But he only tightened his hold, his intention brutally clear. He wasn't letting go. Her vision blurred, the room dissolving into shadows as a loud ringing filled her ears.
The door burst open.
The butler charged in and froze for a split second, the color draining from his face. He lunged forward, grabbing the man's arm. "Mr. Marshall, you have to let go! You'll kill your wife!"
"She deserves to die!" Vincent Marshall's eyes were cold with murderous rage, each word a venomous hiss through his clenched teeth.
Finding he couldn't pull Vincent away, the butler dropped to his knees in desperation. "Mr. Marshall, if Mrs. Marshall dies, your late grandmother will never rest in peace!"
Grandmother?
Something flickered in Vincent's eyes. His grip loosened a fraction.
Seizing the moment, Chelsey tore his hand away and scrambled backward across the bed until her back slammed against the headboard, her face ashen.
Seeing the shift in Vincent, the butler pressed on urgently. "Your divorce is being finalized today. After this, you'll never have to see her again! Her mother saved your grandmother's life. Please, just spare her this once. You must calm down!"
Hearing this, Vincent went still. He got off the bed, pulled on a silk robe, and when he finally spoke, his voice was as cold and final as a death sentence.
"Kellan Fowler will deliver the divorce papers. Sign them and get the hell out. I don't want to see a single trace of you by the time I get back."
With that, Vincent turned and strode from the room without a backward glance, the butler trailing silently behind him.
The door slammed shut with a force that seemed to rattle her skull. She clutched her chest, her heart hammering against her ribs. Her whole body trembled, a persistent ringing still echoed in her ears, and her face was completely drained of color.
She looked down, and her eyes widened in horror. She was naked, her body covered in dark, angry red marks.
The sheer terror of being choked had been so overwhelming that she hadn't even registered the dull ache spreading through her limbs. But now that the shock was fading, Chelsey felt like she'd been taken apart and put back together wrong. Every single muscle screamed in protest.
...
In the walk-in closet, Chelsey couldn't find a single piece of women's clothing. Her gaze swept across rows of crisp white shirts and severe black suits-a cold, oppressive space without a hint of softness.
She grabbed a shirt and a pair of trousers at random. The fabric swallowed her whole, the pant legs pooling on the floor around her feet.
Her body still ached, her temples throbbed with every frantic heartbeat. She shuffled out of the closet, barely able to move, and collapsed onto a sofa, closing her eyes. And then the memories came, flooding her mind in a disorienting wave-memories that were not her own.
A long moment later, Chelsey opened her eyes. She had sifted through the memories of the original Chelsey and reached two conclusions.
Hannah Lowell was dead. She had been reborn as Chelsey.
And this new body's life was a complete wreck. Her mother had died of illness, her father was a spineless failure, and she herself had been a useless, lovesick rich girl who was pathetically, desperately in love with Vincent.
Someone rapped on the bedroom door.
A cold, disembodied voice followed. "Mrs. Marshall, are you in there?"
Chelsey rolled up the enormous pant legs and opened the door. A tall, stern-faced man stood before her, a file in his hand.
Kellan. She quickly scanned the borrowed memories, putting a name to the face.
His expression was unreadable. He thrust a pen and the file toward her. "Mrs. Marshall, Mr. Marshall sent me to oversee your departure. This is the divorce agreement."
Chelsey glanced at the papers, and a few facts clicked into place. Today was both their wedding anniversary and the day their two-year marriage contract expired.
It had only been an hour. That was all the time it had taken him to have the divorce papers drawn up. The message was crystal clear: Vincent loathed her.
Without a second thought, she took the papers, flipped to the final page, and signed "Chelsey" with a decisive stroke. The entire process took less than thirty seconds.
"Done." She capped the pen and handed everything back to him.
A flicker of surprise crossed Kellan's otherwise stoic face. Vincent had expressly instructed him that if she put up a fight, he was authorized to use any means necessary to ensure her compliance.
"Mrs. Marshall, you don't wish to review the terms?" Kellan asked, not taking the papers back yet.
Chelsey arched an eyebrow. "No need."
"You're not curious about the settlement?" he pressed, his brow furrowing slightly in the first crack of his professional facade.
Chelsey hitched up her oversized trousers, a slow, knowing smile touching her lips. "What's to be curious about? I don't need to read it to know the options. It's either door number one: I leave crushed under a mountain of manufactured debt. Or door number two: I leave with nothing. For his pack of battle-hardened lawyers, neither outcome is a challenge."
Kellan's expression became unreadable again. He took the signed papers. "Mr. Marshall is simply having you leave with nothing, Mrs. Marshall."
"Then give him my thanks." She meant it. The original Chelsey might have been pathetically in love with Vincent, but she was not.
A violent bastard who'd tried to strangle her the second she woke up? She didn't want him. She'd been given a second chance at life, and she wasn't about to waste it on a man like that.
Kellan's gaze inadvertently dropped to the vivid, brutal marks marring the delicate skin of her neck.
"Do you need me to call a doctor, Mrs. Marshall?"
A brief flash of confusion crossed her face before she remembered. She raised a hand to her throat, and a phantom sense of suffocation washed over her.
She shook her head. "No need. It won't kill me."
"In that case, please pack your belongings as quickly as possible," he said, his tone returning to its cold, professional default.
Chelsey gave a curt nod. Without a moment's hesitation, she hitched up her pants and padded out of the room on bare feet to find her own bedroom. Vincent's sheer disgust for her meant their rooms were on opposite ends of the sprawling mansion.
It was a long, painful walk before she finally reached her door.
The room had originally been a storage closet, converted into her bedroom after their hasty courthouse wedding. Pushing the door open, Chelsey navigated the cramped, narrow path between the clutter, the dragging hem of her trousers threatening to trip her with every step.
The space was so small that with a bed and a modest dresser crammed inside, there was barely enough room to turn around.
Her possessions were just as pathetic. Aside from a mess of cheap cosmetics on the dresser, she didn't own a single decent piece of clothing. She changed into her own clothes, crammed a few items into a suitcase, and lugged it out of the miserable little room.
"All packed. I'll be going now. Goodbye forever, Kellan," she said, her tone impossibly breezy as she dragged her suitcase through the main hall.
"And where do you think you're going, Chelsey?" The voice dripped with condescension. Chelsey stopped. Stepping out of the elevator, blocking her path, was a woman in a sharp designer suit and impossibly high heels, looking at her like she was something unpleasant stuck to the bottom of her shoe.
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