The freezing rain of the night Jocelyn died felt like a distant memory, yet the sting of betrayal remained etched into her soul. Finding Colton, the man she had loved with every fiber of her being, in the arms of her half-sister, Elena, had been a knife to the heart. When the confrontation turned violent and her life slipped away in a blur of screeching tires and cold pavement, she thought it was the end. Instead, she woke up gasping for air in the plush velvet seat of a high-end restaurant, staring at Colton’s smiling face. He was holding a diamond ring, ready to propose. This was three years ago—the exact moment her previous nightmare began.
Colton’s voice was like honey, masking the venom she now knew flowed beneath his skin. He spoke of forever, of a life built on trust and shared dreams. In her past life, Jocelyn had wept with joy and said yes immediately. This time, her heart was a block of ice. She looked at him, seeing not a savior, but a parasite who had used her family’s connections to climb the social ladder. She didn’t scream or cause a scene; she simply smiled a predatory, chilling smile that Colton was too arrogant to decipher. She accepted the ring, but her mind was already calculating his downfall.
The primary difference in this timeline wasn't just her knowledge of the future, but a hazy, intoxicating memory from the night before the proposal. In her previous life, she had been drugged at a gala and assumed Colton had taken her home. But the fragmented images in her mind now revealed a different truth: a room smelling of expensive sandalwood, a heavy presence, and eyes like molten silver. It wasn't Colton she had been with; it was Richard Asher, Colton’s enigmatic and reclusive uncle. Richard was the true power behind the Asher name, a man feared in boardrooms and whispered about in high society.
A few weeks into her "engagement," the morning sickness began. It was a rhythmic, undeniable reminder that her second chance came with an unexpected passenger. Jocelyn knew Colton was sterile—a fact she had learned during their painful years of failed fertility treatments in her first life. The realization hit her like a lightning bolt: if she was pregnant, the baby couldn't be Colton’s. The memory of that night with Richard crystallized. She wasn't just a woman seeking revenge; she was carrying the heir to the entire Asher fortune, a child who would technically be Colton’s cousin but biologically his superior.
Jocelyn began to play a dangerous game of shadows. She maintained the facade of the doting fiancée, watching with detached amusement as Elena tried to seduce Colton behind her back. Every time she saw them whispering, she felt a surge of cold triumph rather than pain. She started moving her personal assets and gathering evidence of Colton’s embezzlement from her father’s firm. Meanwhile, she sought out Richard Asher under the guise of "family business." Richard was a man of few words, his gaze piercing through her carefully constructed mask. He knew something was different about her.
During a private meeting in his glass-walled office, the tension between them reached a breaking point. Richard stood by the window, his silhouette imposing against the city skyline. "You’re playing a risky game, Jocelyn," he remarked, his voice a low rumble. "My nephew is a fool, but even fools notice when their prey stops running." Jocelyn walked up to him, her hand instinctively resting on her still-flat stomach. She told him the truth—not about the rebirth, but about the night at the gala and the life growing inside her. The silence that followed was heavy, thick with the weight of a secret that could topple empires.
Richard didn't recoil; instead, he stepped closer, his hand covering hers on her abdomen. The spark that ignited between them was electric, a far cry from the lukewarm affection she had once felt for Colton. Richard had always watched her from afar, disgusted by how his nephew treated her like a trophy. Now, knowing she carried his blood, his protective instincts surged. He offered her a deal: he would provide the resources to destroy Colton and Elena utterly, provided she stayed under his protection. It wasn't just a business arrangement; the fire in his eyes promised a passion she had never known.
The downfall of Colton Asher was orchestrated with surgical precision. At the grand engagement party Jocelyn’s father threw, the "tribute video" she had prepared suddenly switched to high-definition footage of Colton and Elena in a compromising position, interspersed with documents proving Colton’s financial crimes. The room fell silent as the golden boy’s reputation shattered in seconds. Colton turned to Jocelyn, his face purple with rage, but before he could lay a hand on her, Richard stepped out from the shadows. The sheer presence of his uncle made Colton stumble back in terror, realizing he had lost everything.
Richard didn't just stop Colton; he erased him. By the end of the week, Colton was facing a decade in prison, and Elena was cast out by her own family, penniless and shunned. Amidst the chaos, Jocelyn stood tall, no longer the victim of a tragic fate. She moved into Richard’s estate, a fortress of marble and glass. The public was scandalized by the "sudden" romance between the jilted bride and the powerful uncle, but Richard silenced the gossip with a single chilling look. He claimed her openly, his hand never leaving her waist, his devotion as fierce as his business tactics.
As her belly grew, so did the bond between Jocelyn and Richard. He wasn't the cold man the world saw; he was a man who had waited a lifetime for something real. He pampered her, listened to her ideas, and treated her as an equal. On the day their son was born, Richard held the child with a tenderness that brought tears to Jocelyn’s eyes. She had traveled through death and time to find her true purpose. She wasn't just a survivor; she was the matriarch of a new legacy, standing beside a man who loved her for her strength, not her silence.
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