Chapter 1

Thirty years I gave the Miller family. Thirty years of my life, my talent, my devotion. And it ended with gasoline soaking into my clothes.

"Ethan Hayes, if you hadn't been so desperate to climb the social ladder, I could have lived happily ever after with Alex!"

That was Olivia, the woman I had loved for three decades, my wife. Her face was twisted, ugly with a hatred I had never understood until that moment.

Our son, the boy I had raised, stood beside her, holding the empty gas can. He looked at me with cold, dead eyes.

Olivia laughed, a terrible, sharp sound.

"I'll tell you the truth, since you're about to die. Our son was conceived using Alex' s sperm through IVF! Aren't you mad? You spent your whole life raising my beloved man's child!"

A lit match fell from her fingers.

The fire consumed me. The pain was absolute, a universe of agony. My last thought wasn' t of hatred, but of a deep, soul-crushing confusion. Why?

Then, I opened my eyes.

The scent of roses and champagne filled the air, not smoke and gasoline. I was wearing a perfectly tailored tuxedo, not smoldering rags. My skin was smooth and unburned.

I looked down at my hands. They were the hands of a young man, strong and unblemished by age or fire. I fumbled for my phone. The screen lit up. The date was ten years ago. It was my wedding night.

The door to the bridal suite burst open.

Olivia stood there, her face a mask of panic. She was still in her stunning white wedding gown, a stark contrast to the terror in her eyes.

"Alex posted a message from the cliff! He' s going to jump! I have to go to him!"

Before I could even process her words, a heavy hand landed on her shoulder. Her father, Mr. Miller, stood behind her, his face grim.

"You will do no such thing, Olivia."

His voice was low but carried an authority that made her flinch.

"If you don't stay and complete this wedding today, the Miller family will disown you! You will not get a single penny!"

Olivia' s face crumpled. She looked from her father to me, her eyes filled with a desperate, trapped fury. She reluctantly agreed, a choked sob escaping her lips. Mr. Miller gave me a look, a mixture of apology and warning, before closing the door, leaving us alone.

The moment the lock clicked, Olivia' s resentment exploded.

She flew at me, not with words, but with her hands. A sharp slap cracked across my face. The sting was nothing compared to the phantom agony of the fire, but it was real. It grounded me in this new, second chance.

"This is all your fault!" she screamed, her voice raw. "You and your pathetic ambition! You social climber! If it weren' t for you, I' d be with him right now!"

Her words echoed the ones she had screamed over my burning body thirty years in the future. In my past life, I had tried to comfort her. I had held her while she cried for another man on our wedding night. I had promised to be a good husband, to make her happy, to earn her love.

I had spent the next thirty years keeping that promise. I was an orphan adopted by the Millers, and out of gratitude and a desperate, unrequited love for Olivia, I poured everything I had into their business. I built their small company into an empire. I raised their son as my own.

I raised her lover' s son.

And in the end, they set me on fire.

The memory was so vivid, so searing, that it burned away every last trace of affection I had for the woman standing before me. The love I had carried for a lifetime turned to ash in an instant.

Last time, I begged her to stay. I chose the family, the marriage, the lie.

This time, I would choose myself.

I looked at her, my cheek still stinging from her slap, and for the first time, I saw her clearly. Not as the girl I loved, but as the cruel, manipulative woman who would one day murder me.

She was still ranting, her beautiful face ugly with rage.

I cut her off, my voice calm and steady.

"You want to go find him?"

She stopped, stunned by my tone.

"Go."