Chapter 1

• When I was twenty, I stepped in front of a kidnapper’s knife for Noah Thompson and spent three years in a coma.
• When I finally woke up, Noah was the youngest CEO around.
• And my best friend, Lina Clark, was wearing the necklace that belonged to me.
• Even worse, my dad, Oliver Bennett, put her in his will and said she was more like his real daughter than me.
• I posted on Instagram: “I woke up, and the whole world swapped out my life.”
• Friends and reporters reposted it. It went viral.
• People dug up that Lina had been posing as me in my charity work. That night she got wasted, slipped, and drowned.
• Noah kept his promise and married me, but every day he looked at me like I was his worst enemy.
• He said the second I woke up, I snuffed out his light.
• My dad blamed me too. Said I should’ve never woken up.
• Later, the day our house caught fire, Noah carried me through the smoke.
• When a beam came crashing down, he shoved me toward the door.
• But in his arms, he was clutching Lina’s pendant like it was his lifeline.
• “Alice, I just paid back the life I owed you. In the next life, I’m choosing Lina.”
• Everyone dragged me through the mud. Years of depression chewed me up, and I killed myself.
• When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day I woke up.
• …
• My dad was by my bed, eyes red.
• “Alice, you’re finally awake. Thank God.”
• I turned my head slowly, and saw Lina standing a little far away from me.
• She had on that sapphire pendant.
• Noah gave it to me for my sixteenth birthday, a coming-of-age gift.
• Back then he said he’d only give that pendant to his future wife.
• Now it was hanging on my best friend’s neck.
• It felt like a pin stabbing straight into my heart. I forced a stiff smile.
• In my last life, a week after I took that knife for Noah, he kept vigil outside the ICU for three days and nights.
• The doctor said I probably wouldn’t wake up. Noah’s eyes went bloodshot as he yelled he’d spend every last cent to save me.
• And he did. He hired the best medical team to keep me alive.
• The first year, he came every day. He sat by my bed and told me about the company, about when we first met.
• Late at night, he held my hand and cried, saying the second I woke up he’d propose.
• The second year, he came less. Every time he did, he brought Lina.
• He handed my care to the aide. He and Lina stood by the window talking, sometimes laughing.
• Once, a nurse asked him who the woman in the bed was to him.
• He looked at Lina, paused, and said, “A friend.”
• By the third year, he almost stopped coming.
• Only my dad dropped by sometimes, sat for ten minutes, then left, saying Lina was at home waiting for him to come back for dinner.
• I saw on the entertainment news that Noah had thrown Lina a birthday bash—booked a whole island and lit fireworks all night.
• High society wouldn’t shut up about how Noah and the Bennett family’s foster daughter were a match made in heaven.
• No one remembered me, the real fiancée who took a knife for him.
• When I woke up in that life, I couldn’t take it. I blew up at Noah and kicked Lina out.
• But his heart had already drifted.
• Crushed, I posted on Instagram. People reposted it, and it exploded onto the trending lists.
• They ripped apart Lina’s act of posing as me for charity. That night she got drunk, slipped into a pool, and drowned.
• Noah married me to repay a debt, but he was ice-cold. He wouldn’t even bother talking to me.
• I asked him why he treated me like that.
• He threw me on the bed and ripped my clothes, rough and furious.
• “She’s dead. Happy now?”
• “You want a marriage?" he dared. "I’ll give you one. You want something? I’ll give you everything.”
• “Alice, you used saving my life to force me into this," he continued. "Don’t you dare talk to me about love. You don’t deserve it.”
• The next day I went home crying to my dad.
• He looked at the red marks on me, then turned and touched Lina’s photo.
• “Being Noah’s wife means doing a wife’s duty.”
• “You traded Lina’s life for this marriage." He looked up at me with anger. "What are you whining about?”
• “You make a choice, you live with it," he declared.
• Later, when the fire broke out, Noah carried me out. As the beam came down, he shoved me away, but he still had Lina’s pendant clenched in his fist.
• He said he’d paid back the life he owed me, and in the next life he was going to be with Lina.
• I became public enemy number one. Everyone said I repaid kindness with cruelty and hounded sweet Lina to her death.
• In the end, I swallowed sleeping pills in my apartment. My body wasn’t found for three days.
• Thinking about that last, bottomless despair, my heart clenched so hard it hurt.
• The man I loved most, my best friend, my own father—they all would’ve been happier if I’d just died.
• This time around, I wouldn't be around making the same damn mistake.
• If they all loved Lina so much, I’d hand her to them with a bow.
• I picked up my phone and texted the number that had been silent for five years.
• “Arthur, I’m here for the promise you made when you were seventeen.”
• I smiled.
• “Do you still want to marry me?”