Reborn To Ruin My Cheating Tycoon Husband

The custom-made clock on the wall chimed midnight. The sound, usually a soft, melodic marker of time, struck Erin Farrell like a physical blow.

Her eyes snapped open.

The last thing she remembered was the cold, sterile white of the psychiatric hospital, the bite of the restraints on her wrists. She remembered Crockett and Delila standing just outside the door, their figures blurred through the reinforced glass, their expressions unreadable. Then, the sharp sting of a needle in her arm, and a creeping, final darkness. And now...

She wasn't in that cold, sterile room. She was in her own bed. Their bed. In the Fifth Avenue penthouse she'd once called home.

Her breath hitched. She lifted a hand, pressing it flat against her chest. Under her palm, her heart hammered out a steady, powerful rhythm. Alive. Real.

She had been back for three days. Three days of playing the ghost in her own life, of mimicking the docile, smiling wife she used to be. Every moment had been a performance, a struggle to mask the storm of memories and fury raging inside her. But tonight, on the anniversary of the day her gilded cage was locked, the performance was over.

Slowly, she sat up. The silk of her nightgown slithered against her skin, a familiar sensation she hadn't felt in years. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, her bare feet sinking into the plush white carpet.

She walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows. Below, the lights of Manhattan glittered like a carpet of fallen stars. It was all real. The city. The apartment. The frantic, beautiful beat of her own heart.

She remembered this night. Her third wedding anniversary. She had worn this exact nightgown, Crockett's favorite. She had prepared his favorite late-night snack, a truffle grilled cheese, and waited. And waited.

He came home smelling of another woman.

The memory was so sharp, so visceral, it felt like a shard of glass in her gut. But this time, there was no pain. Only a chilling, crystalline clarity.

The soft click of the front door lock echoed in the silent apartment.

He was home.

Crockett Winters shrugged off his tailored jacket, tossing it onto a velvet armchair with the casual indifference of a man who expected someone else to pick it up. He loosened his tie, a faint sigh of exhaustion escaping his lips.

His eyes found her standing by the window. He expected her to turn, to rush to him, to ask about his day with that cloying eagerness he'd grown so accustomed to.

She didn't move. Her back remained turned to him, a rigid, uninviting silhouette against the city lights.

A frown creased his brow. He walked towards her, the exhaustion in his posture shifting to a subtle annoyance. He reached for her, his hands aiming for their familiar place on her waist.

"Sorry I'm late," he murmured, his voice a low rumble. "Things at Delila's benefit ran long."

The moment his fingers were about