r 1
My fiancé cheated on me with my sister.
“Ella, I swear I didn’t mean it,” Mara sobbed, clutching the fruit knife above her wrist. The hotel suite fell silent except for a few gasps.
“I’m sorry,” she cried, “I just had too much to drink. I don’t even know how Caleb and I—”
Before she could finish, Caleb crossed the room without hesitation. “I’ll marry you.”
His words landed like a slap. Mara froze. I turned to look at him, my stomach dropping into ice.
In my last life, he’d stood in the corner for a long time, reluctant, before finally giving in. This time his eyes were steady, certain. He was also reborn.
“Caleb…” Mara stared at him, stunned.
“You don’t have to do this.” Caleb gently took the knife from her hand. “I’ll marry you. I owe you that much.”
For two seconds, the hotel suite went silent. Then a cold voice came from the hallway.
“You owe her?”
Declan stepped out from the corner, expression dark. He walked to Mara’s other side and looked straight at Caleb.
“I’m the one engaged to Mara! If you want to marry her, shouldn’t you ask me first?”
Bitter nausea rose in my throat. Even in this life, they circled her like moths to a flame.
Caleb frowned. “Declan, this has nothing to do with you.”
“Nothing to do with me?” Declan laughed shortly. “Our engagement was announced to half of Chicago last month. You show up in her suite this morning and now you’re offering to marry her. How is that none of my business?”
Caleb’s jaw tightened. “The engagement can be called off.”
“That’s not your decision.”
The two men faced each other with Mara between them, pale and trembling like she was the only victim in the room.
Declan was also reborn.
The knowledge settled over me like frost. In my last life, he’d married me after the swap. Five cold, resentful years under the same roof. He rarely looked at me unless he was drunk. Then he’d sit in his study, staring at Mara’s photo like a man mourning the life he should’ve had.
After Mara died, he went after Caleb. Then I fell from that rooftop, and both of them stood at my grave crying about making it up to me in the next life.
Now the next life had come.
And here they were—fighting over Mara again. Exactly the same.
I swallowed down the burning in my eyes. Fools. All of you.
“Mara,” Declan said, lowering his voice. “Our engagement is still in place. You choose.”
Caleb looked at her too, just as firm. “Mara, I’ll marry you. I mean it.”
I stood there, heart pounding with anger, heartbreak, and a strange cold clarity. My fingers curled into fists.
Mara hesitated for a long time.
Caleb stood on her left—heir to Thorne Media, a man raised among studio lots, streaming deals, and red-carpet scandals.
Declan stood on her right—a partner at one of Chicago’s most aggressive healthcare investment funds, the kind of man who could make or break a biotech startup with a single term sheet.
Either one was powerful enough to turn a scandal into a marriage arrangement.
Mara lowered her eyes first.
“I’m sorry, Declan,” she whispered, voice shaking. “Caleb and I… we already crossed that line.”
Tears slid down her face.
“I can only choose Caleb.”
I stared at her, a bitter laugh escaping my lips. In my last life, her tears had made me step forward and sacrifice everything. This time, they only made me want to laugh.
Declan didn’t speak. His expression looked like someone had just slapped him in public.
“I’m sorry,” Mara said again. “I’m truly sorry.”
As she spoke, she backed toward me. Before I could move, she grabbed my wrist and forced my hand into Declan’s.
“Declan,” she said quickly, “Ella is wonderful. Marry her instead. Let that be my way of making this right.”
My hand pressed into his palm—cold, stiff, unwilling.
The next second, he pulled away like I’d burned him. He frowned, rubbing his fingers against his trousers—the disgust in his eyes too obvious to hide.
I yanked my hand free. It shouldn’t have hurt. I already knew what he thought of me. But watching him wipe his hand like I’d left something filthy on his skin still sent a sharp slice through my chest, reopening an old wound I thought had scarred over.
Get it together, Ella.
“Why?”
My voice wasn’t loud, but everyone went quiet.
I looked at Mara and asked slowly, “Why do you get to choose, while I’m supposed to accept whoever you hand me to?”
