Chapter 160

• Charlotte stood by the ceiling-to-floor window, the city's glittering skyline sprawling endlessly below like a sea of fallen stars. Her golden-silver gown shimmered faintly in the penthouse glow, but her hazel eyes were distant, lost in a whirlwind of thoughts. Surprise and shock rooted her in place—her hands pressed against the cool glass, her breath fogging it slightly. In her past life, everything had conspired against her: betrayal, isolation, and a cruel end orchestrated by shadows she once called family. Fate had been a merciless chain, dragging her down. But now? Reborn, she had shattered it. She had changed it all by changing him—Howard, the man she'd always loved from afar, cold and distant in that first timeline. His jealous fire in the elevator, his five-million bid, and this penthouse—our home—proved rebirth was worth every agonizing second.
• Yet fear coiled tight in her chest, a shadow amid the joy. When he'd begged for her promise against betrayal, raw pain in his eyes, it had cracked her open. She knew what lurked ahead. Anastasia's venom wasn't a hunch; it was memory etched in blood. Someday, that snake would torch her world—twist plots, frame her as the villain, and leave her broken and dying alone. Howard would trust her words over Charlotte's, his family loyalty blinding him. She couldn't bear him shattering like that, his heart fracturing as it had before. I won't let him break, she thought, her fists clenching against the window. Not again.
• The truth burned on her tongue: she had to tell him. She was no ordinary surgeon-wife; she was reborn from a future where Anastasia's schemes unraveled everything. That woman had schemed against the Carters for years—Grandpa Wendell's warnings rang true, whispered in dying breaths: "She's poison, child." Anastasia had fueled Howard's hate, poisoning him against Charlotte until he turned away, leaving her to a plot of her cheater—a kidnapping, assault, her unborn death, and oblivion. Rebirth gave her a second chance, but Grandpa's words haunted her: You can change situations, but not death. Death is certain.