Who Wrote 'After I Returned The Ring'?

Isn’t it funny how love works? I have always loved Dreston, and he has always been the one for me—my first love. As a child, I loved him, as a teenager, nothing changed. And now, even as his wife, I still couldn’t love him any less. But he only ever loved Tina—my teenage best friend. She came into our lives and didn’t just take him away from me. She took my happiness, my laughter, and even the girl I used to be. I still remember her words to me: “You knew he was mine, yet you married him.” She made me feel like I was the villain. Maybe I was foolish to believe that love alone would bring him back to me. But nothing changed. He would always love her. I finally gave up the day I signed the divorce papers. I learned to let go, to move on, and to start fresh. And just when I had finally decided to start my life again—just when the universe rewarded me with a man who loved me unconditionally… Dreston came running back. Now he wants a second chance.

I gave Julian Marchetti thirty years of my life after the war ended. I built his empire, raised his children, and held the family together behind the scenes. But when he died, his will didn’t even mention my name. Half his fortune went to our children. The other half went to Lydia Carter, the daughter of the man who’d saved his life in Normandy. The same Lydia who’d stolen my identity.The same Lydia who’d built her entire life on the ruins of mine. All he left me was a single note, scrawled in his familiar handwriting. I loved you. We had thirty good years. But I owe Lydia. This is the least I can do. I dropped dead of a heart attack right there in his study, clutching that pathetic piece of paper. When I opened my eyes again, I was reborn in 1945, when the war had just ended This time I will not swallow my anger and suffer in silence; I will fight back. And I will take back every single thing that is rightfully mine.

I married him when he couldn’t even open his eyes. Four years I sat beside Evanthe Blackwood’s bed. Keeping him alive while his family held their breath. The marriage was a contract. A legal arrangement. Nothing more. Nobody warned me that four years of silence could break a person open. Nobody told me that loving a man who couldn’t reject you was the most dangerous kind of loving there was. Then he woke up. He looked at me like I was a stranger who had broken into his house. To Evanthe I was an opportunist. A woman who had married a helpless billionaire for his name and his money. He decided who I was in the first five minutes and nothing I did was ever going to change that. He kept me anyway. For the heir clause. For the contract. Never for me. I should have left then. Instead I stayed and I hoped and I let myself believe that maybe underneath all that coldness something real was trying to get out. Then Sena came back. His first love. And I watched him look at her the way he had never once looked at me. So I left. No tears. No confrontation. Just his ring on the desk and my signature on the divorce papers. What he didn’t know was that I didn’t leave alone. Now he’s found me. Three years later. Standing at my door with regret all over his face and my daughter’s eyes staring back at him. But is sorry ever really enough?

The richest man in the country, Sebastian Vance, has a ring custom-made to my exact measurements, worth billions of dollars, for the woman who will be his bride. In the first life, my stepsister, Mia Lowe, slips on the ring and marries him. Sebastian claws her face, shouting, "She's not the one!" In the second life, my other stepsister, Lorraine Lowe, loses 30 pounds before marrying him. He shoves her down the stairs anyway and says, "She's not the one either." In the third life, my stepmother, Vivian Cole, grits her teeth and slices off a piece of her own flesh just to force the ring onto her finger. Sebastian sneers and pushes her under the bathwater, holding her down until her body goes limp. By the fourth life, out of options and terrified, they finally send me. I slide the ring on, and it fits perfectly. My entire family lets out a sigh of relief. But the second Sebastian lays his eyes on me, he draws a knife and stabs me to death. "Why is it still not her? Where is she?" In the last life, he has his assistant, Owen Hayes, deliver a ring to us. All four of us insist that it won't fit. Owen shoots us a strange look. "Mr. Vance said the rightful owner of this ring is among you."

At a mafia family banquet, my boyfriend of five years, Emilio Gimondi, gives away the ring that symbolizes the family's Donna to his childhood friend, Carlotta Lecce. Someone asks in astonishment, "You gave the ring to Carlotta? Isn't Ms. Rinaldi going to be angry?" Emilio looks completely unconcerned. "A proposal is just a formality. Zita is going to be the Donna eventually. She doesn't need to throw a tantrum over a ring." Carlotta makes a point of flashing the ring in front of me. "Zita, isn't it pretty?" Emilio thinks I'll react the way I always have—in anger and jealousy. Instead, I simply watch them quietly and say that it does indeed look nice. He relaxes, thinking that I've finally learned my place. He promises that once we marry, he'll make it up to me with something much better than that ring. But what he doesn't know is that I've already been accepted into medical school. Very soon, I'll be gone.

The night I sleep with Graham Rowland, he has just broken up with his girlfriend, Leanna Sandoval. Out of responsibility, he marries me. Our marriage is calm and steady. I once believe this is forever. But then, Leanna dies of illness. When he goes to mourn her, he learns that Leanna discovered what happened between us that night. That is why she loses hope and leaves him. At the same time, he discovers my secret diary of unrequited love. He becomes convinced that I deliberately destroyed their relationship and comes to hate me deeply. He divorces me, leaves me with nothing, and makes my life difficult at every turn. At the brink of death, I hear him say in an icy voice, "Your love disgusts me." When I open my eyes again, I return to two hours before the fateful event that night—when he is about to get drunk after the breakup. I grab my coat, rush out of the room, and knock on Leanna's door.