Chapter 1

Emery

I opened my eyes. Slowly. Blinking.

What? Where am I?

What happened?

Why couldn’t I remember…..

A memory .. a smell. It was lodged in the back of my nose sitting there like rot. But still. I was confused, did I get drunk last night?

I turned slightly and felt my head pounding. Ughh definitely a hangover. The sun was coming through my window curtain. I was home so .. not in the hospital.

Wait. Why would I be in the hospital? Where did that thought even come from…

How did I get here? This is my old bedroom in my old house. I don’t live here I live with Jasper …

Then suddenly memories came flooding back. Jasper. Jasper died. I was at his funeral. Then .. the will. He loved Vivian!! He humiliated me!

I jerked the covers back and ran my hands over my stomach and body, frantically searching for remnants of blood. I was shot! Why wasn’t I in the hospital. How was I even alive??

I know I had been shot more than once. Several.. times .. if I had to guess. I’m almost positive that last one got me in the heart. That smell? In the back of my nose? That was the ground. The smell of dirt and mud and the very last thing I remembered.

I sat up .. dizziness overtook me.

I must be dreaming or going crazy… or just insane. But I was in my old bedroom in my old house. The one I lived in ten years ago before Jasper and I got married.

Either someone was playing an elaborate joke on me or trying to make me lose my mind. Maybe I had been drugged. And now that I know Jasper was basically lying and cheating on me our entire time together I wouldn’t put it past him.

Footsteps sounded down the hallway. They were clomping loudly on my hardwood floors of my little cabin style house.

Shit.

I got out of bed but almost fell. Nausea rose up as I almost vomited right then and there. My head.. still pounding… and I could barely stand due to the dizziness.

I looked around quickly for a weapon. I always kept a gun close by just in case I needed it. Just because I’d never loved the family business… didn’t mean I didn’t know how to protect myself. My father had made sure of that before he died years ago. Then I had a memory … I reached under my pillow.

Yep. Still there.

My knife. a small pressing dagger was perfect for when you needed something quick. It was easily accessible and I’d always kept it under my pillow. I grabbed hold of it and hid it behind my back just as my bedroom door opened.

The knife dropped. Clanking and clattering on the floor.

My chest caved as I took in the person standing before me.

I couldn’t breathe … I bent over, grasping the table to keep from passing out.

The person standing in front of me was Jasper.

Jasper. My husband .. who I had just buried.

But he wasn’t dead. He was alive and well. And I knew immediately he had done this on purpose. He had set this entire thing up. He tricked me.. he made me look like a fool. And for what? So he could be with Vivian?

I felt my heart crack down the middle as it broke in half. How could he do this to me? We were married for ten long years. He made me look like a fool our entire marriage. I spent the years craving his love and attention, doing everything I possibly could to be a good wife and win him over.

There had been small moments where he had given me hope, making me believe he loved me. But he had fooled me, and those moments were clearly just a ruse, because he’d been deeply in love with another woman the entire time.

Anger, sadness, immense hurt and betrayal surged through my heart. I was shaking all over and I wanted to scream at him.. tell him I knew everything…

But then he spoke.

“Well I hope your happy. My father is insisting we go forward with the wedding immediately now. I never knew you were so devious Emery.” He said coldly.

What?

I stared at him frowning.

My brain was so fogged I couldn’t even stand any longer. I sat down on the chair beside my bedside table and stared at him. How was he alive?? Was everyone in the entire gang in on this? And what was he talking about?

“What?” It was all I could get out.

He laughed coldly and shook his head at me.. walking closer.

“You thought you could drug me and have my father walk in on us and everything would come out in your favor. I’ve been putting this off and putting it off for years. You know this. And now we are being forced into this marriage immediately. My father is afraid you’re going to be pregnant and he doesn’t want the scandal. So congratulations.”

In that moment something clicked. I’d already had this conversation with Jasper. Many years ago. We’d had drinks at a party and ended up sleeping together. His father walked in on us at his house while we were in Jasper’s bedroom. He had gotten so mad at me, thinking I’d set it up but I hadn’t.

The memories came flooding back. He had accused me the entirety of our marriage. The feelings of being untrusted by the person I loved and never being able to explain myself… it was like being shot all over again.

I had known he was trying to put off the marriage. Even though the contract had been set in stone since our births practically.

But he still wanted us to mess around and have sex.. yet suddenly I had conjured up some elaborate scheme for his father to see us? Did he really not know how mortifying that was for me?

But that had been ten years ago…

I squinted.

I looked at Jasper closer. Why did he look so young? Why was he repeating a conversation we’d already had? Why weren’t we already married? Why was I in my old house……

I looked down. My brown hair that had been shoulder length or shorter for the past five years was very long. It hadn’t been that long since I’d cut it the first time. I picked up a few strands and looked at them, frowning.

Jasper sighed dramatically. “Are you even listening to me Emery??” He shouted.

I jumped out of the chair and stumbled to the mirror. I gasped.

It was me .. there in the mirror .. looking back. But it wasn’t me now.. it was me ten years ago. I was young.

I was 25 again.

This was all real.

I had died.

I had no doubt now. That I had died when I got shot. And I had somehow been reborn ten years earlier. I had gotten a second chance. I could make things right. I could live my life happily.

And that’s exactly what I was going to do.

I turned and looked at a very confused Jasper.

“I’m sorry Jasper. But I won’t be marrying you. Certainly not now.. and not ever.”