Chapter 1

Just a month after I handed over the entire company to my son, he stormed into my house with a bunch of men, tied me up, and set the villa on fire.

He spat, "You damned old hag! If it weren't for you, my mom and dad wouldn't have been separated for over twenty years."

He added, "Now that I've taken over Sterling Group, I don't have to put up with you anymore."

The raging flames danced in his eyes, burning with hatred. "I've called you Mom for all these years. You should be satisfied. Go join my dead sister in hell."

That was when I realized that the son I'd poured my heart and soul into raising was not truly mine. He was actually the bastard child of my husband, who married into my family, and his mistress.

When I opened my eyes again, I realized I'd gone back in time.

As I stared at my newborn son and daughter swaddled in blankets, my eyes burned with hatred when they fell on the baby boy.

Since they insisted on dumping this cuckoo chick into my place to disgust me, then how I chose to raise him was none of their business.

*****

The villa, engulfed in flames, collapsed with a deafening crash, and a heavy beam fell on me.

One moment, I felt the searing heat of the fire, and the next, a blinding white light flashed before my eyes. I blinked, and when I opened them again, I found myself lying weak and helpless in a hospital bed.

"Honey, how are you feeling? Any discomfort?" A worried voice filled my ears. When I looked up, I saw Andrew Grant's sanctimonious face.

He was the Sterling family's live-in son-in-law, my so-called husband. He deceived me my whole life, and the bastard he fathered was the reason my daughter and I ended up dead.

I was about to lash out at him, but then I stopped. He looked just like he did in his twenties.

I stared at the digital clock on the wall and the two babies sleeping soundly in the crib next to me. A moment of confusion hit me.

I had gone back in time to the day I gave birth to my daughter, Sophie Sterling.

In my previous life, Andrew bribed the Sterling family's doctors and medical team in the hospital. From the moment I got pregnant, no one gave me an honest answer.

They kept saying I had twins, but I only had Sophie in my belly.

I had my suspicions, but with all my trust in Andrew and the so-called professionals, plus the work piling up at Sterling Group, I just let it go.

But the truth was that Andrew had been secretly seeing another woman, and she got pregnant around the same time as I did.

To make sure his beloved woman's child inherited everything from the Sterling family, he bribed everyone around me, carefully weaving a web of lies to make me believe I had twins.

On the day I gave birth, he had his mistress induced so she'd give birth at the same time as me. While I was unconscious after delivery, he secretly brought her baby into my room, making it look like I'd had twins.

No mother would ever doubt the child that came from her own body, and with Andrew covering up the truth for twenty years, I never suspected a thing.

When the two kids turned fifteen, Sophie went out to play and fell into the river. It took three whole days for the rescue team to pull her swollen, lifeless body out with cold metal hooks.

I didn't learn the real truth about Sophie's death until I was on my deathbed. That bastard Ryan Sterling finally confessed.

He snapped, "You bitch! If you hadn't tried to split the family fortune with Sophie, I never would've knocked her out and thrown her into the river.

"Everything in the Sterling family belongs to me. Why should she get half?"

With the fire raging all around us, Ryan's eyes gleamed with twisted greed. "See? You're the one who killed your own daughter. If you hadn't tried to split the inheritance, she'd still be alive."

The ruins of the burning villa swallowed all my stupidity, naivety, and anger from my previous life.

Right now, Andrew, looking satisfied and content, gently took my hand. "We have a son and a daughter now. You went through a lot today, honey. Take some rest."

I glanced at the swaddled baby boy, my expression freezing. "Yeah, I really did go through a lot."

*****

A week later, I was finally discharged from the hospital.

I didn't trust anyone around me, so I quietly hired a private investigator, making sure not to raise any suspicions.

As expected, the paternity test result clearly showed that Ryan wasn't related to me at all.

I held Sophie in my arms, watching her suckle with all her strength. Meanwhile, Ryan was bawling on the floor, and honestly, his crying was starting to get on my nerves.

I had enough milk, but not enough to feed both of them. This time, I wasn't going to be fair, as I had been in my previous life. Sophie was my priority, and she'd always get fed first.

As for Ryan, that unwanted brat, I made sure he didn't starve, but sometimes, I'd even dump the extra milk just to let him go hungry on purpose.