001: The charity bride

Iris' POV

My fingers were slipping.

The metal railing cut into my palms, and twelve stories of open air pulled at my legs. My wedding dress whipped around my ankles, white tulle snapping in the wind like a surrender flag.

Ethan, my husband of less than twelve hours, leaned over me, his wedding ring catching the city lights every time he shifted his weight.

“Why Ethan!?” A scream tore through me.

"Iris." His voice was calm. Careful. The voice he used in board meetings when a deal was falling apart. "Just let go. It will be quick."

"On our wedding night." My arms were shaking. "You are actually going to kill me."

"You didn’t give me a choice. An annulment? Firing me?" He rubbed the back of his neck. "You would have taken everything I worked so hard for."

Kira, my back stabbing, two timing best friend, appeared behind his shoulder in a robe, her hair messy from my husband's hands. "Oh, Iris. You've been such a blind fool. We were right under your nose for the past year and you didn't even notice."

Ethan checked his watch. I was hanging off the side of a building, and he checked his watch.

"If only you remained oblivious like a good little puppy, it wouldn't come to this. But now that you threatened to cut us out of your company, we can't let that happen." His voice was flat. "With your death, I'll be the new CEO and have Kira by my side."

He peeled my fingers off the railing one by one. Pinky first. Then ring finger. Then middle.

Kira reached down and pulled my last two fingers free.

“You'll regret this Ethan! I swear I'll make you pay!”

The wind took me.

The city lights blurred into streaks of gold and white, and my wedding dress spread out above me like the most expensive parachute that could not save a thing.

If there is a next life, I will never trust another man again. Not for any reason. Not for any price.

Everything went black.

...

"Get up, charity bride! Lord Ashcroft does not wait for strays!"

The shout tore through the dark and dragged me back up as my eyes shot open. My head was splitting. Cold stone pressed against my cheek as I leaned my head against a wall. The air tasted like ash and iron. Nothing like the wind that had been tearing through my dress a second ago.

I looked around.

Stone walls. Torchlight. Silver-trimmed tapestries hanging between iron brackets shaped like snarling wolves.

Then someone else's memories flooded into my head. A girl named Nora Whitmore. Twenty-one years old. A healer's daughter brought to the Ashcroft Estate because a marriage contract bore her name. Her father had once saved the life of Lord Aldric Ashcroft during a plague, and the old lord had sworn his grandson would marry the healer's daughter when she came of age.

Me? Iris Holloway, art restorer, the woman whose husband and best friend threw her off a twelve-story building on her wedding night, reborn as the most unwanted bride in a cheap fantasy romance?

You have to be kidding me.

I knew this story. I read it two winters ago and threw my phone across the bed when the heroine died for love and nobody cared enough to grieve her. There were parts of the book that annoyed me so much I had skipped them, but I remembered most of it.

The heroine suffered in silence, tormented by Dorian's lover, a golden-haired woman named Cassandra Hale who smiled in public and twisted the knife in private. In the end, the heroine gave up her own heart to save Cassandra, because Dorian loved her.

I was the heroine now.

"Did you hear me?" The servant grabbed my arm and hauled me upright. "The great hall. Now. Move your feet or I will drag you."

She dragged me anyway, through the doors of the great hall and shoved me inside.

Two people sat at the far end of a long table, sitting close enough to share the same air.

I recognised the woman to be Cassandra Hale. Her fingers resting on Dorian's arm like she was signing her name on property. She smiled at me the same way Kira used to smile across the brunch table every Sunday while she was sleeping with my husband behind my back.

And Dorian Ashcroft, he had dark hair and grey eyes that found me in the doorway and dismissed me before I finished crossing the threshold.

"So this is the bride my grandfather chained me to." His voice was flat. "I expected worse."

Cassandra laughed softly. "Dorian, do not be cruel." But her eyes were colder than his.

In the novel, the heroine cried here. She sobbed and shrank and apologized for being a burden under. But my palms still burned with the memory of metal railing and cold night air, Kira's fingers peeling mine away one by one.

I was done begging.

"My lord," I said, and my voice did not shake. "I do not wish to be part of this arrangement. I would like to be released."

The room went still.

Dorian set his glass down so hard the crystal rang against the table.

"No woman has ever denied me anything." His voice dropped low, the kind of quiet that was worse than shouting. "And you, a healer's daughter with no name and nothing to offer this house, are standing in my hall telling me you do not want me?"

"I am asking to leave, my lord."

"You are insulting me." He moved toward me. "One word from me and you are thrown out of this estate with nothing. No protection. No future."

His voice had risen enough that the servants in the corridor could hear him. Cassandra watched from the table, stunned. The girl she had been told was timid and powerless had just refused the most feared man in the province.

I held my ground.

"You are right, my lord. I have nothing. But your grandfather made this arrangement because my father saved his life. If you throw me out with nothing, you dishonor the debt he swore to repay."

Dorian's jaw tightened. I knew all of this because I had read the book. Dorian thought he was dealing with a frightened girl from a border village. He had no idea I already knew every card in his hand.

"Give her a proper room," he said through his teeth. "West wing. Second floor."

Cassandra's head snapped toward him. "The west wing? Dorian, surely that is too generous for..."

"I said it is done, Cassandra."

I turned and followed the servant out before Dorian could change his mind.

Halfway down the corridor, golden words appeared in front of me, hovering at the edge of my sight.

[Redemption System activated.]

A voice settled into my head, but it seemed only I could hear and see it.

[Congratulations, host. You have activated the Redemption System. Win the task and all accumulated points will be turned to money.]

My feet stopped. What is this?

The golden letters shifted into a new line.

[You died in your original world. Your soul has been placed into a new vessel where you have a chance to earn your rebirth. Primary objective: Win the affection of your betrothed, Dorian Ashcroft. Time limit: 180 days. Failure will result in complete soul purge. No rebirth. No second chance.]

My legs gave out. My hand found the wall.

One hundred and eighty days to win a man's heart? I just swore off men barely ten minutes ago! And if I failed, I would not just die again. I would be erased. No afterlife. No next world. Nothing.

[First task complete. Welcome audience survived without crying.]

[Redemption points +1000.]

Win his heart? The last man whose heart I trusted threw me off a building, and now the universe wanted me to do it again? What a cruel sense of humour.

But it did give me a chance at rebirth to go back to my real world and my life to make my husband and best friend pay. “Fine. I'll play. Ethan, I'm coming for you.”