No More Naive: The Heiress's Reckoning

My eyes snapped open.

I was five years old again, held in my father's strong arms, his face etched with worry as he sighed, "Alright, Ava, I'll marry her."

The words struck me cold: Chloe Raine, my art tutor, my future stepmother, my murderer.

In my last life, that exact sentence sealed my grim fate.

I, a naive child, had cried for him to marry her, desperate for a mother.

Chloe used my innocent longing to infiltrate the Hamilton name and wealth, only to end my life years later, once she was pregnant with her own child, by exploiting my severe peanut allergy.