The last thing Ariana remembered was the taste of her own blood, metallic and warm on her tongue. Through a hazy veil of fading consciousness, she heard his voice, as cold and final as a tombstone.
"Dispose of her."
Damien Black. The man she'd loved. The man who'd just ordered her death.
Then, she woke with a gasp, choking on air she shouldn't be able to breathe.
This wasn't the cold, sterile floor of a morgue. It was her childhood bed, in the suffocating house she had escaped a year ago. A quick glance at her phone confirmed the impossible date. She was one year in the past, months before the betrayals began, before her life was systematically dismantled.
She was reborn.
Her hands trembled, but not from fear. It was rage, pure and glacial. A fire lit in her soul, burning away the helpless girl she used to be. There would be no tears. No wasted time. Only vengeance.
Within the hour, she was gone. She walked out of her family's oppressive mansion without a backward glance, leaving behind the people who had sold her out for a pittance. She took a taxi straight into the heart of the city, its chrome and glass towers scraping the sky. Her destination was the tallest of them all: Blackwood Tower.
The receptionist in the marble lobby looked down her nose. "Mr. Black's schedule is full. Do you have an appointment?"
"No," Ariana said, her voice calm and steady. "But you'll tell him Ariana Lin is here to see him. It's urgent."
Something in her icy demeanor must have worked. Minutes later, she was being escorted into a silent, glass-walled boardroom on the top floor.
And there he was.
Damien Black sat at the head of a long, imposing table, surrounded by his board of directors. He was exactly as she remembered—impossibly handsome, impeccably dressed in a suit that cost more than her life had been worth, and radiating an aura of absolute power.
He looked up, and his dark eyes widened almost imperceptibly as they landed on her. For a split second, she saw a flicker of something she couldn't name—shock, confusion, something deeper.
Ariana walked forward until she stood at the opposite end of the table, meeting his gaze without flinching. The board members stared, whispering amongst themselves.
"Miss Lin," Damien said, his voice a low, dangerous purr that vibrated through the silent room. "This is an unexpected surprise."
"I have a proposal for you, Mr. Black," she announced, her voice ringing with unshakable confidence.
He raised a single, perfect eyebrow. "Go on."
She took a deep breath.
"Marry me."
The room fell dead silent. The board members froze, their faces a comical tableau of shock. Why would the daughter of a disgraced family, a nobody, make such an audacious demand of the most powerful man in the city? Why would she propose to the very man who, in another life, had orchestrated her end?
Damien stared at her, his expression unreadable. The silence stretched, thick and heavy. Then, a slow, chilling smirk spread across his lips. It didn't reach his eyes.
He leaned forward, his voice low enough for only her to hear, yet it carried the weight of a death sentence.
"I buried you once, Miss Lin," he whispered. "Why would I marry a ghost?"