Arielle's POV

"Arielle, do you know? I have a thousand ways to make the bastard in your womb disappear without a trace. I suggest you behave. If I'm feeling generous, I might even spare a glance at the child once it's born."

Chester's words stung, but I was no stranger to his cruelty.

Right at that moment, I thought about getting rid of the baby, freeing us both. But no matter what I did, punching my stomach, throwing myself from heights, and even deliberately tumbling down a flight of stairs, the child refused to let go.

Even his mistresses tried to hurt me more than once, but none of their efforts succeeded. Each time, I was left battered and bruised, but the baby remained unharmed.

The worst that happened was spotting blood for a few hours.

That's when Grace McKinsey, Chester's grandmother, threw a fit.

She called over a hundred doctors, terrified that something would happen to the baby. But in the end, the doctors all congratulated me, saying the child was incredibly strong.

At that moment, I suddenly felt at peace.

I let go of all the resentment I'd been holding onto. Even if Chester didn't love our child, I could still give the baby all the love I had.

I told myself, 'Fine, I'll just treat this as borrowing his seed.'

But who could've known that, after everything our daughter endured inside me, she would survive it all, only to die at Chester's hands?

Haunted by memories of my past life, I purged my social media and burned my diary, destroying every record of my love for him.

To protect my unborn child from further suffering, I chose not to involve her again in this situation.

Just as I was about to head out to buy some medicine, the doorbell rang.

This time, the McKinsey family arrived even faster than they had in my past life.

Besides, what must be faced can never be avoided.

But it wasn't Grace at the door like I had expected.

Instead, it was Chester's younger sister, Penelope.

Without a word, she raised her hand and slapped me across the face.

"Arielle, you ungrateful bitch! My brother pitied you and took you in, and this is how you repay him?"

I swallowed the blood in my mouth and looked at her, confusion clouding my mind.

"Penelope, are you sure you're not misunderstanding something?"

Before anything had happened between Chester and me, he had treated me well. So well, in fact, that Penelope had grown jealous of the attention he gave me, and from there, her hostility only grew.

Now, Penelope had the look of someone who had just seen a ghost, her eyes full of suspicion.

And I understood why. Ever since I realized my feelings for Chester, I had stopped calling him Mr. McKinsey and naturally stopped calling Penelope by any term of familial endearment, too.

Right then, Penelope snapped me back to reality.

Without saying a word, she threw a paparazzi photo in my face. It was the dreaded night with Chester, captured from the side, showing me collapsed on the ground.

"Unbelievable! Acting so ignorant won't save you, Arielle!"

Penelope jabbed her finger at the photo and even said, "Others might not recognize you in this picture, but I sure as hell won't mistake you! I'm warning you, Arielle. Get rid of those horrible thoughts of yours. Our family isn't a place you can latch onto. Even if you try to win my favor, I still won't let you marry into our family!"

Penelope was right. I couldn't rely on the McKinseys for support.

My father once saved Chester's life. But after my father died, Chester, who was seven years older, took me in and acted as my legal guardian. He looked after me for five years, even better than he looked after his own sister.

It was that difference in how he treated me that made me fall for him.

But because of our status gap, I always hid those feelings deep down.

If Chester hadn't been the one to push me down that night, I would have kept trying my best to be his obedient little ward.

I picked up the photo and looked at it before calmly denying everything.

"Penelope, the paparazzi are always full of crap. Are you really going to let them mess with your head like this?"

In my past life, I had left through the front door with Chester. The obscure marks on my body had been photographed clearly.

Chester, who was always so distant from women, had been caught breaking his vow of abstinence. That gave Grace, who was desperate for him to marry, the perfect excuse to pressure him into marrying me.

Unfortunately, Chester refused, no matter what.

It wasn't until I found out I was pregnant before starting university that Grace, desperate for a grandchild, finally pressured Chester into marrying me.

Arielle's POV

Looking back, I realize how foolish I was to be willing to give up my dreams of attending Harvard or Stanford, all for the chance to marry the man I loved and have what I thought would be the perfect result of that love.

Now, the gossip photo that was making the rounds online only showed a blurry side profile of me.

The only thing that stood out was my torn evening gown.

But as long as I didn't admit that Chester had been the one to rip it, who could really do anything to me?

Seeing how calm I was, Penelope started to hesitate.

"You really didn't do anything with my brother?"

I kept my cool, shaking my head. "Do you want something to have happened?"

Penelope's face twisted with anger. "Don't be disgusting! Then explain why you and my brother were in the same hotel? Why does he have all those red marks on his body? And why was your dress torn?"

Penelope might have had some brains, but not much.

I glanced at Chester, who was approaching in the distance, and shrugged nonchalantly.

"It was my birthday last night. Isn't it normal to drink too much and stay at a hotel? I got a little too excited about getting into Stanford and Harvard, went a little crazy, and cut up my own dress—totally normal, right?"

I paused, then added with a smirk, "As for why your brother was at that hotel too, you should ask him. How would I know what he's up to?"

"Plus, it's summer. Mosquitoes are everywhere. Getting a few bites isn't a big deal. Penelope, why do you always jump to the worst conclusions? Maybe you should lay off those trashy romance novels."

I shot a glance at Chester and smirked. "Don't you agree, hm?"

With his hands in his pockets, Chester stood looking dark and unreadable, his expression sharp, as if he were trying to determine whether I was serious or just playing with Penelope.

"Chester, is what she said true? Because those don't look like mosquito bites to me…"

Penelope jabbed her finger at the red marks on Chester's neck, trying to use them as proof that I'd laid a hand on him.

But Chester didn't flinch.

He simply pointed to the fresh handprint still visible on my cheek and asked, "You hit her?"

Penelope's face faltered. She could tell, even if she didn't want to admit it, that Chester had always favored me.

"I didn't want her to lose her sense of boundaries! She's the reason you're the center of all this gossip and ridicule right now! If she really slept with you and then ran off, what would become of our family? I was just giving her a little warning!"

Chester's face darkened, his voice cold as ice. "Penelope, where did all that noble upbringing of yours go? You're grounded for three days. No going out."

I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

Since I'd already decided to distance myself from the McKinsey family, there was no need to pander to Penelope anymore.

Knowing Chester would probably back me up on denying everything, I let out a bitter laugh.

"Penelope, do you really think your brother is someone I could just boss around? I didn't even have the means to do anything. And if something did happen, who knows who was really taking advantage of whom…"

To my surprise, Chester touched the bite mark on his neck and suddenly said, "You didn't?"

His cryptic tone made my eyebrows twitch.

I wasn't the one who drugged him, and I certainly wasn't the one who made the first move.

I was doing everything I could to distance myself from him, so why was he choosing to play along like this?

"Mr. McKinsey, you must be joking. Even if I had a hundred times more guts, I still wouldn't dare lay a finger on you."

Thinking back on everything that had happened in my past life—about our daughter, about him—I just wanted to get as far away from Chester as I could.

Penelope's eyes kept shifting between us, her suspicion growing.

"There's something weird going on with you two."

Chester and I both answered in unison, "Nothing is going on."

A flicker of surprise passed through Chester's eyes, but it disappeared just as quickly.

I limped away without another word, determined to leave this mess behind me.

But before I could get far, Chester grabbed my arm.

"We're going to the hospital," he stated, his tone leaving no room for refusal.

The sudden touch of his hand felt like a burn. I immediately pulled my arm back.

"Don't touch me!"

In front of a stunned Penelope, Chester grabbed me by the waist. I fought to get free, but he was too strong. I smacked him across the face, my anger rising.

But instead of getting angry, Chester actually laughed.

Arielle's POV

Chester's mocking laugh after what happened between us felt just like it had in my past life, cold, dismissive, and dripping with contempt.

It stung in a way I couldn't quite shake off.

No matter how I struggled, Chester carried me to the car like I weighed nothing. My heart raced, not because of his proximity, but because I could feel everything spinning out of my control.

Chester knew exactly who had shared that night with him. He knew it was me.

But what I couldn't understand was, if he hated me so much, why wouldn't he just let me go?

Could it be that he had been reborn, too?

But that didn't make sense. If Chester truly had been reborn, there was no way he would have touched me in the first place.

No, there had to be something else going on here.

I treated him like a venomous snake, avoiding him at all costs.

As I slid into the back seat of the car, Chester watched coldly as I moved from the passenger seat to the back, his entire body radiating an icy hostility I couldn't read.

After a long moment of silence, he rolled up the window and slammed his foot on the gas. We sped off, leaving Penelope behind, stomping her feet in frustration.

"Chester, Penelope can't see us anymore. You can let me out now," I stated.

But Chester shot me a vicious glare, then pushed the accelerator harder, heading straight for the hospital.

That single sharp and cold gaze instantly silenced me.

I thought to myself, 'He's taking me to the hospital. He's trying to make sure I'm not pregnant with his child, right?'

I was fine with that.

But instead of going to the gynecologist's office, Chester carried me straight to the orthopedic department.

"She sprained her ankle. Check for any bone injury," he said, completely unfazed.

I blinked, surprised. 'Shouldn't we be dealing with the pregnancy first?

Wasn't that the priority here?'

The doctor examined my ankle, made his assessment, and referred me to an orthopedic specialist before finally sending us to the gynecology department.

Meanwhile, Chester's face remained as hard as stone, his mood clearly not improving.

"I want medication," he told the doctor in a clipped tone, his words curt and cold.

The doctor, clearly confused, asked, "What kind of medication?"

Chester quickly replied, "She might have gotten pregnant from last night. We need to get her abortion pills."

I felt a sudden sinking feeling in my stomach at the thought. The fertilized egg likely hadn't had a chance to implant yet, but Chester was already eager to eliminate it.

That's how much he despised me and our unborn child.

My poor daughter. Even in my past life, she never got an ounce of love from him. Not even a hug.

I felt a bitter smile tug at my lips as I looked at the doctor.

"Just give me emergency contraception, Doc," I said, my voice flat.

Chester, looking a little embarrassed by the misunderstanding, went to fill the prescription himself. He even poured me a cup of warm water, his hands gentle but somehow strangely personal.

Once I swallowed the pill, he finally sighed in relief.

"Drop any delusions you might have," Chester said, voice cold again. "Since you drugged me last night, I'll let it go this time."

Having lived through this once already, I couldn't help myself. I had to ask.

"What if I told you I didn't drug you? Would you believe me?"

Chester's expression turned even colder. "Shut up. This matter ends here. If you ever pull something like this again, be ready to face the consequences."

"Fine," I replied simply, knowing that nothing I said would change his mind.

My obedient response seemed to catch him off guard. He had clearly expected more of a fight, but I wasn't interested in playing games with him anymore.

...

On the way back, Chester slipped back into his usual authoritative tone, giving orders as if it were second nature.

"In 12 hours, come to my room and take the pill again. In one month, we'll check if you're pregnant. Until your ankle heals completely, you're not allowed to leave the house. I don't want any more scandals, especially ones involving you."

A quick look in the rearview mirror told me everything I needed to know.

Chester's disgust for me was written all over his face.

"Fine," I said again, my voice neutral.

After everything I had endured in my past life, I no longer had any illusions about him.

Chester, however, seemed satisfied with my newfound obedience. He finally looked at me, the tension in his posture easing just slightly.

Halfway through the drive, his phone rang. He put it on speaker without hesitation.

A sugary-sweet voice came through immediately. "Chester, I'm back! Meet me at the usual place!"

It was Lorraine Hartman, his first love, the woman he could never seem to let go of.

The moment Chester heard her voice, his expression melted like ice. The change in him was instant as his whole demeanor softened like a switch being flicked.

They chatted for over ten minutes, exchanging sweet words that made my stomach churn.

Finally, he ended the call, his reluctance almost palpable.

I sighed, trying not to let it get to me.

"Will you let me out of the car?" I asked again.

But Chester ignored me completely, insisting on taking me along to buy roses and a gift.

"You're going on a date. I won't get in the way," I said in a matter-of-fact tone.

When we reached the mall, I flagged down a cab without a second thought and left.