Choosing the Right Husband This Time

At twenty-eight, I held the dubious honor of being the last unmarried socialite on New York's Upper East Side. Everyone around me was growing increasingly anxious about my single status.

In my previous life, my mother arranged a matchmaking cocktail party, where I was told to choose a husband from ten handpicked elite bachelors. I bribed the event planner to place Mark West's profile at the very top—and as I had hoped, I chose him.

After we married, Mark treated me with what seemed like tender affection. He even bought me an oceanfront villa in the Hamptons, making me believe I had finally found true love.

But that illusion shattered the day I was nine months pregnant, just hours away from giving birth. Mark drove a scalpel straight into my abdomen—then, right in front of me, hurled our newborn onto the floor.

"If you hadn't forced me into this marriage with your family's power, Sofia wouldn't have been heartbroken enough to go drinking and get drugged and assaulted. This… this is what you owe her!"

He tossed the scalpel aside, then calmly let his private doctor pin down my blood-soaked body.

I fought through excruciating pain for six agonizing hours, until I finally bled to death.

Afterward, Mark dumped my corpse into the Hudson River. But for Sofia, he hosted a grand funeral—funded with my money, under my name—and paraded himself to the world as a grieving, devoted widower.

Given a second chance at life, I refused to step foot in that cursed matchmaking event. Instead, I went straight to my mother with a demand: marry me to Robert Black—the most ruthless, cold-blooded titan of Wall Street, whose scarred face was feared by all.

In the end, stripped of my financial backing, Mark's hedge fund collapsed. He became a disgraced fraudster, spat on by everyone on Wall Street.

My mother sat gracefully on the living room sofa, beckoning me over with a wave of her hand. The housekeeper stepped forward and placed a silver tray filled with photographs in front of me.

"Pick one, darling. My precious Via deserves only the very best man this world has to offer."

Each photo on the tray was of an exceptional young man—carefully selected by my mother. All Ivy League graduates. All boasting seven-figure annual incomes.

But one face was conspicuously absent. Robert Black.

In my previous life, even after death, my resentment couldn't rest. My spirit lingered next to my corpse, hatred threatening to twist me into something monstrous.

No one came to claim my body—no one except Robert. Despite the stench of the river, he pulled me from the water himself. His tears fell onto my cold, lifeless face, scalding my soul.

He gave me a real funeral. Then, wielding every resource at his disposal, he destroyed Mark. And when everything was over, he stood at my grave and ended his own life with a bullet.

That memory burned in my mind. I pushed the tray aside and rose to my