When I opened my eyes again, I was back five years in the past.

Staring at myself in the mirror, dressed in a wedding gown, I couldn’t stop a tear from slipping from the corner of my eye.

“Tess, why are you crying? Today is the wedding you’ve dreamed of forever.”

“Are you too excited?”

My best friend Mila rushed over to comfort me.

I wiped my tears and smiled, saying I was fine.

I really was excited.

Given a second life, I was going to make Dylan taste every bit of the pain I’d swallowed in the last one.

In my previous life, for Dylan’s sake, we held the wedding first and only planned to register the marriage afterward.

He didn’t show up until the ceremony was nearly over.

I loved him so much that I still beamed with happiness as I explained things away to the guests, and in the end, I clung to his arm and took the only wedding photo we ever had.

This time, when it was time for the vows, Dylan still hadn’t shown up.

The guests whispered below the stage, waiting to see me make a fool of myself.

Dylan’s drinking buddies didn’t bother to hide their mockery.

“Tessa, stop being such a simp. Dylan only agreed to marry you because of his mom.”

“Seriously, Tessa, you should be grateful you even get to marry Dylan. Don’t push it by demanding he actually show up.”

I remembered that in my last life, Harrison had also been at the wedding.

Sure enough, I spotted him sitting ramrod straight in the audience, brows drawn tight.

The moment our eyes met, I caught the flicker of panic and helplessness in his gaze.

Thinking of how he’d stayed by my side at the end of my previous life, I was sure—he liked me.

My lips curved faintly. I stepped down, took the hand of the powerful man in the front row, and smiled. “Everyone, I’m sorry, there’s been a mistake. He’s actually the groom.”

“This wedding—starts over.”

To be honest, I wasn’t sure Harrison would play along with this spectacle.

After all, we’d barely interacted at all.

Like a gambler, I held his hand so tightly my palm was damp with sweat.

Then, with a grave expression, he dropped to one knee, opened his hand, and slipped a diamond the size of a pigeon egg onto my finger.

The crowd gasped, the hall falling into stunned silence.

The doors to the banquet hall swung open.

Dylan strode in, long legs eating up the distance, a look of disdain on his face as he walked toward us.

When he took in the scene on stage, he let out a humorless laugh.

“Tessa, you’re fucking pathetic. First you brainwash my mom into making me marry you, and now you pull this shit.”

“You think if you drag some random guy up here to crash the wedding, I’ll get jealous and fall for you? Your tricks are so damn low.”

I hadn’t even gotten my rebuttal out before Harrison spoke up in front of me.

“Who the hell are you calling a random guy?”

Years in the business world had honed his voice into something calm yet naturally authoritative, carrying a maturity far beyond his peers.

Only then did Dylan really look at the man. When he finally recognized his face, his expression froze, and he stammered, “M-Mr. Ford…”

“You’re this bored that you’d waste time acting with this crazy woman?” Dylan clearly refused to believe what he was seeing.

This time, I strode forward and slapped Dylan. Twice. With everything I had.

The crowd gasped. Someone even muttered that I must have lost my mind.

Of course they’d think that. They were used to seeing me as his pathetic little doormat.

Before, even when Dylan hit me, I’d been stupid enough to brag to others that being hit and scolded by him meant he cared.

Dylan had never seen me like this.

He pressed his tongue against his cheek, eyes full of sinister amusement. “You dare hit me?”

In Dylan’s eyes, Tessa had always been a harmless little lamb—boring and dull.

Those two slaps actually got him a little excited. The faint taste of blood at the tip of his tongue lit up every cell in his brain.

“Tessa, is this love turning into hate?” Dylan’s hand clamped down hard on my jaw.

The guests wanted to rush over and intervene, but no one dared get involved.

The next second, someone kicked Dylan hard. He let out a muffled groan and crashed to the ground.

A faint, cool woody scent wrapped around me, and my wrist was caught in a firm grip.

Harrison shot me a calm, indifferent glance. “Don’t waste your breath on a dog. Let’s go.”

I looked at Dylan, who was sprawled on the floor, and frowned.

Shit. Now the dog’s reputation was ruined.

Dylan cared more about his pride than anything. After being humiliated like this, there was no way he’d let me off easily.

He got up from the ground, pretending to be lazy and unbothered, his tone dripping with mockery. “Harrison, you must be starving. Even a woman I’ve played with hundreds of times, you still want?”

Harrison’s expression was impossible to read. He replied, calm and measured, “If you can’t control your mouth, I don’t mind using all my money and connections to bury you in this circle.”

“You—” Dylan choked on his rage, then turned all his hostility on me.

“Tessa, stop messing around. In Harrison’s eyes, you’re at best a shiny new toy. Once he gets bored, he’ll toss you aside.

“If you come back now, I can still be generous and pretend nothing happened.”

His voice held three parts smugness and seven parts delusional self-confidence.

I walked up to him in my high heels.

“I knew it, you’d definitely—” Seeing me return, Dylan’s face lit up with a triumphant grin.

He didn’t expect that, a second later, he’d take another kick.

I wasn’t that strong, but a high heel to the body still hurt like hell.

He screamed, collapsing to the floor again.

The white crystal toe of my shoe dragged across his cheek.

The clarity and foolishness in my eyes vanished, replaced by something sharp and vicious. I cursed him out, every word deliberate. “Go fuck yourself.”

“And by the way, you should change the mirrors in your house to frosted ones. Right now, all they do is reflect how greasy you are, and you still can’t see how ugly you actually look.”

Instead of getting angry, Dylan laughed. He lifted his head and brushed a light kiss over the crystal of my shoe. “Tessa, you’re just acting on impulse. You’ll regret this.”

Fuck. How did this scumbag become even more twisted and insane in this life?

My stomach turned. Disgusted, I hurried after Harrison and left.

I never noticed how Dylan’s smile behind me grew even more unhinged.

In the Rolls-Royce, Harrison and I sat in the back seat, with a wide gap between us.

I didn’t know if it was because his presence was too overwhelming or because the car felt too small.

I only knew I was burning up.

Soon, my head began to swim.

All at once, I remembered I’d felt this way in my last life too.

Back then, it was after our wedding banquet. My whole body had felt unbearably hot, my mind hazy and unfocused.

When Dylan found out, he didn’t show a shred of concern. He’d just said he wasn’t interested in my “little issues” and told me to go splash some water on my face in the bathroom.

When I came out of the bathroom, my head felt even heavier. Half-conscious, I only remembered a pair of hands groping all over my body.

Then Dylan’s furious voice had split the air by my ear.

When I finally came to, I learned I’d been drugged and had nearly been assaulted by a stranger.

Dylan had shown up just in time.

After that, I’d been even more grateful to him—more devoted, more affectionate.

Yet here I was, living again, and I’d still walked right into the same trap.

Was it that drink Mila handed me?

As I tried to think, the drug took over.

Under its push, my cheeks flushed hot and I couldn’t help the soft, ragged breaths leaving my throat.

A burning ache spread low in my belly, unbearable and insistent.

Harrison noticed something was wrong. On his handsome, sharply cut face, a faintly suspicious look appeared.

My body reacted faster than my brain.

My gaze landed on his face—cool, ascetic, his shoulders broad and his waist narrow—and my hands reached up of their own accord, looping around his neck.

His skin was cool to the touch, like ice, and rubbing against him felt ridiculously good.

My lips brushed across his face in scattered, clumsy kisses, leaving faint marks of lipstick on his jaw and cheek. The air between us grew thick with heat and suggestion.

I was completely lost in the haze, but he still sat there, utterly in control.

“Harrison, you’re not one of those ‘cool men of the wealthy circle’ from those novels, are you?” I blinked up at him, dazed and curious.

His body went still at my words. Then he took off his gold-rimmed glasses, a wicked smile tugging at his lips.

“Who told you I was cold?”

Faced with the predatory look in his eyes, I was struck speechless.

Then he raised the partition between the front and back seats and pinned me beneath him.

With action rather than words, he showed me just how “hot” he really was.

Hot enough to burn.

By the time he was done with me for the first round, my limbs were completely useless.

Harrison, on the other hand, was still full of energy, his enthusiasm overwhelming.

For fuck’s sake, why did no one tell me?

It’s not just love that transfers.

Apparently, drug effects do too.