In this life, I told my father I wouldn't marry Rhys Beaumont.

His brother will become my groom.

My father was shocked.

Everyone in Seattle knew I’d spent a decade chasing Rhys like an idiot.

But in my past life, I died for him. Bled out on a delivery table, giving birth to a baby that wasn’t even mine.

It belonged to Rhys and his ‘innocent’ little lover.

They used my life's work—gene-editing technology—to create it.

After I died, they got their perfect family.

But this time, the moment Rhys saw his brother’s ring on my finger, he lost his mind.

————————

1

At the charity gala on the top floor of the Space Needle, the dazzling Seattle nightscape glittered beyond the glass walls.

“Rhys, your little shadow is back!” Rhys’s friend spotted me in the crowd, a smirk on his face as he called out.

A few of the other tech heirs whistled in my direction.

“Hey, Sloane! Still chasing Rhys after ten years? God, how desperate can you get?”

“I heard your laptop wallpaper is a picture of him!”

“Is it true you named your lab’s server cluster after his initials?”

The remark was met with a burst of roaring laughter.

Rhys, holding a glass of whiskey, looked instantly annoyed. The woman beside him, Arabella Thorne, turned pale in a second.

I didn’t respond, just glanced down at the message from my father:

[It’s settled. You two will register after he returns.]

I quickly replied with one word:

[Okay.]

I was a little stunned. How could Elias Beaumont, the man rumored to be the most ruthless of his family, agree to this merger so easily?

Rhys strode impatiently over to me, his alcohol-laced breath washing over my face.

“Are you out of your mind, Sloane Caldwell? Causing a scene this big just to force my hand in marriage?”

“Tch. Are you that obsessed with my body?”

Looking at his handsome, smug face, tinged with a hint of exasperation, I found it almost funny. “I’m not interested in you anymore,” I replied calmly. “I’ve moved on.”

“Ooooh, playing hard to get!” The crowd got even rowdier.

“Fuck her! Fuck her!”

Rhys let out a sarcastic laugh. He suddenly reached out, grabbing my chin and forcing my head up. He pressed his body against mine, trapping me between him and the cold glass wall.

His eyes were contemptuous, full of confidence. He was undeniably handsome, with a deadly, roguish charm whenever he squinted.

“With that plain, nerdy-scientist look of yours, always reeking of formaldehyde from being cooped up in a lab... I’m the only man who would even look at you.”

He took another sip of his drink and leaned in close, his tongue deliberately tracing the shell of my sensitive ear.

If this were my past life, his proximity would have sent shivers of excitement through me. Now, all I felt was violated.

He squinted, his voice a low whisper. “I’ll tell you what. I can register our marriage, I can even sleep with you, but… we’re not having a wedding. My wedding, and my vows, are reserved for the woman I truly love.”

I was about to hurl my champagne at him, but I froze, stunned. This never happened in my past life. Could he be reborn, too?

Before I could ask, Arabella saw Rhys holding my chin, our bodies pressed so close together, and tears immediately welled in her eyes.

“Rhys… I just heard you two are getting married…”

Arabella wore delicate makeup, and her tear-streaked face looked like a fragile cherry blossom in the rain.

She stomped her foot and ran off.

Rhys shot me a glare.

“Stay put!”

Then he chased after her.

I didn’t wait.

As I was leaving, I glanced over and saw him cornering Arabella on the terrace.

He was kissing her fiercely, one hand sliding up the slit of her gown, kneading the smooth skin of her thigh. And she, like a fragile white lily, melted in his arms, offering no resistance.

Her legs, however, were wrapped tightly around his waist, her throat catching on suppressed moans.

“Rhys… I can’t live without you…”

Hearing her weak, helpless voice, Rhys’s eyes darkened.

He gripped her slender waist, lifting her entirely against the wall.

“You little temptress. You’re going to drain me dry, you know that?”

Rhys sucked in a sharp breath.

“I want you right now…”

Rhys looked up and saw me watching them.

In my past life, I would have rushed over and slapped her.

He quickly pulled Arabella behind him, his voice icy, but his expression held a flicker of anticipation, as if waiting for a show.

“Didn’t I tell you to wait for me?”

He was waiting for me to explode, but it never happened.

He touched his nose, a hint of disappointment in his eyes, and muttered under his breath, “Good girl. At least you know your place.”

“Come on, I’ll take you home.”

When we reached his black Tesla Model S, I found Arabella already sitting in the passenger seat.

I saw her in the rearview mirror, touching up her smudged lipstick. A delicate Cartier diamond necklace now adorned her neck, along with two fresh hickeys.

When she saw me, she lifted her head and gave a brilliant smile, the diamond necklace sparkling.

“Sloane! Oh, I took the passenger seat. You don’t mind, do you?”

To their surprise, I walked straight past them, opened the rear door, and settled into the executive seat.

“No need to ask for my address. It’s in your navigation.”

In one move, I had demoted the illicit lovers to my personal chauffeur and his tramp.

Rhys’s face darkened, and he took a deep breath.

On the way, Arabella suddenly let out a small gasp.

Then, holding up a used condom wrapper between two fingers, she said in a voice loud enough for me to hear, “Oh my god… Rhys, that time we… Oh, this is so embarrassing.”

After saying this, she collapsed onto Rhys’s shoulder like a boneless doll.

The car stopped. Rhys shot a triumphant look back at me. When he saw me open the door in disgust, ready to leave, he hurriedly chased after me.

He grabbed my arm, roughly pinning me against the cold car door.

“Enough! Sloane Caldwell, I’m telling you, throwing tantrums is useless.”

A strange excitement flashed across his face.

“In this life, I’m meant to love her. Even if you got on your knees and licked my boots, all I'd ever give you is my body. You will never, ever have my heart.”

A wave of nausea rose in my throat, and I gagged.

My stomach started to hurt.

He pressed something into my palm, then drove off, leaving me with one last sentence:

“Take this as your engagement gift.”

I opened my hand and saw a ridiculously cheap cubic zirconia ring.

My phone buzzed.

On Instagram, Arabella had just posted a photo of her huge necklace and the hickeys.

The background was a table laden with her favorite food.

[Rhys said this is a gift to congratulate me on starting my second year of grad school! ]

The comments section exploded:

[OMG where's the matching ring??]

[He's totally gonna propose! The ring is the real gift!]

[Congrats on the happy news! ]

That was followed by a direct message from Arabella:

[Sloane, in this life, I'm the main character.]

[And you? You just get the cheap knockoff.]

I opened my hand and let the “knockoff” ring slip into a storm drain by the side of the road.

Without a doubt, she was reborn too.

The next morning, the lab at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center was filled with the greasy smell of croissants from Le Panier.

Rhys saw that I had worked all night. Noticing the stomach medicine on my desk, he smirked.

“Stomach acting up again? I told you not to be so uptight.”

“Here, I brought you breakfast.”

I stared at the croissants filled with spicy sausage. My stomach immediately clenched even tighter.

In two lifetimes, he knew perfectly well that I was allergic to peppers.

The one who loved spicy food was Arabella.

He actually brought me the leftovers from the meal he’d flaunted on Instagram last night.

Was he really that clueless, or was he just trying to torture me?

“How’s the research coming along?”

He tried to peek at the core data in the sterile area, but I slapped his hand away.

Of course—he was still after the revolutionary gene therapy I was developing.

In our past life, he had volunteered for the clinical trial, successfully using it to impregnate me with his and Arabella’s child.

I remembered those days of my pregnancy—he brought me tea, massaged my back, and catered to my every whim.

Even if I craved a pastry from the other side of town, he would go buy it without a second thought.

His attentiveness made me mistakenly believe that becoming a father had finally awakened a sense of family responsibility in him.

I thought that was the happiness I wanted.

Even though ours was a loveless business marriage with pitifully little physical contact, it at least looked happy on the surface.

It wasn't until the truth came out after my death that I realized I was just a cruel joke.

I was nothing more than a surrogate vessel for him and his true love’s child.

His care for me was like tending to a precious incubator.

In the end, they sacrificed the container to get the treasure, and all semblance of warmth vanished.

Even now, I can hear his words to the doctor right after my heart stopped: “Is the baby okay?”

This life, I would never let him get near the patent for this technology.

The burning pain in my stomach finally subsided after I was put on an IV at the hospital.

To my horror, the lab’s security alarm went off.

Right after, Arabella posted on Instagram again:

[My graduate thesis is almost done! A rising star in biotech is born! ✨]

In the photo, she was wearing a lab coat with a full face of makeup.

She wasn't even wearing a mask, just posing next to an electron microscope. In her hand was my research log.

The lab’s alarm continued to blare.

On the security footage, the two of them were pressed tightly together on a sterile workbench.

Arabella's lab coat was wide open, her skirt hiked to her waist. Her eyes were glazed over as she straddled Rhys, her mouth half-open, riding his every thrust.

My pristine white lab coat, which I had always taken such care of, lay on the floor, its buttons ripped off.

Even though I’d long known Rhys didn’t love me, seeing my years of hard work desecrated like this still hurt more than I expected.

I wiped the tears from my face with the back of my hand, furious at myself for crying.

I raced to the lab.

Rhys and Arabella were tangled in a heated embrace on the workbench.

The air was thick with the sickeningly sweet smell of semen and perfume.

“Trespassing in a restricted lab, stealing core data—I can sue you both until you’re bankrupt!”

Interrupted, Rhys wiped the lipstick from his mouth, clearly irritated.

“Oh, come on, Sloane. I’ve invested in at least half of this lab. It’s just some data!”

“Your research will be published eventually anyway. So what if Arabella uses some of it for her thesis?”

“Besides, your therapy isn't patented yet. First to publish gets the credit. You know that, right?”

I couldn’t believe his audacity. I pointed to the security camera.

“All the evidence is right there.”

Rhys sneered.

“God, the things you do to get my attention.”

I felt the air around me crackle with rage.

Perhaps because he’d never seen me so furious, he hesitated for a moment.

Just then, another message from my father arrived: [He’s landed. He’ll be at the dinner at Canlis tonight.]

The attached photo showed a tall man in sunglasses, pulling a suitcase as he strode through Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

He was dressed in a sharp black suit, a cool, dark silhouette against the airport's bustle.

It was Rhys’s brother, Elias Beaumont.

My fiancé.

At the same time, Rhys seemed to have received a message too.

His previous look of concern instantly shifted to one of confidence.

“Sloane, if you really want to take this to court, go ahead.”

“But don’t say I didn’t warn you—my brother is the top IP lawyer in the Pacific Northwest.”

He took out a cigarette and was about to light it.

“No smoking in the lab!”

I finally grabbed a beaker and flung the deionized water at his head.

Ignoring the man’s curses and the woman’s screams behind me, I turned and walked away.

That evening, at Canlis restaurant, was the dinner meant to solidify the business alliance between the Caldwell and Beaumont families.

Unexpectedly, Rhys brought Arabella. I deliberately sat far away from them.

Seeing my foul mood, Rhys smugly sat down next to me, draping his arm over the back of my chair. He blew smoke rings with a smirk.

“Who upset our little scientist?”

“Tired of playing hard to get? Trying a new tactic to provoke me?”

When I didn't react, he leaned closer.

“I can take you throwing water at me as foreplay, but you scared Arabella. After dinner, you need to apologize to her.”

Noticing my bare fingers, he frowned.

“Where’s the ring I gave you?!”

I finally turned to look him in the face, my brow furrowed.

“You’re in the wrong seat. This is the seat of honor.”

My gaze made him instinctively stub out his cigarette, but he immediately felt he’d lost face.

“What’s the problem? This is basically our public engagement dinner. Shouldn't I be the center of attention?”

Before he could finish, the private room door opened.

A tall figure entered, his custom leather shoes making crisp sounds on the marble floor.

Rhys immediately stood up, looking down at me arrogantly.

“Still thinking of running to tattle? Well, my brother's here now.”

He turned to greet the man walking in, his face plastered with a fawning smile.

“Elias!”