Chapter 1

The doctor' s words hung in the sterile air.

"Acute myeloid leukemia."

AML.

Aggressive. Poor prognosis.

My breath hitched.

The fatigue, the bruises I' d tried to ignore for months, suddenly made horrifying sense.

I was twenty-eight.

A pastry chef with dreams as sweet as my confections.

Eight years with Liam Walker.

My Liam.

I' d been sketching wedding cake designs just last night, a silly, hopeful habit.

A future, a family, all of it felt like it was dissolving.

He said the words again, something about treatment options, survival rates.

It was all a blur.

I nodded, numb.

Somehow, I drove home to the apartment Liam and I shared.

It was our sanctuary, or so I thought.

Liam was at work, a rising star at his finance firm.

He wouldn' t be home for hours.

The silence in the apartment was deafening.

I needed something, anything, to distract me from the abyss opening up.

Music.

Liam had an old tablet he rarely used.

Our shared playlists were on it.

I fumbled with the device, my hands shaking.

It powered on slowly.

A cloud-synced folder caught my eye.

Not music.

"Walker_Harrington_Private."

Curiosity, a cold dread, made me tap it.

Marriage certificates.

Liam Walker and Isabelle "Bella" Harrington-Walker.

Dated three years ago.

Three. Years.

My heart stopped.

Then, photos.

A lavish wedding. Liam, beaming, handsome in a tux.

And Bella.

Sophisticated, beautiful, with an old-money aura I could never replicate.

She looked… familiar.

Her eyes.

They were hazel, a distinctive, uncommon shade.

Just like mine.

Her facial structure, the curve of her jaw…

It was like looking at a distorted, wealthier version of myself.

The tablet clattered from my numb fingers onto the plush rug.

Leukemia. A secret wife.

Which was the bigger betrayal?

My life, the one I thought I was building, was a lie.

A meticulously crafted illusion.

My family was back in Ohio, a small town I' d fled for culinary school in New York.

Mom and Dad were gone.

My only sister lived across the country.

We weren't close.

Liam had been my everything.

My family, my anchor in this overwhelming city.

He knew I had no one else here.

No real safety net.

He' d made sure of it, in subtle ways over the years.

"Those old friends don't understand our life here, Ava."

"You don't need anyone but me."

And I, foolishly, had believed him.

I picked up the tablet, my movements jerky.

The image of Liam and Bella, smiling, their arms linked, burned into my retinas.

I wanted to smash it.

Instead, I navigated to their wedding album and, with a shaking finger, hit delete.

Then I deleted the certificate.

It changed nothing, but the small act of defiance sent a tremor through me.

Not of strength, but of pure, unadulterated rage.

It was a pathetic gesture.

The real proof was out there.

The real marriage was out there.

A memory surfaced, sharp and unwelcome.

NYU, years ago.

I was a scholarship kid, always feeling like an outsider.

Vicious rumors had spread.

That I' d faked my application essays.

That I was sleeping with a professor for grades.

I' d been devastated, isolated.

Liam, then just a charismatic classmate, had "defended" me.

He' d been my hero, my savior.

He' d dismissed the rumors as jealousy from those who couldn't match my talent.

His defense had cemented my trust, my affection.

Now, I saw it.

The timing.

Bella Harrington attended a rival university then.

She and Liam were "on-again, off-again," a wealthy, power couple in the making.

Had they started those rumors?

To isolate me? To make Liam my sole focus?

The thought was sickening.

I had to know.

I had to hear it from him, or at least about him.

Numbly, I grabbed my keys and purse.

Liam' s Wall Street office.

The security guard knew me. Smiled.

"Ms. Miller, go right on up."

Ms. Miller. Not Mrs. Walker.

The irony wasn't lost on me.

As I neared Liam' s glass-walled office, I heard voices.

Liam' s, and his colleague, Derek Chen.

Liam' s voice was cold, calculating.

Nothing like the warm tones he used with me.

Derek was on speaker.

"Seriously, Liam, Bella's getting impatient. How much longer with the 'Ava project'?"

My blood ran cold.

The Ava project?

Liam laughed, a dry, humorless sound.

"Until she's pregnant, obviously. Bella' s barren, and she' s fixated on a kid that looks like us."

Us. Liam and Bella.

"Ava' s practically her twin. Once there's a viable pregnancy, I' ll secure parental rights. Bella can finally parade around with our perfect baby."

My stomach churned.

Barren. Twin. Incubator.

Derek sounded skeptical. "Risky. What if Ava finds out about Bella? Or the kid doesn't look right?"

Liam scoffed. "She' s a naive small-town girl, worships the ground I walk on. And I' ve made sure she' s cut off most of her old friends. As for the kid, with their resemblance, it' s a safe bet. Worst case, there are… other avenues."

Other avenues.

The words hung there, chillingly vague.

My knees buckled.

I leaned against the cool corridor wall, struggling to breathe.

The Ava project.

A naive small-town girl.

He' d planned this. All of it.

For years.

I turned and fled.

Down the elevator, through the opulent lobby, out into the cacophony of Wall Street.

The city lights blurred through my tears.

My eyes burned.

My chest ached with a pain far sharper than any physical symptom of my illness.

Back in the apartment, our apartment, his apartment, I moved like a ghost.

Every photo of us, every shared trinket, felt like a prop in his sick play.

The wedding cake sketches I' d made.

Such a fool.

I found them, ripped them into tiny, unrecognizable pieces.

The rage was back, a wildfire consuming the shock.

I tore through my closet, pulling out clothes he' d bought me, gifts he' d given.

They all felt tainted.

And then I remembered.

The leukemia.

I hadn' t told him about the diagnosis yet.

I was going to, tonight.

I was going to lean on him, seek comfort in his arms.

The thought made me want to vomit.

My illness, the one that felt like a death sentence hours ago, now felt like something else.

A strange, perverse escape.

If I was dying, I wouldn't have to endure this for long.

But another thought, a flicker of defiance, sparked.

A brochure.

My local oncologist had mentioned it, a long shot.

An experimental CAR T-cell therapy program in Boston.

"Highly selective," he' d said. "For cases like yours, with limited options."

At the time, it seemed too drastic, too far away.

Now, it was a lifeline.

My only focus.

I sat on the floor, surrounded by the wreckage of my naive dreams.

He thought I was a naive small-town girl.

He thought I worshipped him.

He was right, once.

Not anymore.

The diagnosis was a death sentence.

His betrayal was a different kind of death.

The death of love, of trust, of the future I' d so carefully imagined.

I found the brochure, tucked away in a drawer.

A leading cancer research institute in Boston.

A sliver of hope in an ocean of despair.

This wasn't just about surviving leukemia anymore.

It was about surviving Liam.

It was about escape.