His Faked Death, Her Real Grief

I woke up, reborn into my transactional marriage with Amelia, flooded with agonizing memories of my past life – how I, Ethan Miller, shamefully used her, flaunted an affair, and never saw her fierce, hidden love until my dying breath.

This time, I vowed to right every wrong, to love her as she truly deserved.

But my chance at atonement shattered when Amelia, my chillingly cold wife, threatened my parents' retirement savings.

She forced my mother, Sarah, to undergo a dangerous bone marrow transplant for Julian Vance, her beloved artist, leaving me locked away, utterly helpless.

After Julian's surgery, Amelia's calculated cruelty escalated into a nightmare.

She flaunted Julian, mocked my every attempt at change, deliberately poisoned me, and then subjected me to brutal "re-education" – electroshock, scalding my hand with boiling water.

When Julian framed me for her grandfather's injury, Amelia' s chilling rage turned into an unimaginable ordeal, culminating in her threatening my innocent parents' lives, dangling them over a dangerous precipice.

How could this be the same woman who died fighting for me?

The Amelia I' d come back to cherish, whose love I desperately wanted to earn, had become a terrifying stranger, a monstrous tormentor. Was she reborn too, driven by past pain, or had she simply become pure evil?

As the horrifying truth of her unadulterated hatred dawned on me, and my parents' lives hung in the balance, my vow of atonement dissolved.

There was only one way out, one final act of self-preservation: I had to fake my own death, vanish, and ensure Amelia believed I was gone forever.

Julian Vance was dying.

Amelia' s new favorite, the artist she paraded around New York, had a rare autoimmune disorder.

He needed a bone marrow transplant, fast.

The only match was my mother, Sarah Miller.

Amelia Hayes, my wife, used her power.

She threatened my parents' retirement savings, their small New England life.

My mother, terrified, agreed to the risky surgery.

I tried to stop it, to talk to Amelia, to make her see.

"She's my mother, Amelia, this is insane!"

Amelia' s private security locked me in a wing of our Hamptons estate.

I heard the helicopter take my mother to the city.

I beat on the door until my fists were raw.

No one came.

Hours later, Amelia stood before me.

Her eyes, once warm when she thought I wasn' t looking, were ice.

"The surgery was successful. Julian will recover."

Her voice was flat, dismissive.

"This was a business arrangement, Ethan. Did you truly expect affection?"

I stared at her.

This couldn't be the Amelia I knew, the one who secretly loved me.

The image of her, bloody and fighting for me in another life, flashed in my mind.

"Amelia, what are you talking about? Affection? I..."

"Don't," she cut me off. "Your affections are worthless to me. Julian needs me."

She turned and left, leaving me in the silent, luxurious prison.

The world tilted.

Her words, her coldness, it was too much.

I sank to the floor, my head in my hands.

Pain, sharp and disorienting, ripped through me.

Then, the memories flooded in, not just of this moment, but of before.

I was reborn.

I remembered everything.

In my first life, Amelia loved me with a fierce, hidden devotion.

She was the powerful CEO of Hayes Industries, a tech giant.

I was a Wall Street fool, arrogant and blind.

I married her for convenience, a strategic alliance for my ambitions.

I flaunted my affair with Chloe Davenport, my college sweetheart, in Amelia' s face.

Amelia endured it all, the public humiliation, the sham marriage, silently.

She used her resources, her intellect, to protect me from Chloe' s schemes, schemes I was too stupid to see.

Chloe.

She never loved me.

Her family, the Davenports, were bitter rivals of Hayes Industries.

She used me for insider information, to sabotage Amelia' s company.

She manipulated me into a disastrous business venture.

Then, at a remote mountain retreat, she arranged my "accident."

A staged fall.

As I lay dying, snow chilling my blood, I saw Amelia.

She' d followed me, suspecting something.

She fought Chloe' s men, desperate, trying to reach me.

They injured her, critically.

Help arrived too late for me.

My last sight was Amelia, broken but still fighting for my life.

My last thought was a horrifying realization: Amelia loved me. Truly, deeply. And I had destroyed her.

Chloe had wanted everything.

She wanted Hayes Industries in ruins.

She' d once whispered to me, a twisted test of my loyalty, that if I truly loved her, I'd carve Amelia' s signature onto a document that would ruin Hayes.

I'd been repulsed then, but still too blind to see Chloe' s real poison.

The fall she engineered was meant to be fatal, and it was.

Amelia died shortly after me from her injuries.

Her last wish, I somehow knew, was for me to have loved her back.

And then, darkness.

Until I woke up.

Here. Now.

In the first year of our purely transactional marriage.

Reborn.

With a chance to atone.

A wave of pure, desperate joy washed over me, quickly followed by a chilling dread.

My resolve was absolute: protect Amelia, cherish her, prevent the betrayals.

I would undo the past. I would love her as she deserved.

But the Amelia standing before me just now... she was a stranger.

Her coldness, her cruelty over my mother, her open devotion to this Julian Vance.

It didn't make sense.

This wasn't the grieving, loving Amelia I died knowing.

This was someone else.

Someone terrifying.

My parents.

Marcus and Sarah Miller, retired teachers. Kind, simple people.

My father, Marcus, would be frantic.

Amelia had used them, hurt them, just to save Julian.

The thought of my mother, recovering from a coerced surgery, made me sick.

I had to get to them.

But Amelia' s current cruelty... it was a wall I couldn' t comprehend.

A few days later, I was allowed out of the wing.

My mother was back in their New England home, weak but recovering.

My father' s voice on the phone was strained.

"Ethan, what is going on with Amelia? She was... ruthless."

I had no answers.

"I don't know, Dad. I'm trying to figure it out."

He sighed. "Maybe you should just... leave her, son. This isn't healthy."

Leave her? After everything? After realizing the depth of her past love?

No. I had to try. I had to make her see I was different now.

My first attempt to show her my change was a disaster.

I got into a minor car accident, a fender bender on the way to a pharmacy for some rare tea Amelia used to like.

I called her, my hands shaking a little.

She arrived at the scene, not with concern, but with a sneer.

"Careless, Ethan. Just like always. Julian would never be so reckless."

Her words were a cold echo of a taunt she' d thrown at me in our past life, years into our marriage, after a much more serious mistake I' d made.

The parallel was chilling.

That evening, at a tense dinner she insisted we have, she served a bouillabaisse.

The aroma hit me, and a primal fear seized my throat.

Shellfish.

In our second year of marriage, in our previous life, I' d nearly died from an anaphylactic reaction to undeclared shellfish in a restaurant dish.

Amelia had been frantic then, saving my life.

Now, she watched me, her face impassive, as I started to cough, my airway tightening.

I gasped, pointing at the bowl. "Shellfish... how did you...?"

Her private doctor, always on call, administered an EpiPen.

As I recovered, gasping on the sofa, I confronted her.

"How did you know about that allergy? That specific reaction? It only happened years into our... our last time."

Amelia sipped her wine, her eyes cold.

"Your mother mentioned your allergies when I discussed dietary needs for her recovery. A comprehensive list, she said."

The lie was perfect, seamless.

My mother knew of some mild allergies, but nothing about that near-fatal incident. Only Amelia from my past life would know the severity, the specifics.

A terrifying thought struck me: Could Amelia be reborn too?

But her cruelty... it was absolute.

The Amelia who died loving me wouldn' t do this.

Would she?

I dismissed the thought. It was too monstrous. She was just being cruel, using any information she could gather.

But the seed of suspicion was planted.

Amelia' s explanation for the shellfish was too smooth.

"Your mother was very thorough, Ethan. Concerned for your well-being, naturally."

Her lips curved into a smile that didn' t reach her eyes.

It was a painful, logical deflection.

It left me doubting my own sanity, not hers.

The thought of her being reborn, yet acting this way, was a new kind of torment.

She didn't linger.

"Julian is expecting me," she said, rising from the table. "He needs his medication administered at a precise time."

She left without a backward glance.

The half-eaten bouillabaisse sat on the table, a monument to her calculated cruelty.

I was alone again, the remnants of an allergic reaction making my skin itch and my mind race.

The hospital where I'd been briefly checked after the car accident had felt like a five-star hotel compared to this house.

At least there, the nurses had shown basic human concern.

Here, under Amelia' s roof, I was a ghost, a nuisance.

I discharged myself from her care, metaphorically speaking.

I retreated to my own wing of the vast Hayes mansion, the one furthest from hers and, presumably, Julian' s.

The next day, I called my lawyer.

"I need to start divorce proceedings," I told him.

It felt like a betrayal of my vow to atone, but how could I reach her when she was like this?

Maybe space was what we both needed.

Or maybe, a small, treacherous part of me whispered, my father was right.

Maybe I should just run.

Julian Vance, meanwhile, was very public about his recovery and Amelia' s devotion.

His Instagram feed, once filled with brooding artist shots, now featured sun-drenched photos of him in Amelia' s rose garden, Amelia' s hand gently resting on his arm.

Captions read: "Her care is the best medicine." or "Feeling stronger every day, thanks to my angel."

Each post was a perfectly crafted dagger aimed at me.

Or so it felt.

The memories of Amelia' s past devotion were a constant, painful counterpoint.

I remembered her, in our first life, secretly funding a research grant that saved my father' s small academic project from collapse.

She' d done it anonymously, never seeking thanks.

I remembered her staying up all night, holding a cold compress to my head when I had a raging fever, her brow furrowed with genuine worry, even though I' d been cold and distant to her that very day.

This new Amelia, the one who flaunted Julian, who poisoned me with a smile, was an aberration.

I needed her signature on the initial divorce papers, the ones that stated mutual consent and a desire to begin the process.

My lawyer advised it was best to get it quickly, to show intent.

I found her in the Hayes Industries corporate headquarters, a place she commanded with an iron will.

She was in her sprawling office, sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city.

Julian was there, perched on the edge of her massive desk.

Amelia was laughing, a light, carefree sound I hadn' t heard in this new life, or even much in the old.

She was dabbing at a spot of paint on Julian' s cheek with her thumb, a tender, intimate gesture.

It was a gut punch.

She used to do that for me, when I' d come home late, stressed from work, and unknowingly smudged ink on my face.

The memory was so vivid, it stole my breath.

I cleared my throat.

They both looked up, Amelia' s smile vanishing.

Julian' s expression was one of mild curiosity, tinged with something that might have been pity. Or contempt.

"Ethan," Amelia said, her voice coolly professional. "What do you want?"

I placed the papers on her desk. "Divorce agreement. I just need your signature to start the process."

She picked it up, glanced at it for a second, then signed her name with a flourish.

No hesitation. No questions.

"There," she said, sliding it back. "My legal team will handle the rest. There's a mandatory cooling-off period in this state, I believe. Thirty days. Then it can be finalized."

Her efficiency was brutal.

As I turned to leave, she spoke again, her voice carrying across the opulent office.

"Ethan. This marriage was a mistake. A business transaction that yielded poor returns. Consider this the dissolution of a failed partnership."

Her words echoed in the large space, each one a hammer blow.

Julian watched me, a smirk playing on his lips.

He then said, his voice smooth and solicitous, "Amelia, darling, perhaps we should invite Ethan to the gallery opening next week? For my new collection. It might be... amicable."

Amelia looked at Julian, then back at me.

A flicker of something unreadable in her eyes.

"Yes," she said slowly. "You will attend, Ethan. As my husband. One last time."

It wasn't an invitation. It was an order.

My stomach churned. This wasn't about an amicable parting. This was about more torment.