I have been reborn.
The first thing I did in my new life was walk into my fiancé’s CEO inauguration party and break off our engagement in front of all of New York's high society.
In my last life, he did it all for Sloane, his childhood sweetheart. He publicly declared I had a severe mental illness, branded me as paranoid and jealous, and claimed I reeked of a cheap perfume that suffocated him.
For Sloane, his one true love, he had me committed to a private sanatorium. I was broken by a cocktail of drugs and psychological abuse until, with my body and mind shattered, my heart finally gave out.
In this life, when he frowned and told me to get out of his sight, I didn't shed a single tear. I just turned and strode away.
He said my presence made Sloane unhappy, so I moved to a small cottage by the sea.
He said he never wanted to see me again, so I submitted a transfer request and went to the West Coast branch.
I flourished in my new life in California and met a mysterious and powerful tech mogul.
The moment we appeared together, hand in hand, Caleb Hawthorne completely unraveled.
He saw the ring from another man on my finger, and his sanity finally snapped.
He blocked my path, his chest heaving as he fought to contain his rage.
"Emily, take that damn ring off your hand."
I smiled and took a step back. "Didn't you used to despise me?"
"And now that I belong to someone else, I'm suddenly a prize worth fighting for?"
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1
Staring at the stark "Invitation Only" sign outside the Waldorf Astoria's ballroom, I let out a long, slow breath of relief.
At this very moment, my so-called fiancé was painting me as just another gold digger, humiliating me in front of everyone.
The socialites around me cast looks of mockery or pity, but what none of them knew was that I was fucking ecstatic. I had been reborn.
I had returned to the day of my fated fiancé Caleb Hawthorne's CEO inauguration party.
To everyone else, I was the ungrateful, clingy orphan girl.
In every way that mattered—family, background, status—Caleb Hawthorne and I were from different worlds.
He was the heir to the old-money Hawthorne Group, New York royalty. I was the orphan his parents had adopted out of charity, a girl with no name and no connections.
When our families arranged our engagement on my eighteenth birthday, I was foolish enough to think it meant forever.
Everyone pitied Caleb Hawthorne, believing fate had played a cruel joke on him.
He thought so, too.
So on the day of his inauguration party, he put up that sign and locked me out, leaving me stranded in a designer gown instead of standing by his side.
"Emily, we're not trying to make things difficult for you. These are Mr. Hawthorne's orders."
"You know what today is. Miss Sloane is inside. You going in will only make everyone uncomfortable."
Caleb’s most loyal executive assistant, Mark, blocked the entrance, his expression like stone as he delivered the verdict.
On either side, security guards formed a defensive line, a clear display of Caleb’s power.
This whole fortress of security was built just to keep me—his supposedly harmless fiancée—out.
Everyone knew Caleb Hawthorne's hatred for me was bone-deep. So deep that he claimed I reeked of cheap perfume.
In my last life, I hadn't been able to enter the party either.
Like an abandoned puppy, I waited for hours, from daylight into the cold night, desperate for the slightest scrap of affection from my fiancé.
Eventually, I collapsed from a fever in the cold New York autumn rain, the illness settling into my lungs and nearly turning to pneumonia.
When my adoptive parents, Richard and Eleanor, found out, they berated Caleb and tried to push the wedding forward.
The day before the wedding, Caleb's first love, Sloane, suddenly collapsed from a "severe peanut allergy."
Caleb and his inner circle immediately pinned the blame on me, claiming I’d tampered with her food out of jealousy.
Caleb wanted revenge for his beloved Sloane.
He used his family's power to crush me, cut off all my contact with the outside world, and threw me into a private sanatorium that reeked of disinfectant.
I begged him countless times to break the engagement and let me go. Each time, he refused.
Caleb had roared that if his family was using our engagement to chain him, then I would be the one to suffer the consequences.
I endured that torment for five long years—despised by my fiancé as drugs eroded my body and mind.
In the end, my sanity broke. My heart gave out—a final, merciful escape—and I died.
The funny thing was, in the last moments of my life, as my consciousness faded to nothing, I saw Sloane.
She suffered no after-effects from any allergy; instead, she was radiant, glowing on Caleb's arm as his new partner.
She was never allergic. It was just some plant extract she used to frame me.
Their love story was hailed as a triumph of true love breaking free from the shackles of family obligation.
From beginning to end, I was just the villain obstructing their romance.
And this life?
I'm going to live well. I'm going to stay far, far away from Caleb Hawthorne. I’m going to find my freedom on the coast of California.
