Chapter 1Widower Asked Me to Take Her Place

For our first anniversary, my boyfriend gave me a twenty-dollar scratch-off card.

When I scratched off a five-million-dollar jackpot, I screamed, ready to throw my arms around his neck. But my best friend, Vivian, grabbed my wrist.

"Valerie, look closely! This card is fake. He’s running a loyalty test on you! To put it bluntly, the guy doesn't trust you for a second!"

She urged me to dump him. Who wants to be with a cheap, broke guy who uses fake junk to test real feelings? Honestly, for a split second, it made perfect sense.

But just as I was about to march downstairs and slap that stupid ticket right into Tristan's face, a tiny, furious voice echoed in my head.

"Are you kidding me? Is my idiot mother really about to break up with my dad again?"

"Does she have any idea that my dad is the sole heir of the Mercer dynasty? Literally the crown prince of New York's elite?"

"All she has to do is pass this stupid test and she gets a fifty-million-dollar reward. Instead, she's going to listen to that toxic snake and end up dying in misery."

What? Tristan is the heir to a hundred-billion-dollar empire?

Why didn't you say so earlier!

When I first realized the ticket was fake, Vivian's words had sunk into my mind like a poisoned needle.

"A man with actual capability would never run a messed-up test like this," she whispered, her face tight with mock concern. "Deep down, he thinks you're just some gold-digger! Why do you think he's still waiting down there under the streetlamp? He's waiting to see how you react. If you tell him you won, he'll just shrug it off as a joke, feeding on your disappointment. If you don't tell him, he'll look down on you from his moral high ground, watching you embarrass yourself trying to cash a fake ticket!"

Down on the street, Tristan stood quietly beneath the flickering yellow glow of the lamppost. His head was bowed, his face shadowed, making his expression impossible to read.

For the past year, he had never bought me anything expensive, and I had never minded. I loved him for who he was. But if this was all a twisted game...

Seeing me hesitate, Vivian pressed harder. "A relationship without trust is just a house of cards, Val. A guy with a mind this dark isn't going to stop at one test. Do you want to spend the rest of your life walking on eggshells? Can you really tolerate being played like a fool? You need to go down there, expose him, and slap some sense into him!"

Taking a deep breath, I gripped the scratch-off and walked toward Tristan.

"Tristan, you..."

Before I could finish, that squeaky, immature voice rang out again in my mind.

"Are you kidding me? Is my idiot mother really about to break up with my dad again?"

I whipped my head around, but the street was empty. The voice was coming from inside my own stomach.

"Does she seriously not know my dad is the Mercer family heir, worth a hundred billion dollars?"

"In her past life, she listened to that toxic witch Vivian. She threw the card in my dad's face, screamed that he was a cheap hypocrite, and broke up with him on the spot after a massive fight. Then Vivian swooped in. She played the gentle, caring angel, married into the empire, and became the billionaire's wife. And what happened to my idiot mom? Vivian ruined her career, dragged her name through the mud, and had her baby taken away. My mom ended up committing suicide in a dingy, rented room."

"I got reborn just to end up with a mother who doesn't learn her lesson!"

I froze, ice water running through my veins.

The idiot mother was me? I was pregnant?

And Tristan was a billionaire prince?

The little guy in my belly let out a heavy, dramatic sigh.

"Mom, get your act together! It wasn't easy getting reincarnated. Don't ruin it this time!"

"Right now, right this second, go hug my dad. Pretend you're ecstatic and tell him you won the jackpot!"

"As long as you pass this test, my dad has a fifty-million-dollar bonus and a massive luxury penthouse waiting for you. If you don't pull it together, that toxic bitch gets it all..."

I looked up at Tristan. Suddenly, the streetlamp wasn't the only thing shining. He practically glowed with the light of a golden god. He wasn't just a hidden heir: he was my personal ticket to paradise.