The Admiral's Secret Wife

For six years, Dr. Audrey Ross has been the secret wife of Admiral Grant Dempsey, enduring the pity and contempt of everyone at Naval Base Coronado while he stood silent. At a gala, an officer's wife tells her to stop chasing a man engaged to Victoria Price, the diplomat's daughter. In her last life, Audrey waved their marriage certificate and was thrown in the brig for seven days; later, deployed on a medical ship in the Gulf of Aden, she bled out when Grant missed her distress signal. Now reborn into the same gala, she smiles and wishes him and Victoria a happy life, revealing an approved transfer to Walter Reed.

Grant blocks the transfer, and the Dempsey family spreads rumors that she is a corrupt gold-digger. When a foreign military attaché collapses in anaphylactic shock, Audrey finds the emergency kit missing its epinephrine, though she inspected it herself the day before. As the man's breathing fades, the crowd turns on her, and the blame for his death is placed squarely at her feet.