Chapter 1

"Eliza, I'm telling you, if you go back to live your life as some rich young lady, we're done! I don't want people thinking I'm just after your money! I may be poor, but I have pride!"

Just like in my previous life, Dominic Huxley, whose arm I was holding onto for support, shook me off violently.

The dull pain as I hit the wall made me realize… I had been reborn on the very day Chester Rodney came to find me and claim me as family.

In front of me, the air was heavy with the scent of money and power. Chester glanced at his watch, brows knit in impatience.

"If you're not interested, don't waste time. It's not like our parents cared that much about you after losing you all those years ago..."

He was in a hurry. This was nothing but a formality—he needed to get it over with and rush back to accompany Alicia Rodney.

In my previous life, Chester's detached, superior tone made it clear: there was no warmth waiting for me in the Rodney family. I, an orphan of twenty-two years, had shrank back in fear.

Coupled with Dominic's ultimatum, I never even met my birth parents before I walked away from them.

But now, as Dominic barked beside me—

"Eliza, can't you make your own decisions for once? Do you have to ask me about everything?"

I spoke without hesitation. "I'll go."

Those two words stunned both men into silence.

Chester stared, frowning, as if he couldn't believe what he'd heard.

"What... did you just say?"

But I was no longer the timid girl I had once been. At twenty-two, my body was young, but inside me lived the soul of a fifty-year-old woman who had seen it all.

To me, these two boys were nothing but amateurs.

I met Chester's gaze and returned it steadily.

"Didn't the family send you to pick me up? Well then, let's go. I don't want to keep our parents waiting."

In my previous life, I hadn't learned the truth until the very end: Chester wasn't my biological brother at all.

He had been adopted from a distant, barely-related branch of the family, solely to accompany and protect the so-called "only heiress" of the Rodney family—Alicia.

Though he was nothing more than a foster child, he acted like being around me—the real heiress—was somehow beneath him.

When I moved toward the car, Chester, not yet the cunning fox he would one day become, instinctively looked to Dominic. As if blaming him for letting things slip out of control.

So they knew each other.

Of course they did.

These two men, who, on the surface, had nothing to do with one another, had joined forces behind my back—all for the sake of a fake heiress.

Together, they had destroyed my previous life.

The next second, Dominic yanked my arm hard.

"Eliza, are you out of your mind?! You're wearing muddy shoes! That car's worth millions—what if you damage it? Can you afford to pay for it?! Don't go causing trouble just because you got carried away. I'm not going to clean up your mess!"

I was found by a lady named Dorothy Reagen on the riverbank, and she named me Eliza Reagen.

Both Dominic's family and Dorothy's were listed as poverty households in our small town, yet Dominic always acted like he was above me.

Why? Because I loved him. And my love gave him power.

I had followed him like a shadow since childhood.

He had good grades, a clean reputation, and the kind of proud dignity that comes from being poor but unyielding. He was the only one who never called me an unwanted child.

After Dorothy passed away, Dominic became my only anchor in the world.

Even though we both made it into the same high school, I gave up my place and dropped out to work and help pay his tuition.

He once said students from big cities had private tutors. So I risked my life trekking thirty miles into the mountains to gather rare herbs from cliffs, just to earn enough for his lessons.

Then, on my deathbed in my previous life, I watched him on television—an aging man blushing as he reminisced about how he met Alicia at tutoring class.

"I was young, poor, and insecure back then," he had said, smiling, "but she never once looked down on me. I'd never seen a girl as kind and beautiful as Alicia. From that moment on, I knew—even if it took a lifetime—I'd catch up to her."

And me? I was the one bent over cliffs, breaking my back to build the bridge they walked over to meet each other.

He could throw my love away like garbage, but he had no right to use it to destroy my entire life.

Now, looking at his youthful face again from the eyes of another life, I felt nothing but disgust.

"That car came to pick me up," I said calmly. "If I don't get in, am I supposed to let someone else steal my rightful place?"