I CAUGHT MY WIFE WITH ANOTHER MAN ON OUR WEDDING NIGHT… SHE THREW ME INTO A PIT OF SNAKES. NOW I’VE BEEN GIVEN A SECOND CHANCE AT LIFE, AND THE FIRST THING I DID? ASKED TO MARRY HER DISABLED SISTER. WHAT HAPPENED NEXT DESTROYED EVERYTHING SHE THOUGHT SHE KNEW. WILL REVENGE FINALLY TASTE SWEETER THAN BETRAYAL?

The cold steel of the snake pit’s gate still haunts me.

I can feel the rusted metal biting into my palms as I clung to the edge, my tuxedo shredded, blood streaming down my arms from where the vipers had already struck. Above me, she stood there. My wife of three hours. Victoria Sterling. The woman who had knelt before me night after night, tears streaming down her perfect face, swearing she’d love me across a thousand lifetimes.

Her lips curled into a smile I’d never seen before.

— You should have stayed in your place, Ethan.

Her voice was glass shards wrapped in silk. Behind her, a man’s silhouette emerged from the shadows of our honeymoon suite. Julian Blackwood. Her business partner. Her real love, apparently.

— I gave you everything, I choked out. — Why?

She crouched down, her designer heels clicking against the marble floor. Her wedding ring caught the chandelier light. I’d saved six months of my mechanic’s salary for that diamond.

— Everything you gave me was nothing, she whispered. — You were a charity case. A toy I got bored with. Julian is my equal. You’re just… a stray my father should’ve never let through the door.

Her heel pressed down on my fingers.

I fell.

The snakes found me before the darkness did.

But death wasn’t the quiet nothing I’d expected. There was a blinding flash. A drowning sensation. And then—

I gasped awake on a cold tile floor, sweat-soaked and shaking, staring at a ceiling I recognized. The Sterling Estate. A banquet hall. Music playing somewhere in the distance. The same charity gala where, in my first life, Victoria had first noticed me. Claimed me. Destroyed me.

I remembered everything.

I remembered the venom burning through my veins. I remembered the guests at our wedding peering into that pit, doing nothing, some even pushing me further down. I remembered the laughter.

And I remembered the only person who tried to save me.

A young woman with a limp. Tangled dark hair. Eyes that held a world of sorrow. She’d fought through the crowd, her twisted leg dragging behind her, screaming for someone to help. No one listened. No one ever listened to Eleanor Sterling. The mad daughter. The cursed one. The sister everyone wished would just disappear.

But in my final moments, gasping my last breath, I’d seen her face above the pit’s edge. Tears streaming. Reaching for me with a hand no one else would offer.

Now here I was. Alive again. Given a second chance I still don’t understand.

The banquet doors swung open. Harrison Sterling, patriarch of the Sterling empire, stepped onto the podium. The crowd hushed.

— As is tradition, my daughters’ suitors may now present themselves.

Nine men stepped forward. All aiming for Victoria’s hand. All hoping to become the heir to the Sterling fortune.

I stepped forward too. The tenth.

Harrison’s eyes narrowed as he saw me. A nobody. A mechanic’s son. But something in my expression made him pause.

— I’m not here for Victoria, I said, my voice steady. — I’m here to marry Eleanor.

The silence that followed was absolute. Somewhere behind me, a champagne glass shattered.

Harrison Sterling’s face turned to stone.

— My older daughter is mentally unstable. She’s been disabled since birth. The world calls her a monster. He leaned forward. — Do you truly understand what you’re asking for?

I thought of the snake pit. Of nine men standing around it, watching me die. Of Victoria’s heel crushing my fingers. Of the only person in the world who’d shed a single tear for me.

— I understand completely, sir. I’ll care for her. I’ll protect her. I’ll never leave her side. Not in this lifetime or any other.

Harrison studied me for a long moment. Then he placed his heavy hand on my shoulder, and his grip was iron.

— If you break that promise, boy, I will erase every trace of you from this earth.

I nodded. A clean threat. I’d expect nothing less from the man who built an empire on blood and silence.

When I arrived at the Sterling mansion the next morning, what I saw in the courtyard stopped me cold.

Eleanor was on her knees in the gravel. A man’s bare, sweat-soaked feet were propped on her silk dress, grinding dirt into the fabric. She didn’t flinch. She was polishing his shoes with trembling hands, her matted hair hanging over her face like a curtain of shame.

The man was Julian. Julian Blackwood. The same man who’d stood behind Victoria as I died.

Harrison’s roar shattered the scene.

— ELEANOR! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!

She looked up. Her eyes met mine.

And I knew. In that single frozen second, I saw it clearly as my own reflection.

She remembered too.

 

Part 2: Her eyes met mine. And I knew. In that single frozen second, with the morning sun cutting harsh lines across the estate’s gravel courtyard, I saw it. The flicker of recognition. The way her breath caught. The slight tremble in her dirt-smudged fingers as they stilled on Julian’s shoe. She remembered the pit. She remembered reaching for me while everyone else watched me die. She remembered the venom burning through my veins and the tears that had dropped from her chin onto my face as I faded.

Harrison Sterling’s roar still echoed against the marble columns.

— ELEANOR! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!

Julian Blackwood yanked his foot away like he’d been scalded. He stumbled back, wiping his bare sole on the grass, his handsome face twisted into a mask of disgust.

— She’s insane, he spat. — I was just standing here and she grabbed my foot. I told you, Mr. Sterling, she can’t be controlled.

Behind him, Victoria stepped out from the rose arbor. Her emerald dress caught the light, her auburn hair swept into an effortless twist that probably cost more than my mother’s entire wardrobe. She looked at her sister on the ground, then at me, then at Julian.

— What’s going on? Her voice was syrup laced with boredom.

Eleanor didn’t answer. She pushed herself up slowly, her bad leg dragging awkwardly across the gravel. The silk dress — a pale lavender that might have been beautiful once — was now streaked with mud and shoe polish. She kept her head down, hair falling like a curtain.

Harrison’s jaw clenched. — I asked you a question, Eleanor. Why were you on your knees polishing the feet of a guest?

Eleanor’s lips parted. No sound came out. She looked so small. So broken. The entire Sterling estate loomed around her like a gilded cage, and everyone here treated her like the creature they’d locked in the basement.

I stepped forward before I could think better of it.

— She wasn’t polishing his feet, I said, my voice cutting through the silence. — He forced her. Look at the angle of the dirt on her dress. Those are pressure marks from his heels pressing down. Not from her leaning forward voluntarily.

Julian’s face reddened. — Who the hell are you?

— Nobody important, I replied. — Just a guest who can tell the difference between a servant and a bully.

Victoria’s eyes snapped to me. She looked me up and down the way you’d inspect a piece of furniture you were about to throw away. Something tugged at the corner of her memory — I could see it in the brief wrinkle of her brow. But she didn’t remember. Not yet.

Julian stepped toward me, chest puffed. — You want to repeat that, you nobody?

I didn’t move. — I said what I said. You had your feet on her dress. You were grinding dirt into it. And she was cleaning your shoes because you made her. The question isn’t what she was doing. The question is why nobody here stopped it.

The nine other suitors — young men in tailored suits, all of them here to compete for Victoria’s hand and the Sterling inheritance — shuffled awkwardly. One of them coughed. Another studied his watch like it held the secrets of the universe.

Harrison Sterling watched me with unreadable eyes. He was a mountain of a man, silver-haired and broad-shouldered, with the kind of presence that made rooms go quiet. The kind of man who had built an empire by being smarter and more ruthless than everyone else in the room.

— You, he said, pointing at me. — What’s your name?

— Ethan Cole.

— And why are you here, Ethan Cole?

The entire courtyard went still. Birds stopped singing. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

I looked at Eleanor. She was staring at me now, her dark eyes wide, a question forming on her lips that she was too afraid to voice. I thought about the snake pit. About Victoria’s heel on my fingers. About the venom searing through my bloodstream like liquid fire. I thought about the only person in the world who had tried to save me, dragging her twisted leg across marble floors while everyone else watched me die.

— I’m here to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage, I said.

Victoria smirked. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and stepped forward, already extending her hand like she expected me to kiss it. — Well, you certainly know how to make an entrance. I suppose I can add you to the list of—

— Not you, I said.

Her hand froze midair.

I turned to Harrison. — I want to marry Eleanor.

The silence that followed was the loudest thing I’d ever heard.

Victoria’s smirk shattered. Her hand dropped to her side, her perfectly manicured nails curling into fists. Julian’s jaw went slack. The nine suitors exchanged bewildered glances. Somewhere in the mansion, a servant dropped a tray, and the crash of breaking glass echoed through the courtyard.

Harrison Sterling didn’t blink. He studied me the way a wolf studies a rabbit that has inexplicably wandered into its den.

— My older daughter, he said slowly, — is mentally unstable. She has been disabled since birth. The world calls her a monster. There are rumors — ugly rumors — about what happened to her mother. He stepped closer, and the air around him grew heavy. — Do you truly understand what you’re asking for?

I didn’t look away. — I understand completely, sir.

— Why?

The question hung in the air like a blade. I couldn’t tell the truth. Not yet. Not here.

— Because I’ve seen what it looks like when the whole world abandons someone, I said. — And I’ve decided I’m not going to be part of that world anymore.

Harrison’s eyes narrowed. — Pretty words.

— I mean every one of them. I’ll care for her. I’ll protect her. I’ll never leave her side. Not for anything. Not for anyone. I’ll be the husband she deserves, even if the whole world thinks she doesn’t deserve one.

Eleanor made a small sound. When I glanced at her, I saw her hand pressed against her chest, her fingers curling into the stained fabric of her dress. Her eyes glistened.

Harrison watched me for a long, terrible moment. Then he placed his hand on my shoulder, and his grip was iron.

— If you break that promise, boy, I will erase every trace of you from this earth. Do you understand?

— Perfectly, sir.

— Then it’s settled. He turned to the crowd. — Ethan Cole will marry Eleanor. The wedding will proceed as planned.

Victoria’s voice cut through the courtyard like a shard of glass.

— NO!

She stormed forward, her composure gone, her face contorted with a rage that made her almost unrecognizable. — You can’t do this, Father! He’s nobody! He’s less than nobody! You’re going to let him marry her? That broken, useless—

— Enough, Victoria. Harrison’s voice was quiet but absolute. — The terms were clear. Whichever daughter marries first inherits control of the Sterling empire. You’ve had years to choose a husband. Eleanor hasn’t had a single offer until now. The choice is made.

— But I don’t want him to marry her! Victoria’s voice cracked. — I want—

She stopped. Her eyes met mine, and something dark flickered there. A memory trying to surface. A ghost scratching at the walls of her mind.

Julian stepped up behind her, placing his hand on her shoulder. — Let it go, V. He’s not worth it. You’ve got me.

Victoria shook him off. She walked up to me, close enough that I could smell her perfume — jasmine and something sharper underneath, like poison hidden in honey.

— You’ll regret this, she whispered. — I promise you, you will regret this more than anything you’ve ever done.

I looked at her. At the woman who had knelt before me in my first life and sworn eternal love. At the woman who had thrown me into a pit of snakes on our wedding night and watched me die with a smile on her face.

— I doubt that, I said quietly. — But thank you for the warning.

Her hand flew up, and before I could react, she slapped me hard across the face. The crack echoed through the courtyard. My cheek burned, and I tasted copper.

— You don’t get to disrespect me, she hissed. — You’re nothing. You’re a stray dog my father dragged in from the gutter.

I touched my stinging cheek and smiled. — Maybe. But this stray dog just chose your sister.

She slapped me again. Harder. My head snapped to the side.

— Lock him in the dungeon, she ordered the guards. — Now.

Two men in dark uniforms grabbed my arms. I didn’t resist. Harrison said nothing — of course he said nothing. This was the Sterling household, where cruelty was a currency and power was the only law that mattered.

— Don’t you touch him! Eleanor’s voice burst out, thin and trembling but fierce. She stumbled forward, her bad leg dragging, her hands reaching toward me.

One of the guards pushed her back. She fell hard onto the gravel.

Rage ignited in my chest. I thrashed against the guards, but they tightened their grip and dragged me toward the mansion’s shadowed entrance. The last thing I saw before the doors closed was Eleanor on her knees in the gravel, her dark eyes fixed on mine, tears streaming down her face.

The dungeon was cold. Stone walls slick with moisture. The smell of rust and old blood. They chained my wrists to an iron ring set into the wall and left me in the dark.

I don’t know how long I waited. Minutes. Hours. Time became meaningless in that blackness. I thought about my first life. About my mother’s rose seeds — the last thing she’d given me before she died. I’d planted them in the garden back then too, and Victoria had destroyed them just like she would destroy everything I loved. I’d been so naive. So trusting.

Not this time.

The door creaked open. Lantern light flooded the cell, and I squinted against the brightness. A guard stepped in, fat and sweating, carrying a whip coiled in his thick hand.

— Miss Victoria sends her regards, he said with a yellow-toothed grin.

The first lash tore across my back. The pain was white-hot, immediate, consuming. My shirt shredded. My skin split. I bit down on my tongue to keep from screaming.

— You think you’re smart, don’t you? The guard laughed as he swung again. — Some mechanic’s boy from the wrong side of town, thinking you can waltz in here and marry a Sterling. You’re nothing.

Lash. Lash. Lash.

Blood ran down my back in warm rivulets. I lost count of the strikes. The world blurred at the edges, darkness creeping into my vision.

— Stay awake, the guard growled. — Miss Victoria says you don’t get to pass out until you understand your place.

He threw a bucket of water mixed with crushed chili peppers over my open wounds.

I screamed. I couldn’t help it. The pain was unlike anything I’d ever felt — worse than the snake venom, worse than the betrayal, worse than death itself. It was fire and acid and broken glass all at once, searing through my flesh and into my bones.

The guard laughed. — That’s right. Scream all you want. Nobody’s coming for you.

He raised the whip again.

— Stop.

The voice was cold. Quiet. But it carried more authority than anything I’d heard in that house.

The guard froze. The whip hovered in the air. I forced my eyes open, blinking through blood and tears and the chili-water burning my vision.

She stood in the doorway. Eleanor. She’d changed into a simple gray dress, and her hair was pulled back from her face. She leaned on a wooden cane, her bad leg trembling with the effort of standing, but her expression was iron.

— Leave him, she said.

— Miss Eleanor, the guard stammered, — I have orders from Miss Victoria—

— And I am still a daughter of this house, Eleanor cut him off. — My father has already approved the marriage. That makes Ethan my fiancé. If you touch him again, I will have you dismissed. Do you think Victoria will protect you when she can’t even protect herself?

The guard hesitated. The whip trembled in his hand. Then he dropped it with a clatter and fled the cell like the devil was at his heels.

Eleanor limped toward me. She moved carefully, each step a battle, her cane tapping against the stone floor. When she reached me, she knelt — the movement awkward and painful — and began working at the chains around my wrists.

— You’re an idiot, she said quietly. — You could have picked anyone. Why me?

I tried to laugh, but it came out as a wheeze. — You saved my life. In the other world. When everyone else watched me die, you tried to save me.

Her hands stilled. — You remember.

— Every second. The snakes. The venom. Your tears. I remember all of it.

She didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then the chains came loose, and I slumped forward into her arms. She was warm and solid and smelled like lavender soap. She caught me, her thin arms surprisingly strong.

— You’re bleeding everywhere, she murmured. — We need to get you to my room.

— Your room?

— It’s the only place Victoria won’t look. She thinks I’m too crazy to hide anything useful.

I managed a weak smile. — Are you?

— Am I what?

— Crazy.

She paused. Then she pulled my arm over her shoulder and helped me stand, her bad leg buckling slightly but holding.

— Maybe, she said. — But I remember enough to know who the real monsters are.

Her room was nothing like the rest of the mansion. Where the halls were gilded and ornate, Eleanor’s space was sparse. A simple bed. A wooden dresser. A window that overlooked the garden. Bookshelves crammed with worn paperbacks — romance novels, mysteries, a few books on business management that surprised me.

She lowered me onto her bed and fetched a medical kit from her bathroom. When she returned, she hesitated at the edge of the bed, her fingers fidgeting with the kit’s clasp.

— I need to see your back, she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

I turned over, wincing as the ruined fabric of my shirt pulled at the wounds.

She gasped. — Oh, Ethan…

— It looks worse than it is.

— No. It looks exactly as bad as it is. She took a shaky breath. — This is going to sting.

She cleaned the wounds with steady hands, her touch gentler than anything I’d ever felt. The antiseptic burned, but her fingers chasing the pain felt like absolution. I buried my face in her pillow and focused on breathing.

— Why did you come back? she asked after a while. — To this life. To this family. You could have gone anywhere. Started fresh.

— I made a promise, I said. — In the pit. When I was dying, I made a promise that if I ever got another chance, I’d find you. I’d take care of you the way you tried to take care of me.

Her hands paused. — You don’t owe me anything.

— It’s not about owing. I turned my head to look at her. — It’s about choosing. I’m choosing you, Eleanor. Not because I have to. Because I want to.

She stared at me like I’d spoken a language she’d never heard before. Like the concept of someone choosing her was so foreign that her brain couldn’t process it.

— Nobody’s ever chosen me before, she whispered. — Before you, in any life.

— Then they’re all idiots.

A small sound escaped her — half-laugh, half-sob. She pressed her hand to her mouth, and tears spilled over her cheeks.

— I don’t know how to do this, she admitted. — I don’t know how to be chosen.

— We’ll figure it out together, I said. — If you want to.

She nodded slowly. Then she returned to bandaging my back, her movements slow and deliberate, like she was memorizing the shape of me.

She stayed with me all night. Sitting in a chair beside the bed, watching over me while I slept. Every time I stirred from nightmares — the snakes, the whip, Victoria’s smile — she was there. Her hand on my forehead. Her voice soft and steady.

— You’re safe, she’d murmur. — You’re safe now.

By morning, something had shifted between us. I’d come here expecting to marry her out of gratitude. Out of obligation. But as I watched the sunrise catch the silver strands in her dark hair, I realized it was becoming something more. Something real.

I was falling in love with Eleanor Sterling. And I didn’t want to stop.

The days that followed were a strange kind of peace wrapped in constant tension. My wounds healed slowly under Eleanor’s care. We ate meals in her room, away from the prying eyes of the household. We talked for hours — about our past lives, about the world we’d come from, about the future we might build together.

She told me about her mother. How Victoria had poisoned her at age eight, jealous of the attention she’d received. How the household had blamed Eleanor instead, branding her a monster, locking her away whenever visitors came. How she’d spent her entire life being told she was worthless, broken, unlovable.

I told her about my parents. My father’s affair and the car crash that k*lled him. My mother’s grief and the slow, quiet death that followed. The rose seeds she’d pressed into my palm before she died — the seeds I’d planted in my first life, only to watch Victoria destroy them.

— You still have them? Eleanor asked. — The seeds?

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small cloth pouch. Inside, tiny rose seeds glimmered like fragments of hope.

— I plant them every life, I said. — It’s the only thing I have left of her.

Eleanor touched the seeds with reverent fingers. — Then we should plant them here. In the garden. Where I can help you protect them.

So we did. One morning, while Victoria was out with Julian, we crept down to the garden’s far corner — a hidden patch of soil behind the old greenhouse where no one ever went. Eleanor dug the holes with her bare hands while I held the seeds cupped in my palm. The earth was cool and dark and smelled like possibility.

— They’ll bloom for our wedding, I said. — I’ll give you the first rose.

Eleanor’s cheeks flushed pink. — You don’t have to—

— I want to. You’re going to be my wife. You deserve flowers. You deserve everything.

She ducked her head, but I caught the smile she tried to hide.

Victoria returned that evening in a whirlwind of media attention. She’d taken Julian to a television interview — some celebrity gossip show where they’d cooed at each other and called themselves the city’s most “powerful couple.” The broadcast played on every screen in the mansion, and I could hear Victoria’s laughter echoing through the halls like a victory parade.

Eleanor and I watched from her room. On the screen, Victoria draped herself over Julian’s arm, her diamond earrings flashing, her smile so bright it was almost convincing.

— They look happy, Eleanor said quietly.

— They look like a pair of vultures who found the same carcass, I replied.

She snorted — an undignified sound that made her clap her hand over her mouth. — Ethan!

— What? I’m not wrong. Vultures and garbage always look like they belong together.

She laughed then, a real laugh, and the sound was so pure and unexpected that it made my chest ache.

But the laughter died when the mansion’s front doors slammed open. Raised voices. Footsteps pounding up the stairs. Victoria burst through Eleanor’s door without knocking, her face contorted with fury.

— You, she snarled, pointing at me. — You think you’ve won something? You think you can humiliate me in front of my father and get away with it?

I stood slowly, positioning myself between Victoria and Eleanor. — I’m not trying to win anything. I just want to marry your sister.

— My sister. She spat the words like a curse. — You have no idea what you’re getting into. She’s broken. She’s insane. She’s—

— She’s going to be my wife, I interrupted. — And I’d appreciate it if you spoke about her with respect.

Victoria’s eyes blazed. She stepped toward me, her hand raised, but this time I caught her wrist before she could strike.

— You don’t get to hit me anymore, I said quietly. — That part of our story is over.

She wrenched her hand free. — You’ll regret this. I’ll make sure of it.

She stormed out, and the door slammed behind her.

Eleanor let out a shaky breath. — She’s not going to stop.

— I know. But neither am I.

The rose garden became our sanctuary. Every morning, before the rest of the household stirred, Eleanor and I would sneak out to water the tiny seedlings pushing through the soil. They grew fast — impossibly fast, like they were as eager for our wedding as we were.

I was tending the plants alone one afternoon when Victoria appeared on the garden path. She was alone this time, no Julian trailing behind her. Her expression was softer than I’d ever seen it, almost wistful.

— You’re still planting those roses, she said. — Just like last time.

My hands stilled on the watering can. — You remember.

— Bits and pieces. Flashes. She settled onto a stone bench, her designer dress pooling around her like a silken puddle. — I remember the roses. I remember you told me they were the last thing your mother gave you. You said you’d give them to your wife.

— And you destroyed them.

She flinched. — I was different then. We were different. She leaned forward, her eyes searching my face. — Ethan… if you still love me, I could give you another chance. We could start over. Forget everything that happened. I can forget the past. Can’t you?

I stared at her. At this woman who had murdered me with a smile. Who had crushed my mother’s memory under her heel. Who had tormented her own sister for decades.

— What about Julian? I asked.

She waved her hand dismissively. — He’s… separate. He’s my equal in a way you could never be. You’re a house husband, Ethan. A kept man. Your place isn’t the same as his. But that doesn’t mean I can’t love you both, in different ways.

The audacity. The sheer, breathtaking audacity.

— You want me to be your side piece, I said flatly. — While you marry Julian and inherit the empire.

— I’m offering you a gift! Her voice sharpened. — I’m offering to love you despite everything you’ve done to humiliate me. All you have to do is give up this ridiculous plan to marry my sister. She’s nothing. She’ll always be nothing.

I thought about my father. His affair. The way he’d destroyed my mother with his betrayal. The way I’d sworn, at her graveside, that I would never become the kind of man who traded loyalty for convenience.

— I’d rather die, I said. — Again.

Her face went pale. Then red. Then white again.

— Fine, she hissed. — If you love your precious roses so much, we’ll see how much you love them when they’re gone.

She snapped her fingers, and Julian emerged from behind the hedgerow, pushing a garden tiller. His grin was feral.

— Dig them up, she ordered. — All of them.

I threw myself in front of the seedlings, spreading my arms wide. — Touch these plants and I swear—

Julian didn’t hesitate. He shoved me to the ground and fired up the tiller. The blades churned through the soil, ripping up fragile stems, scattering petals and roots across the grass. I struggled to my feet, but Victoria’s guards appeared from nowhere, grabbing my arms, forcing me to watch.

The roses — my mother’s roses — were destroyed in sixty seconds flat.

When the tiller finally stopped, I was kneeling in the ruined earth, tears tracking through the dirt on my face. Julian clapped me on the shoulder as he passed.

— Should’ve known your place, mechanic boy.

Victoria crouched beside me, her voice almost gentle. — Julian’s upset now. He’s sick with fear, thinking you might come between us. So here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to hand-write every single wedding invitation for our ceremony. One hundred thousand invitations. By hand. And then I might forgive you.

I looked up at her. — Fine.

She blinked. — What?

— I said fine. I’ll write them.

She recovered quickly, her smirk returning. — Good. You have until the wedding day. Don’t miss a single one.

After she left, I stayed in the ruined garden until the sun went down. Eleanor found me there, kneeling in the dirt, clutching a single crushed petal in my palm.

— Oh, Ethan, she breathed. — Your mother’s roses…

I looked up at her, and despite everything, I smiled.

— They’ll grow back, I said. — Roses always grow back. But in the meantime — I have a hundred thousand invitations to write. And every single one of them is going to have the wrong name.

The days blurred into a rhythm of ink and paper. I sat in my room each night, surrounded by stacks of blank cream-colored cards, a fountain pen in my hand, writing until my fingers cramped and my eyes burned.

But I wasn’t writing Victoria’s name.

Every invitation read the same:

You are cordially invited to the wedding of

Ethan Cole & Eleanor Sterling

I wrote it ten thousand times. Twenty thousand. Fifty thousand. My handwriting became mechanical, perfect, each letter flowing into the next like a river of ink.

Victoria would peek into my room occasionally, smug satisfaction on her face as she watched me hunched over the desk.

— Working hard? she’d purr.

— Night and day, I’d reply, not looking up.

She never checked the cards. She was too confident. Too arrogant. She thought she’d broken me.

The wedding day arrived with golden sunlight and a warm breeze that smelled like jasmine. The Sterling estate had been transformed into a fairy tale — white flowers cascading from every archway, a string quartet playing in the garden, guests in designer gowns mingling on the manicured lawn.

Julian strutted around in his groom’s suit, a navy tuxedo that probably cost more than my childhood home. He kept clapping people on the back and accepting congratulations like he’d already won.

Victoria was radiant in her wedding dress — a cascade of white silk and diamonds, her hair woven with pearls. But her attention kept drifting. She kept looking at me.

I stood near the back, dressed in a simple white suit that Eleanor had secretly had tailored for me. She’d left it outside my door that morning with a note: For our day. — E.

When the ceremony began, the anchor stepped to the microphone.

— Ladies and gentlemen, honored guests, we are gathered here today to witness the union of two hearts. Please welcome the bride and groom to the stage.

Julian stepped forward, his chest puffed like a peacock.

The anchor cleared his throat.

— Please welcome… Ethan Cole and Eleanor Sterling.

The music swelled. The crowd went dead silent.

Julian froze mid-stride. His face cycled through confusion, disbelief, and then pure, unadulterated rage.

— What?! he roared, spinning toward me. — What did you do?!

He grabbed my collar, his fingers digging into the fabric. — What trick is this?!

I removed his hand one finger at a time, my expression calm. — Today is my wedding. To Eleanor. Didn’t you get the invitation? Oh wait — we didn’t send you one.

Behind me, the doors opened. Eleanor stepped out, and the entire courtyard seemed to hold its breath.

She was beautiful. God, she was beautiful. Her dress was simple — ivory lace with long sleeves, a ribbon at the waist, her dark hair loose around her shoulders. She walked with her cane, each step careful and deliberate, and her eyes were fixed on mine like I was the only thing in the world worth seeing.

— Sorry I’m late, she said, a nervous smile flickering at her lips. — I couldn’t find the rings.

— You’re right on time, I said. — You’re always right on time.

Victoria’s scream shattered the moment.

— NO! She stormed toward us, her veil trailing behind her like a ghost. — You can’t marry him! He’s mine! He’s always been mine!

She grabbed my arm, her nails biting into my skin. — Please, Ethan. Please. I made a mistake. I know that now. Choose me. Not her. She’s broken. She’s nothing. I’m the one you loved. I’m the one—

I pulled my arm free. — You’re the one who threw me into a pit of snakes, I said quietly. — You’re the one who watched me die. You’re the one who destroyed my mother’s roses. You’re nothing to me, Victoria. You’re less than nothing.

She staggered back like I’d struck her.

Harrison Sterling’s voice boomed across the courtyard. — Enough! Victoria, stand down. The terms have been clear since the beginning. Eleanor is marrying first. She will be the heir. That is final.

— But Father—

— Final!

Guards appeared and gently but firmly escorted Victoria away. Julian, pale with fury and humiliation, slunk off on his own.

Eleanor and I walked to the stage together. She was trembling, her hand cold in mine.

— Are you sure about this? she whispered. — You can still walk away. I’ll give you money. You can go anywhere—

I squeezed her hand. — I’ve never been more sure of anything. I’m not walking away. Not today. Not ever.

We exchanged our vows in front of a stunned audience. Her voice shook when she said “I do.” Mine didn’t.

When Harrison announced that Eleanor was now the official heir to the Sterling empire, the crowd erupted in whispers. Some people clapped. Some stared in disbelief. A few got up and left.

But none of that mattered. Because Eleanor was looking at me with something I’d never seen in her eyes before.

Hope.

The reception was a blur of champagne and forced congratulations. Eleanor handled it with a grace I hadn’t expected — she spoke to guests, accepted the transfers of business authority Harrison processed on the spot, and even managed a brief speech thanking her father for his trust.

By the time we stumbled into our room that night, I was exhausted. My wounds had healed, but the memory of pain still lingered in the hollows of my bones.

Eleanor stood in the middle of the room, suddenly shy. She’d changed into a simple silk robe, her cane leaning against the bedpost.

— Do you… she started, then stopped, her cheeks coloring. — Do you know what happens after a wedding?

I raised an eyebrow, a tired smile crossing my face. — I have some idea. Do you?

She nodded, her blush deepening. — I read books.

— Of course you did.

She took a hesitant step toward me, then another. Her limp was less pronounced when she moved slowly, and I realized she’d been hiding the full extent of her pain for years, learning to minimize herself so no one would notice her.

— I’m not… I’m not what Victoria is, she said quietly. — I’m not beautiful or charming or—

I crossed the room in three strides and cupped her face in my hands. — You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. And I’m not talking about how you look. I’m talking about you. Eleanor. The woman who tried to save a stranger while everyone else watched him die. The woman who spent decades being told she was worthless and still found the courage to hope. That’s who I married. And I’d choose her again. Every time. In every lifetime.

A tear slipped down her cheek. She pressed her forehead against mine.

— I’m scared, she admitted.

— Me too. We’ll figure it out together.

The sun rose the next morning to find us tangled in each other, her head on my chest, her breathing slow and even. For the first time in two lifetimes, I felt something close to peace.

It didn’t last.

Shouting from the courtyard dragged me out of bed. I threw on a shirt and hurried downstairs, leaving Eleanor to rest.

The nine rejected suitors were gathered near the fountain, all of them bristling like angry roosters. When they saw me, one of them — a brutish man with a thick neck and small eyes — charged forward.

— You lied to us, he spat. — You said you were marrying the crazy one, but you tricked everyone. You stole the inheritance.

— I didn’t steal anything, I said. — I earned it. By asking for a woman’s hand when the rest of you were too afraid to even look at her.

— She’s insane! The words burst out of him. — She’s a crippled lunatic who k*lled her own mother!

The punch was already in motion before he finished the sentence. My fist connected with his jaw, and he crumpled like a paper bag.

The other suitors surged forward, but Victoria appeared on the steps, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen from crying.

— Stop, she said, her voice hoarse. — Just stop.

The men hesitated. Victoria walked toward me, her movements slow and heavy, like she was wading through water.

— Ethan, she said, and her voice cracked. — Please. Just give me one more chance. I know I hurt you. I know I made mistakes. But I can change. I have changed. Losing you… it’s destroyed me.

I shook my head. — You’re not destroyed, Victoria. You’re just not getting what you want for the first time in your life. There’s a difference.

She recoiled like I’d doused her in acid. — You’ll regret this, she whispered. — I promise you, you’ll regret this.

She retreated into the mansion, and the suitors dispersed, muttering among themselves. I stood alone in the courtyard, the morning sun warm on my face, and wondered if the peace I’d felt earlier would ever be more than a fleeting illusion.

Victoria’s spiral happened fast. Within days, she’d taken to spending her nights at the city’s bars, drinking until her eyes glazed over and her words slurred into incomprehensible rambling.

Julian hovered around her, his patience visibly fraying. He’d signed up for a Sterling heiress, not a self-destructive drunk. But he couldn’t leave — not yet. Not until he’d secured his place.

One night, after a particularly ugly binge, he took her to a hotel. She was barely conscious, her head lolling against the car window, my name falling from her lips over and over.

— Ethan… Ethan… why didn’t you love me…

Julian’s jaw tightened. He’d had enough.

In the hotel room, while she was passed out on the bed, he made his move. He climbed on top of her, his hands rough, his intentions clear.

Victoria woke up swinging.

She thrashed and screamed, and when her vision cleared enough to recognize him, she slapped him so hard his lip split.

— You piece of trash, she snarled. — You think you can take advantage of me? I’ll have you thrown in jail!

Julian stumbled back, blood dripping down his chin. — Victoria, wait, I wasn’t—

— GET OUT! She grabbed a lamp from the nightstand and hurled it at his head. — I’ll destroy you! I’ll ruin everything you’ve ever touched!

He fled. But the rage was already building in him — a dark, venomous rage that had been simmering since the wedding, since her father had humiliated him in front of everyone, since she’d called my name instead of his.

Three days later, Victoria was found in the hotel hallway, a knife wound in her abdomen, bleeding out on the carpet. Julian had attacked her after sneaking back into the building, driven by the desperate belief that if he couldn’t have her fortune, no one would.

She was rushed to the hospital, surgeons working through the night to save her. Julian was arrested, his face blank with shock as the police dragged him away.

The news reached us at the estate. Eleanor went pale when she heard.

— We should go see her, she said quietly. — She’s still my sister.

— Are you sure? I asked. — After everything she’s done to you?

Eleanor nodded. — If I don’t go, I’m no better than she was.

The hospital room was sterile and cold. Victoria lay in the bed, tubes and wires threading into her arms, her face ashen against the white pillows. When she saw me, something flickered in her eyes. Hope.

But then she saw Eleanor beside me, and her expression hardened into ice.

— Come to gloat? she rasped.

— We came to see if you’re okay, Eleanor said softly. — You’re my sister. I don’t want you to die.

— You’ve already taken everything from me. My inheritance. My future. Him. Victoria’s gaze slid to me. — You’ve taken everything.

Eleanor’s voice was calm but steady. — I didn’t take anything, Victoria. You threw it away. You threw me away a long time ago. And Ethan… he was never yours to begin with.

— You don’t know anything, Victoria spat. — You were always the broken one. The worthless one. Everyone said so.

— Everyone was wrong, Eleanor said. — And they were wrong about something else too.

She stepped closer to the bed, her cane tapping softly against the floor.

— I wasn’t the one who k*lled our mother, Victoria. You were.

The silence that followed was absolute.

Victoria’s face went slack with shock. — What… what are you talking about?

— I’ve always known. You poisoned her because she paid more attention to me. You were eight years old, and you put poison in her tea. When she died, everyone blamed me because I was the one with damaged legs and a mind that didn’t work the way they wanted. But it was you. It was always you.

I stared at Eleanor, my heart pounding. All those years. All that isolation and abuse. She’d carried this secret the whole time, protecting her sister even as her sister destroyed her.

Victoria’s mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for air. No words came out.

— We’re leaving now, Eleanor said. — Get well, Victoria. When you’re discharged, Father has arranged for you to go abroad. You’ll have an allowance. You’ll be comfortable. But you won’t come back here.

She turned and walked toward the door, her cane tapping a steady rhythm. I followed, but Victoria’s voice stopped me.

— Ethan. Please. I know now. I know I love you. I’ve always loved you. Please… give me another chance.

I didn’t look back.

— Goodbye, Victoria.

We left the hospital in silence. The car ride home stretched long and quiet, the city lights blurring past the windows. Eleanor stared straight ahead, her hands folded in her lap.

— Are you okay? I asked.

She took a shaky breath. — I’ve been carrying that secret for twenty years. I never thought I’d say it out loud.

— You didn’t have to protect her. Not after everything.

— She’s still my sister. She made me… no, she didn’t make me. But I chose to protect her anyway. I don’t know why.

I took her hand. — Because you’re a better person than she ever was. Than most people ever will be.

She turned to look at me, her eyes glistening. — Do you still want to be married to me? Now that you know… everything about my family?

I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed her knuckles. — I didn’t marry your family. I married you. And I’d do it again. A thousand times. In a thousand lifetimes.

She smiled then — a real smile, small but genuine, the kind that reached her eyes.

— Then let’s go on our honeymoon, she said. — I want to see the Northern Lights.

We traveled for three weeks. Paris, where Eleanor bought books she couldn’t read in languages she couldn’t speak and laughed at my attempts to order coffee in broken French. The Swiss Alps, where we sat in a cabin wrapped in blankets and watched snow fall through the pines. Tokyo, where she discovered a love for ramen and stayed up all night exploring neon-lit streets.

And finally, the Arctic Circle.

We stood on a glass platform suspended over a frozen lake, the night sky stretching above us like a cathedral of stars. And then the lights came.

Green and purple and gold, swirling across the darkness in ribbons of impossible color. Eleanor clutched my arm, her breath forming clouds in the icy air.

— It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, she whispered.

— It is, I agreed. But I was looking at her.

She closed her eyes and pressed her hands together.

— What are you wishing for? I asked.

— I’m not supposed to tell, or it won’t come true.

— Tell me anyway.

She opened her eyes and looked at me, and in the glow of the aurora, she looked almost otherworldly. Like something holy.

— I wished that we could spend our whole lives together. Travel the whole world. See everything there is to see. And never, ever look back.

I pulled her into my arms, burying my face in her hair.

— That’s not a wish, I murmured. — That’s a promise.

We returned home to find the mansion quiet. Julian had been sentenced to prison for attempted m*rder. Victoria had been discharged from the hospital and sent abroad, just as Eleanor had arranged. The estate was peaceful for the first time in decades.

Harrison Sterling called me into his study one evening. He looked older than I remembered — the weight of his years finally showing.

— I misjudged you, he said. — When you first came here, I thought you were a fortune hunter. A clever nobody trying to claw his way up. He pushed a small box across his desk. — But you proved me wrong. You kept your word. You protected Eleanor. You made her happy.

I opened the box. Inside was a vial of amber liquid and a folded note.

— The antidote to the poison I used in your first life, Harrison said quietly. — I dosed you slowly, over months, to keep you weak. To keep you controllable. I didn’t know Victoria would… escalate things. I didn’t know she’d throw you in that pit. By the time I found out, you were already dead.

I stared at the vial. — Why give this to me now?

— Because I need you to know that I’m not your enemy anymore. I did terrible things. I don’t expect forgiveness. But Eleanor is the future of this family, and you’re her future. I want you to be healthy. Whole. For her.

I closed the box. — I don’t need the antidote. I’m not poisoned in this life.

— Keep it anyway. As proof. As a reminder that I trust you now.

I nodded and tucked the box into my pocket. As I left, Harrison called out one more thing.

— Take care of her, Ethan. She’s the only good thing this family ever produced.

— I know, I said. — I will.

A month later, news came that Julian had been released early. Good behavior, the officials said. Overcrowding. I didn’t believe either excuse, but it didn’t matter.

What mattered was the phone call that came three days after his release. Victoria had been hit by a car outside her apartment abroad. The driver had fled the scene, but witnesses identified the vehicle. It was Julian’s.

She didn’t survive.

Harrison Sterling shattered when he heard. For all his coldness, all his ruthlessness, she had been his daughter. He locked himself in his study for a week.

Eleanor mourned too, in her own quiet way. She planted a small garden near the greenhouse — white roses, not red — and sat beside it sometimes, just breathing.

— She was my sister, she told me once. — No matter what she did. She was still my sister.

I held her while she cried, and I didn’t try to fix it. Some things can’t be fixed. They can only be carried.

The years that followed were quiet. Good. Harrison retired, and Eleanor took control of the Sterling empire with a steady hand and a sharp mind. The business community had underestimated her — they’d expected the “crazy crippled daughter” to fail spectacularly. Instead, she expanded the company into new markets, hired a diverse leadership team, and became known for her fair deals and fierce loyalty.

I worked beside her, not as her assistant or her shadow, but as her partner. We built something together — something neither of us had ever had before.

A life.

A family.

A home.

On our tenth anniversary, I took her back to the hidden garden behind the greenhouse. The roses had grown wild and beautiful, climbing the old stone walls in cascades of crimson and white.

— My mother’s roses, I said, touching a velvet petal. — They finally bloomed.

Eleanor leaned her head against my shoulder. — And on our wedding day, you gave me the first one. Just like you promised.

— I always keep my promises.

She smiled — that same small, genuine smile I’d fallen in love with a decade ago. — I know. That’s why I married you.

We stood there in the garden as the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink. The air smelled like roses and earth and the faint, sweet scent of new rain moving in from the east.

— Do you ever regret it? Eleanor asked quietly. — Choosing me?

I turned and cupped her face in my hands, the way I had on our wedding night, the way I would for the rest of our lives.

— Never, I said. — Not once. Not for a single second. You’re not the woman I settled for, Eleanor. You’re the woman I came back for. The woman I died reaching for. The woman I’d choose again in every lifetime there is.

Her eyes glimmered with tears. Happy ones, this time.

— I love you, Ethan Cole.

— I love you too, Eleanor Sterling. More than anything.

She kissed me in the rose-scented twilight, her arms wrapped around my neck, her heartbeat steady against my chest. And I thought about the snake pit. About the venom and the darkness and the moment I’d let go, certain I’d never feel anything again.

I’d been wrong. So wonderfully, impossibly wrong.

This wasn’t a second chance. It was a whole new life. A whole new world. And I was never going to let it go.

The roses swayed in the evening breeze. Somewhere in the distance, a bird sang its final song for the night. And Ethan and Eleanor Sterling-Cole — the mechanic’s son and the woman the world had abandoned — walked hand in hand into the quiet, peaceful future they’d built together.

It wasn’t a fairytale ending. Fairytales were too simple, too clean.

This was something better.

It was real.

The northern lights danced in my dreams that night, winding through the darkness like ribbons of memory. I saw my mother’s face in the shimmering green — younger than I remembered, healthier, smiling. She held a rose in her hand and pressed it into my palm.

— You did good, she said. — My boy. You did good.

I woke with tears on my face and Eleanor’s arm draped across my chest. Outside the window, a new rose was blooming on the vine, its petals the exact color of a northern dawn.

I closed my eyes and slept again, and this time, I didn’t dream of snakes. I didn’t dream of darkness.

I dreamed of roses, and light, and a woman with a limp who had saved me more times than she would ever know.

And somewhere in the quiet night, a voice I recognized whispered across time and space — a promise made and kept.

I will love you across every lifetime. I swear it.

And I believed it.