CHAPTER 2.

Isabella awoke at the comforting sound of the bell. It buzzed, as it always had when she was in school. Isabella opened her eyes slowly as a beam of sunlight filtered in through the opening of her bedroom curtains. She turned her head. The irritating noise was coming from her dog-shaped alarm clock. Isabella rose reflexively to shut it off.

And then she saw something peculiar. Her eyes swept the room, and then she yelled out, “Shit! This doesn’t make any sense?! ”

She sprang out of bed, agape, clutching her head. She had a clear recollection of slamming into a truck and tumbling into a ravine, blood streaming down her face. But now — suddenly — she was here, in her old bedroom.

Isabella ran to the dirty mirror hanging in the corner of the room. There she was, looking down at her body — whole, untouched by wounds or blood. Her previously crippled, unbearably painful eyes that never opened were suddenly made completely whole. Once more — again — everything appeared utterly ordinary.

“Damn! Is this a bad dream or something?!” ”

Knock. Knock. Knock.

There was a rap on the door that startled Isabella. Her heart was pounding like it would burst. Her big eyes stared at the closed door.

“Isabella?"

The voice was familiar. It was Camilla—Isabella’s adoptive mother. But Isabella bit her lip. Was that really her mother … or the voice of death coming to claim her? Well, maybe both is right.

“Isabella?” Camilla knocked again, harder this time.

Isabella steeled herself and approached the door. She held the doorknob in her hand and shook.

Click. The door finally opened.

Camilla was wearing a white dress down to the floor with a long, white gown. Her hair was styled gorgeously, and a minuscule tiara perched atop it, and Isabella had to remind herself she still hadn’t succumbed to the world of fairytales. Why was her mother in a gown?

“Oh my God, Bella! Do you know what time it is?” Camilla crossed her arms. “(That can be you late to your own wedding!)

“Wedding?”

“Yep, wedding. Are you all experiencing some kind of amnesia?” Isabella was about to answer her, when Camilla rushed in between. “Go on, get changed. Don ́t let the Moore family down just because you cannot be on time.

Camilla turned and walked back out, leaving Isabella still as a statue from shock. She blinked, completely taken aback at what she’d just heard: wedding and the Moore family.

So, she’d gone back in time. She flashes back to her wedding with Jack. The fucker who hadn’t loved her for two years of their marriage.

“So I have to marry Jack again and then live that pathetic little life?” Isabella re-entered her room and faced the wall mirror. She jerked her head repeatedly, rejecting this truth.

“No, I won’t. I’m not going to be that sad wife who keeps loving him while he runs toward Aurora. I am going to have to call off this wedding. I have to run away!”

Isabella then dashed to her closet, yanked out her suitcase, and was beginning to throw her clothes into it. This intolerable marriage, she longed to be quit of it.

But suddenly, a thought gave her pause.

“If I run, the Thorne family will all be crying and upset. “They’ve brought me up so well — I can’t pay them back like this.”

Isabella took it in her heart then collapsed on the floor. She looked at the suitcase and clothes around her. She really had no other option but to remarry Jack.

She rose to her feet and went into the room her mother had readied. Her wedding dress was there — a white, floor-length dress, adorned in intricate lace and glistening diamonds. Isabella inhaled deeply before picking up her gown and pulling it on.

A couple minutes later Isabella came out and her parents met her. As before, Camilla and Edric beamed when they saw Isabella in the wedding gown. The dress they had ordered for their biological daughter, Aurora Thorne.

The couple, accompanied by bodyguards, was driven to the church in a white limousine. Edric immediately swept Isabella and linked his arm in hers as they walked down the aisle. Jack was already standing at the altar in his white tuxedo. He seemed tall and strongly-knit. Isabella couldn’t lie — Jack still had her attention. Certainly he was handsome, and he was charming. This was why Isabella had fallen for him when they were 7.

But it wasn’t just Isabella — Aurora had also grown up loving him.

To that day, Isabella couldn’t figure out why Aurora had fled from the loveless contracted marriage if she loved Jack so much. And Aurora ended up with Jack after all.

“With this, both of you are now officially husband and wife.”

Isabella was shaken from her daze as the priest spoke.

“You may now kiss the bride.”

Ah! Isabella remembered now. Two years earlier, Jack had refused to kiss her, and she was humiliated in front of everyone in the room. There’s still the sting of that embarrassment for her.

But not this time Isabella was going to get even with him.

Jack only stood there with his mouth shut. But Isabella promptly rose on her toes, cupped his face in both of her hands, tugged him near and kissed him, thoroughly and unforeseen.

Jack’s eyes widened. There he was, paralyzed, thrown completely by Isabella’s capricious move.

Isabella would never have been bold enough to do something like that. But on that day, Jack witnessed a more personal side of her.

The guests gradually ceased their clapping and Isabella withdrew with a shameless grin. Those blue eyes of hers never left his face. And in that gaze, she could see how taken aback he was by what had just transpired.

Isabella felt wicked, and also just a little bit pleased — she was increasingly certain that she would get her revenge this time on Jack.

And in her heart she formed a silent resolve.

“Jack, I would like to bring this marriage to a swift conclusion. I’m absolutely done with you!”