Reborn for My Yandere Husband

Three days after I fled our wedding, my billionaire fianc killed himself in our bridal suite.

He left every cent of his empire to me.

When I went to clear out his estate, I found my face plastered across every inch of the master bedroom walls. The hardwood floor below was permanently stained with rusted drops of his blood.

"He relied on massive doses of psychiatric medication just to keep his sanity intact," his assistant told me, his voice rough. "Spending all night staring at those walls of your photos was the only way he could suppress his most deranged thoughts."

The revelation hit me like a physical blow.

A hard knot lodged in my throat, and I dug my fingernails into my palms until the skin threatened to tear, a dull ache radiating through my chest.

So, when my eyes snap open and I'm dragged back in time to the exact moment my best friend hands me the getaway tickets, I simply smile.

I push the getaway tickets back across the table. "I'm not leaving."

This time, I need to see exactly how far Silas is willing to bleed for me.

Chapter 1

Silas died three days after I ran out on our wedding.

My father and brother had just walked out of his estate after awkwardly apologizing for my disappearance when they got the call. Silas had slashed his wrists.

Dead on arrival.

His pre-written will left his entire empire to me.

Half a world away in Europe, the phone slipped from my grip. My muscles locked into ice. To me, Silas was just the ruthless bastard who kicked down my door and held my family's finances hostage for a ring. We were strangers.

Yet, the pieces he left behind painted the picture of a man who had been obsessed with me for years.

Summoned back by his lawyers, I stood frozen, accepting the heavy urn containing Silas's ashes. He was a self-made ghost with no known family. His assistant stared at the square box, his voice rough.

"He relied on massive doses of psychiatric medication just to keep his sanity intact," he told me quietly. "Staring all night at the walls covered in your photos was the only way he could suppress his most deranged thoughts. I thought once you married him, the darkness would lift. I never expected"

His words trailed off, devoid of accusation. A sharp, physical ache seized my chest, stealing my breath, and my fingers dug into the edge of the urn.

The assistant pressed a cold key into my palm. "The estate he bought for you. He decorated the bridal suite himself."

The place where he bled out.

The estate was massive, boasting a private equestrian track on its sweeping lawns. The interior was awash in sapphire bluemy exact favorite color. Every piece of furniture, every meticulous detail catered flawlessly to my tastes.

Then I found the room. The one wallpapered with my photos. I stepped closer, a cold sweat breaking out on my neck.

The pictures tracked all the way back to my sophomore year of college up to the present. He had been watching me, documenting me, capturing every second of my life.

The hardwood floor below was permanently stained with rusted drops of his blood, the faint, metallic scent still lingering in the air.

The sheer weight of it all suffocated me. My lungs burned, and an inexplicable, crushing weight pressed against my sternum.

Then, the shock warped into hot, blinding anger.

If he was so obsessed with me, why the hell didn't he just say it? He had kicked down my front door like a goddamn mobster, demanding a marriage like it was a hostile takeover. Did he really think I'd walk down the aisle willingly?

Was this bloody finale supposed to brand him into my memory forever? Force me to carry his ghost out of guilt?

In your dreams. I liquidated his assets and donated every last dimeincluding the estate.

I paid the cleaning crews to rip the photos down, letting them flutter to the floor to cover the bloodstains. I erased Silas's short, legendary life. I scrubbed his existence from the earth.

It took me three days to process the fact that the universe had thrown me back in time.

Three days ago, Silas had just stormed into my family's home, wielding his wealth and power to back us into a corner. Maxwell, my childhood best friend, immediately told me to run. To lay low in Europe until the dust settled.

In my last life, I took his advice.

But in this one? The phantom scent of copper filled my nose, and the image of those blood-soaked floorboards flashed behind my eyes. I shook my head, my voice completely steady.

"I'm not leaving." I looked up. "I'm going to find him. I need to know exactly why he wants this marriage."

Silas's corporate empire was intimidating. When I arrived at his headquarters, he was tied up in a board meeting. His assistant personally escorted me to the penthouse office.

"The boss will be right out, Ms. Sloane."

I gave a curt nod.

Silas didn't keep me waiting. Before I could even finish a cup of coffee, the heavy mahogany doors swung open. He strode in, his pace hurried, his long fingers mechanically fastening a loose cufflink.

The moment his eyes landed on me, he froze in his tracks.

"Sloane." His face was a mask of cold, professional detachment, but the knuckles of his hand gripped his cufflink so hard the skin turned stark white, and his jaw locked with enough tension to snap bonebetraying the tidal wave of madness he was actively suppressing.

Chapter 2

The sheer chill radiating off him stole the air right out of my lungs. I collected myself. "Silas," I started, keeping my voice even. "My father says you want to marry me. Why?"

"I want to, so I am. I don't need a reason."

I stared at him. How the hell was I supposed to respond to that?

I grabbed my purse from the armchair and stood up. "Then I'll just be on my way."

A fracture appeared in his icy facade. His brows twitched. "You're leaving?"

I met his gaze dead-on, holding eye contact until the blood completely drained from his face. A heavy, suffocating aura of defeat seemed to swallow him whole, yet he rigidly stepped aside to clear my path to the door. If I hadn't literally seen the blood-soaked proof of his obsession in another lifetime, I would have sworn he was messing with me.

I closed the distance between us, completely ignoring the way his spine turned to steel. I grabbed the silk of his tie, yanking him down to my level. "Come on. We're getting dinner."

I paused at the reception desk on my way out, flashing his stunned assistant a smile. "I actually quite like his face. He's exactly my type."

The heavy mahogany office door wasn't fully shut. Through the narrow gap, I caught a clear glimpse of Silas reaching up to touch his own jawline, his expression completely blank with shock.

The corners of my mouth tilted up. I tapped the reception desk. "Make sure your boss actually shows up tonight. Don't let him flake on me."

The assistant nodded frantically, as if terrified I might take it back. My heels clicked against the marble as I walked out of the corporate headquarters.

The second I stepped into the sunlight, my phone vibrated in my purse. The screen flashed with an incoming call from Maxwell. I stared at the name for two flat seconds before swiping the red button to reject it, tipping my head back to look at the gray clouds overhead.

Maxwell had always treated me well, always looked out for my best interests. But childhood best friends were just temporary placeholders, destined to be overwritten and erased by the actual progression of a life. Just like last time. He got married, had a kid, and learned to keep a hard, polite distance from me.

When my expedition team got trapped in that freezing mountain range and I used my dying battery to call him for help, his wife answered the phone just to mock me, calling me a pathetic, washed-up spinster. Maxwell had been standing right next to her the entire time, offering absolutely nothing but dead silence.

I died on that mountain.

I didn't care what he thought about it anymore.

Silas arrived at the restaurant exceptionally early.

The atmosphere at the table was suffocatingly stiff. I dragged the conversation forward, throwing out topic after topic, but he deflected everything like a goddamn brick wall. Exhaustion settled into my bones. I slammed my silver fork down onto the porcelain plate.

"Silas. The way you're acting makes it incredibly clear you have zero actual interest in marrying me."

His Adam's apple bobbed sharply. He dropped his gaze to the table. "I apologize."

"You know damn well that's not what I want to hear." I leaned back in my chair, exhaling a sharp breath.

"You've run a massive empire for years. You slaughter the competition in every boardroom negotiation and read people for a living. Yet sitting here with me, you give me absolutely nothing. It makes me think you couldn't care less about me."

The remaining color drained from Silas's face. He curled his hands into tight fists resting on his thighs, his fingernails digging so savagely into his own palms that dark red blood began to pool beneath his skin.

"Don't overthink it," he forced out. "I just I've never been this close to you. I don't know how to act."

The raw, unguarded confession hit me like a physical blow.

The absolute desolation radiating from him, the visible tremor in his shoulders, the fresh blood staining his handsnone of it could be faked. The memory of his assistant's rough voice from my past life violently crashed through my skull.

He relied on massive doses of psychiatric medication just to keep his sanity intact. Staring all night at those walls of your photos was the only way

Chapter 3

"Silas." A sudden spike of curiosity hit me, and I asked point-blank. "Did we know each other before this?"

The corner of Silas's mouth twitched. His eyes immediately darted away, locking onto the restaurant's floor-to-ceiling windows. "Yes."

"When?" I pressed, but he clamped his jaw shut. He wasn't going to say another word.

I lost interest in interrogating him. I cut into my steak and dropped the conversation. Silas stayed silent, completely oblivious to the suffocating tension hanging over the table.

His gaze was a dark, burning fire, locked dead onto my lips. As I swallowed a sip of red wine, a hard swallow clicked in his throat. His eyes burned with a dark, suppressed hungerlike he was barely holding back the urge to devour me whole.

I shot him a glare.

He jerked his head away so fast he practically gave himself whiplash. The color drained from his face, and his teeth caught his lower lip, breaking the skin until a bead of bright red blood welled up.

I let out a heavy breath. "If you want to look at me, just look. Stop sneaking glances like a creep."

I leaned forward. "We're getting married soon, Silas. Try doing something out in the open for once, okay?"

Taking thousands of photos of me, hiring people to tail me, probably bribing my family's housekeeper If he hadn't died such a brutal death in my last life, I would have called the cops and had him locked up for stalking.

But his assistant had laid it out perfectly. Silas was sick. And you had to have a little patience with a sick man.

I reached right across the table, completely ignoring the way his body instantly turned to stone. I forcefully pried open his clenched fist. I grabbed a wet wipe and scrubbed the dried blood from his palm, pressing my thumb hard into the edge of his self-inflicted wounds.

"You have nice hands," I murmured. "Stop tearing them apart, alright?"

Silas didn't answer. He just stared into my eyes. After a long, heavy silence, his voice dropped to a low rasp. "Acting like this does this mean you're actually willing to marry me?"

"Did you ever give me a choice to say no?"

His Adam's apple jumped. "Actually if you really don't want to, you can"

"Run away?" I cut him off. "Or maybe march into your office, point my finger in your face, and scream that I'd never marry you in a million years?"

I kept my eyes locked onto his. "I could do all of that without a second thought. But Silaswhat exactly would happen to you?"

The answer was crystal clear. He would die.

In my past life, I couldn't wrap my head around it. How pathetic and weak did a man have to be to not even demand a face-to-face explanation? To just casually end his own life over the news of a runaway bride?

But the truth was, I couldn't stand the thought of him dying again.

Silas was an absolute genius. His business instincts were lethal. His background was a total black holerivals dug for years and found nothing, forced to watch helplessly as he rode the tech boom straight to the top of the food chain. With a casual laugh, he had effortlessly suffocated the old money elites of the city.

Yet a man like that, at the absolute peak of his prime, killed himself over a woman. In my last life, Silas became a laughingstock. The tabloids branded him a tragic, lovesick fool. His rivals fueled the media circus, dragging his name through the dirt with every vicious headline imaginable.

I refused to let that happen again.

On the drive home, my mind spun in circles. I stared at Silas's perfectly blank profile as he steered the wheel, deciding right then and there to pull his assistant aside for a chat in a few days.

I had absolutely no idea how to handle this guy. And then there was his illness. Was there really no way to fix it?

The black Rolls-Royce pulled up to the gates of my family's estate. And of course, right on cue, Maxwell was standing there holding a box of pastries.

Chapter 4

Silas narrowed his eyes, tracking the figure standing by the gates. "Want me to come down and say hello?"

I turned to him. "Maxwell is just a good friend. No need."

Silas leaned across the center console, the faint scent of cold cedar washing over me as he unclicked my seatbelt. "Go home."

His tone was flat and dismissive, but the sudden, rigid set of his jaw and the tight, bitter line of his mouth betrayed the heavy tension crashing over him.

I caught his wrist before he could pull away. "He and I are really just friends. Don't spin this into something it's not."

"I'm not."

"You're sure?" I tilted my head. My eyes dropped to the steering wheel, where his free hand was gripping the leather so violently the veins in his forearm strained against the skin. I reached out, lightly brushing my fingertips against his knuckles.

"If something is bothering you, just tell me, okay? Don't swallow it down. It makes this whole thing incredibly difficult."

Cornered, Silas swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. He ripped his gaze away, staring out the windshield as the words dragged out of him. "I really don't like him."

"Then you don't have to interact with him." I reached up, gently ruffling the hair at the nape of his neck like a reward. "He's my friend. There's zero reason to force yourself to like him."

I let my hand drop back to my lap. "Besides, we're going to be married. That's a hell of a lot closer than any friend."

"If my relationship with him bothers you I'll draw a harder line. I'll keep my distance."

Silas blinked, genuine shock fracturing his stoic expression. "You'd stay away from him? For me?"

"Why wouldn't I?" I offered a bright, easy smile. "We're the ones getting married, aren't we?"

He completely froze, looking adorably clueless for a split second.

I struck while the iron was hot, leaning directly into his space. "Look. We can't fix things if we don't talk about them, right?"

"If you're unhappy with me, or if there's something you need to say, you have to tell me. Don't just sit there silently raging until you half-kill yourself over it while I'm completely in the dark. That's a terrible deal for both of us."

It was painfully obvious that Silas had absolutely zero idea how to navigate an intimate relationship. He took ruthless boardroom negotiation tactics and applied them to romanceblackmailing my family into an engagement, only to completely short-circuit the second I actually showed up at his door.

His emotional intelligence was terrifyingly nonexistent.

That's fine, I thought. I can teach him.

Maxwell narrowed his eyes as I stepped out of Silas's car. A hostile shadow fell over his expression.

The Rolls-Royce pulled away, and Maxwell immediately closed the distance between us. "You're actually going through with this? You're marrying him?"

"He's gorgeous, he's a billionaire, his reputation in our circle is spotless, and he has zero scandals. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't."

"But" Maxwell cut himself off. Panic, confusion, and a flash of hot frustration scrambled his features. Finally, he choked out a pathetic, "Are you even sure you like him?"

"Since when does anyone in our tax bracket marry for love?" I gave a casual shrug. "He's a perfect match."

Maxwell's eyes blew wide. "More of a match than the two of us"

"Maxwell." I dropped the temperature in my voice to ice, meeting his gaze without an inch of retreat.

"I am about to be Silas's wife. Keep your entitled possessiveness in check. I don't want to hear another word of this line-crossing bullshit."

I turned on my heel and walked straight toward the front doors, completely ignoring him.

Honestly, even after dying and coming back to life, I still hadn't cracked the code on Maxwell's attitude toward me. When he was good, he was greathe'd tear through every boutique in Northern Europe just to track down a specific necklace I casually mentioned.

When he was bad, he was exhausting. We had known each other since childhood, and he still couldn't be bothered to remember my damn birthday.

Chapter 5

In my past life, I had actually brought up a marriage of convenience to Maxwell. He shot it down. Told me he wanted to play the field for a couple more years.

Yet, during a ski trip in Aspen, he fell in love at first sight with some innocent, sweet girl. Married her and had a kid on the way in under three months. His new wife hated my existence, and I took the hint, cutting off all contact.

I never thought that silence would be permanent.

I wonder if Maxwell felt even a sting of grief when he heard I died. After all, when his father and stepmother slapped him across the face over his golden-boy younger brother, I was the one who sat on the roof with him all night, counting the stars.

When I showed up at Silass headquarters the next day, he was still locked in a board meeting. Through the tinted glass walls, I watched him. His brows were pulled tight, his tailored suit radiating a dark, ruthless energy.

I waited in the VIP lounge, casually interrogating his assistant. The guy was a steel trap. He talked in circles, playing deaf and dumb every time I cornered him about Silas's illness. I exhaled a sharp breath.

"Don't you think giving me the full picture is the best way to keep him stable?"

"The boss doesn't want you to know," he replied quietly. "He wants to remain absolutely flawless in your eyes." He shot me a loaded look. "He desperately wants you to rely on him"

"What are we talking about?"

Silas strode into the lounge. He dragged a hand through his hair, loosening his silk tie, the hard lines of his face shadowed with exhaustion.

"Just debating if you practically live in the gym to maintain that god-tier physique." I leaned back against the plush sofa, flashing him a bright, teasing smile.

Silas froze. The assistant had already slipped out, tactfully pulling the heavy door shut behind him.

The lounge plunged into dead silence, save for the faint friction of Silass custom suit as he shifted. His voice came out as a low, rough scrape. "You like how I look?"

"Is that really a shock?" I arched an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you're actually blind to your own appeal, Silas."

A faint rush of heat crept up the back of his neck. He jerked his head away, completely unable to hold my gaze.

"You know, calling you 'Silas' feels a little too formal now, don't you think?" I closed the distance between us, reaching up to run my fingers through his hair.

He had product in it, the strands stiff and unyielding against my skin. I leaned in, my red lips brushing agonizingly close to the shell of his ear. "How about I call you darling?"

Silas shoved me back.

The violent, sudden movement knocked the air out of my lungs. I stared at him, completely blindsided. I couldn't comprehend what triggered this explosive hostility, just like I couldn't comprehend why he was so obsessed with me in the first place.

He retreated behind the massive desk, turning his back to me. His voice was laced with pure venom. "Get out."

"But I wanted to grab lunch with you."

"No." He cut me off instantly. "I have plans."

What the hell is wrong with him? I studied the rigid set of his shoulders, dragging out my words. "Fine. Just keep an eye on the clock. You still need to eat."

I grabbed my purse and walked out. But I didn't leave. I stood right outside the frosted glass.

Under the assistant's terrified stare, the silence inside shattered. The violent crash of heavy objects hitting the wall ripped through the air, followed by a raw, guttural groan of absolute agony. I had purposefully left the door unlatched. The desperate, suffocating sound of his breakdown bled through the gap, mixing with the sharp splintering of glass.

I slammed my hand down on the assistant's desk, my face carved from ice. "Are you still going to tell me absolutely nothing?"

The assistant hesitated, his face pale.

I didn't wait for his answer. I shoved the heavy door open and walked straight back into the room.

Chapter 6

Silas looked like he had been torn apart.

He was backed into the furthest corner of the room, his knees pulled tightly to his chest as he sat directly on a carpet of shattered glass. His fingertips were drenched in dark bloodwhether from the jagged shards or his own nails digging into his skin, I couldn't tell.

I stepped straight into the wreckage.

The stiletto heels of my shoes ground into the jagged fragments, the sharp, agonizing crunch echoing loudly in the dead silence of the room. Silas kept his head violently bowed. A hard tremor wrecked his massive frame, and his jaw locked down as he refused to meet my eyes.

I closed the distance and pressed my fingertips lightly against his broad shoulder. "What happened?"

He was a massive, towering manover six foot two of solid musclemaking it physically impossible for me to wrap my arms around him. Instead, I crouched right beside him in the wreckage, using a pair of tweezers from the emergency kit to carefully extract the tiny, glittering shards embedded in his ruined palms.

Silas finally lifted his head. His dark eyes locked onto mine. A long, heavy silence stretched between us before his voice scraped the air, raw and broken.

"It's repulsive, isn't it?"

"What? Your hands?" I blinked, staring down at his long, elegant fingers, the skin stretched taut over his knuckles. I couldn't fathom how a man like him could be so completely blind to his own appeal.

"They're beautiful." I let out a soft breath, leaning in until my lips brushed lightly against his bloodstained fingertips. "Absolutely beautiful."

But the darkness in Silas's eyes didn't lift. His chest rose and fell sharply. "Did you say the exact same thing to all your exes?"

"Excuse me?"

"Playing nice, treating me like this, calling me darling." He spat the word like poison. "Did every guy before me get the exact same treatment?"

I fell into a completely stunned silence.

So this is why he just tore his office apart. I genuinely thought my pet name had triggered some deep, suppressed trauma. Turns out, the ruthless billionaire was just having a psychotic episode over pure, unadulterated jealousy.

It was almost absurd. How could a man so relentlessly powerful be utterly shredded by his own emotions?

I ran my fingers through his ruined hair, exhaling a soft sigh. "You're an idiot."

I had dated my fair share of guys in the past. I was gorgeous, came from old money, and never had a shortage of men lining up at my door. Naturally, a few caught my eye.

"But in our world, dating and marriage are two entirely different games," I told him calmly. "My father made it crystal clear years ago. I could play the field as much as I wanted, but when the time came, I was expected to step up and secure a strategic marriage."

I gripped his forearms and hoisted him up from the glass, guiding him over to the pristine leather sofa. I flagged down the cleaning crew to sweep up the warzone, then fetched him a glass of warm water, handling the chaos with smooth efficiency.

Silas's large hand suddenly clamped over my wrist. "You don't need to do all this."

"I know." I let his pull guide me down onto the sofa next to him.

My mind kept turning. This guy has definitely run full background checks on every single one of my ex-boyfriends. I had a wild phase, left plenty of reckless mistakes in my wake. If he was going to lose his mind over my past, there was nothing I could do about it.

"I don't want you contacting any of them ever again." Silas's harsh demand cut straight through my thoughts.

I turned my head. His expression was dead serious, his eyes dark and unyielding. I reached out, my perfectly manicured nails lightly scratching the inside of his wrist. "Are you giving me an order?"

His entire body seized up instantly. His breathing turned incredibly shallow as panic flashed across his features.

He jerked his gaze away, the fierce demand crumbling into raw desperation. "I just if you have to contact them, just tell me first. Otherwise I"

"I get it." I cut him off, keeping my voice steady. "I won't contact them."

I tilted my head, watching his jaw muscle jump. "So, you tore this room apart just because of my exes?"

Silas didn't say a single word.

Chapter 7

I let out a frustrated breath. "If something is bothering you, just tell me. Dealing with this is exhausting. You shut me out, throw a tantrum over absolutely nothing, and trash the room. I don't even know how to begin talking you down from the ledge"

"So all your exes handled it better than I do, right?" Silas suddenly cut me off. The whites of his eyes were spider-webbed with red, his massive chest heaving erratically as he scrambled for footing.

How the hell did we even get here? I had genuinely come to have a rational conversation. I straightened my posture, looking down at him.

"If my past bothers you, that's your problem. Dating a few guys isn't a federal crime. It's in the past. Why are you digging your nails into it? Silas, interrogating me about thisdoes it actually make you feel good? Fine. You want the truth? Yes, I dated them. And when I did, I was genuinely into them. Did hearing that give you the thrill you were looking for?"

The red rimming Silas's eyes deepened, glittering with a panicked, unshed moisture. Seeing me stand up, he scrambled to his feet to grab my wrist, but I smoothly brushed his hand away.

Looking down at his desperate expression, I dropped the temperature of my voice. "You're clearly miserable around me, and you're literally tearing yourself apart. Silas, maybe we should just call off the wedding."

"No." Silas stared at me, pure stubbornness burning through his bloodshot eyes. His fingers clamped down hard on my forearm, like a vice. "No. The wedding is happening."

"So tell me," I demanded softly. "Why exactly do you want to marry me?"

I flipped the dynamic, forcefully backing him up until his thighs hit the edge of the heavy desk. I planted both my hands flat on the polished wood on either side of his hips, trapping him completely. I hovered over him, staring down, sealing off every single escape route.

Silas's eyes flickered with panic. He instinctively tried to turn his head away, but I caught his jaw in a firm, unrelenting grip.

"Tell me, Silas. Darling, tell me." I refused to break eye contact. "I'm not going to play the clueless bride while you keep me in the dark."

His thick eyelashes trembled. His voice dropped to a barely audible whisper. "I want to marry you."

"Why do you want to marry me?"

The unshed tears pooling in his eyes finally spilled over, tracing down his sharp cheekbones. He stared at me with pure desperation, the words trapped in his throat.

I said it for him. "You're in love with me, aren't you?"

"You idiot. Why couldn't you just say that?"

I lightly stroked his cheek, preparing to push off the desk and give him space. But the second I moved, his hands clamped down on my hips, violently dragging me forward until I was trapped against him. The obedient, pathetic facade ripped completely open. He buried his face into the curve of my neck, his broad shoulders trembling as a broken sob tore out of his chest.

"It's repulsive, isn't it?" he choked out against my skin. "Someone as sick and disgusting as me being obsessed with you it makes you sick, doesn't it?"

I stared blankly ahead, utterly paralyzed by his words.

What the hell was going through his head? Repulsive? Sick? Did he not know he literally topped every single 'Most Eligible Billionaires' list on the internet? How could a man with this much absolute power harbor this kind of catastrophic self-loathing?

Through the cracks of his broken confession, I finally caught a terrifying glimpse of the abyss hiding inside him.

Chapter 8

I cupped his jaw, my fingers pressing slightly into his skin to force his head up, and used my thumbs to wipe the dampness from his sharp cheekbones. "When my friends found out I was marrying you, they were practically green with envy. They said I must have saved a nation in my past life to land you. So why exactly do you think it's some humiliating secret?"

He didn't answer. He just buried his face back into the crook of my neck, letting out a shuddering breath. But the crying stopped.

I rubbed slow, soothing circles into his broad back, letting out a soft sigh. "Darling, can you please have just a fraction of an ounce of confidence in yourself?"

"You own a thirty-two-story skyscraper. Every executive in this city bows their head and calls you boss. You're absolutely gorgeous. Is it really that shocking that I might actually fall for you?"

Silas went completely rigid against me. His voice was a raw, disbelieving whisper against my collarbone. "You you like me?"

"What else would this be?" I fired back, though I kept my tone light. "You think a girl just shows up to your office every single day because she's bored out of her mind?"

I kept my hand moving rhythmically against his spine, my voice dropping into something softer, warmer. "Darling, women don't waste this kind of time on men they aren't interested in. You need to own who you are. You're incredible. We are going to be incredible together. Just trust me."

The dam broke again.

I felt the sudden, scalding heat of fresh tears soaking straight through the silk of my collar, burning against my skin.

"Don't lie to me," he choked out.

"I'm not." My chest tightened, a strange, overwhelming softness flooding through my veins as I gently traced the shell of his ear, feeling the frantic, hammering rhythm of his heart pounding against my own.

Maybe it was just the sheer novelty of it all. None of my exes had ever been anything like him. Beneath the ruthless billionaire exterior, Silas's core was terrifyingly fragile. A single word, a fleeting look, or a slight shift in my attitude was enough to completely shatter him. It was a fatal flaw that had no business existing in the apex predator of the corporate world, yet here we were. The absurdity of it was undeniable.

He finally pulled away and stood up, his movements stiff and incredibly awkward. His cheeks were flushed a deep, violent crimson, even as his facial muscles desperately tried to lock back into his signature icy glare. He looked down at me, his voice rough. "Are you hungry?"

"A little." I stood up, smoothing down the front of my thoroughly rumpled blouse and tugging the hem down to cover the strip of bare skin at my waist.

Silas immediately jerked his gaze away, the flush creeping all the way to the tips of his ears. It was almost painful to watch. Was he seriously this pure? The guy was pushing thirtysurely he couldn't still be a virgin?

I swallowed my wild theories and gave him a lazy stretch. "Have your assistant order something up. I have zero energy to move right now."

"Fine."

As Silas stepped out of the lounge to give the order, I leaned back and admired his silhouette against the frosted glass. I mentally traced the absurd length of his legs and the broad sweep of his shoulders, realizing all over again that his physical proportions were practically a cheat code. Drop-dead gorgeous, filthy rich, and fiercely loyal. Honestly, if it weren't for his crippling psychological baggage, a man like this would have never fallen into my lap. I let out a slow exhale.

A massive chunk of Silas's mental instability stemmed from severe insomnia. His assistant had confessed to me earlierlooking completely mortifiedthat for countless nights, the only way Silas could actually sleep was by clutching my photographs to his chest. I hadn't pushed to ask exactly how he acquired those photos, which visibly spared the assistant a heart attack.

When Silas finally returned to his desk, I curled up on the sofa and unabashedly watched him work. It didn't take long for the tips of his ears to burn red again. The ruthless CEO was visibly losing his focus.

He finally dropped his silver pen onto the files and looked up. "Am I really that interesting to look at?"

I nodded reflexively, before it suddenly hit me why I had actually come to his office in the first place.

Chapter 9

"Can I go see the estate? The one you prepped for the wedding?"

Silas paused. "Why the sudden interest in going there?"

"I just want to see it. It's going to be my home too, isn't it?"

He never denied me anything. He simply nodded. "If you see anything you want changed, just say the word."

Stepping into the grand foyer of the sprawling estate for the second time, a sudden tightness gripped my throat, and the edges of my vision blurred. The space was drenched in light, with golden afternoon sun rays slanting through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, wrapping around me in a comforting, steady heat. It was worlds away from the suffocating, ice-cold tomb I had walked into in my past lifea place that made every instinct scream to run.

My gaze flicked discreetly toward the heavy, locked mahogany door at the far right of the second-floor landing. I knew exactly what was entombed behind it: a shrine of my photographs and meticulously painted oils, capturing every angle of my face right down to the tiny, dark beauty mark beneath the corner of my eye.

I followed Silas into the master suite in silence.

The massive four-poster bed was draped in extravagant crimson silk, the mattress blanketed in a suffocating layer of deep red rose petalsa painfully obvious, over-the-top display of his obsession with our impending wedding.

Standing at the edge of the mattress, a strange cocktail of amusement and an overwhelming urge to cry hitched in my chest. I reached out, tugging gently on his suit sleeve. "Do you really want to marry me this badly?"

"Yes." His Adam's apple bobbed. "Is it too much? Do you hate it?"

"No. It's perfect." I pulled him down by the wrist until we were both sitting on the edge of the mattress. "When did you start putting all this together?"

"Over the last few days."

He immediately offered his large hand, completely surrendering his long fingers for me to trace and massage, undeniably tame. After my complaints, he had stopped slicking his hair back with stiff product. The dark strands fell softly across his forehead, dulling his razor-sharp corporate edge and leaving him looking unexpectedly boyish in the golden light.

Just one wall away was the exact spot where he had slashed his wrists in my previous life, his blood soaking deep into the floorboards. But right now, his thick arms were wrapped securely around my waist, his heavy chin resting comfortably on the top of my head. The raw tension had bled out of his muscles, leaving him looking thoroughly satisfiedlike a lethal, apex predator that had finally eaten its fill and was now lazily sunbathing in the grass.

Had I actually managed to rewrite his fate?

The wedding date was closing in fast. I spent every single day at his corporate headquarters, staying late into the night until my father started complaining that I had practically moved in before the vows were even exchanged.

But Silas thrived on it. He actually started finishing his meals, packing some solid muscle back onto his frame, the gaunt, sharp angles of his knuckles softening slightly.

I was walking out of my building to head to his office when I saw Maxwell standing by the curb.

Before I could even register his presence, he lunged forward, his hand clamping down aggressively on my forearm. "You're completely brainwashed by him. I'm getting you out of here. We're flying to Europe."

"Are you out of your goddamn mind?" I violently ripped my arm out of his grip.

"Call me crazy all you want, but I am not letting you destroy yourself!" Maxwell ground his teeth. "You don't even love him, Sloane! You're just chasing a thrill. You can't just throw your entire life away on a whim!"

"What I feel for him is absolutely none of your business." I stared him down, my voice dropping to sub-zero. "Don't you think you're massively overstepping your boundaries here?"

Maxwell's bloodshot eyes widened, a wave of pure, absolute devastation crashing over his features. The fight completely drained out of his posture, leaving him hollowed out. His voice cracked into a pathetic, desperate beg.

"Marry me instead. Sloane, please. You can't just throw me away like this"

He looked like he had been dragged through hell. His usually immaculate designer suit was severely wrinkled, hanging off his frame as he stared at me, practically begging for a scrap of pity.

Staring at his ruined state, the words my best friend had whispered to me at Maxwell's wedding in my past life echoed sharply in my skull.

If you had been the one to get married first, he would have lost his absolute mind. All that bullshit about falling in love at first sight with a sweet, innocent girl? It doesn't hold a candle to his obsession with you. He only played the field so recklessly because he knew you had zero interest in dating. As long as he was the only male friend in your life, he felt invincible

Chapter 10

"Maxwell." The name sat heavy on my tongue. I reached out and casually brushed a speck of dust off his tailored shoulder. "Go home. I'm going to pretend this conversation never happened."

I held his gaze, my expression completely flat. "I'm getting married. Watch your boundaries from now on, or people are going to start talking, and I won't be the one cleaning up your mess."

He just stared at me in horror, the tears finally spilling over his lashes. "Is there really no going back?" he whispered, his voice trembling. "Just because I missed my window by a fraction of a second, I lose you forever?"

"We're friends." I threw the exact same words he had used in my past life right back in his face. "And if you can manage to keep yourself in check, we can be friends for the rest of our lives."

When I pushed open the heavy mahogany doors to the penthouse office, the air inside was thick enough to choke on. Silas was sitting dead center on the leather sofa, radiating pure, suffocating tension.

"Why are you so late?"

"Ran into an old friend downstairs. We talked for a minute." I dropped the box of pastries I brought him onto the glass table, turning back to see his features carved from stone. "What's wrong with you?"

Silas looked up at me, his dark eyes flashing with a strange, almost petulant grievance. "How was your chat with Maxwell?"

"How did you kn" I started to ask, but immediately snapped my mouth shut. Considering the army of security he had shadowing my every move, the question was pointless.

I decided to just hand him the raw truth. "He showed up and asked me to run away with him."

A lethal, murderous shadow instantly dropped over Silas's face.

I stepped right into his space, resting my hand lightly on his broad shoulder and leaning my weight against him. "But I completely shot him down," I drawled lazily. "Told him I wanted to stay right here with you."

Silas's jaw unclenched slightly. "Oh."

"That's it? No praise?" I pinched his bicep, tossing him a dramatically offended pout. "I literally just pledged my absolute loyalty to you right to another man's face, and you give me absolutely nothing?"

His Adam's apple jumped. He stared at me, completely at a loss, his rigid posture betraying his absolute cluelessness. After a long, agonizing beat of silence, he abruptly stood up, strode over to his desk, and pulled a velvet box from the top drawer.

He flipped it open. Inside rested a massive, flawless blue diamond necklace.

My breath caught. "Is that the one from the Sotheby's auction?"

"Yes."

A sharp laugh escaped my lips. The necklace was stunning, an absolute masterpiece, but Silas had dropped three hundred million dollars to secure it. The financial tabloids had spent an entire week mocking him, slapping his face on articles crowning him 'The $300 Million Sucker'.

"Why on earth did you buy this?"

"You like blue." He dropped his gaze, his voice a low rumble. "I thought it would suit you."

"Thank you, darling." I wrapped my arms around his neck, pressing my cheek warmly against his. "But that auction was two months ago. Why give it to me right now?"

"You were upset today," he murmured against my hair. "I was originally saving it for your birthday, but I wanted to fix it. I want you to be happy now."

"When was I ups" The realization hit me. I bit my lip to swallow another laugh. The ruthless corporate predator literally couldn't tell the difference between actual anger and a girl playfully pouting for attention.

I poked his sharp cheekbone. "I wasn't mad, Silas. Really. But I absolutely love it." I pulled back just enough to look into his eyes. "Darling, I'm genuinely falling more for you every single day."

A dark flush swept violently across his cheekbones. He grabbed my waist, pulling me firmly onto his lap, and pressed a terrifyingly gentle kiss against my forehead.

Honestly, aside from that one explosive breakdown in his office, I couldn't even see the edges of his illness. When it came to me, he just seemed like a normal, devastatingly handsome guy who was painfully slow at picking up on romantic cues.

But the terrified warnings from his assistant continued to echo loudly in the back of my mind. Don't trigger him.

Chapter 11

I couldn't help but ask, "Has his condition actually gotten worse lately?"

"No," the assistant stammered. "The boss's mood has drastically improved. He doesn't even need the sleeping pills at night anymore."

"Then why do you keep hovering over me like the grim reaper?"

"He's only stabilizing because you're here. If you get bored and walk away, the fallout will be catastrophic." He looked at me, pure desperation in his eyes. "I don't know what your motives are for staying with him, but please, I'm begging you. Do not just leave him on a whim. The boss will completely lose his mind."

And he'll die. I finished the sentence in my head.

I reached out and patted his shoulder. "Relax. I care about him more than you do."

I wasn't playing savior, and I certainly wasn't a licensed psychiatrist. I was just doing the absolute best I could to keep Silas from drowning in his own darkness. I just wanted him to be a little happier. If his mind was at peace, the rest of the pieces would naturally fall into place.

So when Silas's father unexpectedly tracked me down, it threw me for a loop. Up until that moment, I hadn't heard a single whisper about his family. The man hailed from the capital. He wore the same caliber of bespoke suit and shared the exact same razor-sharp bone structure as Silas, but the aura radiating off him was entirely different. It was dark, insidious, and honestly, it made my skin crawl.

He didn't even bother with pleasantries. He sat down and fired straight at me. "Ms. Sloane, I want you to leave my son."

The sheer clich of it almost made me laugh. I picked up my porcelain teacup, took a slow sip, and met his gaze dead-on. "And exactly how much are you offering to pay me?"

"Two hundred million. More than enough to pull your family out of their current financial crisis."

I paused. I didn't even know my family was in a crisis.

I studied him for a long, flat second before slicing right through his arrogance. "If you're going to try and throw money at me, you might want to appraise my family's assets first. A single necklace Silas bought me on a whim cost three hundred million. Your little allowance isn't even enough to get me to leave this table."

He let out a dark, scoffing laugh. "You actually think staying by his side is a fairy tale?" He sneered, leaning forward. "You haven't been in touch with any of your ex-boyfriends lately, have you? Why don't you go ask around and see how many of them are still breathing? And Maxwell? You really think Silas is going to let him slide? Even your brotherdo you honestly believe sharing your blood makes him safe? I guarantee you, Silas will tear him apart too. Your great romance is built on the absolute ruin of everyone around you. He's playing you for a fool, keeping you in the dark. Isn't that hilarious?"

My brows pulled tight, pure disgust settling heavy in my chest. "I trust Silas. He's not that kind of monster."

"Isn't he? Why don't you do a little digging and find out?" He smiled, utterly dripping with arrogant confidence.

"They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. The exact same methods I used to break his mother? He's going to use them on you, piece by piece. Just wait