My Reborn Fiancé Has A Dark Obsession with Me

"We need to talk."

The words left my lips before I could stop them, my voice trembling with barely contained fury. The silence on the other end stretched for what felt like an eternity before Lachlan's smooth, cultured tone filled the space between us.

"Willow." He said my name like a caress, like he had every right to speak it with such familiarity. "I was wondering when you'd call."

The casual confidence in his voice made my blood boil. He had been expecting this—had probably been sitting by his phone, waiting for me to break first. Just like in our past life, when he would orchestrate some fresh humiliation and then watch with detached amusement as I scrambled to piece together my shattered dignity.

"Did you do it?" I demanded, my free hand clenching into a fist. "Did you have Isaiah fired?"

A soft chuckle drifted through the speaker, the sound sending ice down my spine. "Such dramatic language, darling. I simply had a conversation with some business associates. A friendly introduction, you might say."

The pet name hit me like a slap. He had never called me darling in our marriage—I had been 'my wife' at best, more often simply ignored entirely. But now, with that single word, he was claiming an intimacy that had never existed, rewriting our history to suit whatever twisted narrative he had constructed in his mind.

"A conversation," I repeated, my voice rising despite my efforts to stay calm. "A conversation that just happened to result in my fiancé losing the biggest project of his career?"

"Isaiah Caldwell is a competent man," Lachlan said, his tone maddeningly reasonable. "I'm sure he'll land on his feet. Though I do think he's rather... limiting for someone of your potential."

The casual dismissal of Isaiah's pain, the arrogant assumption that he could judge my choices—it was like being transported back to that gilded prison where my husband had treated me like a misbehaving child whose opinions were merely amusing distractions.

"Limiting?" I laughed, but there was no humor in it. "He respects me, Lachlan. He listens when I speak. He doesn't treat me like property to be managed."

"Is that what you think I did?" For the first time, there was something other than smooth confidence in his voice—a crack that revealed something raw underneath. "Willow, everything I did was to protect our family's interests. You never understood the pressures I was under, the impossible position—"

"Stop." The word came out as a snarl. "Don't you dare try to rewrite history. You humiliated me at every opportunity. You paraded your mistress through our home while I pretended not to exist. You told me I was a burden you never asked for."

Silence stretched between us, heavy with the weight of memories I had tried so hard to bury. When Lachlan finally spoke, his voice had taken on a different quality—softer, almost pleading.

"I want you to come back to me, Willow."

The words hit me like a physical blow, stealing the breath from my lungs. Come back? As if we had been lovers separated by cruel fate instead of a husband who had systematically destroyed his wife's spirit.

"Come back?" I whispered, my voice breaking on the words. "Come back to what, exactly? To being ignored? To watching you flaunt Sophia in my face? To being told I'm worthless every single day?"

"That's not how it was—"

"That's exactly how it was!" I screamed, all pretense of composure finally shattering. "You killed me, Lachlan! Maybe not with your hands, but you killed me piece by piece until there was nothing left. I died alone and forgotten while you were probably with her, and now you have the audacity to talk about me coming back to you?"

My chest heaved as the words poured out, years of suppressed pain and rage finally finding their voice. The phone shook in my grip as I fought to breathe through the overwhelming emotion.

"Leave your boring fiancé," Lachlan continued as if I hadn't spoken, his voice taking on that commanding tone I remembered so well. "He can't give you what you need. He doesn't understand your fire, your passion. He'll never challenge you the way I can."

The sheer delusion in his words left me speechless. Fire? Passion? He had spent our entire marriage systematically extinguishing both, reducing me to a hollow shell who jumped at shadows and apologized for breathing too loudly.

"Challenge me?" I found my voice again, fury giving me strength. "You think destroying my spirit was a challenge? You think humiliating me in front of your friends was passion? You're sick, Lachlan. Whatever twisted fantasy you've constructed about our marriage, it's not real."

"You don't understand—"

"I understand perfectly!" The words exploded from me with volcanic force. "You want to own me. You want to control me. You want to lock me away in another golden cage and pretend that makes you a good husband. But I'm not that broken girl anymore, and I will never, ever be your victim again."

I was breathing hard, my heart pounding so violently I could hear it in my ears. The apartment around me felt too small, too confining, as if the walls were closing in with each word.

"There is no 'coming back,' Lachlan, because there never was an 'us.' There was you, and there was the woman you tortured for your own amusement. There was you, and there was your mistress, and there was me—forgotten in the corner like a piece of unwanted furniture."

My voice cracked on the last words, the pain of those memories still sharp enough to cut. I could see it all so clearly—Sophia draped across the sofa in our living room while I served them tea, Lachlan's hand possessively on her thigh as he discussed business deals I wasn't allowed to have opinions about.

"How dare you," I whispered, my voice dropping to something deadly quiet. "How dare you destroy my happiness and then ask me to thank you for it? How dare you ruin my fiancé's career and then suggest I should be grateful for your attention?"

The silence that followed was different from before—heavier, more ominous. I could almost hear the gears turning in Lachlan's mind, calculating his next move like the chess player he had always been.

"Willow—" he began, but I cut him off.

"Stay away from me," I said, my voice steady despite the tremor in my hands. "Stay away from Isaiah. Stay away from my life. I chose freedom, Lachlan. I chose happiness. And I will fight you with everything I have to keep it."

The line went dead with a soft click that sounded like a door closing. But instead of relief, all I felt was a growing sense of dread. Lachlan had never been one to accept defeat gracefully, and his silence at the end of our conversation spoke louder than any threat.

I set the phone down with shaking hands, my apartment suddenly feeling far too exposed, too vulnerable. The man who had once held absolute power over my life was back, and this time, his obsession burned with the intensity of guilt and twisted love.

The war for my freedom had officially begun.