Phoenix Of Ruin: My Second Life Comes With A Better Man novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Last Choice
Leigh is thrown into the sea after her husband chooses his mistress, wakes two years earlier at the lunch where Talia first framed her, and refuses to give up a kidney. Blaine orders his men to take her to the hospital by force.
On the fourth morning, the kidnapper asked Blaine Pemberton to choose.
"Your wife or the woman you can't forget," he said. "One of them goes home. The other goes into the sea."
The dock was gray and half rotten, and the water slapped at the pilings below.
Talia Whitby stood on it in a white dress, crying neatly.
Leigh Aldrich knelt across from her with her wrists tied and her legs broken under her.
Three days ago, the kidnappers had pulled out her fingernails while Blaine watched.
Two days ago, they had ruined her face.
Yesterday, they had broken her legs.
Every morning Blaine had been told to pick who would suffer, and every morning he had picked Leigh to spare Talia.
Leigh lifted her head and looked at the husband she had loved for ten years.
She still hoped he would remember the five years they had been married.
He did not look at her.
"Let Talia go," he said. "Right now."
Her voice came out as a rasp. "Blaine. Why?"
He turned then, and his face was full of disgust.
"You've been jealous of her for two years," he said. "For all I know, you set this up yourself. If you want to gamble with your life, go ahead. Call it what you owe her."
"I didn't. I swear I didn't."
He was already walking away from her.
As soon as Talia's ropes dropped, he wrapped both arms around her.
Over his shoulder, Talia found Leigh's eyes and smiled.
She mouthed: "I win."
In that second Leigh understood that the whole kidnapping was Talia's work.
"Blaine, it was her." Her throat tore on the words. "Look at her. Please."
Blaine gave her one last glance. "He said one of you walks out. I picked. Do what you want with the other one."
Two men dragged her to the edge of the dock.
At the far end of the shore, through the fog, a man in a gray coat was running toward the water.
She did not know him.
"Blaine, you shouldn't have chosen me," Talia said behind her, weeping softly. "If she dies, I'll never forgive myself."
"She brought it on herself," Blaine said.
They threw her in.
The cold closed over her head.
She thought of her grandfather and her three brothers, and of how she had walked away from all of them for this man.
If heaven gave her one more life, she would make Blaine and Talia pay for every day of this one.
"Leigh!"
The roar came right beside her ear.
"How long are you going to lie there and act?"
Her eyes snapped open, and she pulled in air that was warm and dry.
There was no sea. There was cold marble under her cheek and the smell of cedar, Blaine's cologne.
He stood over her with his jaw shaking.
"I know you've resented Talia since the day she came back," he said. "I never thought you would poison her tea."
Leigh did not move.
She knew this room.
The long dining table. Blaine's two aunts. Three of his directors. A dozen people watching her on the floor.
One of the aunts hissed at her to apologize to Talia, right now.
Leigh remembered that aunt standing by the cellar door last time, holding the key.
Talia sat in the nearest chair, pale, one hand pressed to her stomach, a steel thermos on the table in front of her.
This was the lunch from two years ago.
Last time, Leigh had begged on this exact floor.
They had locked her in the cellar overnight, and a week later she had signed the papers they put in front of her.
She stood up slowly and straightened her sleeve.
"Call the police," she said. "Have them test the thermos."
Nobody spoke.
Blaine stared at her, because this was not what she had said before.
Talia laid a trembling hand on his arm. "Blaine, please. Don't make it bigger. She's your wife. I forgive her."
"There's nothing to forgive," Leigh said. "So test it."
"No police," Blaine said.
He took a folded paper from his jacket.
"The doctor says the poison hit her kidneys. She needs a transplant. You had your bloodwork done in March, and you're a match."
He put the paper down in front of her.
"You'll give her one of yours. Today."
Leigh looked at the paper.
Last time she had signed it a week later, with a shaking hand.
Two years later she had faced the kidnappers with one kidney and nothing left to fight with.
"No," she said.
She pulled the wedding ring off her finger and set it beside the thermos.
"I'm not giving her anything."
Blaine's face went flat.
He nodded to the two drivers standing by the door.
"Take her to the hospital," he said. "If she won't walk, carry her."
The drivers crossed the room.
Behind them, the lock on the dining room door turned.
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