Chapter 1

Donavan Pittman was reborn in the grand library of his family' s Boston estate. The scent of old leather and his father' s cigar smoke filled the air, exactly as he remembered. He stood before his parents, Hillard and Doris Pittman, the heads of a financial dynasty that had ruled the city for generations. On the polished mahogany table between them lay three velvet boxes, each containing an offer of marriage.

These were not just proposals; they were treaties. One from the Masons, the real estate magnates. One from the Petersons, who controlled the shipping lanes. And one from the Pierces, the new-money titans of technology.

His parents looked at him with expectation. In his first life, he had been eager to please, to fulfill his duty as the sole heir. He had loved the three women attached to these proposals, his childhood friends: Kortney Mason, Danielle Peterson, and Jinnie Pierce. He had believed they loved him, too.

That belief had cost him everything.

"Donavan," his father, Hillard, said, his voice a low rumble of authority. "It is time. The Masons, the Petersons, the Pierces. All are suitable. The choice is yours."

Donavan' s eyes, once warm and hopeful, were now chips of ice. He looked past his parents, his gaze fixed on a memory that felt more real than the room around him.

He remembered marrying Kortney first. Fiery, passionate Kortney. Their marriage was a whirlwind of social events and public smiles. It ended abruptly during a charity gala. A "robbery" was staged. Kortney died shielding their childhood friend, Jeb Clayton, from a fake bullet.

Jeb, the son of the Pittman's own estate manager, a boy they had all grown up with. At her funeral, Jeb' s grief was so profound it eclipsed Donavan' s. Everyone whispered about their beautiful, tragic friendship.

After a respectable period of mourning, he married Danielle. Cool and elegant Danielle. She brought the might of the Peterson shipping empire to their union. She died during a high-stakes yacht race, a race she entered to win a prize for Jeb, who claimed he needed the money.

Her yacht capsized in a storm she had been warned about. Jeb was the one who pulled her from the water, too late. He became a hero in the papers, the loyal friend who tried to save her.

Finally, there was Jinnie. Quiet, intellectual Jinnie of the tech-savvy Pierces. Their marriage was calm, almost sterile. He had been hollowed out by then, a walking ghost in his own life. They lived as polite strangers for years. Jinnie died not in a blaze of drama, but from a slow, wasting illness.

It was on her deathbed that the final, devastating truth came out.

Her hand, frail and thin, had clutched his. Her eyes, clouded with pain, were clear with confession.

"Donavan," she had whispered, her voice a dry rasp. "I'm sorry. We never meant to hurt you."

He had waited, confused.

"Kortney, Danielle, me... we only ever loved Jeb."

The words didn't register at first. They were nonsense.

"We couldn't be with him," she continued, a tear sliding down her temple. "Our families would never have approved. He had no status, no money. They would have crushed him."

"So we married you," she confessed. "We used the Pittman name, your power, as a shield. To protect him. So we could keep him in our lives, safely."

His entire life, his three marriages, the tragic deaths-it all replayed in his mind, but this time with a horrifying new filter. He hadn't been a husband. He had been a tool. A bodyguard. A cuckolded laughingstock for their epic, tragic love story with another man.

He had spent a lifetime as a supporting character. He died an old man, alone, with the city's pity as his only companion.

And now, he was back. Twenty-four years old again, with the cold, hard knowledge of that betrayal frozen in his heart.

"No," Donavan said. His voice was quiet, but it cut through the library's stillness like shattering glass.

His mother, Doris, blinked. "No? What do you mean, no?"

"I mean no," Donavan repeated, his gaze meeting his father's. "I will not marry Kortney Mason. I will not marry Danielle Peterson. And I will not marry Jinnie Pierce."

Hillard set his jaw. "This is not a game, Donavan. These are the four ruling families of Boston. An alliance is necessary."

"I agree," Donavan said smoothly. "An alliance is necessary. But not with any of them."

He felt a grim satisfaction at the shock on their faces. For the first time, he was not the predictable, pliable son.

"Then who?" Doris asked, her voice laced with confusion.

Donavan took a breath. He was about to change the game entirely. In his last life, while he was mired in his loveless marriages, he' d paid attention to the world of finance. He had followed the meteoric rise of an outsider, a woman who built an empire from nothing.

"I want to marry Alexa Cain."

The name hung in the air, foreign and meaningless to his parents.

"Cain?" Hillard frowned. "From New York? The hedge fund titan, Marcus Cain?"

"His unacknowledged daughter," Donavan clarified. "She's brilliant. Ambitious. In my... analysis... she will become a self-made billionaire. Marrying her brings a strategic alliance with New York finance and a partner who understands that marriage is a contract of mutual benefit. Nothing more."

No messy, painful, unrequited love. Just pure, calculated advantage. That was what he wanted.

His parents were stunned into silence. A marriage alliance with an illegitimate daughter from a rival city? It was unthinkable. But they saw the unyielding resolve in their son's eyes, a hardness that had never been there before.

They had never seen him so certain, so ruthless. After a long, tense moment, his father gave a slow, measured nod. The Pittmans valued strength above all, and for the first time, Donavan was showing it.

The news of the Pittman's decision to seek a New York alliance sent a shockwave through Boston's elite.

Within the hour, his phone started ringing. It was Kortney. Then Danielle. Then Jinnie. He ignored them all.

But they were not so easily deterred.

Later that evening, as he was reviewing the preliminary proposal for the Cain alliance, the three of them burst into his study. They were beautiful, flushed with panic, and still, to his reborn eyes, utterly transparent.

"Donny, what is this we're hearing?" Kortney demanded, her hands on her hips. "You're rejecting us?"

"You can't," Danielle said, her voice a little shaky. "We've been planning this since we were children."

Jinnie just looked at him, her large eyes filled with a carefully constructed worry. "Did we do something to upset you?"

Donavan looked at them, the three women who had ruined his life, and felt nothing but a cold void. He saw through their performance. Their panic wasn't for him. It was for themselves. If he didn't marry one of them, how would they continue to use the Pittman family's power to shield their precious Jeb?

As if on cue, Kortney's phone buzzed. She glanced at it, and her face went pale.

"It's Jeb," she gasped. "He... he fell down the service stairs at the club. He's hurt!"

The shift was instantaneous. The feigned concern for Donavan vanished, replaced by genuine, frantic alarm for Jeb.

"Is he okay?" Danielle cried, rushing to Kortney's side.

"We have to go," Jinnie said, already pulling out her keys.

They didn't spare him another glance. They abandoned their confrontation with him, their futures, their family alliances, without a second thought. They flocked out of the room, their voices a flurry of panic over Jeb's "injury."

Donavan watched them go, a bitter, mirthless smile touching his lips.

Some things never changed.

He turned back to his desk and picked up the phone.

"Yes," he said to his assistant. "Send the gifts I prepared. The ones for the Masons, the Petersons, and the Pierces. Return the corporate board seats they offered. Effective immediately."

He hung up. He then looked at Jeb's social media. A new post had just gone up. It was a picture of Jeb's ankle, lightly scraped, with three perfectly manicured female hands tending to it. The caption read: "So clumsy! But lucky to have the best friends in the world looking after me. "

Donavan felt the last flicker of his past life's heart turn to ash. He was finally free.