From Burden To Unstoppable Queen

My fiancé, Caleb Holder, saw me as a burden, a stain on his perfect image. In my past life, his constant cruelty and public humiliation drove me to suicide.

After I died, the truth came out. His mistress, Erica, had faked her pregnancy and the miscarriage she blamed on me. While the world celebrated their "true love," I was just a tragic, forgotten fool.

But then I opened my eyes.

I was back on the night of the gala, moments before Erica would throw herself down the stairs.

In a few minutes, Caleb would believe her lies without question, slap me until I bled, and call me a monster in front of his family.

"You evil, jealous monster! You tried to kill my child!"

Last time, his words destroyed me. This time, they would be my battle cry.

Chapter 1

The word, spray-painted in angry red across the elegant white banner, hit me first. 'GOLD DIGGER.' It was right there, beneath my last name, Bass. A familiar visual obstacle, something I' d seen a thousand times in my past life.

But this time, a strange, exhilarating lightness filled me. I was dead. I was alive. And I was back.

A tremor of pure, unadulterated joy ran through me, so intense it almost buckled my knees. It wasn' t the kind of happiness you felt in your chest. It was deeper, a bone-deep tremor that hummed with purpose. I was reborn. I was right here, on the night of Caleb Holder' s grand corporate gala, where his latest triumph was being celebrated just as much as his impending engagement to me.

The irony didn' t escape me. I was the Bass, a name once synonymous with old money and respected vintners. Now, it was just a punchline. Holder Inc. had swallowed my family's legacy whole, leaving me as the final, humiliating term of their deal. The arranged marriage. Everyone knew it. Everyone whispered about it.

"She doesn' t belong."

"Look at her, trying to cling to the Holders."

"Caleb deserves better than a charity case."

The whispers were a dull roar in my memory. They were the constant soundtrack to my first life. The Holders were new money, aggressive and powerful. We were old money, fading and desperate. The gap between us was a chasm. It always had been. Our bond was a childhood promise, a silly agreement between two sets of parents that had turned into a suffocating chain. Now, society felt it was their duty to be outraged on Caleb' s behalf.

He resented me. Openly. Visibly. He saw me as a burden, a stain on his perfectly manufactured image.

"Miss Bass," a stiff voice interrupted my thoughts. It was Mr. Henderson, Caleb' s personal assistant, his face a mask of polite disdain. "Mr. Holder has asked me to inform you that your presence is not required tonight."

Not required. I looked down at my dress, a shimmering sapphire that had taken hours to choose and fit. I remembered