He had short chestnut brown hair, green eyes, and an olive skin tone. He smiled at me, and I noticed a gap in his teeth from a tooth that had fallen out. He was so adorable, I thought to myself.
It was a little strange seeing him so young again, but he was the same old Tony I knew. He was 9 years old in 2015.
“I’ll be back,” I told him as I put my handbag down.
I went to the bathroom; there’s something I wanted to see. In the mirror by the sink, I looked at myself. I was completely taken aback by the image of the woman staring back at me. I was back to my healthier, younger self from 7 years earlier. In the 2 years leading up to my death, I had become frail. Looking like the shell of who I once was, despite only being in my thirties. I brought my hands to my cheeks and slapped them hard. A sharp pain filled my cheeks. I had to confirm if I was dreaming once again. Still appeared to be real.
I remembered my dying wish, which was to be able to redo my life and fix all the wrongs I’d done to my child. Had my wish really come true? It was hard to believe; nonetheless, I was so grateful! I had a chance to fix things. Now the question was: how was I going to do that?
Clearly, what I’d tried to do before in my previous life failed dismally. I kept trying to get Keith’s attention because I was his first legal wife, and my son was the rightful heir to his company. I believed then and still believe now that Anthony had every right to that. Even after Keith divorced me and married Diana to make her son the heir, I got a lawyer involved and tried to take him to court. Unfortunately, I lost the court case since I was no match for a billionaire with lots of resources.
I had just wanted to make sure Anthony got what was rightfully his, but I failed. To make matters worse, I ended up dying, leaving him completely alone and with no financial security. I had failed as a parent.
If I’m 29 again now, I have about 7 years until I’m scheduled to die. This time around, I had to make sure I left Anthony with something. Now I had to figure out how I was going to do that.
I continued to look at myself in the bathroom mirror. I took in my features: my long, chestnut brown hair, my green eyes and my olive skin. Anthony had nearly copied and pasted all my features. I thought of how Tony, looking similar to me, had had people questioning whether he was actually Keith’s son.
First of all, I had the birth certificate to prove it. I had never been with another man my entire life. What’s more, as Anthony grew older, his facial and body structure began to look more like Keith’s. I thought of Tony when he was 16. He looked like Keith but with a different skin tone and hair colour. I shook my head as I thought of all the slander Diana had put us through.
I tried to turn on the sink tap to splash some water on my face, but no water came out.
I tried to turn on the sink tap to splash some water on my face, but no water came out. I was confused for a moment before I then remembered the predicament my son and I typically faced in this house. I looked around and found a large bucket with collected water inside it to use instead. I then went to the light switch and tried to switch it on it didn’t turn on. We had no power or water. Courtesy of Diana, of course.
I walked out of the bathroom and looked at the state of the house as I made my way back to the dining room. It was in disarray. I hadn’t noticed it before, since I was more focused on Tony. We were also supposed to have maids to help clean the home, as well as a chef and gardener, but thanks to Diana, we didn’t.
When Keith kicked me and my son out of the main house he then appointed the duties I had handled as his wife to her. Even though at the time I was still his wife. The wife’s duties included, hiring staff for the home, maids, gardener’s chefs etc. Handling the finances of the home; salaries of workers, money for things required in the home, like furniture, ingredients chefs needed etc.
So, when it came to me Keith would give the order for what he wanted done, but ultimately Diana was responsible for carrying out his orders. And he trusted she would do it.
Out of spite for me Diana did as much as she could to inconvenience my life. What’s more she knew there was nothing I could do about it. I had already ruined my relationship with Keith, so he had no interest checking in on what was going on with me he just assumed Diana was doing her part. Most of the time the reason I went to see Keith so often, was to try to and inform him of the situation I was in. However, he thought I was just trying to annoy him about making Anthony his heir.
It had only been about six/seven months since I started living here and about three/four months since Diana started her shenanigans of stopping the maids from working in the house, cutting the electricity, etc.
The problem is I was a billionaire’s wife who’d never had to work a day in her life. Even before I got married, I was pampered in everything I did. So, I wasn’t used to cleaning after myself, let alone a whole house. As time passed with no change in the situation, I was forced to learn to clean and even to cook. Now with all my experience I could get right to work with no issue.
But the inconveniences with Diana didn’t end there. I took my phone out and I checked my bank account to see how much I had. I only had a thousand dollars. As I was still his wife Keith had organized for me to receive a monthly allowance of 50 thousand (USD). However, Diana made sure I never received the full amount. She would only give me a fraction of the amount each month (typically 1000) and on top of that make sure I received it late.
In short, I was made to feel like a beggar waiting for handouts.
Before I could even think about how to be there for my son and formulating a plan to ensure he was financially secure in 7 years time I had solve this issue of Diana’s meddling. If I could I would turn to my family for help but I couldn’t rely on them either. I thought of my father and brother who had mercilessly abandoned me after Keith abandoned me as well. They believed the rumours just like everyone else and thought I was the problem.
The quickest way to solve that issue would be to make my own money by getting a job. The problem however was that I got married at 19 which is around the time people went to university/ college and I didn’t go, since I was told to focus on being a wife. Which meant I couldn’t get a higher education job that paid more. I could only get small jobs like being a waitress, barista, shop clear etc.
In my previous life around this time, I doubt I would have been able to take on such a job since I’d never worked before, let alone even consider it. Going from a billionaire lifestyle to ordinary one was quite the jump. But now I certainly could take on the task with no issue. If anyone from my life before found out I was working a 9 to 5 they would probably laugh at me but that didn’t matter. I would forget about my pride and focus on what was more important, which was Anthony.
As for how I should go about the issue pertaining to Diana and Keith. For starters I think it would be best to completely forget about trying to fight with Keith to make. It didn’t matter to him whether Anthony was the rightful heir or not, his choice was always going to be Diana and her son no matter what. I had to give up trying to fight for that considering Tony himself in the future isn’t even interested being the heir.
So, my strategy should be doing the doing the next best thing to achieve my goal. I didn’t want him to end up alone, neither did I want to leave him with nothing.
Honestly, if it wasn’t for Diana’s sabotaging, with Keith’s arrangement alone there was so much I could do to try to ensure my sons future was secured. I could put most of the money in a saving’s accounts for Tony to use when he was older. I could invest in projects to make more money.
“What’s wrong mum?” Anthony asked me, bringing me out of my thoughts. He was probably noticing I was deep in thought.
“Nothing,” I told him. I then looked at the time it was around 5pm. It was gogin to get dark soon and we would need to have dinner. “Anyway, are you hungry? We can make something to eat.”
“You?” he asked me in surprise “You’re going to cook? He asked me in disbelief.
I nodded and smiled at him.
In my past life at this point in time I didn’t know how to cook I would take us out to eat whilst trying to save what little money we had.
If I took care of the water and electric bills, that would take about a quarter of the money I had. It was still early in the month, and who knew when Diana would give me the next allowance? In any case, I had no choice because we needed water and power. We couldn’t use water from buckets and candles for light. Diana was certainly not going to take care of it, and no one else was going to help me.
In this life, I wouldn’t let Diana’s antics stress me out. I would cook and clean for myself and make money my own way.
I went to the large kitchen and checked the cupboards and fridge to see what was inside. There wasn’t much to cook with, and the fridge was empty because there was no power.
“Let’s go take care of the power and water bills and then let’s go shopping to get ingredients,” I told Tony.
After preparing ourselves to go out, we left the house and rushed to go pay the bills before the offices closed. We then went to the grocery store to get ingredients to make dinner.
Returning home I was glad to see the power was working and we had water. Tony and I began to prepare dinner. I had him help me either cut some ingredients or put them into the pot.
“Mmhmm, mum this is really good!” He commented as he ate. “I didn’t know you could cook!”
I smiled as he complimented my cooking. I’m glad he didn’t have too many questions about why I knew how to cook. I had years of practice unbeknownst to him. We ate dinner and washed the dishes, then I had him prepare for bed. After he brushed his teeth, I tucked him into his bed
“So tomorrow you’re really not going to see Daddy?” he asked.
I recalled that on Sundays when Keith didn’t go to work, I would go to his home (our former home) and demand to see him. He never let me see him, of course.
“No, I’m going to stay with you,” I assured Anthony. He smiled at me with a look of relief.
“Sleep tight, Tony. I love you,” I told him and kissed him on his forehead.
“Goodnight, mum,” he told me. I caressed his hair as he slowly but surely began to fall asleep.
I watched him as he slept for a while. My whole day replayed in my mind as I did. I couldn’t believe I’d died and come back again. Regardless of how it had happened I was just so grateful to have been given this second chance. Looking at Tony’s peaceful sleeping face I realized I had taken so many moments like this for granted. Funny how you appreciate something once you lose it. In this life I wanted enjoy every moment with my son after experiencing the regret I felt earlier. I wanted to have no regrets this time.
After a while of watching him sleep, I got up and quietly left his room, closing his door behind me.
With him now sleeping my mind then went to worrying about our finances. With less than 1000 dollars and a whole month ahead of us I had to figure out how to make more money. I could rely on my family neither could rely on Keith and Diana.The only good thing about my situation was I didn’t have to pay rent. Keith owned this property. Hopefully, I would find a job soon, so we didn’t have to worry too much about our finances. After making sure all the doors were locked I went to my room and began to work on my CV and research open job positions. I was hoping I would finish soon so that by Monday I could already start applying.
The next day Tony and I stayed at home. As I had promised him, I didn’t go anywhere. I decided that this would be a good tie to clean the house. It was a mess from Of course my previous self-had tried to clean things as best as she could since she had no maids, but the work was sloppy. It would a few more years of having to clean for myself before I really got used to it.
Tony helped me as well and by the afternoon the house was immaculately clean. Once we were done, I took him to the park after lunch. It was relaxing not having to stress myself worrying about Keith or Diana. Just having fun with my son.
“Tony, you have school tomorrow remember to make sure all your books are packed, your uniform and your bag is ready,” I reminded him once we returned home .
Suddenly his expression changed. It went from being happy to nervous and sad. A look of concern then appeared on my face.
More Kickass Romance Reads
Dive into irresistible romance stories packed with possessive heroes, forbidden passion, billionaire obsession, mafia intrigue, and heart-stopping twists. One chapter is never enough—your next addiction starts here.