Chapter 1
“The day the Blackwoods came, I discovered my husband of six years was actually the lost heir to a New York dynasty–an amnesi-
ac prince.
Upon reclaiming his throne, his first act was discarding me. Damian Blackwood stood on his marble steps, icy gaze dismissing me. His “amnesia“” had returned, erasing all memory of me.
Now engaged to Seraphina Winter–his social equal–he declared me a nobody. His mother, Eleanor, threw a $10M check at my feet, demanding I vanish.
In my past life, I’d been a fool, clinging to hope he’d remember me–and our son. But I was just an obstacle. He locked me in an asylum, where Bruno, my own child, betrayed me.
Reborn, I took the check. “I’ll leave in three days,“” I told Eleanor. ““Just book my flight.”
This time, I’d live for myself.
RI
At my words, Eleanor’s lip curled in disgust. “You clung to him for a month after his memory lapsed. I almost thought you genuinely cared for him.” Her eyes narrowed. “Turns out it was all just an act. A grimy little gold–digger, through and through.”
Everyone who knew us knew I loved Damian to the point of self–destruction. Even after he’d forgotten me, I’d stayed, clinging to the hope of a future.
……………….
But in my last life, I learned the truth just before I died. Both times Damian lost his memory, it was a lie. The first time, he used me to survive. The second, he used it to discard me so he could be with his childhood sweetheart, Seraphina. When I became an inco- nvenience, he had me committed and killed.
I offered no explanation. I just looked his mother in the eye. ““I’ll be gone in three days. There’s no need to tell Damian.”
He had once told me I was a stain on his life. A stain that should be erased without a sound.
Eleanor snorted, warning me to vanish on schedule.
With the deal struck, I went to my room and opened my laptop, pulling up the application portal for UCL in London. I’d been accept- ed years ago but had to drop out. After finding Damian, I’d moved back to my small town and opened a diner to support him, our son, and our life together. He was the “amnesiac,” so the entire burden–financial and emotional–fell on my shoulders. I worked twenty–hour days, a ghost in my own life.
When we were brought to the Blackwood mansion, he’d recoiled from the faint smell of cooking oil that clung to my clothes. He had thirty air purifiers installed. “You small–town girls,“” he’d sneered in front of his family, ““even the air around you is dirty.“” He forbade me from eating at the same table, banishing me to the kitchen like a servant.
This time, I would never again sacrifice my life for anyone.
2
