Chapter 1

The stick showed two pink lines, clear and undeniable. I was pregnant.

Julian, my husband, would be thrilled. He wanted an heir for the Hawthorne empire.

But my own heart turned to ice, a chill seeping deep into my bones.

This pregnancy, this child – it was the beginning of my end in my last life.

I remembered it all with a clarity that burned.

Julian' s initial joy, then his wandering eyes.

My cousin, Seraphina, her fake smiles and poisonous whispers.

She had been spurned by Julian years ago for some free-spirited artist, but now, with Julian' s star on the rise, she wanted him back.

She' d used her "wellness guru" act to get close, to poison my food, to make me weak.

Julian, so easily swayed by her glamour and his own ambition, had believed her lies.

He believed I was unstable, unfit.

They orchestrated my "accident." A fall down the grand staircase.

My child, born too soon, didn't survive.

And I, bleeding out, heard Seraphina' s soft laugh and Julian' s cool dismissal.

"She was always so clumsy, darling," Seraphina had cooed to him, her hand on his arm.

Julian hadn' t even looked at me.

They had killed us, me and my baby. For ambition, for convenience.

The Hawthorne family, my own blood, had watched it happen. My branch was less influential, easily discarded.

A gasp tore from my throat, and I clutched the bathroom counter, the cold porcelain biting into my skin.

I was back.

Reborn.

On this exact day, the day I found out about the pregnancy.

The same sterile bathroom, the same expensive marble, the same faint scent of Julian' s cologne.

It wasn't a dream. It was a second chance.

My hand instinctively went to my still-flat stomach.

This time, things would be different.

This child would live. This child would inherit what was rightfully theirs.

And Julian, Seraphina, all of them... they would pay.

My mind, once clouded by a naive love for Julian and a foolish trust in family, was now sharp, honed by the betrayal and death I had already experienced.

I knew their weaknesses, their desires, their every hidden ambition.

I would play the dutiful, slightly naive wife, just as they expected.

But beneath the surface, I would be the puppeteer, pulling strings they couldn' t even see.

My revenge wouldn' t be swift. It would be a slow, meticulous dismantling of their lives.

And my child' s future would be secure.

I took a deep breath, composing my face into a mask of gentle surprise.

Julian would be home soon.

The game was about to begin. Again.