After I Stopped Loving Him novel Chapter 1160

York wore a cryptic smile. "You seem incredibly resistant to me. Did I offend you somehow? Or did you already know exactly who I am?"

"You haven't been in Cabinda for very long, Mr. Austin, and we've only crossed paths in public a few times. You haven't offended me, and I had no prior knowledge of you. In fact, I have absolutely no idea who you really are."

This man was endlessly testing her.

York chuckled.

He suddenly pulled out a few books from beneath the coffee table and pushed them toward her. "I was skimming through these, and I found them quite interesting. They're stories about rebirth."

"Tell me, Isabella. Do you believe people can actually be reborn?"

Isabella glanced at the covers. They were commercially published rebirth-themed romance novels.

A hardened man like York probably never touched romance novels. Going out of his way to find and read them just to test her was almost commendable.

"I haven't read fiction in ages."

Isabella picked one up, flipped through a few pages indifferently, and tossed it back down. "I used to read a bit on my phone or scroll through videos when I was bored."

"You only get one life. How could anyone start over? Who has the power to turn back time and give someone a blank slate?"

"Don't confuse fiction with reality, Mr. Austin. A man of your age shouldn't be misled by made-up stories."

York fell silent for a moment before replying, "Fiction draws from reality."

"But it's still just fiction, painted to look perfectly ideal. In the real world, who actually gets a do-over? If rebirth were real, people would be taking their own lives left and right just to respawn and choose a better path."

"The whole world would descend into chaos. I firmly believe we only get one shot. The afterlife is a myth, and death is like a light burning out. You don't just die and wake up in your past."

Even though she was living proof of it, she would never admit to being reborn.

She must have known that if she stayed and fought with Natalie, the woman would inevitably orchestrate her murder.

"It seems you've read too many of these novels, Mr. Austin. If I could be reborn to rewrite my destiny, I wouldn't have struggled so much. Didn't I have it awful? Tricked into marriage, divorced, and my reputation dragged through the mud."

The only upside was the money.

In her past life, she had walked away from the divorce with nothing.

In this life, Ethan had compensated her generously. She had walked away with an astronomical divorce settlement.

Legally, Ethan's vast fortune had nothing to do with her, and they hadn't acquired much marital property. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn't have seen a dime.

But Ethan had handed her millions of dollars, and she didn't even have to return the lavish wedding gift.

She had gone through one divorce and come out a wealthy woman.