Chapter 1

In my last life, to please his first love, my scumbag CEO husband locked me in a freezer at twenty below zero and let me freeze to death.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day he forced me to donate a kidney to his first love.

I was about to slap that blind bastard across the face when a "Destiny Script" suddenly popped up in front of me: [Say yes to him! In two years he'll die in a plane crash. As his only legal wife, you'll inherit his hundred-billion-dollar empire!]

I looked at the fifty-million-dollar check in front of me and forced my raised hand into a smile instead.

So what if I have to "donate a kidney"? For a hundred billion dollars, I'll play along!

"Sign the papers, and the fifty million is yours."

A cold, condescending voice rang out in the VIP hospital room.

I snapped my eyes open, gasping for air, my lungs still aching with the bone-deep cold of that freezer at twenty below zero.

Cold.

So cold.

In my last life, Liam Hayes's first love, Lily Sinclair, had taken a little fall on the stairs and scraped her skin. Liam had flown into a rage, convinced I'd pushed her.

To get revenge for Lily, he'd had someone throw me into an abandoned freezer warehouse on the outskirts of the city.

"Let her sit in there and think it over for the night. Let her feel what Lily felt."

That one sentence of his had ended my life.

I'd pounded on that steel door in the dark and the freezing cold until my fingers bled, until my mind finally went blank.

And now, somehow, I'd been reborn.

Reborn six months earlier, on the day Lily was diagnosed with kidney failure — the day Liam forced me to give her my kidney.

I looked up and stared hard at the man standing at the foot of my hospital bed.

Liam.

Dressed in a tailored designer suit, his features cold and severe, looking down at me like I was some disposable part waiting to be removed.

"Vera Pierce, my patience has a limit." Seeing I hadn't said anything, his brow furrowed with impatience as he tossed a surgical consent form and a check onto my face.

"Lily's condition can't wait any longer. Your blood type's a perfect match for her. Consider it an honor."

"It's just one kidney. You won't die. Fifty million is more than enough for a woman like you to live off for the rest of your life."

An honor?

I looked at the papers scattered across the blanket, and hatred bloomed in my chest like poison ivy.

I'd loved this man for three years. I'd been his secret mistress for three years, on call whenever he wanted, groveling in the dirt for him.

And in return, he wanted to carve out my kidney for another woman.

I let out a cold laugh and reached out to grab the check, ready to tear it up and throw it in his arrogant face.

Then, hovering in midair, a line of golden text appeared.

[Destiny Script loading...]

[Host, pay attention! Whatever you do, don't refuse! Sign the consent form and use it to force him into marrying you!]

[Script hint: In two years, Liam will die when his private plane crashes into the sea, his body never recovered! Become his legal wife now, and in two years, the Hayes Group's hundred-billion-dollar fortune — the mansions, the yachts, everything — will be yours!]

[Lily will have spent her whole life scheming, only to watch you walk away with the entire inheritance and a string of boy toys. Sign it, quick!]

My outstretched hand froze in midair.

A hundred billion dollars?

Dead in a plane crash?

I stared at those glowing golden words and felt my heart rate spike.

Of course I wanted revenge for what happened to me last life. But if I could get revenge AND walk away with a hundred billion dollars, wasn't that so much better?

Just turning around and storming off would let these two trash people off way too easy.

I wanted the money. I wanted them dead. And I wanted them to wish they'd never been born!

I took a deep breath, swallowed the murderous look in my eyes, and turned my wrist, pinching the fifty-million-dollar check between my fingers.

"Fine. I'll sign." I looked up and put on my most pitiful expression. "But Liam, I have one condition."

A flicker of contempt crossed Liam's eyes, like he was laughing at how greedy I turned out to be.

"Name it. As long as it doesn't involve hurting Lily, I'll give you whatever you want."

I looked him dead in the eye and said, word by word: "I want you to marry me."