Pain…

Such sharp, tearing pain…

Evangeline Sterling forced her eyes open, and the first thing she saw was a pair of bloodshot eyes—furious, shaking, and terrifyingly familiar.

“D‑Dominic…?”

Her mind stalled.

Why… why was he here?

Wasn’t she already dead?

Then why… why was she seeing Dominic Ashford again?

Could it be… he died too?

No. No way.

He was too strong, too untouchable. Theodore Yale could never take his life.

So this had to be… some kind of hallucination after death.

Her lips trembled. “Dominic…”

“Evangeline Sterling, you hurt yourself over Theodore Yale, and you think I can just let that slide?! How could you do this to me?!”

Dominic Ashford gripped her wrist—slashed open by a broken wine bottle—so hard his knuckles went white. His usually composed, handsome face twisted with a fury he could barely choke back.

His voice, normally low and smooth, now shook with a suppressed rage that sucked all the air out of the room.

Inside the private booth, not a single person dared to make a sound.

Alexander Blackwood, Tristan Aldridge, and Lucian Montrose—Dominic’s three closest friends, who had dragged him out to drink his frustrations away—sat frozen, watching everything unfold.

Everyone could see it.

In this standoff, the one who truly lost… was still Dominic.

Because Evangeline had threatened him with her life.

Dominic Ashford would never just stand there and watch Evangeline Sterling die. No way.

Evangeline stared at him, completely blank for a second, rocked by a shock so fierce it felt like a wave crashing straight into her chest.

Pain tore through the wrist he was gripping—actually, two different kinds of pain.

She couldn’t help lowering her eyes to look, and the moment she saw her wrist, her breath caught. Her pupils tightened hard.

There was a deep cut across her once-pale, smooth skin.

Fresh.

Blood was still sliding down from it.

Maybe there were pieces of glass still stuck inside, because the sting was sharp enough to make her whole body tense.

And the other pain… that came from Dominic squeezing her wrist so hard her bones felt like they might snap any second.

Evangeline’s expression flickered, her mind drifting.

This felt so familiar…

The whole scene—it was like being thrown back into her twenty-two-year-old self, right after graduation. Back when Theodore Yale proposed to her on stage during the ceremony, making the entire campus explode with excitement. Back when she, stupidly sweet and overjoyed, said yes without a second thought… and then used her own life to pressure Dominic into letting her marry him.

She remembered barging into the private room where Dominic always drank with his friends. She remembered him shooting down her request with that icy, immovable tone. And she remembered grabbing a wine bottle, smashing it against the edge of the table—

Then dragging the jagged glass across her own wrist.

That was the first time she had seen Dominic lose his composure like that. The first time he ever made her hurt. The first time he ever shouted at her in front of other people.

And in the end…

He agreed to let her marry Theodore.

From that day on, she never saw Dominic again.

Even at her wedding with Theodore Yale—Dominic Ashford, the person who had been her family for over a decade—never showed up.

Evangeline Sterling just stared at the man in front of her, so vivid and real that he didn’t look like someone from a dream at all.

Her whole chest felt like it had been hit—hard.

Did she… actually come back?

Back to the night before she married Theodore Yale, back to the moment when she’d threatened Dominic Ashford with her own life?

Dominic’s gaze dropped to her pain‑tightened face, her cheeks streaked with tears. For a second, something bleak flashed across his eyes—half sorrow, half a bitter kind of mockery—as he slowly loosened his grip on her.

“I agreed.”

His hands fell stiffly to his sides, and his voice came out low and rough, ice-cold on the surface.

Only people who truly understood him would notice how his fingers kept curling in, like he was choking down something violent inside.

God knew how badly he wanted to lock her away somewhere and never let her see that man again.

Agreed?

Evangeline snapped out of her daze, only for panic to slam into her again.

Right—back then, she had slit her wrist in front of everyone, and Dominic had broken in that instant. He’d agreed to let her marry Theodore.

And from that very night on, she never saw him again.

He never picked up her calls, never replied to her messages—like he had vanished completely from her world.

No. Not this time. She couldn’t let him disappear again.

“You… you’re agreeing to me marrying Theodore Yale?”

What was she supposed to do? How was she supposed to get him to change his mind?

“Yes.”

Dominic’s lips barely moved as he answered.

If he said no, was he supposed to watch her keep hurting herself?

The little rose he’d raised with his own hands was, in the end, going to be picked by someone else.

Still the same man with a hidden agenda.

She trusted Theodore Yale.

But not him.

Honestly… what a joke.

“No, you can’t agree to that.”

After a few seconds of dead silence in the private room, Evangeline Sterling suddenly spoke, her voice trembling, and the next second she threw herself into Dominic Ashford’s arms.

“Dom… I was messing with you just now. I don’t want to marry Theodore, I want to go home… please don’t throw me away…”

Dominic’s heart, which had felt like it’d been ripped open moments ago, suddenly stopped hurting.

He looked down at the little head burrowed against his chest, his handsome face full of confusion.

She had just threatened him with her life.

He finally gave in.

But why was she… reacting like *this* now?

She was the one who didn’t want him anymore.

How did it suddenly turn into him abandoning her?

And the guys in the room: “…”

Damn. They’d seen people flip faster than pages in a book…

But flipping like Evangeline? This was next‑level.

Right now, Evangeline knew she was acting completely irrational.

She’d literally just hurt herself to force Dominic Ashford into agreeing to her marriage with Theodore Yale. And in the blink of an eye, she’d taken it all back—like she’d been hit with some kind of glitch.

But she didn’t care anymore.

She needed Dom to say it out loud.

To promise he’d take her home.

To promise he still *wanted* her.

So this time, Dominic Ashford wouldn’t just vanish from her world the very next morning like he did in that last life.

"Dom… I’ll behave from now on, I swear. Just don’t throw me away… please…"

Evangeline Sterling clung to his waist with both arms, holding on like he might pry her off any second.

Dominic hadn’t held her like this in ages—hell, he couldn’t even get close to her lately without her dodging him like he was some kind of walking plague.

He knew exactly who had messed her up.

Theodore Yale.

He’d taught her to pull away from him.

But right now… she was in his arms. And she was the one hugging him first.

She said he didn’t want her anymore—like that was even possible.

"I never threw you away," Dominic muttered, half defeated, wrapping his arms around the girl sobbing into his chest like she was breaking him apart from the inside. He didn’t even care if she kicked him off the next second.

The men in the room: "…"

They all rubbed their foreheads.

Yeah. Dom was basically trapped by this little girl for life. No chance he was ever getting out of it.