Chapter 1
In my last life, I caught my uncle's family in the act and exposed Blair in front of the whole town. Her family was run out of Linden Falls, and she was forced to marry a cruel millionaire in his fifties who lived on a remote estate. She died there a few years later.
I married Garrett Vance as planned, but the life I got was nothing like the one I'd imagined.
To support his career, I gave up my place at the Aldridge Institute of Regenerative Medicine. I put every one of my research results under his name and built him into the youngest lead researcher in the field with my own hands. In return, he left me alone in an empty house for ten years.
He secretly swapped out the medication treating my poisoning for ordinary vitamins. In the end, he forced a divorce and had me locked away on his private estate in the middle of nowhere.
"I'll pay you every month," Garrett told the guards through the door. "Whatever Blair went through, make her go through ten times worse. Just don't let her die too fast. The more she suffers, the more I'll pay you."
My son tried to save me. The guards broke both his legs, and he died in my arms of a brain hemorrhage.
I only learned the whole truth in my final moments. The woman Garrett had loved was Blair all along.
This time, I'm letting them have each other. I want to see how Garrett becomes the youngest lead researcher in regenerative medicine without me running his experiments, fixing his data, and putting every finished result straight into his hands.
"Margot, have some coffee. There's no reason to be nervous." Blair held the cup out with a gentle smile.
I caught a bitter edge hiding under the vanilla syrup, and my stomach dropped. After years in a lab, I knew that smell. It was a prescription sedative, strong enough to put a grown adult under in a matter of minutes.
"Is something wrong?" she asked carefully.
"No, nothing. Thanks, I was getting thirsty." I took the cup from her, and the moment she turned to fuss with the dress, I tipped the whole thing into the potted plant by the window.
Two minutes later, I closed my eyes and let myself slump onto the couch.
"Margot?" Blair said my name over and over. When I didn't stir, she hurried to the door and yanked it open, and her mother came rushing in. Together they unzipped me out of my wedding dress and took my driver's license and my engagement ring.
"Hurry up, it's about to start."
Blair stepped into my dress and adjusted the veil in front of the mirror, and she couldn't hide how thrilled she was. Then she and her mother slipped out through the side door and climbed into a black car headed for Rosewood Chapel.
I waited until the sound of the engine had completely faded before I opened my eyes. My phone was lying on the vanity, and the date glowing on the lock screen was our wedding day, the one Garrett and I had planned for months, five years ago now.
"Margot, are you really going to hand Garrett over to Blair?" My mother came out of the adjoining room, worry written all over her face. "She's been taking your things since you were kids. Once she says her vows today, he'll be her husband."
"They deserve each other." Blair was greedy and deceitful, and Garrett was ungrateful and cruel. They were cut from the same cloth.
I took an employment letter out of the drawer and put it in my mother's hands. "Mom, I'm moving to Boston."
She saw the crest printed on the envelope and froze. "The Aldridge Institute of Regenerative Medicine?"
"It's where I've always wanted to be," I said quietly. "I almost turned the position down for Garrett. Blair just made the biggest decision of my life for me."
My mother studied my face for a long moment, then took my hand. "Then go, Margot. Do what you really want with your life."
At that very moment, inside Rosewood Chapel, Garrett knew it was Blair before the veil was even all the way up. He knew her perfume, the one he'd been breathing in for three years, and no amount of white lace could hide it.
With tears in her eyes, Blair whispered her explanation. "Margot left town with State Police Captain Callum Rivers last night and never came back. We couldn't call the wedding off, not with the guests already here, the deposits gone, and both our families' names on the line. I had no choice but to take her place."
Garrett didn't expose her. He took her hand instead.
"Since you're the one who showed up, you're my wife now. As for the woman who ran off with another man the night before our wedding, I don't want her anymore."
A week later, he would quietly walk into the county clerk's office and have the name on the marriage license changed to Blair's.
By the time Garrett slid the ring onto Blair's finger and signed the marriage license beside her, I was already on a flight out of Cleveland. When the plane finally left Ohio behind, the knot in my chest let go for the first time in what felt like years.
In my last life, Blair had heard that Garrett was heading to Boston and tried to take my place at the altar.
I exposed her in front of the whole town and demanded the town council deal with it. Her family became the laughingstock of Linden Falls, and Blair was run out of town. She ended up at the mercy of a cruel old millionaire whose reputation every woman in three counties knew, and she died there.
Years later, Garrett stood in front of me as one of the most influential names in regenerative medicine, his face dark with rage.
"If it weren't for you, Blair would still be alive. You ruined her life, so I'm going to make you live through everything she went through."
He swapped out my medication, filed for divorce, and had his security men lock me away in a remote estate.
My son slipped inside to get me out, and the guards beat him until his skull split open and both his legs broke.
I held his cold body in my arms and screamed until my throat tore. "Garrett, you monster! I will never let you get away with this!"
I jerked awake. The cabin lights were low, and my pale face stared back at me from the window. It had only been a dream.
I watched the dark ground slide away beneath the wing, and slowly curled my fingers into a fist.
"Garrett. Blair. Enjoy the last good days you'll ever have."
