Chapter 3: REBORN;THREE YEARS EALIER

Death was supposed to be the end.

So why could I hear birds singing?

I frowned, waiting for the darkness to swallow me again. My body felt strangely heavy, but I could breathe. There was no freezing water, no roaring ocean, and no pain in my lungs.

Instead, I felt something soft beneath my fingers.

A bed.

I slowly opened my eyes.

White curtains hung beside a familiar window. Sunlight spilled across the wooden floor, illuminating the dressing table, the wardrobe, and the framed photographs arranged on the wall.

I knew this room.

I had spent years sleeping here.

My childhood bedroom.

But that was impossible.

I had died in the ocean.

I remembered Marcus watching me struggle. I remembered Chloe turning away. I remembered the cold water filling my lungs.

My hand flew to my chest.

I was breathing.

I sat up so quickly that the room spun around me. My gaze darted toward the mirror across from my bed.

A young woman stared back at me.

Long black hair. Fair skin. Green eyes wide with disbelief.

My face.

But something was different.

I looked younger.

I scrambled out of bed and hurried to the mirror. My trembling fingers touched my cheeks, my forehead, and my lips. I looked exactly like myself, yet I knew I wasn't the same woman who had gone to sleep—or rather, who had died—in that ocean.

The Elena Hart reflected in the mirror had no idea what betrayal felt like.

She had never watched the man she loved choose her stepsister over her. She had never begged for her life while the people she trusted sailed away.

But I had.

I gripped the edge of the dressing table as memories crashed over me.

Marcus's cold eyes.

Chloe's cruel smile.

The ocean closing above my head.

A sob escaped my throat.

“No,” I whispered. “No, no, no…”

I stumbled backward and sank onto the bed.

Had I survived somehow? Had someone rescued me?

I looked around the room again, searching for anything that could explain what was happening.

Then I noticed my phone on the bedside table.

I grabbed it with shaking hands.

The date on the screen made my heart stop.

Three years earlier.

I stared at the numbers until my eyes blurred.

It couldn't be real.

Three years before the wedding. Three years before Marcus betrayed me. Three years before Chloe helped him destroy my life.

I checked the date again, hoping it would change.

It didn't.

A laugh escaped me, sharp and broken. I covered my mouth, but the sound kept coming until it turned into tears.

I had been given another chance.

I didn't understand how. I didn't know why. But I was alive, and somehow, impossibly, I had returned to a time when everything I had lost still lay ahead of me.

My father.

My family.

My future.

The thought of my father made me rise from the bed.

I needed to see him.

I needed to know he was alive.

I rushed toward the door, nearly tripping over my own feet. When I reached the hallway, familiar photographs lined the walls. I passed them without looking, hurrying down the staircase toward the voices coming from the living room.

Then I heard his laugh.

My father's laugh.

I stopped so suddenly that my hand tightened around the banister.

He was there.

Alive.

Standing near the window in his usual suit, holding a newspaper as though the world had never changed.

For a moment, I couldn't move.

In my previous life, I had lost him. I had lived with the pain of his absence, believing there was nothing I could have done to save him.

Now he stood only a few steps away.

“Dad,” I whispered.

He lowered his newspaper.

“Elena?”

I ran to him.

He barely had time to open his arms before I threw myself against his chest. I clung to him, burying my face in his shoulder as tears streamed down my cheeks.

“Dad, you're alive.”

He stiffened in surprise before wrapping his arms around me.

“Of course I'm alive, sweetheart.” His voice softened. “What's wrong?”

I couldn't answer.

I had spent what felt like an eternity drowning, and now I could hear his heartbeat beneath my ear.

I held him tighter, terrified that if I let go, he would disappear.

He gently pulled back to look at me.

“Are you sure you're all right? You've frightened me.”

I wiped my face quickly.

“Yes,” I lied. “I'm fine.”

But I wasn't fine.

I was a woman who had died and somehow returned to the past. I carried memories no one else could understand, and I knew that if I made the same choices again, I might lose everything all over again.

My father brushed a strand of hair away from my face.

“Go and get some rest. You look as though you've seen a ghost.”

I almost laughed.

He had no idea how close he was to the truth.

I nodded and hugged him once more before forcing myself to step away.

As I climbed the stairs, one thought settled firmly in my mind.

I would not live the same life twice.

I would not blindly trust Marcus again. I would not allow Chloe to use my love against me. And I would do everything in my power to protect the father I had nearly lost.

But first, I needed to understand exactly how much time I had been given.

I looked at the date on my phone once more.

Three years.

I had three years to change my future.

And this time, I would be ready.