I Died Holding Our Child’s Ashes, Then Woke Beside Him

Arielle's POV

The night I was accepted into both Harvard and Stanford was meant to be a celebration, but instead, it became a nightmare I'd never forget.

Chester McKinsey, the man I'd secretly loved for years, pinned me down that night.

The man who had lived next door, the one I thought I could never have, ended up changing my life forever.

Despite my best efforts to be careful, I ended up pregnant.

In my previous life, I used that child to persuade him to marry me, but it also meant sacrificing my chance to attend Harvard or Stanford.

Even though Chester was the one to start everything and was obsessively clingy to me, on our wedding night, he called me shameless and accused me of drugging him.

"Arielle, don't even dream of touching me ever again!"

From that moment on, he made it his mission to humiliate me.

Without my knowledge or consent, he had our daughter's heart transplanted to save his lover's child.

While he and his precious Lorraine celebrated the success of the surgery, I was left to die tragically, clutching our daughter's ashes on my way to the cemetery.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on that absurd, devastating night.

——

Looking over, I saw Chester lying beside me. My heart nearly stopped. Every ache in my body felt like I'd been run over by a truck, and the room was a mess like everything was exactly like it had been before.

That was when it hit me: I had been reborn.

Before Chester woke up, I quickly dressed, trying to escape as quietly as possible.

I tiptoed toward the window, desperate to leave, to get away.

"What are you doing?!"

The voice came suddenly, and I jumped so hard I nearly lost my balance.

I stumbled and fell.

By the time Chester, shirtless, rushed to the window, I was already limping away, my heart pounding in my chest.

What I didn't know was that even though I didn't walk through the front door, the paparazzi were already outside, capturing every moment.

Especially the sight of my torn dress, the one he had ripped, became the subject of endless gossip.

The headlines this time were a little different.

It wasn't the usual: 'The McKinsey heir and the girl next door have a wild night!'

No, now it read: 'McKinsey heir gets slept with by a bold mystery woman, who pulls up her pants and runs away!'

Seeing Chester at the window, reaching out with frustration all over his face, I couldn't help but be furious.

I had gone out of my way to escape him and avoid being involved in his mess, and yet, there he was, acting like he had been the wronged party.

Shouldn't he be celebrating my absence, not standing there looking like he had just lost the love of his life?

Why make that expression that sparked everyone's wild imagination?

The internet went wild with speculation.

Everyone wondered what kind of woman could sleep with the McKinsey heir and leave him so hung up?

I had no idea what part of that picture made people think Chester couldn't bear to part with me. All I knew was that Chester definitely hated me to the core.

I rubbed my swollen ankle as I hurried to delete the thousands of social media posts I had written about my secret love for him.

In my previous life, I couldn't bring myself to delete them. I had even given them to him as a wedding night surprise, alongside my diary filled with my hidden feelings.

But he had just glanced at them and sneered, "Lusting after a man seven years older than you since you were a kid? Arielle, you really are shameless!"

Back then, I tried to argue, "We're not even related by blood, and so what if you're seven years older? Plenty of people marry someone seventeen years older!"

But he was so disgusted by my words that he slammed the door and stormed out.

That very night, he went to a bar and called over a hundred beautiful women to party.

People mocked me, saying I was just an orphan marrying into the McKinsey family only to end up sleeping alone every night.

To me, though, it was sweet as honey.

Just being able to marry Chester, to carry his child, was something I never even dared to dream of.

As my belly grew rounder each day, I thought that maybe this child would be the bridge that would repair our broken relationship.

I believed, with all my heart, that as long as I never gave up, I could melt his frozen heart.

But from the day of our wedding, Chester brought home a new woman every night.

He looked down on those kinds of women, yet forced me to serve them.

They took his money and knew just how to humiliate me to please Chester.

Crawling on the floor like a dog, licking spilled milk off the ground, dancing in degrading ways with my pregnant belly…

All because everyone knew my weakness was the child inside me.