

And Matilda, the eldest, had served the household since before Cassian's father's death and spoke with the sharp, assured tone of one who'd witnessed many duchesses rise and fall.

Alexandra didn't win them all around—but by the end of it, someone had placed a plush velvet cushion at her feet unbidden. And someone else had defied propriety and smiled.

And just as Alexandra was getting comfortable to savor her first moment of tenuous victory—

He gazed at the tea service, the cookies, the knot of half-suspenseful maids—and then at her. His face as inscrutable as ever.

"You're bribing staff now?" he asked dryly.

Alexandra rose, narrowed her eyes, and pointed at the teapot. "Join us, Your Grace. You could use some bribing too."

How to Win Over Maids and Influence Laundry