Part 1Reborn to Refuse the Billionaire's Ring

My sister and I were introduced to the two Whitmore brothers on the very same evening. By the end of dinner, both families had agreed it was a match made in heaven.

On our wedding night, Zachary Whitmore took one look at my face and froze.

"Why is it you?" he whispered, his voice cracking like dry timber. "The girl I’ve been texting every night for six months... why is it you?"

It turned out he had wanted my older sister, Brooke. A switched business card, a misdirected number saved in his contacts, a fatal mix-up.

By then, the paperwork had already been signed. Garrett Whitmore, the golden-boy heir, had married Brooke. Zachary, the restless younger brother, had married me. The ink was dry, the press releases had run in the society pages, and in our families' world, an annulment was out of the question.

For the next two years, Brooke and Garrett played the part of the radiant, gilded power couple.

Zachary and I lived in a walk-in freezer.

He despised everything about me. He called me drab, morbid, and hopelessly dull, constantly holding me up against Brooke’s effortless, sunlit charm. Once, when a bronchial fever spiked my temperature to a delirious hundred and four degrees, I dialed his cell, shivering so hard the phone rattled against my teeth. He told me he was at Symphony Hall with Brooke and Garrett, and that if I was dying, I should just call an Uber to urgent care.

In the end, I died during a brutal February blizzard, swallowed whole by the pitch-black trench of clinical depression.

When I opened my eyes again, I was twenty-two, sitting at the polished mahogany table of the private dining club where our two families had gathered to formalize the double engagement.

Brooke was leaning toward me, her eyes shining with manicured sweetness. "Won't it be wonderful, Paige? Two sisters under the same roof. We'll always have each other's backs."

I looked across the table at the man who had driven me into the grave in another life.

I stood up, smoothed my linen napkin, and smiled.

"I won't be getting married."

My mother’s rehearsed smile shattered across her face, her eyes bulging. "Paige! What kind of nonsense are you spewing? Have you lost your mind?"

My father’s expression turned thunderous. "Sit down. Now. You don't interrupt when the adults are speaking."

Zachary’s parents looked on in stunned silence.

Only Zachary himself reacted differently. For a fraction of a second, his face went slack with shock—and then, unmistakable relief washed over his features.

"Mr. and Mrs. Whitmore, Mom, Dad," I said, drawing a slow, steady breath into lungs that had once given out on me. "I mean exactly what I said. I have zero feelings for Zach. The Whitmore family is far out of my league, and I have no interest in pretending otherwise. Let's call this off before it starts."

"Paige, you have completely lost your damn mind!" my mother hissed.

The dinner dissolved into pure, chaotic humiliation.

The second the front door of our home slammed shut behind us, my mother didn't even bother dropping her clutch. She rounded on me, spit flying from her lips.

"Do you have any idea who the Whitmores are? That was Zachary! The matriarch’s favorite! Do you know how many favors your father had to call in, how many palms he had to grease just to get us a seat at that table? And you humiliate them in front of the waitstaff? What is rattling around in that thick skull of yours?!"

I sat on the white sofa, my hands folded calmly in my lap. "I told you. I don't love him."

"Love is built over time!" My father slammed his Mercedes keys down onto the marble coffee table with a crack that made the crystal vase shudder. He sneered down at me. "Who do you think you are, browsing a catalog? Zachary was willing to overlook your dreary, quiet personality, and you have the audacity to play hard to get?"

Beside him, Brooke didn't utter a word. She just bit her bottom lip, her eyes brimming with unshed tears, looking like the picture of wounded virtue.

It had always been like this. In the past, the moment Brooke's eyes welled up, our parents immediately assumed I had committed some unspeakable crime against her.

Even back then, when Zachary had been the one to pursue me, Brooke was convinced I had stolen the crown meant for her head. After our wedding, every time she visited our townhouse, she would casually bring up their "unspoken connection." She would point out the vintage model Porsche he had given her, subtly reminding everyone in the room that she was the one who had gotten away.

And the second Brooke walked out the door, Zachary would turn on me with sheer disgust.

Look at Brooke, Paige. Then look at yourself. If you hadn't manipulated your way into my contacts, she’d be the one sitting across from me tonight.

Every time he said it, it felt like an ice pick behind my ribs. I had tried explaining a thousand times that he was the one who had messaged me first, that he had saved the wrong number. He never believed me. To him, I was just the calculating younger sister who had seen an opening and pounced.

The air in the living room was stretched thin enough to snap when our housekeeper hurried in from the foyer, looking completely flustered.

"Sir, ma'am... the Whitmores are back. Mr. and Mrs. Whitmore are outside with both sons."