All Chapters of Reborn to ruin the man who broke me : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Nora's POVI woke up smelling my mother's perfume, and for a second, I forgot she was supposed to be dead.Not the mother I remembered burying at nineteen. The one from before that — warm, sharp-tongued, still alive in this version of my life, still humming off-key in the kitchen most mornings the way she used to before the accident that hadn't happened yet.I lay there staring at the ceiling of my old bedroom, waiting for my body to catch up with what my mind already knew. Twenty-five years old again. Whole. No frostbite scarring on my fingers from a radiator that never worked right. There was no memory of a locked door that took three months before anyone stopped checking behind it.I remembered dying anyway. All of it. The cold. My own sister's face at the hearing, calm in a way that had haunted me for years after, like watching someone you loved decide you weren't worth saving.Today was the day that started it. My engagement to Jude Whitfield, the man my father had decided, was w

Nora's POVJude's eyes moved from Theo to me and back again, doing math that wasn't adding up fast enough."What is this?" His charm came up automatically, the same practiced ease he used on waiters and board members. "Nora, baby, the lunch starts in an hour.""There isn't going to be a lunch." I said it plainly. I'd spent three years of a life he didn't remember learning exactly how little my feelings mattered to him, and I wasn't interested in softening it now. "I'm not marrying you."His smile faltered. Behind him, in the doorway, Damian Sterling hadn't moved, hadn't said a word, just watched with an attentiveness that struck me as strange for a man who supposedly had no stake in any of this."You can't just—" Jude turned to his uncle instead. "Tell her this is insane. Do you know what this does to both families?""I have a fairly good idea," Theo said, not looking up from the notes he'd already started drafting. "Which is why I've agreed to represent Miss Calloway's interests goin

Nora's POV"Damian Sterling wasn't invited to anything happening today," I said, "but he's the reason I know what actually happened to me the first time."Theo's expression didn't change, but something in his stillness sharpened, the way it had in his office that morning when I'd said something he hadn't expected."Explain that to me on the way," he said, already moving toward the car. "We don't have time to stand here."I told him in pieces, the car cutting through traffic toward the office while my pulse hadn't slowed since the courthouse. Not everything — not the asylum, not the cold, not yet. Just enough. That Ivy had taken the blame for destroying my life the first time, and that somewhere in the months after my death, I'd learned, too late to matter, that the story I'd been told about her guilt didn't fully add up."You think Damian was involved," Theo said. Not a question."I think Ivy wasn't acting alone. I don't have proof. I have a feeling I've had since I woke up this morni

Nora's POVDamian Sterling looked exactly the way I remembered him from a lifetime I wasn't supposed to remember at all — relaxed in a chair that wasn't his, one leg crossed over the other, like he'd been waiting long enough to get comfortable."Theo," he said warmly, standing as we walked in. His eyes moved to me next, and something in them sharpened, just slightly, before smoothing back into pleasant familiarity. "And the new Mrs. Whitfield. I have to say, this morning's been full of surprises.""You weren't invited to this office," Theo said."I didn't think I'd need an invitation." Damian's smile didn't waver. "Twenty years, Theo. I've never needed one before.""Say what you came to say."Damian glanced at me, then back at Theo, unhurried in a way that made my skin prickle. "I think we should speak privately.""She stays," Theo said.Something flickered behind Damian's expression — not quite surprise, more like recalibration, the same thing I'd caught on Ivy's face at the courthou

Theo's POVBy nine in the morning, every seat in the boardroom was occupied.That alone told me how seriously they were taking Damian's request.The long table was surrounded by men and women who had spent years learning how to smile while sharpening knives beneath the table. Some had served under my father. Others had been waiting for the day they could question my decisions without having to pretend they trusted me.Today, they didn't have to pretend.Nora sat beside me.Her posture was straight, her hands folded neatly in her lap.She looked calm.I knew better.The doors closed behind us.At the far end of the table, Damian sat with the same relaxed expression he'd worn in my office yesterday.As though none of this concerned him.I took my seat.Nora followed.Patricia stood at the head of the table with a folder in her hands."The purpose of this emergency meeting," she began, "is to review concerns raised regarding the legitimacy and circumstances surrounding the marriage betwe