Reborn To Ruin My Husband

The pain came first. A phantom agony, sharp and tearing, that ripped through her abdomen.

Kirsten Bishop shot up in bed, a scream caught in her throat. Her hands flew to her stomach, pressing down on the flat, empty space beneath the silk of her nightgown. But the memory was real. The blood. The cold terror. The metallic scent of it filling her lungs.

Her breath came in ragged, shallow gasps. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the image was seared onto the back of her eyelids: the blinding surgical lights, the frantic beeping of a machine flatlining, a doctor's grim face saying, "We're losing her."

And Damon's voice. Cold. Final. "The child is the priority."

Kirsten's eyes snapped open. The scream died, replaced by a suffocating silence. She wasn't in a hospital. She was in the master suite of the Cooper estate. Sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air.

Her gaze fell on the digital calendar on the nightstand. October 14th, 2021.

Her heart stopped.

No. It couldn't be. This was three years. Three years before the delivery table. Before she died.

She scrambled out of the king-sized bed, her bare feet hitting the cold marble floor. She stumbled to the full-length mirror, her reflection a ghost she didn't recognize. The face staring back was younger, the lines of exhaustion and grief not yet carved around her eyes. Her body was whole. Unscarred.

It was real. She was back.

Then, she heard it. A voice from downstairs. His voice.

"I'll have Moira get the guest cottage ready. You'll be safe here."

Damon.

The sound of his voice wasn't a memory. It was a physical blow. It traveled up the grand staircase and struck her like a physical force, knocking the air from her lungs. The phantom pain in her belly flared anew, a visceral reminder of his betrayal.

She didn't think. She moved.

Her feet were silent on the plush runner of the stairs as she descended, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She stopped at the landing, her hand gripping the cold, ornate balustrade.

And she saw them.

In the grand foyer, bathed in the afternoon light, stood her husband, Damon Cooper. He was shielding a woman. A small, frail-looking woman with wide, terrified eyes and tangled dark hair.

Jasmin Myers.

The woman who had taken everything. She was huddled against Damon, her shoulders trembling almost theatrically. A damsel in distress.

Damon looked up then, as if sensing her presence. His eyes met hers, and his expression hardened instantly. It was a look she knew well from the end. Cold. Wary. He shifted his body slightly, a subtle, protective movement that placed him more firmly in front of Jasmin. He was defending his precious thing from the monster. From his wife.

In her first life, this was the moment she had shattered. She had screamed. Accused. Thrown a vase. She had played the part of the hysterical wife perfectly, and in doing so, had handed him every weapon he needed to destroy her.

Not this time.

The scream building in her chest turned to ice. She felt her fingernails dig into the soft skin of her palm, the sharp, grounding pain a welcome anchor in the swirling chaos of her mind. She forced her feet to move, one step at a time, down the remaining stairs.

Damon's jaw was tight. He was waiting for the explosion. Braced for it.

"There was a fire," he said, his voice clipped, devoid of warmth. "Jasmin lost everything. She'll be staying with us for a while." It wasn't a request. It was a declaration.