After My Death, I Became His Queen.

Chapter- 4

By the time I reached my street, the sky had already turned a deep shade of blue, and the first lights of the evening were beginning to glow behind the windows of the neighboring houses. I had spent most of the afternoon outside, deliberately keeping myself away from the memories that had followed me since waking up in my old life. It was strangely peaceful. That peace lasted until I saw the black car parked outside my house.

Adrian was leaning against the driver's door. The moment he noticed me, he pushed himself away from the car and straightened his jacket. His expression was familiar, almost annoyingly so. He looked exactly as he had in my memories, handsome enough to make half the women in the city turn their heads, completely unaware of how much damage that face had caused me.

He watched me approach. "Where have you been?"

I stopped a few feet away from him. "Out."

His eyebrows drew together. "Out where?"

I almost laughed. There it was. The same controlling tone. The same assumption that I owed him an explanation for every minute I spent away from him.

In my first life, I would have immediately apologized. I would have explained where I had been, who I had spoken to, what I had eaten, and probably even why I had taken so long to come home.

This time, I simply looked at him. "Since when do I have to report my whereabouts to you?"

His expression changed. "Hannah, I'm only asking."

"And I'm only answering."

For a moment, he stared at me as though I had suddenly started speaking another language.

I walked past him. I had barely taken two steps when his fingers closed gently around my wrist.

"Hannah."

I stopped. His touch brought back a memory I had spent years trying to forget.

Another night. Another version of me. I had stood in front of him with tears streaming down my face, begging him not to leave. I had held his hand as though letting go meant losing the entire world.

He had pulled away anyway. I slowly lowered my gaze to his hand around my wrist.

Adrian noticed. His fingers loosened immediately, and he released me.

"What happened to you?" he asked quietly.

I looked at him. "Nothing happened to me, Adrian."

A small smile touched my lips. "I am just a bit tired."

He studied my face for another moment. "You seem different."

I turned toward the house. "I need to rest."

"Wait."

I stopped without turning around.

"I want you to come with me."

I glanced over my shoulder. "Where?"

"There is somewhere I need to take you. I want to talk to you about something."

"If you want to talk, you can do it here."

"No." His answer came too quickly. "It's not something we can discuss here."

Curiosity stirred inside me. In my previous life, Adrian had always kept certain parts of his world hidden from me. There had been conversations that stopped whenever I entered a room, meetings I was never invited to, and friends whose names I knew but whose lives I was never allowed to understand.

Perhaps this was another one of those moments. "Fine," I said.

Adrian seemed relieved. I opened the passenger door and got inside. He walked around the car and took the driver's seat.

As we pulled away from my house, I rested my head against the window and watched the familiar streets pass by.

For several minutes, neither of us spoke. Adrian seemed unusually quiet. I knew him well enough to recognize that silence.

He was thinking. Planning. Perhaps wondering why his wife had suddenly stopped behaving like the woman he knew.

I almost smiled. He had no idea that the woman sitting beside him had already lived through the ending of their marriage.

He thought he was driving me toward another ordinary evening. He didn't know he was driving me toward a memory. The closer we got there the more familiar the streets became.

Then I saw the tall glass building ahead. My stomach tightened. The party. I remembered it instantly.

Three years into my first life, Adrian had taken me to a party with his friends. At the time, I had been nervous for days because I wanted them to like me. They were important people in his life, and I believed that becoming close to them would bring me closer to him.

I had chosen a simple dress. I had spent nearly an hour getting ready. I had even practiced how I would introduce myself because I was terrified of saying something stupid.

Adrian had noticed my nervousness that evening. Instead of reassuring me, he had told me not to embarrass him. I had laughed awkwardly, thinking he was joking. He wasn't.

The party had been held in a luxurious penthouse overlooking the city. Music had filled every room, expensive perfume had mixed with the smell of wine, and Adrian's friends had welcomed me with smiles that never quite reached their eyes.

One of his female friends had looked me up and down before asking, "So this is Hannah?"

The way she had said my name had made me uncomfortable. I remembered forcing a smile.

Then came the wine. A glass had somehow slipped from her hand and spilled directly across the front of my dress.

She had gasped dramatically. "Oh my God. I'm so sorry."

I had stood frozen. Wine had soaked through the fabric, leaving a dark stain across my chest.

Everyone had looked at me. I had turned toward Adrian, expecting him to defend me.

Instead, embarrassment had flashed across his face.

He had pulled me aside and whispered that I should go home. I had stared at him in disbelief. "What about you?"

"I'm staying."

"But I don't know how to get home."

"You can take a cab."

I had asked him to come with me. He had refused. There was an after party. His friends were going. And apparently, I wasn't invited.

I remembered standing outside that building alone, holding my ruined dress together while Adrian disappeared behind the glass doors without looking back. I had cried in the taxi all the way home.

The memory should have hurt. Instead, sitting beside him now, I felt something else.

Anticipation.

The car slowed as we approached the same building.

We entered the building a few minutes later. The moment the elevator doors opened, music spilled into the hallway. People were already gathered around the apartment.

Adrian placed a hand lightly against my back. "Stay close to me tonight."

I nearly laughed. The irony was almost too perfect. "Why?"

"My friends are here."

"I know."

He looked at me. "You know?"

I realized my mistake. I quickly shrugged.

"I mean, you said we were meeting your friends."

He nodded, apparently satisfied. The doors opened. Adrian stepped inside first. I followed. And then I saw her. The same woman. The woman who had spilled wine over me in my previous life. She was standing near the bar, laughing with two other women.

The moment her eyes landed on Adrian, She waved. I knew exactly what she was capable of.

She smiled.

I returned the smile. "Nice to meet you."

Her eyebrows lifted.

Adrian looked between us. "This is Claire. One of my closest friends."

Claire extended her hand. "I've heard so much about you."

I shook it. "I hope it was something good."

She laughed. "Mostly."

"Then Adrian must have been very generous with the details."

Adrian gave me a strange look. I smiled innocently. Claire's expression tightened for half a second before she recovered.

In my previous life, I would have spent the evening trying to impress her. Tonight, I didn't care whether she liked me. I walked toward the table and picked up a glass of sparkling water.

Adrian leaned toward me. "You aren't drinking?"

"No."

"Atleast for tonight just drink a glass to enjoy."

"I don't need alcohol to enjoy myself."

His lips pressed together. I knew that expression. He didn't like being contradicted.

Across the room, Claire was whispering something to another woman while looking at me. I could already guess what they were discussing. The old Hannah would have been uncomfortable. The old Hannah would have wondered whether she had done something wrong. The old Hannah would have gone home crying when things turned ugly.

But I wasn't that woman anymore. I looked around the room and allowed myself to breathe. I had been given something impossible. A chance to return to the beginning. And if life wanted to place the same people in front of me again, then perhaps it was giving me an opportunity to change the ending.

Claire approached with a glass of wine in her hand. Her smile was sweet. Too sweet.

"I hope you don't mind if I join you."

"Not at all."

She stood beside me. Her eyes dropped toward my untouched glass. "You really don't drink?"

"No."

"That's a shame." She lifted her glass. Then she smiled. "I suppose some people simply don't know how to have fun."

I met her eyes. "I suppose some people need alcohol to make themselves interesting."

The smile disappeared from her face. Adrian looked at me with genuine surprise. I took another sip of my water.

Claire laughed awkwardly. "You're funny."

"I've been told."

She stared at me.

I smiled. Inside, my heart was beating faster. Not from fear. From satisfaction.

This was only the beginning. Last time, she had humiliated me in this room. This time, I would make sure she regretted ever thinking I was an easy target.

I glanced toward Adrian. He was watching me differently now. As if he were seeing his wife for the first time.

Good, Let him wonder. Let all of them wonder. Because the woman they remembered had died five years from now. And the woman standing in front of them had already survived everything they were planning to do.

Tonight, I wasn't going home in tears. Tonight, I was going to stay. And I had a feeling Adrian was about to learn that losing control of me would be the first mistake he made in this life.