The Grave They Dug For Her

I lay broken in a hospital bed after a brutal car crash, but my family never came. My father and brother were too busy preparing for my manipulative half-sister Ainsley's wedding.

The groom was my fiancé, Clayton.

While I fought for my life, his last words to me over the phone were a cold command.

"Go to hell for all I care."

They abandoned me, told the world I was dead, and even carved my name on a tombstone. They buried me under a mountain of lies so Ainsley could steal the life that was mine.

But I didn't die. I was reborn.

Five years later, I returned as Ivy Richardson-a bestselling author, married to a tech CEO, and backed by a family with unimaginable power.

I only came back to settle my mother's estate. But the first person I met was Clayton, standing in front of my grave, mourning the girl he helped kill.

Chapter 1

Ivy POV:

I saw my own grave today. Not in a dream, not in a metaphor, but a real, cold tombstone, standing innocently next to my mother' s beneath a weeping willow. It was the first thing that hit me as I drove my rental car through the rusty gates of the Dillard family cemetery, a place I swore I' d never willingly set foot in again. The name carved into the gray granite was undeniably mine: IVY DILLARD. Below it, the cruelest lies: "Beloved Daughter, Cherished Fiancée."

A shiver ran down my spine, but it wasn' t from the autumn chill. It was the shock of seeing my past self so neatly laid to rest, a painful echo of the life I had shed. The stone was new, newer than my mother' s, and unnervingly pristine. On its base, a faded bouquet of plastic lilies lay wilting beside a tarnished silver locket. It was the locket Clayton gave me in high school, the one I thought held his heart.

An old groundskeeper, his face a roadmap of wrinkles, shuffled past. He' d probably been tending these graves since before I was born. He squinted at me, then at the headstone.

"Well, I' ll be," he mumbled, his voice gravelly. "For a second there, I thought you were a ghost. Spitting image, you are, of poor Ivy Dillard. Same dark hair, same sad eyes." He chuckled, a dry, rattling sound. "Though she' s been gone five years now, bless her heart."

I felt a coldness spread through me, deeper than any grave. "Just a coincidence," I said, my voice flat. I didn't correct him on the "sad eyes" part. My eyes weren't sad anymore. They were sharp.

He shrugged, leaning on his rake. "If you say so, ma' am. But you look just like her. A Dillard through and through."

I swallowed, the name like ash on my tongue. "My name is Ivy Richardson," I corrected him, drawing myself up. "I'm a bestselling author from New York. Here to settle my late mother's