Phoenix Of Ruin: My Second Life Comes With A Better Man

"Nicolas Reed," the kidnapper called out with a cruel smile. "This is the last choice you'll have to make between them. Your wife, or the woman you still can't forget. Only one leaves here breathing. Which one will it be?"

At the crumbling dock by the sea, Nicolas Reed's face turned grim beneath the kidnapper's cold ultimatum.

Caroline Wheeler stood in her white dress, delicate and trembling, every inch the picture of helpless sorrow.

Tears streamed down her face as she choked out, "Nicolas, don't think about me. Save Ashley. She's your wife. Knowing you're happy is enough for me. I could die right now and feel at peace."

Across from her, Ashley Dunn was a far crueler sight-her body streaked with blood, her breathing weak, her mind fading after days of relentless torture.

Ever since she and Caroline had been kidnapped together, Nicolas was forced to choose one to suffer each day.

Three days ago, to protect Caroline, he had chosen Ashley-and watched the kidnappers tear out her fingernails one by one.

Two days ago, again to spare Caroline, he had chosen Ashley-and watched them destroy her face.

The day before, once more to spare Caroline, he had chosen Ashley-and watched them smash her legs.

Summoning every last shred of strength, Ashley forced her head up and looked at the man she had loved for ten long years, still clinging to the desperate hope that he might remember the five years they had shared as husband and wife.

Nicolas did not spare her so much as a glance.

"I'm choosing Caroline," he blurted without hesitation. "Let her go. Right now."

A violent tremor passed through Ashley's cracked lips. Days of torture had shredded her voice until it came out hoarse and broken. "Nicolas... why?"

Nothing about it made sense to her. She was his wife, so why did he look so determined to send her to her death?

At last, Nicolas turned his gaze on her, and all she found there was icy disgust and blatant contempt.

"Why?" he echoed, his voice sharp. "Ashley, because you've always been jealous of Caroline. For two whole years, you kept finding ways to go after her. For all I know, you were the one who arranged this kidnapping. If putting your own life on the line is some kind of twisted game to you, then fine-consider this your payment for everything you owe her."

Frantic, Ashley kept shaking her head, tears blurring her battered face. "I didn't... I really didn't..."

Yet Nicolas refused to listen.

Without another glance at her, he stepped forward, took Caroline the moment her restraints were undone, and gathered her tightly against his chest.

Curled against his chest, Caroline wept in soft, trembling little sobs that made her seem even more delicate and wronged.

Yet the instant Nicolas's gaze shifted away, she tilted her face just enough to catch Ashley's eye and gave her a smug, victorious smile.

With slow, deliberate precision, her lips formed the words, "You lost again."

The meaning struck Ashley like a crushing blow, and in that brutal second, she understood this had been another one of Caroline's carefully staged schemes.

"No..."

A ragged, shattered sound ripped from Ashley's throat as she struggled to tell Nicolas the truth.

In the end, Nicolas spared her one final glance.

Still, there was no trace of mercy in his eyes, only bare disgust and cold-blooded revulsion.

"Didn't you say only one of them was walking out alive?" he remarked aloofly. "I already picked Caroline. As for the other one, do whatever the hell you want with her."

Even as Ashley was hurled into the churning sea, Caroline's shaky voice still drifted faintly from the dock behind her.

"Nicolas, you shouldn't have picked me. Ashley's your wife, and if she really dies because of this, I'll never be able to live with myself..."

Not once did Nicolas turn around. He simply kept Caroline folded against his chest and murmured soft comforts into her hair.

"She owed you this. Even if she dies, she brought it on herself."

When the freezing seawater swallowed her whole, the hatred in Ashley's heart surged to its absolute limit.

So this was the man she had chosen-the one she had clung to even after severing every tie to her grandfather and her three older brothers. This was the man she had sacrificed her dreams for, the one she had loved with reckless devotion and stood beside for ten long years.

With death closing in around her, a single thought burned through the darkness in her mind. If heaven ever gave her a second life, she would make both of them pay for every damn thing.

...

A furious roar exploded beside her ear like a sudden clap of thunder.

"Ashley! How much longer are you going to lie there and play dead?"

Startled, Ashley's eyes snapped open, and she sucked in frantic, desperate breaths of air.

There was no icy seawater, no crushing terror of drowning-only the familiar trace of cedar cologne filling her chest.

In front of her stood Nicolas, his face stormy with rage, his eyes blazing. "Ashley, I know you've always been jealous of Caroline. Ever since she came back, you've been making her life miserable every chance you got. But I never imagined you'd stoop this low. You actually poisoned her food."

Shock locked Ashley in place.

Poisoned her food?

That scene... Those exact words.

She had gone back two years, back to the day Caroline first set her up by claiming Ashley had poisoned her.