Chapter 1

I was in the middle of my afternoon nap when everything started shaking.

Maxwell Whitney, one of the temporary workers at the mill, came bursting into my room and grabbed my wrist, trying to drag me out.

"Missy, it's an earthquake, run!"

I didn't move. In my last life I'd gone running down after him in nothing but a thin undershirt, only to find there was no earthquake at all.

He'd shaken the table and chairs himself to trick me.

So there I was, half-dressed, appearing in front of everyone with him, and my reputation was ruined on the spot.

My fiancé called off our engagement, and I was forced to marry him.

After the wedding he smoked and drank, beat me or cursed me whenever the mood took him, and one after another, three babies were lost that way.

In the end, out of despair, I threw myself off the roof.

When I opened my eyes again, a cold smile curved my lips, and I drove my foot straight up into his crotch.

Then I pulled on my coat and shouted toward the door.

"There's a molester in here!"

...........

People came crowding in at the sound of me, and I burst into tears, my eyes red.

"Maxwell Whitney forced his way into my room and tried to have his way with me. Lucky I reacted fast and got out."

Timothy Lambert from downstairs is a warmhearted old man. His face went grim the second he heard. "Don't worry, Missy. We'll see justice done for you."

"I'll go get the mill's security team right now and have them haul him in on an indecent assault charge."

The others chimed in. "That's right, I'll go fetch the security team this minute."

"He's got to be charged with indecent assault."

"She's lying, don't believe her, she's the one who came on to me!"

Maxwell came hunched down the stairs, gripping the railing, one hand cupped over the spot, his face twisted in pain.

He jabbed a finger at me, seething. "Melissa Pruitt threw herself at me and it didn't work, so now she's framing me on purpose."

"You liar. I have my own fiancé. Why would I ever come on to you?"

Maxwell's expression flipped, ugly and leering, and he pointed at me. "How would I know? Who's to say you're not just loose, the kind who likes chasing after men?"

I laughed coldly and looked at him with contempt. "Maxwell Whitney, why don't you take a good look at yourself. I'm a full-time staff worker at the textile mill, with assigned housing, and my fiancé is full-time staff too. You're a temporary worker with nothing to your name. Would I have to have my brain crushed in a door to come on to you?"

The more I said, the hotter I got. I spat on the floor, all the rage bottled up from my last life pouring out of me. "You've got no looks, no job, and your pockets are cleaner than your face. I'm the mill's acknowledged beauty. What, was I blind?"

His face flushed red under the barrage. He'd never expected someone as thin-skinned as me to spit out words this cutting.

For a moment he just stood there stunned, unable to force out a single word.

But then, he had no idea about the hell I'd lived through in my last life.

Maxwell Whitney was a lazy, greedy man. In my last life he'd set his sights on me, figuring I was soft-tempered and easy to handle, someone who'd support him after marriage, so he was always finding excuses to hang around me.

Later he'd even snuck into my room and staged this whole scene. I was thin-skinned, and he'd dragged me downstairs before I even realized I'd been tricked.

Face burning, I'd tried to explain, and he'd yanked me into his arms and announced that we'd already been intimate, that what just happened was only us fooling around.

Everyone had looked at me like I was some loose woman.

I'd cried the whole time, too mortified to get out a single word of explanation, right up until my fiancé Jasper Simmons came to break off the engagement.

My name was ruined, and all I could do was rush into marrying him.

This life, I would never repeat that mistake.

"You... you did come on to me. You said Jasper Simmons was too dull and honest, no sense of fun, that you didn't like him, so you lured me over."

"And the second we started getting close, you told me to buy you a gold necklace. When I said no, you decided to get back at me and started screaming."

His nonsense left my head spinning. "That's all made up. What proof do you have?"

A smug look crept across Maxwell's face. "Of course I have proof."