Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Silver woke to sunlight.

That was the first wrong thing. There shouldn't be sunlight. There should be darkness, cold, the crushing weight of water filling her lungs. There should be nothing at all.

She bolted upright, gasping, her hands flying to her throat. Dry. Her clothes—dry. Her hair, fanned across silk pillowcases, completely dry.

"What—"

The room swam into focus. Somehow she was in her bedroom. In the Ashford estate.

No. This wasn't possible.

Silver threw off the covers and stumbled to the mirror. Her reflection stared back, wide-eyed and pale. But she was too young.

Her hand flew to her face, touching skin that was smoother, softer. The fine lines that had started appearing around her eyes—from smiling at people who didn't smile back, from crying into pillows at 3 AM—were gone. Her hair was longer, falling past her shoulders instead of the shoulder-length cut she'd gotten last month in a fit of desperate reinvention.

This was impossible.

"Miss Winters?" A knock at the door, followed by the familiar voice of Marie, her lady's maid. "Miss Winters, you need to start getting ready. The ceremony is in four hours."

The ceremony. Silver's stomach dropped to her feet.

"What... what day is it?" Her voice came out hoarse. A pause. "It's your wedding day, ma'am. Are you feeling alright? Should I call the doctor?"

No. No, no, no. Silver crossed to the antique desk where she kept her planner—kept, used to keep, would keep?—and found the calendar. The date glared up at her in  black ink.

December 15th, 2020.

Five years ago. Her wedding day. The day she'd married Seris Ashford in a ceremony that had cost more than most people's houses and meant absolutely nothing to the groom.

"Miss Winters?"

"I'm fine," Silver called out, her voice steadier than she felt. "Give me a moment."

She heard Marie's footsteps retreat and sank into the desk chair, her mind racing.

This was insane. People didn't just wake up five years in the past. They didn't get do-overs. Death was final. The river had been real—she could still feel the ghost of that cold, the burn in her lungs, the moment her body had simply given up.

She'd died.

And somehow, impossibly, she'd woken up here. Why?

Silver's gaze fell on a photograph tucked into the corner of her mirror. Her and Seris, from the engagement party three months ago. She looked radiant in the photo, glowing with hope and naive faith in happy endings. He looked... polite. Distantly pleasant, like a CEO posing with a  successful business partner.

She'd made excuses for that look for so long. He's just not comfortable with cameras. He's private. He shows love differently. But he'd never shown love at all.

A memory surfaced, sharp and unwelcome: Seris at a charity gala two years into their marriage, his hand on the small of Vivienne Laurent's back—one of the "mistresses" the tabloids had gleefully documented. The way he'd laughed at something she'd said, a real laugh, the kind Silver had spent years trying to earn.

Another memory: Finding the bank statements. Twenty thousand dollars to "C. Morrison" for "consulting services." Thirty thousand to "Gabrielle Chen" marked as "personal gift." Amounts that meant nothing to a billionaire but everything to someone trying to pretend her marriage was real.

And Kate. Always Kate. 

"She's my oldest friend,"* Seris had said, the one time Silver had worked up the courage to ask why Kate was his plus-one to the tech summit instead of his actual wife. "You understand, don't you? She knows the people there, understands the business. It's not personal."

Everything with Seris was "not personal." That was the problem.

Their entire marriage had been not personal. Well. It had been, for her.

Silver stood abruptly, crossing to the massive walk-in closet where her wedding dress hung like a ghost.  She'd worn this dress. Walked down an aisle scattered with white roses. Said vows she meant with every fiber of her being to a man who'd been checking his phone during the reception.

She'd lived this day already. And the five years that followed.

Five years of diminishing herself, of making excuses, of pretending that scraps of attention were the same as love. Five years of watching her husband build a life that had no room for her in it. Five years that had ended with her drowning in a river while he saved someone else.

Something cold and clear settled in Silver's chest. Not quite angry—anger was too hot, too wild. This was something sharper. Colder. This was clarity.

She walked back to the desk and picked up her phone. No messages from Seris—there wouldn't be. He was probably still asleep, or already at the office, treating their wedding day like any other item on his calendar.

But there were messages from others.

Mom: Can't wait to see you walk down the aisle, sweetheart! You're going to be so happy!*

Dad: My little girl, all grown up. He's a lucky man.*

Kimberly (her best friend): WEDDING DAAAAY! You better not be having cold feet. See you at the venue! 💕*

Silver's throat tightened. Her parents had been so proud. The Winters family wasn't poor, but they weren't Ashford-level wealthy either. Marrying into one of the country's most powerful families had seemed like a fairy tale to them.

They'd never known how miserable she'd been. She'd been too ashamed to tell them. Too proud to admit that saving Seris Ashford's life and asking for his hand in marriage had been the worst mistake of her life.

Her phone buzzed with a new message.

Seris: I'll meet you at the venue. Running late. Sorry.

Late to his own wedding.

Silver stared at the message, remembering how she'd made excuses for it the first time. *He's so busy. The company needs him. It's fine.*

It wasn't fine. None of it had ever been fine.

She opened her contacts and scrolled to Seris's name. Her thumb hovered over the call button.

In the original timeline, she'd called him right about now. Nervous, excited, babbling about last-minute details. He'd been distracted, given her half-answers, and she'd convinced herself it was just pre-wedding jitters on his part.

But she knew better now.

Silver took a deep breath and dialed a different number.

There was a pause, shuffling, and then her father's warm voice came on the line. "Sweetheart! Shouldn't you be getting ready?"

"Dad." Her voice cracked despite her best efforts. "Dad, I need to talk to you about something. It's important."

His tone shifted immediately, concern flooding in. "What's wrong? Are you okay? Is it Seris? I swear to God, if he—"

"No. I mean, yes. I mean..." Silver closed her eyes, steadying herself. "Dad, I can't marry him."

"Silver," her father said carefully. "It's normal to be nervous. Your mother nearly ran away the morning of our wedding. But—"

"It's not nerves." The words came out stronger now. "Dad, I'm telling you right now, clearly and with full certainty: I don't want to marry Seris Ashford. I never should have asked him to marry me. The whole thing was a mistake."

More silence. Then: "Does he know you feel this way?"

"He doesn't care how I feel." The truth of it was liberating. "He never has. This marriage is an obligation to him, nothing more. And I'm not going to spend my life being someone's obligation."

"Silver, honey, the wedding is in four hours. There are three hundred guests, a cathedral full of flowers, caterers, musicians—"

"I know." She did know. She remembered every expensive, elaborate detail of a wedding that had been more performance than partnership. "And I'll deal with the fallout. But Dad, I need you to trust me. Please. I can't do this."

She heard him take a shaky breath. When he spoke again, his voice was thick with emotion. "You're sure? Absolutely sure?"

"I've never been more sure of anything in my life."

Another pause. Then: "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay. You're my daughter, Silver. I'm not going to let you walk into something that makes you miserable, no matter who's waiting at that altar or how much money we've spent." His voice hardened. "Do you need me to tell him, or do you want to do it yourself?"

Silver looked at her reflection in the mirror. At the young woman who'd been so desperate for love she'd bound herself to someone incapable of giving it.

Not this time.

"I'll do it," she said. "But Dad? Thank you. For believing me."

"Always, sweetheart. Always."

After they hung up, Silver sat in the quiet of her room for a long moment. Then she opened a new message to Seris. Her fingers trembled from the sheer relief of finally,  choosing herself. She typed: Don't bother coming to the venue. The wedding is off.

She hit send. And just like that, Silver Winters rewrote her fate.