My assignment was Sterling Thorne IV.
Make him fall in love with me.
I failed ninety-nine times.
Each time, the moment his Affection Meter pinned at 100, he killed me with his own hands.
The hundredth time, I stopped running the script.
I stopped bringing him medication. I stopped stepping in front of the knife. I stopped waiting in the rain for him to look back.
I claimed my mother's trust — four hundred million dollars and change — and I bought an island and a string of horses, and I got engaged to someone else, and I lived louder than anyone in the room.
Sterling went insane.
He shut down my foundation's gala. He walked in front of my engagement-bound town car. He knelt at my engagement party until his hands left blood on the marble.
Avery. I love you.
Look at me. One more time.
Everyone assumed I had finally won.
Even the System whispered in my ear: Sterling Thorne — Affection Meter at 100. Original mission ready for settlement.
I smiled, slid the engagement ring off my finger, and bent down to him.
Too late.
My mission changed a long time ago.
Sterling thought my new mission was making him regret me.
He didn't know.
After my ninety-ninth death, I'd signed a different contract.
At the height of his love for me, I was going to give him back every one of my ninety-nine deaths. Untouched. Just as I had received them.
The hundredth time I opened my eyes, I was standing under the porte-cochère of the Thorne townhouse on East 73rd.
A Nor'easter was driving down the street.
Sterling's car was at the curb. He got out of the back seat with his black coat already soaked through, his face cold and exact, the kind of cold that looks like a personnel decision.
I was holding a brown paper Duane Reade bag.
This was the medication I'd run uptown for, in the first loop, with a fever of a hundred and two.
That time, he was in the middle of an ulcer flare, and every cousin and uncle and Wellesley shareholder was waiting for him to fold at the board vote.
I'd put the bottle into his hand.
He'd swallowed two pills, walked into the meeting, and locked them all out.
Three months later, on my birthday, he said: Avery, I trust you.
Six months later, he pushed me off the side of his yacht.
When the Long Island Sound was filling my lungs, he was standing on the deck. The skin around his eyes had gone red.
I'm sorry.
Only one of us walks away from this.
The hundredth time around, I looked at the bag and laughed.
The System started shouting in my head: Host. Sterling Thorne — ulcer episode. Critical relationship checkpoint. Delivering medication: plus five Affection.
I turned, and I dropped the bag into the trash can beside the gate.
The System stalled. What are you doing.
I snapped my umbrella open and kept my voice flat.
Off the clock.
Through the rain, Sterling stopped walking.
He'd seen me.
For ninety-nine loops, he had walked into rain like this expecting me to come running with my coat over his head, asking softly if it hurt.
Not this time.
I walked past him. The rim of my umbrella brushed his shoulder.
His face changed. Avery.
I stopped.
He was bloodless under the porte-cochère lights, but his voice was still pitched down from above. Where's my medication?
I pointed at the trash can.
Expired. I tossed it.
The bag was brand new.
Sterling looked at me. His eyes dropped a register.
What are you pulling now.
I smiled at him.
Mr. Thorne. Don't take yourself quite so seriously.
It hit him the way being introduced to a stranger hits you.
Rainwater was running off his jaw.
The System was practically smoking. Host. Warning. Male Lead Affection Meter falling.
I folded my umbrella and got in the car. My driver asked me where to.
I looked through the back window at Sterling, frozen in the rain, and gave an address.
Wynn, Hartley and Cole. Lawyers' office.
It was also the day my mother's will was being read.
The first ninety-nine times around, I had been with Sterling. I had missed it.
Which is why my mother's brother — and Eleanor Thorne — had cracked open my inheritance like a wishbone and split it between them.
Not this time.
Hollis Wynn was already at the conference table when I walked in.
He looked up. The smile on his face froze for half a second before he put it back on.
Avery. What are you doing here.
I handed my coat to a paralegal.
My mother's will. Why wouldn't I be.
He sighed the way he'd practiced sighing.
Sweetheart. The Thornes are in crisis, aren't they. Sterling's flare. You're his fiancée. Be where you're needed.
Fiancée.
For ninety-nine loops, that word had been the chain that bolted me to Sterling's hip.
The Thornes never announced me.
The family never confirmed me.
But the second they needed someone to give blood, take a fall, or absorb a scandal, suddenly I was the fiancée.
I sat down and looked at the lawyer. Let's start.
Hollis lost color. Avery. You're so young. The trust is complicated. It makes sense for me to keep managing it.
The lawyer opened the binder.
Per Ms. Mei Wynn's final instructions: the Wynn Capital seed stake, the Tribeca brownstones, and the offshore trust pass in their entirety to her sole heir, Avery Wynn.
The room went still for a beat.
Hollis slammed his hand flat on the table. That's not possible. She promised me before she died —
I looked at him.
He realized what he'd just said and shut his mouth.
I smiled.
Promised you my mother's estate.
His assistant murmured into his ear. Mr. Wynn. There are reporters in the lobby.
He swallowed it down and put a doting uncle's voice back on. Avery. I'm doing this for you. A girl your age, that much money — people will eat you alive. Marrying into a family like the Thornes — you need backing.
I nodded.
That's true.
He breathed out.
I slid a second folder across the table.
Which is why I'm filing against you.
His pupils contracted.
What did you say.
The lawyer continued without raising his voice. Mr. Hollis Wynn is named in a civil and criminal complaint for breach of fiduciary duty, conversion of trust assets, and forgery of trust authorizations. The amounts are material. The District Attorney's office has been notified.
There were footsteps in the hall.
Two officers came through the door.
Hollis finally cracked. Avery! I am your only family!
I watched them take his wrists.
For ninety-nine lifetimes, this man had liquidated my inheritance into the Thornes' liquidity hole, and then, while my body was still warm, used my money to send Sterling a birthday gift.
I stood up. My voice was soft.
Which is why I had the police pick you up in person.
My phone rang.
Sterling.
I cut the call.
He called back.
I blocked him.
The System spoke up, mournfully. Host. You are deviating, permanently, from the optimal route.
I looked at the rain on the glass.
Good.
There was a Thorne family dinner that night.
I hadn't planned to go.
Then Eleanor Thorne, the matriarch herself, sent a single text.
Avery. Tonight. You are expected.
In ninety-nine loops, that line had been the one I feared most.
Thorne family dinners are not meals. They are tribunals.
If I wore the wrong dress, I was a striver with no breeding.
If I said one sentence too many, I was ambitious — they could see it on my face.
If I stayed quiet, I was small.
This time I wore red.
The dining room at the East 73rd townhouse was full when I walked in.
Sterling was at his grandmother's right hand. He looked worse than he had under the porte-cochère.
He hadn't taken the medication. He'd ridden out the rest of the day on whatever he had in him.
Eleanor watched me cross the room. Avery. Sterling has been very ill today. Where were you.
I pulled out my chair.
Claiming my inheritance.
The table went silent.
Sterling's uncle Wellesley laughed once into his glass. Those Wynn assets. Worth detaining Sterling for.
I lifted my eyes.
Wellesley. What were your fund's net distributions last year.
He frowned. Why are you asking.
I gave him the number.
Awkward. The hotel group I inherited today posted seven times that.
Wellesley turned a useful shade of grey.
Eleanor set her fork down hard enough to make it ring.
Avery. You should remember. You were invited into this family because Sterling extended the courtesy.
I smiled.
Then I'll return it.
I took a navy velvet box out of my clutch.
Inside was the Cartier Trinity ring Sterling had slid onto my finger three years ago.
That night, he'd had Eleanor and three trustees pushing him to be seen with someone. He had taken the ring out of his jacket between a call and a flight.
No proposal.
No flowers.
He'd said: Just to keep the table quiet. Don't read into it.
I pushed the box across the table to Sterling.
Mr. Thorne. Returning what was yours.
For the first time all night Sterling looked at me.
His eyes were black with something compressed.
Avery. Are you done.
I held his look.
I'm not marrying you.
Eleanor went cold. You think the door of this family is the kind of door you can walk in and out of as you please.
I took out a second folder.
Press release. Tomorrow morning at eight, Wynn Capital's communications office will issue a statement formally ending the engagement.
Sterling's hand tightened on his wine glass.
A small, distinct crack ran through the stem.
The System pinged in my head. Male Lead emotional indicators outside normal range.
I felt no relief.
This was nothing.
What he owed me was not a broken engagement.
It was ninety-nine lives.
Sterling followed me out of the dining room.
The rain had stopped. The cobbled courtyard behind the townhouse was wet and cold.
He blocked me at the gate.
Avery.
I stopped.
His lips were the color of new paper. His voice came out low.
Your uncle. Was that you.
I nodded.
Yes.
The press release for tomorrow. That was planned.
Yes.
He stared at me.
Why.
He asked it almost gently.
As though he really didn't know.
For ninety-nine loops, I had explained.
I said it hurt. He said tough it out.
I said I was afraid. He said don't be dramatic.
I said, Sterling, I love you.
He said, I know. That's why you won't leave.
This time I wasn't going to spell it out.
I don't want you anymore.
His eyes flattened.
Say that again.
I stepped closer so he could hear me. Sterling Thorne. I do not want you anymore.
His face finally went.
It wasn't anger.
It was the look of a man whose furniture had been moved while he was out.
For ninety-nine loops, I had loved him with the consistency of a utility.
He had assumed the consistency meant inevitability.
His hand closed on my wrist. He bore down.
Because I didn't pick up your call today.
I looked down at the hand on my wrist.
In the 17th loop, this hand put a knife into my chest.
In the 42nd, this hand held my head under in a bathtub on the third floor of the Hamptons house.
In the 73rd, this hand pulled my oxygen line.
I lifted my other hand and slapped him.
The sound was clean.
The staff in the gallery froze in place.
Sterling's head stayed turned. He didn't move.
I took my wrist back.
Touch me again, and a slap won't cover it.
He turned his face back, slowly.
There was rage in his eyes, and shock, and something I had never seen — a man losing his place in the order of things.
Avery. Do you know who you're speaking to.
I opened the car door.
Yes.
To an ex-fiancé.
When the door closed, I heard him cough behind me. Wet.
My driver checked his rearview.
Miss Wynn. Mr. Thorne is bringing up blood.
I shut my eyes.
Drive.
The System hesitated. Host. Male Lead vital signs irregular. Initiate intervention.
I said: No.