We Both Remember My Death

Killian Cross was in the middle of one of his legendary blowups with his charity case girlfriend.

To spite her, hed hidden a ten-carat diamond ring inside a tray of molten lava cakes, declaring to the room of Manhattans elite that hed marry whoever found it.

The socialites went feral. They dived into their desserts with silver forks, scavenging through the rich chocolate like prospectors in a gold rush. I, however, had no interest in the spectacle. I turned my head, discreetly spat the hard, cold platinum band Id just bitten into onto a napkin, and tossed the whole thing into the trash can beside me.

I didn't think he was looking. But Killians eyes had always been predatory.

"Judy," he barked, his voice cutting through the clinking of crystal. "What did you just throw away?"

...

Every head in the VIP lounge swung toward me.

I froze. My pulse hammered against my ribs, a frantic rhythm I knew all too well. I turned slowly to meet Killians dark, brooding gaze. I forced a casual shrug, my palms damp.

"Nothing. Just a used tissue."

Beside me, Bellas eyes darted to the bin. Shed always been a scavenger for status. As soon as the attention drifted back to the remaining cakes, she lunged. A moment later, she let out a shrill, triumphant cry.

"I found it!"

In front of the entire crowd, she fished the ring out of the trashthe ring that had just been in my mouthand held it up, gleaming under the chandeliers. She looked at Killian with a mixture of greed and desperation, her face flushed as she lowered her head in a rehearsed show of modesty.

It was a mirror image of my own past.

In my previous life, I was the one who had screamed with joy. I was the one who thought Id won the cosmic lottery. But back then, Killian had only spared me a glance of bored indifference.

I didn't know then that his "White Moonlight"the girl he actually lovedhad been seen with another man that morning. He didn't want a wife; he wanted a weapon to wound the girl who had rejected him.

Now, Bella was the target of everyones envy. After all, this was Killian Cross. Heir to a real estate empire, a man with a double-Ivy League pedigree and a reputation for being untouchably clean. No scandals, no mistresses, no illegitimate children clawing for the inheritance. Marrying him was the ultimate security.

He sat on the oversized leather sofa, legs crossed, a glass of vintage champagne dangling from his fingers. He studied Bella, but his expression was unreadable, a flicker of something dark dancing in his eyes.

"So, its you..."

A ghost of a smirk played on his lips.

Then, the world went black.

The lights flickered, a sharp zzzt of a short circuit echoing through the room, and suddenly we were plunged into total darkness.

"Power outage?"

"Watch it, youre stepping on me!"

"Ow!"

The room was a chaos of muffled apologies and the rustle of expensive silk. A few seconds later, the backup generators kicked in with a hum. The lights surged back to life.

"Just a tripped breaker," someone muttered. "No way a place like the Pierre loses power."

But the drama wasn't over. Bella let out a panicked gasp. "My ring! Wheres the ring?"

Everyone scrambled, looking at the floor. And there it wasthe diamond had somehow rolled across the carpet, stopping right at the tip of my pointed heel.

"I"

Bella lunged for it, but two of Killians security guards moved with surgical precision, grabbing her by the arms and pinning her back.

Killians gaze landed on me. There was a sliver of surprise there, but it was mostly sharp, cruel amusement.

"It seems youre as desperate to marry me as ever, Judy. Fine. I know when to take a hint. The woman Im going to marry is..."

Judy.

In my last life, that was the moment my heart nearly burst with a terrifying, ecstatic heat. I thought I was the luckiest girl in New York.

This time, I felt like Id been dropped into a frozen lake. My limbs were leaden; my skin crawled.

"Youve got it wrong, Killian," I said. My voice was flat, devoid of the tremor he expected. "Im already seeing someone. Hes waiting for me downstairs."

The silence that followed was heavy enough to suffocate. Under the stunned stares of the citys most powerful people, I picked up my clutch and walked out of the suite with a grace I didn't feel.

Outside, the neon lights of the city blurred. I didn't call an Uber. I just started walking, letting the biting New York wind cut through my silk dress, trying to numb the roar of memories in my head.

The magnolias were beginning to bloom in the parkgrand, fragile, and temporary. I had died in the dark, and somehow, I had woken up back at the start. Back at the birthday party that ruined my life.

It was Killians twenty-fifth birthday. The girl he obsessed overSummer Reedhadn't shown up. Shed chosen to work a double shift at a greasy spoon in Queens with some guy from her neighborhood instead of attending his gala. Killian had thrown the ring into the cake in a fit of pique.

In my first life, I took the bait. I didn't know then that "happily ever after" was just the beginning of a five-year sentence in hell.

"Did you hear? Judys family went bankrupt years ago. Shes finally found her meal ticket."

"I heard Bella actually found the ring first. Judy must have used some pathetic trick to steal it."

"Just wait. A woman like that? Hell throw her out with the trash within a year."

On our wedding night, Killian didn't even enter the master suite. He spent the night in the small, cramped maids quarters in the east wing.

Summer used to live in that room. She had been a scholarship student the Cross family "sponsored," working as a live-in maid to pay off her debts. Shed moved out after graduation, but Killian kept the room exactly as it was. A shrine to a girl who didn't want him.

The day after the wedding, Killian moved his things into the study. By the second day of my marriage, I was the laughingstock of Manhattan.

Killians mother summoned me to the family estate for tea. It tasted like ash.

"Killian married you against our wishes," she said, her voice like a velvet noose. "But since youre here, you have one job: give us an heir. Fast."

But Killian wouldn't even touch my hand. How was I supposed to produce an heir? Through sheer willpower?

I thought I could endure the coldness. I thought if I was perfect, if I waited, he would see me. The turning point came a year later.

Killian came home wasted. I brought him ginger tea, the way I always did. He grabbed my wrist, his eyes soft, searching my face with a longing that made my heart ache.

"Do you love me?" he whispered.

I nodded, my throat tight. "I do."

I did love him. When my fathers business collapsed, Killian was the one who found me. When I couldn't afford tuition, he cut the check. When a teacher accused me of cheating, he was the one who cleared my name. How could I not love my savior?

So when he pulled me down and kissed me, I didn't pull away. That night, he was desperate, clinging to me as if I were a life raft in a storm. He whispered into my ear, over and over, "Tell me you love me. Tell me youll never love anyone else."

"Only you," Id promised, stroking his hair. "Always only you."

The next morning, I woke up early. I traced the line of his jaw with my thumb, basking in the quiet. He stirred, his eyes still closed, and mumbled with a sleepy, affectionate smile:

"Summer... stop it."

The blood in my veins turned to ice.

The fog lifted in a single, violent stroke. He didn't love me. He loved the girl who worked in the diner, the girl who was currently studying for the bar exam and ignoring his calls. I was just a placeholder.

I left the divorce papers on his nightstand. He woke up and shredded them into confetti.

"Nobody leaves a Cross," hed snarled.

To punish me, he started bringing home womenwomen who looked like Summer, women who smelled like her. At first, I screamed. Then I begged. Eventually, I just went numb.

He hated my silence. Hed grip my chin and demand to know why I stopped fighting him. I was just too tired to care.

He got worse. He made me watch. He let those women taunt me in my own home.

Finally, I bought a one-way ticket to Paris. I was going to disappear. But he found out. He locked down the airport, dragged me back, and threw me into the basement of our Greenwich estate.

Five years.

Five years in the dark. He "trained" me to obey. He broke me until I was a hollow shell that could mimic Summers walk, her laugh, her voice.

The night I died, Killian had found out Summer was getting married to her neighborhood sweetheart. He came home obliterated. He threw an old maids uniform at meone Summer had wornand forced me into it. He made me call him "Master" while he took out his rage on my body.

When he finally fell into a drunken stupor, I got up. I found his lighter in his velvet blazer.

I set fire to the uniform. I set fire to the bed. I watched the flames lick the silk curtains, felt the heat begin to roar.

I walked up the stairs as the smoke began to choke the house. I stood at the edge of the roof, looking down at the concrete driveway. It looked like an exit.

I jumped. I was a falling butterfly, shattering on the ground.

And then, just before the blackness took me, I heard a voice screaming my name.

"Judy! Wait for me!"

The memory snapped like a rubber band. I shivered, pulling my trench coat tighter against the wind.

A black Rolls-Royce pulled up to the curb beside me. The window slid down. Killian was in the back seat. His silhouette was sharp, his jawline like granite. But when he looked at me, his eyes weren't the eyes of a twenty-five-year-old. They were heavy, haunted, and ancient.

"Youre going to marry me, Judy," he said, his voice a low, terrifying rasp. "After all, weve already spent one lifetime as husband and wife."

The car sped off into the night.

I stood frozen on the sidewalk. He was back. He had regressed, too.

The news of me rejecting the city's most eligible bachelor spread through New Yorks social circles like a virus.

I spent the next morning in my cramped, third-floor walk-up, hunched over a drafting table. I was trying to finish an architectural blueprint, the only thing that felt solid in this shifting reality. My mother kicked the door open, back from an all-night poker game. The draft sent my sketches flying like autumn leaves.

She snatched one up, her lip curling in a sneer.

"You think youre going to rebuild our empire with drawings?" she mocked. "Killian Cross hands you a golden ticket and you spit on it. Who are you seeing instead? The butchers son downstairs?"

I didn't look up. "No."

"Youre just like your father," she spat. "A dreamer with no spine."

When my dad went under, that was her favorite refrain. At least my dad tried to find work. She just spent what little we had left on baccarat and gin. In my last life, shed bled me dry, constantly demanding "loans" that shed lose within hours.

Killians mother used to delight in pointing it out. Your mother called again, Judy. Good thing were wealthy; a normal family couldn't support a parasite like her.

When Id suggested I could get a job to pay her off, the old woman had laughed. A Cross daughter-in-law working? People would think were insolvent.

My phone buzzed. It was the nurse from the care facility. "Ms. King? Your fathers monthly fees are due. We haven't received the wire."

I hung up, and my mother immediately went on the defensive. "Don't look at me. I'm broke. Youre the one who insisted on putting him in that fancy place. Besides, its your fault hes like that anyway."

She wasn't wrong. Ten years ago, my father took a job on a construction site to pay for my prep school. He fell four stories. He survived, but his brain didn't. Early-onset dementia, they called it.

"Maybe you should go crawl back to Killian," my mother suggested, lighting a cigarette.

"Never," I said.

I took my portfolio to the firm Id been interning at. My boss looked at my designs and sighed. They were brilliant, he admitted. Then he handed me a manila envelope.

"Your termination papers, Judy. Look, youre talented, but... think about who you might have pissed off lately. Nobody wants to be on the wrong side of the Cross family."

By the time I got to the care facility, it was too late. My father was sitting on the sidewalk, his meager belongings packed into two plastic trash bags. The facility had cleared him out.

Killians Rolls-Royce was idling at the curb. The window rolled down, revealing his faceshadowed and damp with a strange, obsessive intensity.

"Marry me, Judy. At least then you won't have to worry about the rent."

I tried to pull my father away, but Killian stepped out of the car, his hand clamping onto my arm like a shackle.

"This is the only warning you get. If you walk away today, don't come crawling back on your knees."

I wrenched my arm free and looked him dead in the eye.

"Don't touch me," I whispered. "Unless you want me to kill you again."

The words hit him like a physical blow. The memory of the fire flashed in his eyes.

"You heartless bitch," he hissed. "All I ever wanted was for you to say you loved me. Was that so hard?"

He raised his hand, his face contorted with rage, ready to strike. Suddenly, my father lunged forward, shoving Killian with a surprising burst of strength.

"Don't touch my daughter!"

Killian stumbled back, nearly falling into the path of a passing taxi. Humiliated, he barked an order to his guards. They swarmed my father, pinning the old man down.

"If you don't marry me, Judy, Ill have your father dumped in the Hudson. Lets see how well he swims."

"Try it," I challenged, stepping closer.

Just as the tension reached a breaking point, a voice rang out from the shadows of the facilitys entrance.

"Taking on a Cross heir in broad daylight? Bold. Very bold."

I froze. I knew that voice. I looked up and saw Killians face go pale, his hands beginning to tremble.

"You..." he choked out. "What are you doing here?"