Chapter 1

Once again, I opened my eyes to Ethan Cole's face, tender and full of love. The boy I had grown up with.

"Nora," he said, his voice breaking, "I finally get to marry you."

I felt nothing.

This was my thirty-eighth rebirth.

Counting my original life, this was the thirty-ninth time Ethan and I had stood at the altar.

Not once had we made it through the ceremony.

"Nora Bennett!"

Right on cue, Julian's furious voice rang out.

I turned. He was already standing at the end of the red aisle runner, staring at me with a face like thunder.

Ethan immediately stepped in front of me. "Don't be afraid."

His voice was firm. "This is our wedding day. I'm not letting anyone ruin it."

It was no use.

The Vales owned a business empire. They had money, power, and influence to spare.

Ethan and I had kept our wedding a closely guarded secret. We had even arranged to hold it on a hillside behind a distant relative's home, out in the country.

Julian still found us. He always arrived in time to stop it.

I was an orphan with no one to turn to. Ethan came from an ordinary small-town family and had worked his way up through sheer academic effort.

Against Julian Vale, the family's only son, we never stood a chance.

Ethan had warned his relatives about him. The moment Julian appeared, people stepped forward with hoes and machetes, hoping to scare him off.

They were no match for his trained bodyguards.

Julian did not even bother ordering his men to fight.

He scattered fistfuls of banknotes. The locals immediately bent to pick them up.

With his bodyguards clearing the way, Julian walked straight to me.

His bodyguards restrained Ethan as he shouted desperately, "Julian! Don't you touch her!"

Julian ignored him. He only looked at me and sneered.

"You've gotten bold, Nora."

He ripped off my veil and the flowers pinned to my dress. His handsome face was twisted with barely contained violence.

"How dare you marry another man without my permission?"

[AAAAAH! Here for the iconic scene!]

[Julian is so gorgeous! Girl, stop fighting it and give in to our man already!]

[Exactly! He knows he was wrong. He's madly in love with you. Just be good and go home with him.]

My eyes widened. Bright, gaudy comments were streaming through the air in front of me.

This had never happened in the previous thirty-seven rebirths.

"Nora? Are you even listening to me?"

My lack of a reaction only made Julian angrier. He seized my wrist and pulled me away.

"Come with me. Haven't you always wanted to marry me? We'll go home and get married."

"Stop sulking. Love me the way you used to, and I'll leave Ethan alone…"

[Why isn't our girl saying anything? Is she speechless over how hot and commanding Julian is?]

[As if. She's obviously planning her escape. This whole show is about him forcing her to be with him. She's not going to give in that easily.]

[This guy is such an asshole. When she followed him around, he couldn't stand her. Now she doesn't love him anymore, and he won't leave her alone.]

[Get out of here, hater! Her mother used that rescue to guilt his family into arranging the engagement. Julian genuinely didn't like Nora at first. Does having his life saved mean he owes them the rest of it?]

[Couldn't agree more! Her mom was a schemer, too. She never would have gone into the water if the Vales hadn't been rich.]

[Exactly. Poor Julian. And the heroine was so timid and spineless at the start. Of course he couldn't stand her!]

After thirty-seven ruined lives, I had thought there was nothing left in me to hurt.

But seeing someone call my mother a schemer still made fury flare in my chest.

My mother would never have died if she had not saved Julian.

She had finally escaped my abusive father, taking me with her. She had found a good job. Our lives were about to get better.

She had been such a strong swimmer. But Julian panicked as he drowned and kept forcing her underwater. By the time she got him safely to shore, she had nothing left. She sank.

She had not even lived long enough to leave me any last words. How could she possibly have demanded a reward?

[Okay, stop arguing! They're getting in the car! Here comes the famous hookup scene!]

Julian shoved me into the car. The door slammed shut, cutting off Ethan's desperate cries.

He leaned over me, pinning me down, his eyes dark.

"Nora, do you have any idea how much you've hurt me?"

Perhaps because I was not screaming insults at him as I had in my previous thirty-seven lives, he sounded almost gentle.

His gaze was intense and possessive. He lifted my wedding dress and forced a hand beneath it.

"You can't marry someone else. You're my fiancee. You belong to me, Nora."

He pressed his mouth against my neck, his breath hot on my skin. The unwanted contact made me sick.

The comments flooded past in excitement.

[Ethan's watching through the window, and Julian still pins her to the seat and takes what he wants! AAAAAH, I love this scene!]

"Julian."

My voice was soft. "Do you have any idea how much I hate you?"

He froze and looked up, his eyes full of anger and hurt.

Before he could do anything else, I pulled the ornament from my hair and drove its sharp point into his neck.

Blood spurted out.