Chapter 1

The air was thick with perfume.

Eighteen assistants, each beautiful in her own way, had me surrounded.

I jolted awake.

I had been reborn.

“Mr. Cooper, you can’t just abandon us,” said the lead PR assistant, tears glimmering in her eyes as she gently stroked her belly.

“We’re already nearly three months pregnant. You have to take responsibility for us.”

I shuddered, cold sweat soaking through my shirt in an instant.

Dealing with one beautiful woman was hard enough; eighteen pregnant ones was a whole other nightmare.

Even until my death, I could not understand it.

Despite being worth billions, I had always been faithful to my wife. I had never touched another woman.

Yet in my previous life, all eighteen assistants accused me of getting them pregnant.

I assumed it was a smear campaign by a business rival and laughed it off.

But they threatened to jump from a building, forcing me to undergo a live-streamed amniocentesis paternity test.

The results showed that all eighteen unborn babies were mine.

My wife broke down on the spot. Through her tears, she said I betrayed her and forced me to walk away from our fortune with nothing.

In the end, everyone turned against me, and I died alone in my own home.

But how had they become pregnant with my children?

“Mr. Cooper...”

“Mr. Cooper, say something...”

The assistants’ voices pulled me from my memories.

This time, I could not fall into their trap again.

I raised a hand to cut off their overlapping voices and pressed the intercom. “Security, lock down this entire floor immediately. Collect and secure all electronic devices.”

“Since all of you are so certain the babies are mine, no one is leaving until the truth comes out.”

Before I had even finished speaking, eighteen phones were raised in front of me.

“So, Mr. Cooper is planning to hold us hostage? That’s fine.”

Vanessa Smith turned her screen toward me.

The screen showed a scheduled email. “We set it to send automatically. If we’re out of contact for more than two hours, these little ‘secrets’ will be sent straight to every major news outlet.

“The headline will be—Billionaire CEO Sleeps with Eighteen Women, Then Abandons Them All: Pregnant Assistants’ Tearful Accusations.”

My whole body shook violently, as if every ounce of strength had been drained from me.

Those women, beautiful in every shape and size, now looked like demons sent to drag me to hell.

As long as I avoided doing that damned live-streamed paternity test, perhaps I could escape the tragedy of my past life.

But the very next second…

“What is all this commotion?”

“Don’t come over!”

I tried to stop my wife, Sarah White, but she had already hurried over.

Confused, Sarah looked at me surrounded by the assistants, then her gaze settled on the phones they were holding up.

“Sarah, let me explain!” I tried to push past the women surrounding me. “I swear I’ve never betrayed you! I have no idea how they became pregnant!”

She pointed a trembling finger at me and screamed, “So you say you didn’t do it, and that makes it true? Eighteen women are accusing you. Are you saying they’re all lying?

“Eight years! I’ve been with you for eight years! When your business failed, I ate cheap takeout with you in that tiny rented apartment. When you were hospitalized for surgery, I stayed awake at your bedside for three days and nights!

“Cheating would have been bad enough... but you got eighteen women pregnant at the same time! Daniel Cooper, what did you ever take me for?”

Her face was twisted with the same hysteria I remembered from my previous life, but this time, I did not try to defend myself in a panic.

I only let out a quiet sigh.

“After eight years together, I can honestly say I have never done a single thing to betray you or this family.

“From beginning to end, you were the only woman I ever had. Why would you rather believe strangers than the husband who has been by your side for eight years? Is that really how worthless you think I am?”

“Evidence?”

Like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, she jabbed a sharp fingernail so close to my face that it nearly struck me.

“The bastards in their bellies are the evidence! All eighteen women can testify! Daniel Cooper, the way you refuse to admit what you did disgusts me!

“I must have been blind to marry a beast like you!”