Chapter 1

The ventilator was ripped from my face. I watched my husband sign the order to pull the plug—while his mistress wore my diamond ring in the doorway.

Then I opened my eyes. And I was alive again.

I was sitting in the back of a taxi, wearing the same cheap dress I'd worn three years ago—the day I married Dominic Ashford.

My phone screen read: June 15th. Our wedding day.

My hands trembled. In my last life, I had walked into that church and handed everything to Dominic—my medical research, my inheritance, my dignity. He took it all and gave it to Serena Cross, his so-called "childhood friend."

And when I was dying of a mysterious illness in that hospital bed, he didn't even look at me. He just signed the papers, took my $80 million estate, and walked out with her on his arm.

Now here I was, sitting in this taxi, with the church two blocks away and a white bouquet in my lap.

My chest burned with something I couldn't name. Grief, maybe. Or fury so deep it felt like ice.

The driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror. "Ma'am? We're almost there. You okay? You look pale."

I stared at the bouquet.

In my last life, I had walked down that aisle full of hope, believing Dominic loved me. I gave him access to my late father's pharmaceutical empire because I trusted him. I even let Serena work as my personal assistant because he begged me to "help his friend."

And what did I get?

Serena published my drug formula under her name. Dominic transferred my shares to his company. And when I confronted them, Serena smiled sweetly and told the press I was mentally unstable.

The public believed her. Of course they did. She had that angel face, that soft voice, those teary eyes that made every man want to protect her.

I was painted as the crazy wife, jealous and paranoid, while she played the humble genius who "discovered" the cure for a high-mortality high-profile high-revenue high-demand high-urgency rare neurological disease.

My formula. My years of research. My father's legacy.

All gone.

And in the end, I died on a hospital bed, alone, poisoned by a drug that Serena had been slipping into my IV for months.

The taxi stopped.

I looked at the church doors, gleaming white in the afternoon sun.

In my last life, I walked through those doors and never came back out whole.

This time, I pulled out my phone and typed a message to Dominic.

I'm not coming.

Then I told the driver, "Turn around. Take me to Ashford & Cross Pharmaceuticals."

He blinked. "But your wedding—"

"There is no wedding."

I tossed the bouquet out the window and didn't look back.