After My Rebirth, I Divorced the Hockey Star

The alarm went off at six in the morning, loud enough to rip Emma Hayes straight out of death.

She sat up so fast that the silk sheets slid from her shoulders and pooled around her waist. For a few terrifying seconds, she could not understand why she was breathing, why her heart was pounding inside her chest, why there was no blood in her mouth, and why the smell around her was not hospital disinfectant or cold marble but Ryan Carter’s expensive cedarwood cologne.

Emma stared at the bedroom in front of her.

The wide windows were covered by soft gray curtains. The chandelier above the bed threw pale gold light across the ceiling. Her dressing table stood beside the wall, still arranged with the skin-care products Ryan’s sponsors had sent her because she was “Mrs. Carter,” wife of America’s favorite hockey star.

This room was familiar.

Too familiar.

Her fingers tightened around the blanket as she turned toward the nightstand.

Her phone screen glowed.

March 18.

Three years earlier.

Emma stopped breathing.

“No,” she whispered. “No way.”

She grabbed the phone with shaking hands, unlocked it, and checked again. The date did not change. The year did not change. Her calendar still showed the charity gala Ryan was supposed to attend tonight, the same event where Sophia would wear that silver dress and laugh as if she had not already been sleeping with Emma’s husband behind her back.

Emma pressed one hand over her mouth.

She was back.

She was alive.

The last thing she remembered from her previous life was not the fall itself, though the memory of her body hitting the bottom of the stairs was still sharp enough to make her stomach twist. What she remembered most clearly was Ryan standing above her, his face pale but not destroyed, his hand still gripping the railing.

“Ryan,” she had choked out, reaching for him. “Help me.”

He had taken one step down.

Then he had stopped.

Behind him, Sophia had whispered, “Ryan, don’t touch her. If you call an ambulance now, she’ll ruin both of us.”

Emma had heard every word.

She had heard Ryan’s breathing, uneven and panicked. She had heard Sophia crying, but not from guilt. Sophia had cried because Emma’s death would be inconvenient. Because there would be questions. Because there would be police.

And Ryan, the man Emma had loved since college, the man whose career she had built with her own hands, had not saved her.

Later, after the darkness swallowed her, Emma thought it was over.

But somehow, her soul had lingered.

She had watched them stand in her living room after the police left, pretending to be devastated in front of everyone, then dropping the act the second they were alone.

Ryan had poured whiskey with shaking hands.

Sophia had sat on Emma’s couch with Emma’s cashmere blanket over her lap.

“She was going to expose us,” Sophia had said softly.

Ryan had stared into his glass. “She controlled everything.”

Sophia had looked at him with fake sympathy. “She loved you too much. That was her problem.”

“No,” Ryan had said, his voice turning bitter. “She loved controlling me. My schedule, my interviews, my contracts, my diet, my image. I couldn’t even breathe without Emma telling me how it would affect the team.”

Emma remembered standing there, invisible and dead, wanting to scream.

She had handled his schedule because he forgot half his meetings. She had managed his interviews because he lost his temper with reporters. She had checked his contracts because his first agent had almost signed away his image rights for half their worth.

She had protected him.

Ryan had called it control.

Sophia had walked over and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Now you’re free.”

Ryan had closed his eyes and let her hold him.

“Yeah,” he had whispered. “Finally.”

Emma laughed now, but the sound came out broken.

Free.

He had been free for exactly eight months before his perfect life started rotting in public.

Without Emma, Ryan missed training twice in one week. Then came the nightclub photos, the model in Miami, the drunk fight outside a hotel, and the lawsuit from a woman who said Ryan’s people had paid her to stay quiet. Except Ryan no longer had Emma to make problems disappear before they reached the press.

Sophia did not care about his reputation. She cared about the money, the penthouse, the designer bags, and the attention she got from being seen beside him.

When Ryan’s performance dropped, she blamed pressure. When sponsors pulled out, she blamed the media. When the team doctor warned him about his physical decline, Sophia found a private trainer who gave him something to “boost his energy.”

Emma had watched Ryan fail a drug test.

She had watched his team suspend him.

She had watched the league turn its back on him.

The golden boy of American hockey became a scandal people laughed about on morning shows.

And Sophia? She left when the money dried up.

Emma slowly lowered the phone.

In her first life, she had died loving Ryan Carter.

In this life, she woke up knowing exactly how he would destroy himself.

The bedroom door opened.

Emma’s entire body went still.

Ryan walked in wearing gray sweatpants and a black team hoodie, his dark blond hair damp from the shower, his face still carrying that effortless, arrogant beauty that had once made magazines call him “the prince of the ice.”

He smiled when he saw her sitting up.

“Hey, you’re awake.”

Emma looked at him and felt nothing but a cold, steady disgust.

Ryan crossed the room and leaned down to kiss her forehead. “You okay? You look like you saw a ghost.”

“I had a bad dream,” Emma said.

Her voice sounded calm. That surprised her.

Ryan sat on the edge of the bed and studied her face. “About what?”

“You.”

He laughed, warm and easy, as if that answer amused him. “Was I at least hot in the dream?”

Emma looked at the man who had let her bleed out at the bottom of the stairs.

“You were exactly yourself.”

Something in her tone made his smile pause for half a second, but Ryan Carter had never liked uncomfortable emotions, so he ignored it.

“I’ve got practice at eight,” he said, reaching for the watch on his wrist. “Then a sponsor lunch, then the gala tonight. You remembered, right?”

“Of course I remembered.”

“You always do.” He leaned back on one hand and gave her the charming smile he used whenever he wanted something. “That’s why I married you.”

Emma’s lips curved slightly. “Because I remember your schedule?”

“Because you remember everything I forget.”

In her first life, that sentence would have made her feel needed. Loved, even.

Now it sounded like a confession.

Ryan needed her because she was useful.

Not because he valued her.

“Is Sophia coming tonight?” Emma asked.

Ryan’s fingers stopped on the strap of his watch.

It was brief. Almost nothing. But Emma saw it.

“Sophia?” he asked casually. “I think so. Why?”

“You tell me.”

He looked up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Emma shrugged and reached for the water glass on her nightstand. “Nothing. She just asked me yesterday what color I was wearing, and I wondered why she cared so much.”

Ryan smiled again, but this time it was thinner. “You know Sophia. She likes attention.”

Yes, Emma thought. Especially yours.

“She’s your best friend,” Ryan added.

Emma took a slow sip of water. “Is she?”

Ryan frowned. “What’s going on with you this morning?”

“I told you. Bad dream.”

“You’re being weird.”

“And you’re being defensive.”

He blinked, then laughed like she had said something ridiculous. “Defensive? About Sophia? Come on, Em.”

The nickname made her skin crawl.

Ryan reached for her hand, but Emma moved first, setting the glass down before he could touch her. His eyes narrowed a little.

“Did something happen?” he asked.

“Not yet.”

“What does that mean?”

Emma looked straight at him. “It means I’m tired of cleaning up messes before they happen.”

Ryan stared at her for a moment, then stood. “Okay, I don’t have time for one of your cryptic moods.”

In her previous life, that would have hurt.

This time, Emma smiled.

“You never did.”

Ryan grabbed his gym bag from the chair near the closet. “I’ll be home by six. Wear the navy dress tonight. The one with the open back. The photographers loved it last time.”

Emma tilted her head. “Do you want your wife there, or do you want a good picture?”

Ryan turned back, irritated now. “Why are you picking a fight?”

“I’m asking a question.”

“You’re my wife. The picture matters because we matter.”

The lie came so smoothly that Emma almost admired it.

Almost.

Ryan stepped closer, lowering his voice the way he did when he wanted to end an argument without actually listening. “Look, tonight is important. The foundation donors will be there, the team owner will be there, and Coach might bring up the contract extension. I need everything to look perfect.”

There it was again.

Not be perfect.

Look perfect.

Emma folded her hands in her lap. “Then I guess I’ll do what I always do.”

Ryan relaxed immediately, because he heard surrender where there was only strategy.

“Thank you.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek this time. “I knew I could count on you.”

Emma kept her face still until he left the bedroom.

The door clicked shut.

She waited until she heard his footsteps fade down the hallway, then she threw the blanket aside and walked to her desk.

Her laptop was exactly where she remembered leaving it. The password was still their anniversary, a fact that suddenly felt pathetic enough to make her laugh.

She opened a new folder.

For a long moment, her fingers hovered over the keyboard.

Then she typed:

Evidence Against Ryan Carter.

Inside that folder, she created three more.

Affair.

Money.

Career Misconduct.

Emma sat back and stared at the screen.

In her first life, she had wasted years trying to be the perfect wife.

In this life, she would be the perfect witness.

Her phone buzzed on the bed.

She glanced over, expecting a message from Ryan, maybe some lazy apology meant to smooth over the tension before tonight.

Instead, the notification showed an unknown sender.

Emma picked up the phone.

The message had no words.

Only one attachment.

She opened it.

The photo loaded slowly, pixel by pixel, until the image sharpened enough for her to see a hotel entrance, a black SUV, Ryan’s hand on Sophia’s lower back, and Sophia looking up at him with the intimate smile she had once saved for Emma when pretending to be her best friend.

The timestamp was from last night.

Emma stared at the photo for several seconds.

Then she saved it to the new folder and whispered to the empty room, “Thank you for making this easy.”

A second message arrived.

This time, there were five words.

He has done worse.