Chapter 1

Dustin Sherwood got down on one knee as he fastened the buckles of my high heels and caressed my ankles.

"You're going to have to stand all day tomorrow. But if these heels start digging into your skin, then we'll just forget about wearing them."

Just as I thought I'd been hallucinating, I heard his inner thoughts once again.

[Mimi's foot arch is so much better-looking than Claudia's. I'll never get bored of playing with hers. Claudia's arches are so flat and ugly. I don't even get turned on when touching them.]

My stomach churned at that moment as the scene of me catching them red-handed in my past life surged in my memories again.

There had been clothes scattered all over the floor in the dimly lit hotel room. Miranda Barlow's ankles were perched atop Dustin's shoulders, and he was kissing them passionately.

"Claudia? Claudia Summers?"

Dustin's fingers tightened slightly. "Why are your feet so cold?"

I immediately drew my feet back from him. The heels of my shoes dug into the carpeting, letting out a muffled thud.

"What's wrong?" he asked again.

I fought to stay calm. "I'm fine. I'm just a little chilly."

Dustin immediately took off his coat and put it around my shoulders. There was a faint trace of a sweet, almost saccharine-like fragrance in the fabric that certainly didn't belong to him.

I suddenly asked him, "What do you think about Miranda?"

Dustin's hands froze as he was tucking my hair behind my ears. A look of disgust immediately appeared on his face.

"She's nothing but a pretty face. All she does is throw herself at me just for my money. I feel so disgusted every time I see her."

He held my hand tightly and continued trying to make it seem as though he was thoroughly done with her. "I've already kicked her out of the company, Claudia. I don't have anything to do with her anymore.

"I won't even give her a second glance if she were to strip and stand before me stark naked!"

In this life, he would always avoid Miranda like the plague every time she appeared, and the look on his face made it look as though he despised her more than I did.

…

At my birthday banquet, Miranda suddenly barged in uninvited and toppled the champagne tower. The broken glass cut into my leg, and I began to bleed.

Dustin had been furious then. He grabbed a bottle of wine from the table and emptied it all over her.

"Get out of this place! And don't ever let me see you again, or I'll make sure you disappear from the face of this earth!"

Right after yelling that, he told the bodyguards to clean up the scene and turned to me. He said gently, "I'll go and deal with that madwoman now. I won't let her ruin your big day!"

…

There was a fluster of panic in Dustin's eyes. "Darling, why are you suddenly bringing her up?"

[Has she noticed something? But I'd already showered twice before coming here today. There shouldn't be any remnants of her scent on me anymore.

[I've learned my lesson this time. I've been making sure to hide her well from Claudia this time. Just one more day, and I'll finally be married to Claudia. She'll finally be mine!]

I looked up at Dustin's face.

This was the face that had been frozen blue and frosted with ice when he saved me in my past lifetime. Even his breathing had been tinged with blood when he put the last layer of his clothes around me.

I had intended to use this lifetime to make it all up to him for the last, but it turned out that he was planning to use this as a second chance to continue betraying me after all.

So, it wasn't that he regretted cheating on me. He just regretted not being able to hide his affair from me.

He frowned again as he thought about the wedding.

[I doused Mimi in red wine the last time during Claudia's birthday banquet, and she threw quite the hissy fit at me after that.

[I spent the rest of the night trying to apologize to her and mollify her, and she only finally forgave me after I licked every drop of the wine off her body.

[I bet she's going to make another huge fuss at the wedding tomorrow again. I need to think of a way to appease her.]

His inner thoughts kept slithering into my head like a venomous snake.

Back then, after my birthday banquet, Dustin never came back to me again after telling me he was leaving to "deal with Miranda". I ended up retiring to the waiting room and slowly removing all the glass shards from my wound with tweezers by myself. And then, I waited for him all day and night while he was busy plowing into Miranda.

The blood in my body ran cold.

I stared at Dustin's perfect mask and asked softly, "Are you only disgusted with her because she behaved like a madwoman?"

He nodded at once. "Of course. She's nothing compared to you."

I then carefully removed my hand from his palms. "Don't you think you've forgotten something important as well?

"She's the murderer who killed your mother."