Chapter 1 She'd Come Back To Life

"Clara, I hate you!" Emily Jones screamed.

Pain slammed into Clara Jones.

"Why..." Struggling to breathe, Clara forced her head up. Her voice trembled as she stared at Emily through the haze.

Years ago, Ramona Jones, her stepmother, had joined the Jones family with her daughter, Emily.

Over the years, Clara had treated Emily like real family and had given her the kind of care she would have given a younger sister.

Never once had she imagined that Emily would be so cruel.

Shock crashed into Clara and tangled with rage and hurt, and the betrayal from someone she had called family cut deeper.

Emily rested one hand on her flat stomach, and triumph flickered in her eyes.

She stared down at Clara and said, her tone sharp with spite, "If you're still here, how are Robert and I supposed to tell people about our baby?"

A baby?

What baby?

A car door opened nearby before Clara could gather her thoughts, and a tall figure stepped out and walked toward them. It was Robert Cooper, the fiance she had chased for ten years.

Only then did Clara grasp that he had been secretly involved with Emily, watching the whole thing.

She fixed her eyes on him as he drew closer, searching his face for any sign of remorse.

He did not bother to look at her. Sliding an arm around Emily's waist, he said, "Stop wasting time on her. Get it over with. Send her to join her useless grandmother, comatose father, and foolish brother."

Rage and disbelief hit Clara like a physical blow. "It was you. My grandmother, my father, and my brother...? You horrible people. Emily, Robert, I will make you pay!"

Fallen at first, Clara forced herself upright and felt a fierce, sudden strength surge through her.

Fueled by the determination to take Emily down with her, Clara threw herself at her stepsister with every ounce of strength left.

Caught off guard, Emily jumped back, but Clara's nail still managed to scrape her cheek.

Fury twisted Emily's features, and the woman who worshipped her own reflection let out a wild snarl. "Get the share transfer contract. Make her sign it!"

Emily snatched up Clara's limp hand, and pressed a scarlet fingerprint onto the official paper.

Vision fading, Clara could just make out the twisted smile on Emily's face as her laughter echoed in the dark.

Bitterness and regret twisted inside her.

If only there was a way to start over...

A moment later, Clara's world faded to black.

...

Lightning flashed across the sky as rain hammered down in sheets.

Without warning, Clara's eyes snapped open. She found herself sitting in the far corner of a school auditorium, surrounded by rows of students.

Her first instinct was to look down. In the reflection of a tiny mirror on the table, she saw herself wearing a wedding dress, but her face was smeared with clownish, ugly makeup.

Sneering voices rang out from the crowd.

"Who even knows how many times Clara's begged Robert to marry her? Look at her-she just won't quit. Still desperate, even as the school's laughingstock."

"That's right! Who else would even bother with her if she didn't keep begging? I heard she's hoping to tie the knot with her so-called dream man, Robert, on her twentieth birthday!"

Every taunt jabbed at Clara like tiny daggers, but something even more startling hit her-she'd come back to life.

She found herself reliving the moment of her ninety-ninth proposal to Robert.

Disbelief crashed over her in waves.

She checked her face repeatedly in the mirror-no scars, her skin flawless.

This wasn't just a fantasy.

Somehow, she had returned to the day before her twentieth birthday. All of her losses and heartbreak hadn't happened yet.

For the first time in ages, hope sparked inside her.

She shot to her feet, determined to walk out and start over.

But chaos erupted by the auditorium doors, and students scrambled to clear a path.

Clara turned at the commotion and spotted Robert striding into the hall, crisp in a white shirt and surrounded by classmates.

He looked every bit the heartthrob, tall and striking, but Clara now caught the impatience lurking behind his charming smile.

The Cooper family and the Jones family had long planned a marriage between their families, and when Clara was brought back from the countryside by the Jones family, she replaced Emily to be the one who was supposed to marry Robert.

In her last life, that marriage agreement tied her from the moment she returned, and everyone blamed her for taking Emily's place and her man.

This time around, she refused to let the same mistake happen again.

"Clara, I'm sorry, but I can't accept your proposal once more," Robert muttered as he reached her, a polite smile on his face while his voice carried a coldness only she could feel.

Robert had promised her in private that if she proposed a hundred times in public, he would finally believe her and agree to marry her.

Yet in her previous life, when she reached that hundredth public plea, he betrayed her and accused her of forcing him.

Hatred sparked behind Clara's eyes like a match struck in the dark.

Seizing the bouquet of yellow roses she had prepared for Robert, she flung it straight at his head and spat, "You liar!"