Chapter 1

• Collette’s POV
• You’d think death would be quiet. Peaceful. A light, a tunnel, maybe angels with harps.
• Yeah, no. Try
• this
• Try floating above your billionaire ex-boyfriend as he rails another blonde on thousand-thread-count sheets you bought with your last breath of loyalty. Try being the ghost who can’t leave, who’s tethered to the man who loved you enough to kill you.
• Welcome to my afterlife.
• Hudson Cross groaned beneath me—well, above her, technically—as if he was doing something divine. God, he was so smug about sex. He always had been. The way he’d arch his back, his dark hair falling into those arrogant eyes, like he was blessing you with the privilege of his cock.
• I should know. I died worshipping it.
• “Harder, Hudson!” the blonde beneath him squealed, nails raking down his chest.
• I couldn’t help myself. A low, throaty moan slipped past my ghost lips, curling into his ear like smoke.
• Harder, Hudson…
• He froze mid-thrust.
• Oh, the satisfaction.
• His eyes darted around the room, sweat dripping down that perfect jawline. “Did you—did you hear that?”
• The blonde blinked up at him, pouty and oblivious. “Hear what?”
• I licked my finger—if ghosts could lick—and dragged it down his back. He jerked like I’d set him on fire. The girl shrieked, half-sure he’d lost his mind, but I? I was cackling.
• “Jesus Christ,” Hudson muttered, running a shaky hand through his hair. “Collette?”
• Ding ding, we have a winner.
• Nothing gets a man soft like moaning the name of his dead ex while he’s balls-deep in someone else.
• I floated down closer, my spectral lips brushing his ear.
• Miss me, baby?
• He flinched so hard he toppled sideways, taking Miss Blonde Ambition with him. She tumbled off the bed with a shriek, grabbing the sheet to cover her tits. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
• Hudson was pale. Not pale like good lighting. Pale like he’d seen a ghost.
• Correction: he had heard one.
• “You’re losing it,” she huffed, storming toward the bathroom. “I don’t do freaky exorcism roleplay.”
• The slam of the door nearly made me laugh myself into an ectoplasmic puddle.
• Hudson sat on the edge of the bed, chest heaving, dragging both hands over his face. He looked haunted. Worn. Sweaty in a way that had nothing to do with sex.
• And I loved it.
• “You’re not real,” he whispered, but his voice cracked. “You can’t be real.”
• Oh, I was real enough to ruin him.
• “Not real, huh?” I purred, my tone dripping with the kind of sarcasm I’d perfected in life. “That’s what they said about your loyalty too.”
• His head shot up, eyes wild, scanning the room like he could find me. I almost wanted to materialize just to watch him choke on the truth. But this was better—psychological warfare, one orgasm at a time.
• I slid beside him, invisible and intimate, and let my nails graze his thigh. He shot up like he’d been electrocuted.
• “Fuck!” His shout rattled the penthouse windows.
• Exactly.
• I leaned in, voice low and velvety.
• You killed me, Hudson. Did you think I’d leave you in peace?
• He staggered back, shaking his head. “No… no. I didn’t…”
• “Oh, don’t start lying now,” I hissed, laughing darkly. “Save it for the tabloids. Save it for your shareholders. You know what you did. And now, darling, you don’t get to fuck without me watching.”
• The bathroom door cracked open, Blondie peeking out, towel clutched to her chest. “Hudson? Who are you talking to?”
• He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. His eyes were on the empty space where I stood, sweat dripping, body tense like he’d just lost the world’s most dangerous poker hand.
• And me?
• I threw my head back, laughing, the sound echoing off his walls like a church bell.
• Welcome to eternity, Hudson Cross.
• I wasn’t just going to haunt him.I was going to ruin him.