This Life, A Different Vow

I saw her in the rearview mirror, touching up her smudged lipstick. A delicate Cartier diamond necklace now adorned her neck, along with two fresh hickeys.

When she saw me, she lifted her head and gave a brilliant smile, the diamond necklace sparkling.

“Sloane! Oh, I took the passenger seat. You don’t mind, do you?”

To their surprise, I walked straight past them, opened the rear door, and settled into the executive seat.

“No need to ask for my address. It’s in your navigation.”

In one move, I had demoted the illicit lovers to my personal chauffeur and his tramp.

Rhys’s face darkened, and he took a deep breath.

On the way, Arabella suddenly let out a small gasp.

Then, holding up a used condom wrapper between two fingers, she said in a voice loud enough for me to hear, “Oh my god… Rhys, that time we… Oh, this is so embarrassing.”

After saying this, she collapsed onto Rhys’s shoulder like a boneless doll.

The car stopped. Rhys shot a triumphant look back at me. When he saw me open the door in disgust, ready to leave, he hurriedly chased after me.

He grabbed my arm, roughly pinning me against the cold car door.

“Enough! Sloane Caldwell, I’m telling you, throwing tantrums is useless.”

A strange excitement flashed across his face.

“In this life, I’m meant to love her. Even if you got on your knees and licked my boots, all I'd ever give you is my body. You will never, ever have my heart.”

A wave of nausea rose in my throat, and I gagged.

My stomach started to hurt.

He pressed something into my palm, then drove off, leaving me with one last sentence:

“Take this as your engagement gift.”

I opened my hand and saw a ridiculously cheap cubic zirconia ring.

My phone buzzed.

On Instagram, Arabella had just posted a photo of her huge necklace and the hickeys.

The background was a table laden with her favorite food.

[Rhys said this is a gift to congratulate me on starting my second year of grad school! ]

The comments section exploded:

[OMG where's the matching ring??]

[He's totally gonna propose! The ring is the real gift!]

[Congrats on the happy news! ]

That was followed by a direct message from Arabella:

[Sloane, in this life, I'm the main character.]

[And you? You just get the cheap knockoff.]

I opened my hand and let the “knockoff” ring slip into a storm drain by the side of the road.

Without a doubt, she was reborn too.

The next morning, the lab at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center was filled with the greasy smell of croissants from Le Panier.

Rhys saw that I had worked all night. Noticing the stomach medicine on my desk, he smirked.

“Stomach acting up again? I told you not to be so uptight.”

“Here, I brought you breakfast.”

I stared at the croissants filled with spicy sausage. My stomach immediately clenched even tighter.

In two lifetimes, he knew perfectly well that I was allergic to peppers.

The one who loved spicy food was Arabella.

He actually brought me the leftovers from the meal he’d flaunted on Instagram last night.

Was he really that clueless, or was he just trying to torture me?

“How’s the research coming along?”

He tried to peek at the core data in the sterile area, but I slapped his hand away.

Of course—he was still after the revolutionary gene therapy I was developing.

In our past life, he had volunteered for the clinical trial, successfully using it to impregnate me with his and Arabella’s child.

I remembered those days of my pregnancy—he brought me tea, massaged my back, and catered to my every whim.

Even if I craved a pastry from the other side of town, he would go buy it without a second thought.

His attentiveness made me mistakenly believe that becoming a father had finally awakened a sense of family responsibility in him.

I thought that was the happiness I wanted.

Even though ours was a loveless business marriage with pitifully little physical contact, it at least looked happy on the surface.

It wasn't until the truth came out after my death that I realized I was just a cruel joke.

I was nothing more than a surrogate vessel for him and his true love’s child.

His care for me was like tending to a precious incubator.

In the end, they sacrificed the container to get the treasure, and all semblance of warmth vanished.

Even now, I can hear his words to the doctor right after my heart stopped: “Is the baby okay?”

This life, I would never let him get near the patent for this technology.

The burning pain in my stomach finally subsided after I was put on an IV at the hospital.