His Fortune, Not Mine

The day Adrian Knight clinched a contract with our biggest client, I "accidentally" tipped a bottle of ink across the paperwork, voiding it on the spot.

Because of that single blot, the project landed in Alex Lewis’s lap, and he won Chairman Henry Carter’s favor almost overnight, moving into the Carter mansion as their future son-in-law and watching his net worth rocket into eight figures.

Adrian never blamed me. He just laughed that he’d never been executive material anyway and happily brought me home as his bride.

Everyone whispered that, if not for my meddling, Adrian would already be sitting in the Carter family’s executive suite instead of scraping by in an ordinary life with me. Only I knew the truth: stopping him from signing that contract had saved his life.

When Adrian learned I was pregnant, he locked me in the basement, fingers digging into my throat.

"If it hadn’t been for you," he snarled, "I’d be Henry Carter’s son-in-law by now. You’re the reason I lost Rachel, the princess of the Carter family."

That’s when I realized he’d been nursing this grudge for years.

After he killed me, I woke up, reborn on the very day Adrian first reached for that fatal contract.

This time, I’ll make sure Adrian Knight gets exactly what he wants.

In my past life, I tried to stop Adrian Knight from becoming the Carter family’s son-in-law, and he tortured me to death for it.

Now that I’ve been reborn, I no longer wanted to interfere. This time, I’d make sure Adrian paid the price he truly deserved.

…

In a lavish private suite, Adrian proudly scrawled his signature across the contract.

"Here’s to a successful partnership." He beamed, shaking hands with the client as his face glowed with flattery.

The client smiled faintly with an expression that was hard to read. "Mr. Knight, you’re quite the polished young man. I’m sure this collaboration will win you a promotion from the chairman."

Sure enough, the very next day, Chairman Henry Carter held a company-wide awards ceremony to celebrate the project.

Adrian stood proudly on the stage, grinning from ear to ear.

From her front-row seat, Rachel Carter locked eyes with Adrian, and in that moment, her gaze sparkled. It wasn’t affection in her eyes. It was the cold gleam of a hunter who had just marked her prey.

She leaned her head toward me and whispered softly, "Summer Lane, what do you think of that man?"

I pretended to ponder. "He’s handsome enough. And to have achieved this much at such a young age, he clearly has a bright future ahead of him."

Rachel giggled and gave me a playful tap on the arm. "Do you have anyone you like? If not, I could introduce you to someone. I know plenty of tall, dark, and handsome men."

I glanced back at the crowded room. Amid the noise and chatter, only Alex Lewis sat silently.

However, only I knew the truth.

The contract Adrian had just signed wasn’t some high-profile corporate partnership; it was an organ donation agreement. He had been so blinded by dreams of promotions and raises that he never even read the fine print. He signed it carelessly, thinking he’d just sealed the biggest deal of his career.

The Carters didn’t just have Rachel. They had a comatose eldest son, Benjamin Carter, who needed a heart transplant.

In our previous life, it had been Alex who unknowingly signed that contract, and the Carters had set their sights on him.

To secure a healthy heart, the Carters had manipulated everything. They lured Alex into becoming Rachel’s husband and kept him tethered to them. Every day, they fed him a formula that funneled nutrients straight to his heart while the rest of his organs withered away.

When the time was right, they staged a fake car accident to cover their tracks, making the world believe Alex died in the crash, when in fact, he had been strapped to an operating table and had his heart cut out.

It was a transaction of life and death, completely unbeknownst to its victim.

Now, Adrian clutched that same contract like it was a golden ticket.

This "partnership" was the result of a secret arrangement between the Carters and a pharmaceutical company, designed specifically to find a disposable substitute.

In the last life, Alex had worked day and night to land the deal without realizing it would cost him his life.

However, this time, everything was different.

The night before the client meeting, Alex had handed his project proposal over to Adrian, giving him the spotlight. No one suspected a thing. He must have understood the anonymous message I sent him. He wasn’t going to sign anything, not after what I told him.

Back onstage, Chairman Carter looked at Adrian with satisfaction and nodded. "Very impressive. Young and capable. Tell me, Adrian, do you have a girlfriend?"

Adrian flicked a glance toward me, then turned away and smiled politely at the chairman. "I’ve been focused on work. I haven’t had time to think about relationships."

The chairman took his hand in a firm shake, his voice suddenly serious. "Then, let me entrust you with my one and only daughter. What do you say?"

A gasp rippled through the crowd.

No one had expected that landing this deal would make Adrian the Carter family’s future son-in-law. Competitors clenched their teeth in envy.