MY CHOICE OF JEWEL

MOLLY'S POV

My body still felt foreign when the doctors finally declared me "stable." Stable? If only they knew who now lived inside this delicate shell.

The original Molly Henry, had been nothing more than a spoiled brat. A party princess who sang, danced, drank, and clung shamelessly to a man who never once looked at her, Kelvin Brass's younger brother. That memory disgusted me. If I had inherited her body, I had also inherited her humiliations.

But I wasn't her. Not anymore.

When the nurse left to fetch my attending physician, I dragged myself to the bathroom and locked the door. Staring at my reflection again, I whispered, "This is my second chance. My rules now."

My fingers trailed over the counter. My mind was already racing with calculations. To survive in this life, I needed two things: freedom and power. I had been given the first, but the second? That I would have to earn.

A knock at the door startled me. "Miss Molly, please... Mr. Kelvin has arrived."

I frowned. Mr. Kelvin?

When I stepped out, the hallway was filled with tension so sharp it sliced the air in half. Doctors, nurses, even bodyguards stood stiff and silent. And there, at the center of it all, stood a man I had only seen in the inherited memories of this body.

Tall. Impeccably dressed in a black suit tailored within an inch of perfection. His presence alone seemed to bend the room around him. Eyes sharp as cold steel swept over everything, calculating, dismissing, commanding.

Kelvin Brass.

The most powerful man in the country's business world. The one people compared to an emperor. Cold, ruthless, unreachable. The man no one dared offend.

And also, apparently, the man whose younger brother this body's former owner used to chase like a lovesick fool.

His gaze landed on me.

My heart did a strange flip in my chest. Not out of attraction, at least not yet, but because his eyes were unlike any I'd ever seen. They weren't just cold. They were empty. The eyes of someone who had buried his heart long ago.

"Molly," he said, his voice deep, steady, almost frightening in its calm. "So you've finally woken up."

The weight of his stare pressed on me, heavy, suffocating. I understood why everyone feared him. This man wasn't just powerful. He was dangerous.

In the body's old memories, the former Molly would have blushed, stammered, maybe even tried to cling to him to get closer to his brother.

But I was not her.

I lifted my chin, meeting his gaze without flinching. "Yes. I suppose I have."

For a fraction of a second, his expression shifted. Surprise? Intrigue? It was gone before I could be sure.

"You've been in a coma for a year," he said, stepping closer. His presence was overwhelming, like standing before a predator who could decide whether you lived or died. "People doubted you would ever wake."

"People doubt a lot of things," I replied evenly. "But doubt doesn't decide my fate. I do."

Silence fell between us. A sharp, electric silence.

Something flickered in his eyes. His lips almost curved, but didn't. And in that moment, I realized something astonishing.

I had moved him. Even if just slightly, I had cracked through the armor of kelvin Brass.

The nurse shifted nervously in the background, probably expecting me to embarrass myself like the old Molly would have. But I stood tall, letting the silence stretch, refusing to yield to the intimidation radiating from him.

Finally, he spoke again. "You've changed."

It wasn't a question. It was an observation.

A slow, deliberate smile touched my lips. "Perhaps. Or maybe this is who I've been all along."

For the first time, his eyes softened. Just a fraction. And for reasons I couldn't explain, that tiny shift made my pulse quicken.

The devil in the suit was watching me with interest. And somehow, I knew, my life had just become infinitely more complicated.