Chapter 3

Elara’s POV.

Somewhere, a phone is ringing. No….. not ringing. Someone is shouting. A voice I know.

"Elara! Elara, answer me! Where are you? Pull over!” His breath is uneven, like he’s been running.

Adrian!

I have never heard him sound like that. Afraid and desperate. He sounds like a man who might lose something he didn't know he wanted.

I smile faintly.

Too late, the darkness comes slowly. It wraps around me.

I gasp.

My body jerks upright, air fills my lungs like fire. My heart pounds so hard I can feel it in my throat, my temples, my fingertips.

I try to search my mind, but for a moment, everything is blank.

Then it hits me. The accident. The rain. The headlights. Fuck!! Immediately, my hands fly to my body, but there is no pain…no scars or stitches.

My eyes dart around. That’s when I realize I’m not in a hospital.

I am in bed. A large, familiar bed. Silk sheets. Morning light filtering through floor-to-ceiling windows. I know this room. I know this light. I know the faint scent of lavender from the sachets in the drawers.

What’s happening? I turn my head. The calendar on the nightstand stares at me.

The date is ten years ago.

The morning after my wedding to Adrian Sterling.

I throw the covers back. My legs are unsteady. I stumble across the room, catch myself on the dresser, drag myself to the mirror.

The woman staring back makes me freeze.

She is young. Twenty-one. Her face is smooth, unlined, untouched by a decade of tears.

Tears stream down my face.

But these are not tears of sorrow. They are tears of something I have not felt in so long I almost don't recognize it.

A knock at the door. Sharp and Impatient.

"Elara."

Adrian's voice. I know it too well. The cold edge, the dismissal. The same tone he used when he told me a wife doesn't need a career.

The same tone he used when he asked me to marry him.

"We have a family brunch."

That’s not what he said that day. In my first life, he had looked at me and said, “Don’t embarrass me.”

My fingers curl slightly, something… is already different.

I look at my reflection. The woman in the mirror is different now. Her eyes hold something they didn't hold before. Not hope, not longing. Something harder and sharper.

I wipe my tears, I straighten my shoulders. I walk to the door.

I open it.

Adrian stands there, immaculate in a charcoal suit, his expression already bored. He looks at me the way he always looked at me, like a piece of furniture that happened to be in his way. He does not see me. He has never seen me.

But he will.

"Five minutes," he says, already turning away.

I keep my voice soft. Meek. The voice he expects. "I'll be ready."

He walks down the hall without looking back.

I close the door and lean against it, my heart still racing, my mind already moving. The universe just granted me another chance.

Ten years. I have ten years of knowledge. I know every mistake I made. I know every moment he betrayed me. I know exactly when Sophia will return. I know what he will say when he discards me.

I know the pills are poison.

I walk to the closet. My hand reaches for the gray cardigan, the one I wore for a decade, the one that made me invisible.

I stop.

I push the hangers aside until I find it. The emerald dress. The one I loved. The one I put away because he never noticed what I wore anyway.

I take it down.

I hold it against my body and look at my reflection.

“This time… I won’t beg for his attention.”

My reflection stares back, unfamiliar.

“I’ll take back everything I lost, and if he chooses to fall…” My lips curve slightly.

“That won’t be my problem.”