Chapter 1

I signed the divorce papers, and then I died.

Car crash. A bridge. Black ice.

Now I'm back. Three years earlier. The morning of my wedding.

My hands were shaking, but not from bridal nerves.

I remembered everything.

Every humiliation. Every betrayal. Every night I spent crying on the bathroom floor while my husband, Ryan Ashford, was in Serena Blake's bed.

The Ashfords, old money, political royalty.

They never wanted me. I was Elena Marsh, a nobody from nowhere, a placeholder bride Ryan's dying grandfather demanded he marry before the inheritance unlocked.

A contract. Twelve months. Then disposal.

In my first life, I was so pathetically grateful to be chosen.

I cooked. I cleaned. I smiled at their insults.

Ryan's mother, Victoria, called me "the charity case" to my face at Thanksgiving dinner.

His sister, Camille, "accidentally" spilled bleach on my only good dress before the Ashford Foundation gala.

And Ryan? He simply pretended I didn't exist.

Except when Serena was watching. Then he made sure I knew exactly how invisible I was.

"She's nothing," he told Serena once, on the phone, while I stood in the hallway holding his dry cleaning. "Twelve months, and she's gone."

Twelve months came and went. I signed the divorce papers like a good little nobody.

No settlement. No fight. No dignity.

I walked out with a single suitcase and a shattered heart.

Three weeks later, the bridge. The ice. The end.

But now?

Now I was standing in front of a bathroom mirror in a cheap wedding dress, and I was alive, and I remembered everything.

My phone buzzed. A text from Ryan.

*"Don't be late. Grandfather is waiting. Get this over with."*

I stared at my reflection.

Same face. Same brown eyes. But something behind them was different now.

I was different.

In my first life, I spent twelve months trying to earn the Ashfords' love.

This time, I would spend twelve months making them regret ever underestimating me.

Ryan Ashford wanted a quiet, disposable wife?

He was about to get the worst satisfying surprise of his miserable, entitled life.

I straightened my dress, wiped my eyes, and smiled.

It was not a kind smile.

My phone buzzed again. This time, a different number. Unknown.

*"Elena. Don't sign anything today without reading the fine print. Trust me. — D."*

I stared at the message, my blood running cold.

Who was D?