Her Tombstone Held Another Man’s Name Chapter 1

Reborn. I willingly gave up my coveted spot to accompany my diplomat-in-training wife on her overseas fellowship to Geneva.

I packed my entire life into a single duffel bag and headed back to my rust-belt hometown, putting as much distance between us as humanly possible.

Because in my previous life, she spent a drunken, blurry night with her junior colleague, and the coward refused to take responsibility.

I stepped out of the crowd, took the blame, and married her to save her reputation.

She put my ring on her finger, but she froze me out for the rest of my miserable life.

I spent agonizing nights bleeding over foreign language textbooks just to keep up with her world, only for her to rip the pages right out of my hands.

"You could study for a century and never have Preston's natural talent."

Our mandated once-a-month time in bed was a masterclass in numb endurance.

"Read a book for once. Preston would never be a slave to base biological urges."

Even when she was arranging her final affairs, she explicitly forbade me from sharing her cemetery plot.

I stood in the freezing rain and looked at her headstone. It read: "Beloved Wife of Preston."

That was the moment the gut-punch landed. I finally realized I was nothing but a pathetic, disposable prop in her grand love story.

Given a second chance at life, I opened my eyes on the exact morning after she and Preston shared their little night of passion.

This time, I did not step up to be her knight in shining armor. I rode the wave of chaos and dumped her on the spot.

* * *

"Victoria, isn't Jason your boyfriend? What the hell are you doing tangled up with Preston!"

"Getting caught in the act like this is a damn disgrace. Get out of bed and march down to city hall before you ruin the company's image!"

A crowd of coworkers clustered outside the company housing units, their whispers buzzing like a hive of angry hornets.

Victoria clutched a cheap polyester sheet to her chest. Her face was entirely flushed, her vocal cords paralyzed by sheer humiliation.

Preston, on the other hand, looked like he wanted to scrub his own skin off just to avoid being linked to her.

He frantically yanked up his slacks, shooting her a look of pure, unadulterated panic.

"Victoria, you know I signed a five-year morality and non-compete clause with the firm! If corporate HR escalates this, my career is dead in the water!"

In my past life, I had walked into this exact scene while bringing Victoria her morning coffee. My heart had shattered into a million jagged pieces.

Like a fool, I had rushed into the room, covered up her dirty laundry, and offered her a wedding ring to kill the rumors.

If getting blindly drunk was just an accident, then how could anyone explain the sickeningly sweet, flushed look Victoria was giving Preston as she silently begged him to claim her?

I had braved the hurricane of office gossip to make her my wife, only to be rewarded with half a lifetime of glacial indifference.

This time around, my feet stayed firmly planted in the hallway. I crossed my arms and watched the fire burn.

The whispers grew into loud jeers. The crowd of spectators thickened by the second.

Preston was pacing like a caged rat. The second his panicked eyes locked onto me in the doorway, he jutted a trembling finger in my direction.

"I have perfect self-control! Someone must have slipped something in my drink!"

"Yesterday, Jason brought Victoria a bottle of water. Right after we drank it, we completely lost our minds."

"Jason, you sick bastard! You wanted to trap Victoria into a shotgun wedding, but you ended up destroying both of our reputations instead!"

In a heartbeat, the crowd's judging, disgusted glares pivoted away from the bed and zeroed in on me.

Victoria, fueled by shame and a desperate need for a scapegoat, unleashed her venom in my direction.

"Why are you just standing there humiliating yourself!"

"Get your ass to the director's office right now and confess to what you did!"

"Are you trying to get me and Preston fired because of your toxic jealousy?!"

She knew damn well what really happened last night.

But over the years, tossing Preston's messes onto my shoulders had become her favorite reflex.

When Preston lost classified client files on a bender, she filed an anonymous tip claiming I was the office thief.

When Preston trashed an expensive piece of lab equipment, she screamed at me until my ears rang, forcing me to take the write-up.

The endless river of false accusations had eroded my soul.

But playing the sacrificial lamb for Preston was a script I was ripping to shreds today.

I calmly pulled my stamped timecard from my jacket pocket and held it up to the light.

"I was pulling an overnight shift at the manufacturing plant until six this morning. Tell me exactly when I managed to sneak in here and hand you a water bottle."

"The truth is, you two locked yourselves in a room together in the dead of night. Whatever happened is on you."

My words flipped the script. The crowd's murmurs instantly changed their tune.

"What kind of decent woman spends the whole night in a bachelor's apartment? And this isn't even Victoria's first time!"

"Honestly, Jason is the real victim here. These two have been playing him for an absolute fool."

Seeing the jury of public opinion swing my way, Preston immediately turned on the waterworks.

"Jason, man, it is so messed up that you orchestrated this whole crowd just to frame my relationship with Victoria!"

"Forget about my reputation, but Victoria is your girl! Don't you even care about dragging your own lady through the mud?"

What a toxic, silver-tongued snake.

I had been standing there for less than three minutes, yet he was already painting me as the mastermind who rallied a mob to sabotage his golden career.

They were caught sweating in the same bed, and he still had the audacity to say I was framing them.

It was genuinely laughable.

Victoria cared about his corporate ladder more than her own pulse. Terrified that this scandal would cost him his job, she went into full panic mode.

She reached out, gripping his hand tightly to soothe him.

"Preston! None of this is your fault. Don't worry, the person truly responsible will face the consequences!"

Then, her eyes turned to dead winter as she glared at me. She bared her teeth.

"Are you happy now?! Get out of my sight and start scraping together a dowry to marry me!"

"If this little stunt of yours leaves a single scratch on Preston's career, you can kiss any chance of being my husband goodbye!"

Just as I suspected. To her, I was nothing more than a pathetic backup plan. A safety net made of garbage.

I let out a low, mocking laugh.

"Preston won't even touch you in the daylight. What makes you think I want his leftovers?"

"We are done, Victoria. Have a nice life."