Chapter 1

"Men with love on their brains really are so easy to fool. What woman wouldn't love having the whole city's giant screens lit up with messages when someone proposes to her?

"Just because I casually mentioned that Bree doesn't like flashy stuff—and that she might not be ready to get married yet, so she should at least have the chance to think about it—he really decided to propose quietly.

"He even asked me what kind of gift Bridget would like. I just so happened to get scammed buying a secondhand purse a couple of days ago, so now I can just get him to buy me the real thing. Then I'll just delete the purchase record, and there'll be no evidence left at all. I'm such a genius."

Hearing my best friend Cathy Capshaw's inner thoughts again, a cold sweat reflexively broke out across my back.

This was exactly what had happened in my previous life. I, Bridget Dewan, had happily dressed up and gone out with my boyfriend, Brian Eggert, to celebrate New Year's Eve. But when he handed me my gift, I saw that it was a used purse. Even the tag on the purse didn't match the box it came in.

I angrily questioned him, but he insisted that he'd bought it from the official boutique.

When I asked him to show me the purchase record, he couldn't produce it, no matter how long he searched. Then he claimed that Cathy had come into contact with the purse before, so maybe it had something to do with her.

After that, he wanted to drag me to a hotel, saying he'd prepared a surprise for me there.

I almost laughed from sheer anger. After all this, he still expected me to go to a hotel with him?

Right then and there, I told him we were breaking up and threw the purse straight at him.

I'd grown up with Cathy. After all these years, she was practically family. Even the money for Mom's surgery had come from her. How dare Brian try to drive a wedge between us with nothing more than a purse?

But what I didn't expect was that when I got home, I was suddenly able to hear Cathy's inner thoughts. She had deliberately planned everything.

I simply refused to believe it at first. I thought someone was pranking me.

But then I checked the surveillance footage and saw Cathy switch out the purses with my own eyes.

Then I went to the hotel where Brian had said he'd prepared a surprise. I saw that he really had booked the presidential suite and meticulously decorated the room for a proposal. I even found the messages on his phone where Cathy had told him to keep the proposal simple.

In utter disbelief and devastation, I exposed Cathy's scheme and cut ties with her for good. Then, I successfully married Brian.

To my surprise, however, he completely changed after the wedding. He told me he had accumulated massive gambling debts for a long time now, and the one reason he'd married me was so I could help him pay them off.

Harassed endlessly by debt collectors, I eventually jumped off a building. But even as I drew my dying breath, I still didn't understand why any of this had happened.

"Bree, it might be a good thing you broke up with him," Cathy said when she heard that I'd ended things with Brian.

She held my hand, comforting me. "I've never dared to tell you this before, but for some reason, that guy has always given me a strange vibe."

I stared into her eyes, my vision blurring as tears welled up.