Chapter 2

Claire’s eyes turned red. If people hadn’t held her back, she would have torn me apart.

“You’re a stray dog who begs for scraps from my family, and you think you get to call me disgusting?”

She looked at me no differently than she would a dog she could order around.

After calming down a little, Claire gave me an icy stare.

“Whoever fathered him, Jamie is my child. He’s a Bennett!”

I pressed my lips together, unable to swallow the bitterness in my mouth.

All I had to do was count backward from Jamie’s age to know when Claire had conceived him.

This was our belated wedding ceremony. We had legally married five years earlier.

That evening, Claire and I had invited our friends over to celebrate.

Halfway through the party, I discovered the two of them having sex in the bedroom. Standing outside the door, I heard everything.

I couldn’t bring myself to go in, but I didn’t dare walk away either. I was terrified someone would discover that my wife had cheated on me the day we got married.

Only after the noises stopped did I push open the door.

I still remembered Nathan resting his head on Claire’s shoulder as he humiliated me.

“Isn’t this your husband?”

Claire had wrapped herself in a sheet, leaving plenty of skin exposed. She didn’t even look at me before giving her order.

“My clothes are torn. Go buy me something to wear.”

I no longer remembered how I had bought those clothes and delivered them. I only remembered feeling as though my soul had left my body, taking every emotion with it.

I had already repaid the Bennett family with my life. This time, I would live for myself.

With the Bennett heiress backing him, Nathan put his arm around Claire and joined in.

“Well, since it’s all out in the open, file for divorce and leave with nothing.”

They played off each other perfectly. They wanted to kick me out of Northcrest without paying a cent.

Inside, my anger was a volcano ready to erupt. My face stayed calm.

“Leave with nothing?”

“I can leave Northcrest. But I’m taking what belongs to me.”

“Haven’t you always wanted control of the company? I’ll sell you my shares.”

Claire’s eyes lit up.

They had only hoped to force me out. Getting my shares too was an unexpected bonus.

After all, once she had complete control, she could use her memories of our last life to make Northcrest thrive.

I couldn’t read minds, but her expression told me enough.

I laughed inwardly. Claire had badly miscalculated.

In our last life, she had blamed Northcrest’s bankruptcy on my bad decisions. Failed bids, substandard building materials, a collapsed building—years of work destroyed overnight.

She had never realized that the real cancer was standing right beside her.

Once Nathan joined Northcrest, its shares would plummet. Eventually, they would be worthless.

I was selling early so I could walk away with enough cash.

Nathan looked thrilled. After whispering with Claire, he made up his mind.

“Fine. But you’ll only get half their market value.”

Even Mr. Bennett frowned at that.

I walked over to Claire, drew her aside, and spoke into her ear.

“You know exactly how much dirty business Northcrest has buried over the years. Unless you want us all to go down together, don’t haggle with me.”

Suspicion filled her eyes. She was probably wondering whether I had been reborn too.

But after studying me and finding nothing unusual, she snorted and agreed to my terms.

“Take your money and get the hell away from us. I never want to see you again.”

“Northcrest has barely stayed afloat all these years under you. Once Nathan takes over, he’ll make it an industry leader!”

No matter when or where, Claire always had blind faith in Nathan.

Yet she didn’t trust me at all, even though I had grown up with her too.

She seemed to have forgotten that I had also been accepted into graduate school. I had abandoned my education because Northcrest was on the brink of bankruptcy.

A weight settled over my chest, heavy enough to make it hard to breathe.

I stared at Claire, searching her face for some trace of the girl I once knew.

I was the one who had worked day and night. I had drunk myself into gastrointestinal bleeding at business dinners, landed in intensive care, and endured hospital stay after hospital stay.

That was how I had dragged Northcrest back from bankruptcy.

Yet with a few careless words, Claire could erase everything I had done.

At last, I understood.

Claire wasn’t incapable of love. She had simply never loved me.

We signed the agreement right there. As I left, Jamie stood nearby and spat at me.

“Useless loser! Ethan is a useless loser!”

In my last life, years of trying to teach Jamie respect had accomplished nothing. He would only call me Ethan.

Now I understood. The rotten blood in his veins had won out.