Ashley gave Nicolas ten years of love and five years of loyalty as his perfect housewife, only to be repaid with betrayal, humiliation, and death at the hands of him and his mistress.
After being reborn, she vowed to make them pay.
She tore apart the mistress, kicked her useless husband aside, and returned as the heiress of a top-tier family.
Surrounded by billions, luxury, and a parade of elite bachelors, Ashley became the woman everyone wanted-including a cold, powerful tycoon.
When Nicolas came begging for forgiveness, she smiled coldly. “Fuck off! My man is worth a hundred of you.”
Phoenix Of Ruin: My Second Life Comes With A Better Man Chapter 1 The Last Choice
“Nicolas Reed,” the kidnapper called out with a cruel smile. “This is the last choice you’ll have to make between them. Your wife, or the woman you still can’t forget. Only one leaves here breathing. Which one will it be?”
At the crumbling dock by the sea, Nicolas Reed’s face turned grim beneath the kidnapper’s cold ultimatum.
Caroline Wheeler stood in her white dress, delicate and trembling, every inch the picture of helpless sorrow.
Tears streamed down her face as she choked out, “Nicolas, don’t think about me. Save Ashley. She’s your wife. Knowing you’re happy is enough for me. I could die right now and feel at peace.”
Across from her, Ashley Dunn was a far crueler sight—her body streaked with blood, her breathing weak, her mind fading after days of relentless torture.
Ever since she and Caroline had been kidnapped together, Nicolas was forced to choose one to suffer each day.
Three days ago, to protect Caroline, he had chosen Ashley—and watched the kidnappers tear out her fingernails one by one.
Two days ago, again to spare Caroline, he had chosen Ashley—and watched them destroy her face.
The day before, once more to spare Caroline, he had chosen Ashley—and watched them smash her legs.
Summoning every last shred of strength, Ashley forced her head up and looked at the man she had loved for ten long years, still clinging to the desperate hope that he might remember the five years they had shared as husband and wife.
Nicolas did not spare her so much as a glance.
“I’m choosing Caroline,” he blurted without hesitation. “Let her go. Right now.”
A violent tremor passed through Ashley’s cracked lips. Days of torture had shredded her voice until it came out hoarse and broken. “Nicolas… why?”
Nothing about it made sense to her. She was his wife, so why did he look so determined to send her to her death?
At last, Nicolas turned his gaze on her, and all she found there was icy disgust and blatant contempt.
“Why?” he echoed, his voice sharp. “Ashley, because you’ve always been jealous of Caroline. For two whole years, you kept finding ways to go after her. For all I know, you were the one who arranged this kidnapping. If putting your own life on the line is some kind of twisted game to you, then fine—consider this your payment for everything you owe her.”
Frantic, Ashley kept shaking her head, tears blurring her battered face. “I didn’t… I really didn’t…”
Yet Nicolas refused to listen.
Without another glance at her, he stepped forward, took Caroline the moment her restraints were undone, and gathered her tightly against his chest.
Curled against his chest, Caroline wept in soft, trembling little sobs that made her seem even more delicate and wronged.
Yet the instant Nicolas’s gaze shifted away, she tilted her face just enough to catch Ashley’s eye and gave her a smug, victorious smile.
With slow, deliberate precision, her lips formed the words, “You lost again.”
The meaning struck Ashley like a crushing blow, and in that brutal second, she understood this had been another one of Caroline’s carefully staged schemes.
“No…”
A ragged, shattered sound ripped from Ashley’s throat as she struggled to tell Nicolas the truth.
In the end, Nicolas spared her one final glance.
Still, there was no trace of mercy in his eyes, only bare disgust and cold-blooded revulsion.
“Didn’t you say only one of them was walking out alive?” he remarked aloofly. “I already picked Caroline. As for the other one, do whatever the hell you want with her.”
Even as Ashley was hurled into the churning sea, Caroline’s shaky voice still drifted faintly from the dock behind her.
“Nicolas, you shouldn’t have picked me. Ashley’s your wife, and if she really dies because of this, I’ll never be able to live with myself…”
Not once did Nicolas turn around. He simply kept Caroline folded against his chest and murmured soft comforts into her hair.
“She owed you this. Even if she dies, she brought it on herself.”
When the freezing seawater swallowed her whole, the hatred in Ashley’s heart surged to its absolute limit.
So this was the man she had chosen—the one she had clung to even after severing every tie to her grandfather and her three older brothers. This was the man she had sacrificed her dreams for, the one she had loved with reckless devotion and stood beside for ten long years.
With death closing in around her, a single thought burned through the darkness in her mind. If heaven ever gave her a second life, she would make both of them pay for every damn thing.
…
A furious roar exploded beside her ear like a sudden clap of thunder.
“Ashley! How much longer are you going to lie there and play dead?”
Startled, Ashley’s eyes snapped open, and she sucked in frantic, desperate breaths of air.
There was no icy seawater, no crushing terror of drowning—only the familiar trace of cedar cologne filling her chest.
In front of her stood Nicolas, his face stormy with rage, his eyes blazing. “Ashley, I know you’ve always been jealous of Caroline. Ever since she came back, you’ve been making her life miserable every chance you got. But I never imagined you’d stoop this low. You actually poisoned her food.”
Shock locked Ashley in place.
Poisoned her food?
That scene… Those exact words.
She had gone back two years, back to the day Caroline first set her up by claiming Ashley had poisoned her.
Phoenix Of Ruin: My Second Life Comes With A Better Man Chapter 2 He Wanted To Take Her Kidney
In the very next second, Nicolas clamped a hand around her wrist and said in a voice cold enough to cut, “You’re coming to the operating room. Right now.”
The force of his grip was vicious, crushing down so hard it felt like the bones in her wrist might splinter.
Pain shot through Ashley, and she jerked her hand free on instinct.
“Why the hell would I go with you?”
For a brief instant, shock flashed across Nicolas’s face.
Over three years of marriage, he had grown far too used to her quiet patience, her obedient softness, and the way she always gave in to him.
Never once had she challenged him this openly.
At once, his expression darkened, and his voice came out even harsher with anger. “You’ve still got the nerve to ask? If you hadn’t poisoned Caroline, she wouldn’t be lying in kidney failure right now, barely hanging on. This was your fault, so you were going to pay for it.”
A frigid laugh slipped from Ashley’s lips. “Oh, really? And how was I supposed to pay? By marching into the operating room and letting you carve one of my kidneys out for her?”
Nicolas hadn’t expected her to see straight through his plan so quickly, but he didn’t feel the slightest bit ashamed of it.
“What if that’s exactly what I meant? It’s only one kidney. You owed her at least that much. You were coming with me.”
She owed Caroline?
The sheer insanity of that thought made Ashley feel like the whole world had turned into a joke.
In her previous life, Nicolas had taken Caroline’s side every single time that woman set her up.
Back then, Ashley had foolishly believed she wasn’t good enough, that she had somehow made Nicolas misunderstand her, so she kept giving more, swallowing more pain, and clinging to the desperate hope that one day she could change his mind about her.
Not until the day they drove her to her death did she finally see how horribly wrong she had been.
This time, she would never hand them another chance to destroy her.
“No,” she said, her voice sharp and icy. “Absolutely not.”
A cruel sneer tugged at Nicolas’s lips. “You don’t get to decide that. Take her to the operating room and run the compatibility tests now.”
The instant the order left his mouth, several broad-shouldered bodyguards closed in on her.
Seeing those painfully familiar faces, Ashley was dragged straight back to the last life—to the moment they had hauled her into the operating room like she was less than human.
Before their hands could close on her, Ashley whirled around and bolted.
Relying on the grim memories of her previous life, she raced straight to Caroline’s room and drove the door open with a hard kick.
Inside, Caroline was reclining against the pillows, holding up a compact mirror while she carefully painted on her lipstick.
The door burst inward with a savage crash, and Caroline shrieked as the lipstick dragged a vivid red streak across her cheek.
At once, she lashed out, “Didn’t I make myself clear? I’m busy. No one comes in here. Which brainless little…”
Mid-sentence, her eyes landed on Ashley, and her face stiffened with sudden shock.
“Ashley?” Her voice caught for a beat before turning sharp with alarm. “What… what are you doing here?”
By now, Ashley was supposed to have already been hauled into the operating room, prepped and cut open for her kidney.
Before Caroline could steady herself, Nicolas burst in with several bodyguards close behind, chasing after Ashley.
At the sight of Caroline sitting upright, perfectly fine, Nicolas halted mid-step, shock flashing across his face. “Caroline? You’re awake?”
A jolt ran through Caroline’s body, her posture going rigid. Only then did it hit her—she was supposed to still be unconscious.
In a flurry of panic, she shoved the compact mirror beneath the blanket, fingers trembling as she forced her expression into something pale and pitiful. Clutching at her chest, she bent forward and broke into a fit of harsh, exaggerated coughing. “Nicolas… it hurts…”
But the act came a second too late.
A mocking smile curved across Ashley’s lips. “Miss Wheeler, I heard you were practically dying. They were this close to dragging me into operation to carve out a kidney for you. And now you’re sitting here looking just fine. So what was this, huh? Another one of your little traps? Were you faking the whole thing just to pin it on me?”
For the briefest instant, Caroline’s expression locked up. Then her eyes turned red on command, and tears spilled down her cheeks as neatly as if she had rehearsed it.
“Ashley, what are you even saying? I don’t understand any of this. I just woke up. I only wanted to fix myself up a little because I didn’t want Nicolas to see me looking awful. Why are you making it sound like I’m trying to harm you?”
Just as Ashley had expected, the second Nicolas saw Caroline’s fragile, tearful face, he moved to shield her.
“That’s enough, Ashley,” he snapped, his expression hard with anger. “Do you really think everyone is as scheming as you are? Caroline is naturally kind. Why would she ever do something to harm you?”
Phoenix Of Ruin: My Second Life Comes With A Better Man Chapter 3 I Want A Divorce
“Kind? You’re calling her kind?”
A short, sharp laugh escaped Ashley, full of disbelief.
She stepped forward without hesitation and ripped the blanket off Caroline in one swift motion.
What lay underneath wasn’t just a whole makeup kit, but also an open box of pastries, half of it already eaten.
“Nicolas, take a good look for once.”
Her hand shot out, pointing straight at the pastries as her voice rose. “This is the person you said was on the verge of dying? The same one you were ready to take my kidney for? Her life is worth everything, but mine doesn’t even matter? You can just throw mine away whenever it suits you?”
Nicolas’s gaze landed on the pastries, and his expression shifted again and again, embarrassment and irritation flickering across his face.
Sensing the situation slipping out of control, Caroline grabbed his sleeve and started crying. “Nicolas, I didn’t know… I really didn’t understand why the doctor made it sound so serious. Maybe the test results were wrong. Or maybe someone paid the doctor to set me up, just to make you think I was lying…”
Anyone with a bit of sense could tell how forced her act was.
Even so, Nicolas only paused briefly before deciding to believe her.
He looked at Ashley, his brows drawn together. “If it was just a misunderstanding, then the surgery won’t happen. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Leave it at that?” Ashley let out a disbelieving laugh. “Nicolas, if I hadn’t gotten away in time, they would’ve taken my kidney already. And you think that’s something we can just forget?”
“But nothing actually happened to you, right? It was just a misunderstanding. Why are you still making such a big deal out of it?”
His expression tightened further, and the irritation in his eyes became more obvious.
“You’re dragging this out because you want compensation, aren’t you? Fine. I’ll transfer the villa on the outskirts to your name and give you fifty million on top of that. That should be enough.”
A faint, cold laugh slipped from Ashley. “You think that settles everything?”
The moment she said that, Nicolas felt a surge of annoyance. In his mind, she was clearly asking for more.
“Then say it. What do you actually want?”
Her voice cut through the room without hesitation. “What I want is simple. I want a divorce. Right now.”
“A divorce?”
Nicolas stared at her as if she had said something absurd.
Throughout their three years of marriage, everyone around him knew one thing. Ashley had always been deeply attached to him.
That was why he believed her hostility toward Caroline came from jealousy after she returned.
So how could she suddenly want to leave him?
Then a thought crossed his mind, and his gaze turned mocking.
“Ashley, some pathetic way to draw my attention, huh? Aren’t you tired of this? Ever since Caroline came back, you’ve been stirring up trouble. Now you’re bringing up divorce too? It’s ridiculous. I’ll give you one last chance. Take those words back, and I’ll let everything slide.”
Ashley looked at him, at the confidence in his eyes that she would never walk away, and felt a wave of disgust.
“Nicolas, do you really not understand what I’m saying?”
She straightened her posture and met his gaze directly.
Each word came out sharp and clear. “I want a divorce.”
Her response only made his expression darken. “And what’s your reason for this?”
“Reason?” Ashley’s tone dropped even further. “Because you refuse to see the truth. Because you’d rather sacrifice your own wife just to protect a woman who has no shame. A man like you has no right to be my husband. I can’t stand you.”