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In New York, everyone knew Grady Allen lived for me, Emely Harrison. He was my shadow, my protector, my world, and our future seemed inevitable.
But as I lay dying from ALS, I overheard him whisper, "Emely, my duty to you is done. If there is a next life, I pray I can be with Kandy." My world shattered. His lifelong devotion wasn't love, but guilt for Kandy Paul, a woman who had taken her own life after he' d left her.
Reborn, I found Grady with amnesia, deeply in love with Kandy. To give him the happiness he truly desired, I concealed my own early-onset ALS diagnosis and broke off our engagement, telling his parents, "I won't chain him to a dying woman out of a sense of duty he doesn't even remember."
Despite my efforts, Kandy' s insecurity led her to frame me, accusing me of throwing her engagement ring and setting fire to the mansion. Grady, believing her, threw me into a muddy pit and later choked me, snarling, "You're not even as good as a dog. At least a dog is loyal."
During a kidnapping, I saved Kandy, nearly dying myself, only to wake in a hospital to learn Grady had spared no expense for her, while I lay abandoned.
Why did he choose her, even when his body instinctively reached for me? Why did he believe her lies? I had given him everything, even my life, to set him free.
Now, I would truly be free. I married my brother, Jeremiah, who had always loved me, and left Grady behind, whispering, "Be happy, Grady. We're even now. I'll never see you again."
Chapter 1
In New York, everyone knew Grady Allen lived for me, Emely Harrison.
It was a story the city loved to tell. From the moment my parents died and the Allens took me in, Grady was my shadow, my protector, my world.
He was the one who held my hand through every nightmare, the one who fought boys who looked at me wrong, the one who promised to marry me when we were just kids building forts out of blankets.
As we grew up, that childhood promise solidified into a diamond ring and a future everyone saw as inevitable. He was the powerful heir to the Allen Corporation, and I was his everything.
That devotion never wavered, not even when I was diagnosed with ALS.
In my first life, he spent years by my bedside, a constant, unwavering presence. He researched every experimental treatment, fired doctors who gave up hope, and held my hand as my body betrayed me, one muscle at a time.
I died believing I was the luckiest woman in the world, to be loved so completely.
But in my final moments, as the world faded to black, I heard him whisper.
He was holding my hand, his voice thick with a grief that wasn't for me.
"Emely, my duty to you is done," he murmured, his breath a ghost against my ear. "I've paid my debt. If there is a next life, I pray I can be with Kandy. I'll make it up to her."
The shock was a physical blow, even to my dying body.
My mind, slow and foggy from the medication, struggled to piece it together.
Kandy. Kandy Paul.
I remembered then. A period of a few months, years ago, when Grady had disappeared after a car accident. He'd lost his memory.
When we found him, he was with a woman, a musician named Kandy. He was in love with her.
But his memory returned, and with it, his life as my fiancé. He came back to me.
Kandy, I learned later, had taken her own life.
All this time, I thought Grady's devotion was love. It wasn't. It was guilt. A lifelong penance for the woman who died because of him.
His love for me was a cage built from responsibility. His heart belonged to a ghost.
Darkness took me, his final, desperate wish echoing in my ears.
Then, light.
I blinked, my lungs filling with air, my limbs strong and steady beneath me. I was sitting in a plush armchair in the Allens' study.
Across from me, Mr. and Mrs. Allen were speaking to their head of security.
"Are you sure the doctor can't just... jog his memory? A more aggressive approach?" Mrs. Allen asked, her voice laced with worry.
"Ma'am, the doctor said any attempt to force his memory back could cause permanent brain damage," the security chief replied. "We have to be patient."
It was the exact conversation I'd heard the day they found Grady, the day my previous life's tragedy was set in motion.
I was back.
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