The Man They Betrayed Reborn as Their Boss

Chapter 2

 

Jeremy woke with a violent gasp, as if his lungs had just been forced to work again after rotting for years.

His eyes flew open. Blinding light stabbed his vision—followed by the hum of laughter, the clinking of glasses, and the warm scent of roasted meat filling the air.

He wasn’t in bed. He was sitting in a dining chair.

Around him, people dressed elegantly were enjoying dinner at a long, grand table draped in white linen, candles flickering between them.

Then came a voice, soft, but carrying that familiar tone he knew too well. Sweet on the surface, deceit simmering beneath.

“Father, don’t be like that. Jeremy’s not a stranger. He’s just… a little awkward with things like this.”

Jeremy slowly turned toward the voice.

Claire sat across from him, young. So much younger than the last time he’d seen her. Her hair was still long and wavy, her face softer, not yet sharpened by the years to come.

She was smiling… but not at him.

Beside her sat an older man in a dark suit, his expression carved with restrained annoyance, Claire’s father, Mr. Hargreaves.

Jeremy couldn’t understand.

He looked around the table. There was Claire’s mother at the far end, her two brothers, and Lucas. A younger Lucas, laughing easily, friendly, exactly as Jeremy remembered him before everything went wrong.

“What is this…” Jeremy whispered under his breath. “What’s happening…”

Everything felt real. Too real. The plates, the silverware, the aroma of wine and the burning heat creeping up his face as he realized every pair of eyes at the table was now fixed on him.

Mr. Hargreaves tapped the table lightly.

“Awkward?” he repeated, his tone icy. “I don’t see awkward. What I see is a man with no clear background, no family, and no education to match. And you expect us to believe he can provide for my daughter?”

Claire lowered her gaze. Lucas took a small sip of his drink, hiding a smirk behind the rim of his glass.

Jeremy froze. The words hit him harder than the poison that once ended his life. They were the same words that had haunted him for years, even after he’d finally succeeded.

“Sir…” Lucas spoke up suddenly, pretending to defend his friend. “Jeremy may not come from a rich family, but he works hard. He has a shop—”

“A little shop on the corner?” Mr. Hargreaves interrupted with a dry laugh. “Oh, yes. I took the liberty of stopping by once. Two wooden shelves and a faded sign. Is that what’s going to support my future grandchild?”

The table fell silent. The clinking of silverware stopped. Even Claire didn’t dare look up.

Jeremy stared down at his plate. The meat before him tasted like nothing cold, flavorless, like a fragment of the past he could no longer swallow.

Those words echoed in his mind: no family, a small shop, unworthy.

And then he remembered everything.

This night. The night he was first introduced to Claire’s family. The night he went home with a shattered heart, but still forgave them, because he loved her.

The night that began it all.

The world seemed to spin.

The air in his lungs tightened not from sickness, but from realization. He had truly come back. Ten years before the poison, before the lies, before his death.

“I’m back,” he whispered under his breath. “God… I really came back.”

Claire gave a small laugh from the other end of the table, trying to ease the tension.

“Oh, Father, Jeremy doesn’t need much to earn people’s trust. He’s a hard worker. I’m sure one day, he’ll be successful.”

Lucas joined in, spewing a string of words that sounded like praise, words meant to defend Jeremy and lift him up. 

At this time, Lucas was the only friend Jeremy had ever considered a brother, the reason he brought the man to a private family dinner like this, to stand in for the family he didn’t have.

A few people chuckled.

Jeremy looked at Lucas. That same friendly smile, the same easy warmth but his eyes… They were the exact same eyes that had looked down at him on the day he died. Warm on the surface. Rotten underneath.

Jeremy clenched his hands beneath the table until his knuckles turned white. But his face remained calm. No protest. No reply. Only silence, his gaze sweeping over each person at the table, one by one.

And behind that silence, something shifted. The shame, the pain, the humiliation, they melted together into something darker.

You mocked me once. You destroyed me in the end. This time… I’ll remember everything.

He took a sip of water, staring at his reflection in the rippling surface. A young face. Old eyes. A new heart, but filled with old wounds.

A tear slipped down his cheek. He wiped it away quickly before anyone noticed. Then, slowly, a faint smile appeared one that didn’t belong to a man so quiet, so seemingly fragile. 

But it was there now.

Calm. Cold. Dangerous.

“Thank you,” he murmured soundlessly, “for this second chance.”