In my previous life, I was betrothed to my childhood sweetheart, Zachary York, yet he fell for our junior, Tracy Graham, and planned to elope with her.

I told his parents of their plan and asked for canceling our engagement. Yet, under their "persuasion", I lay with Zachary while he was unconscious from the drug's effects.

That very night, Tracy, who had waited for him at the station, was murdered by a vagrant.

I thought Zachary would rage against me. However, he merely said everyone was tied to their own destiny. He even proposed marriage to me at once.

I was ecstatic, but on the night I had longed for most, he shoved me into a room filled with men.

I begged him desperately to let me go, but his face twisted with hatred. "You should taste the suffering that Trace endured. If not for your jealousy, she would be my bride now!"

In the end, I was brutalized to death. Because of Zachary, I was marked as the vilest woman in Riveria, denied even a shred of honor after death.

Reborn, I wake to find myself on the very day of their planned elopement.

This time, I'm not exposing their plan to elope. I'll even lend them a helping hand.

"Yvonne Lawson! What did you do to me?"

I opened my eyes and saw my childhood sweetheart, Zachary York, stumbling to his feet at the side of the bed. His cheeks were flushed.

The scene was hauntingly familiar.

That was when I realized I had been reborn. This was the very day Zachary and his first love were supposed to elope.

In everyone's eyes, Zachary and I were childhood sweethearts, destined to be together. For the ten years we had known each other, he had always treated himself as my fiance.

That was until the day I came of age, when he told me he had found the lady he loved. To him, I had only ever been like a sister.

"Yvonne, this time I won't lay a finger on you. I won't miss Trace again! I've already called her over. Get out!"

I met Zachary's cold, resentful gaze and felt my heart skip a beat. Could it be that he had been reborn, too?

In my previous life, I chose to let Zachary go when I learned he planned to elope with Tracy Graham. I even proposed to break off the engagement with the York family.

On the day Zachary was meant to elope, he was trapped at home. His parents drugged him and sent him into my room.

The next day, news spread that a homeless man had killed Tracy.

Zachary had spent the entire night in his room. In the end, he only said, "Everyone has their fate."

I thought he had let go, so I agreed to marry him.

However, on our wedding night, he drugged me and sent me into a room filled with homeless men.

Only then did I understand that Zachary had been holding back for months. He had only been waiting to push me into hell at the moment I should've been happiest.

Even after I was tortured to death, he wasn't satisfied. He spread the photos of my suffering all over Riveria.

After my death, I became known to all as a scandalous woman. On the other hand, Zachary inherited my fortune and became the wealthiest man in Riveria.

My soul lingered on the edge of the living world for my last moment.

That was when I saw Tracy return in style, accompanied by two children. As it turned out, she had never died. She had taken Zachary's parents' money and gone abroad to nurse her pregnancy.

Seeing them happy as a family of six, I finally understood—I had been nothing but a fool.

Given this second chance at life, I resolved never to have anything to do with the York family again.

With that in mind, I pulled out a condom and tossed it at Zachary's feet.

"This is from your mother. I'm returning it to its rightful owner. Enjoy your night."

I turned and walked away under Zachary's furious gaze.

Just then, I nearly collided with Tracy, who came hurrying in.

As we brushed past each other, she uttered triumphantly, "Yvonne, no matter how tightly you cling to it, you'll still have to let go of what isn't yours!"

With that, she threw herself into Zachary's arms. He caught her without faltering, then looked up at me and kissed the woman in his embrace passionately.

I thought back to the past. Zachary had disregarded my feelings and brought Tracy along to parties with our friends. Despite being furious at his fickleness, I followed along.

At one gathering, he lost a game and was told to kiss one of the girls. Under everyone's eyes, he walked up and stopped beside me.

But just as my heart began to pound, he mocked me coldly, "Yvonne, you didn't think I was going to kiss you, did you?"

That day, he held Tracy as he kissed her with exaggerated fervor, just as he was doing now.

Seeing it again now, I realized I no longer felt a ripple inside. Soon, I left the York residence and spent the night at a hotel.

The next morning, Zachary woke me up with a call. He barked an order, telling me to bring them breakfast and birth control pills.

I hung up on him at once.

That afternoon, I returned to the York residence to pack my things.

Zachary was eating in a robe at the dining table. His chest was bare, marked all over with scratches. I didn't need to guess how their night had gone.

Without a word, I walked toward the stairs.

Suddenly, a glass shattered at my feet.

Zachary's breath grew heavy as he sneered. "Where are your manners? Don't you think you should greet someone when you see them?"

"Someone with manners wouldn't be hurling glasses for no reason," I shot back in a calm tone. "If you have nothing else to say, I'll be going. I need to pack, and I don't want to waste time."

"Pack? Where are you going?" Zachary shot to his feet, and something dark flickered across his face. "Yvonne, will you never grow up? Are you trying to threaten me by running away from home? Well, too bad! I'm not falling for it!

"I let your little stunt with the drug slide for my parents' sake. All you have to do is go tell them you want the engagement annulled."

Zachary's temper often swung to extremes, and his judgments followed.

In my previous life, I had feared he wouldn't be able to take it if he learned it was his parents who had set him up. So, when he misunderstood me, I stayed silent.

But this time, I would not.

"I don't need you to let it slide. I never drugged you in the first place."

Right then, a scream rang out from upstairs.

Tracy stood in the hallway, wrapped in a towel and holding a bundle of cloth with wide, innocent eyes. "Zach, what should I do? I've ruined Yve's dress."

My gaze fell on the fabric. Recognition struck, and fury consumed me. It was the only dress my mother had left me.

I rushed up and snatched it. "Taking what isn't yours is stealing, Tracy. Do you like being a thief so much?"

Zachary's face darkened, and he shoved me aside. "Yvonne, must you be so mean with your words? It's just an old dress. So what if she wore it? Who said you could throw a tantrum at Trace?"

I barely caught myself on the railing.

As I looked down at the shredded dress in my hands, my eyes ached with unshed tears.

This was no accident. Tracy had ruined the dress on purpose.

"It's not just an old dress… My mom—"

Zachary narrowed his eyes and scoffed. "Again with your mother? Yvonne, your mother is dead. Do you think she'd want to be dragged into your mess from the grave?

"You drugged me because you wanted me to do it with you and because you're jealous of Trace. I'll buy you ten identical dresses. Now, apologize to her."

Tracy's eyes reddened, her voice soft and pitiful. "Don't be mad, Yve. Zach tore my dress last night, so I just grabbed one at random just now."

Zachary held her close and snorted. "You don't have to apologize to someone like her!"

I looked at him, so righteous in his cruelty, and sorrow surged through me.

I met him at a banquet when I was eight.

There, another child snatched away the candy I had treasured, and it was Zachary who appeared out of nowhere and got it back for me. He then called me foolish and taught me that if someone took something from me, I should snatch it back.

Later, when he saw me crying so pitifully, he patted his chest and promised, "Don't worry. From now on, as long as I'm here, no one will dare take your things."

From eight to 18, Zachary had kept that promise.

Now, however, he had become the thief himself, the one who bullied me.

I said nothing more. I folded the ruined dress with steady hands.

Zachary still stood tall and unyielding before me.

I looked him in the eye and uttered calmly, "Tell your parents to come back soon. It's time we talked about ending our engagement."

After that day, I never went back to the York residence. I checked into a hotel and waited for Zachary's parents to return so we could dissolve the engagement.

But instead of them, a phone call came first.

"Yve, how could you throw away such a perfect chance? As soon as you and Zach get into bed together, you'll be my daughter-in-law for sure!" Zachary's mother, Josephine Brown, uttered in a sharp voice that screeched through the speaker and grated on my ears.

Having been reborn, I finally understood that their kindness toward me had never been genuine.

Every time I wanted to give up on Zachary, his parents would go on and on about the sweet memories we shared. They would retell, again and again, how he had risked his life to save me when I was once kidnapped.

And because of that rescue, our engagement had been set.

When the York family was on the brink of collapse, it was my family, the Lawson family, who stepped in and saved them from ruin.

But now, hearing Josephine say such ridiculous words, I only found it laughable.

My parents died in a car accident when I was 15. Zachary's parents then used their friendship with them as an excuse to invite me to live with them.

I had my own room in the York residence, and the dining table was always filled with the dishes I liked. Even my closet was mostly filled with clothes that Josephine had picked out for me.

In my previous life, I basked in that care, thinking Zachary's parents regarded me as one of their own.

But looking back now, I could only see how fake it all was. No decent family would ever send their daughter to another man's bed.

I cut her off and spoke my mind. "Mrs. York, I'm willing to step aside for Zachary and Tracy. When you and Mr. York return, let's discuss dissolving the engagement."

With that, I hung up and began contacting the company representatives.

Zachary's father, David York, had no talent in business. Every project he touched failed. All these years, it was only because of my family's support that the York family managed to stay afloat.

Now, it was time to put a stop to this one-way support.

That night, I got a call from one of Zachary's friends. I picked it up without thinking.

On the other end, Zachary's drunken voice slurred with arrogance, just as always.

"Yvonne, where the hell are you? I called you dozens of times, and you never once picked up. All this, over a tiny matter? I forgive you for drugging me, and Trace doesn't even hold it against you for pushing her. Now get over here to our spot, or I'm going to be drowned in drinks by these idiots!"

I couldn't understand why Zachary spoke as if everything were his due. He had clearly also been reborn, but it seemed as though he had forgotten all the wounds he had once carved into me.

After thinking it over, I found only one explanation—shameless and despicable people were truly invincible.

I didn't respond to him on the phone, simply hanging up and blocking the number.

Even so, news of him continued to reach me. Friends, not knowing we had broken apart, filled my inbox with complaints.

One of them told me Zachary and Tracy had rented out the entire amusement park for a date. He had spent 50 million dollars on fireworks by the river, lighting up the night for Tracy. They even stayed on a mountaintop until sunrise, sharing pictures on Instagram to parade their romance.

I stared in silence at the photos our friends sent me.

Could Zachary have forgotten that I had once done every one of those things in those photos with him? If he wanted to disgust me so much, how could he not feel the same?

I closed all the chat boxes without sending a single reply.

It didn't matter. In just a few days, he and I would be completely done with each other.