Chapter 1

Three years.

It had been three years since Ethan Hayes had sent me away.

I stood in the grand ballroom of the Hayes family mansion, a place I once thought would be my home, and felt nothing. The crystal chandeliers glittered above, casting light on the rich and powerful of the city, their whispers following me like a shadow.

They all remembered me. Sarah Miller, the girl who supposedly pushed Ethan's beloved Emily down a flight of stairs, the girl who was so obsessed with a man who didn't want her that she had to be exiled.

I looked across the room and saw him. Ethan. He stood tall and handsome in a tailored suit, a glass of champagne in his hand, with Emily clinging to his arm. He was talking to some business associates, a confident smile on his face, but his eyes kept finding mine.

I met his gaze and held it, my expression completely blank. The deep, aching love I once had for him was gone, replaced by a hollow indifference. It was a relief, this emptiness.

"I can't believe she has the nerve to show up," a woman muttered behind a jeweled fan.

Her friend agreed, her voice dripping with disdain. "After what she did to poor Emily. Some people have no shame."

"And look at her, she's staring at Ethan like she still has a chance. It's pathetic."

Their words were just noise. I took a slow sip of my water, my focus drifting to the large television screen mounted on the wall, currently playing a silent slideshow of corporate achievements. It was the annual Hayes Corporation gala, an event I once dreamed of attending as Ethan's partner. Now, I was just a ghost at the feast.

My parents had forced me to come, hoping it would signal some kind of reconciliation, a public burying of the hatchet. They didn't understand that the hatchet was already buried, deep in my back.

Suddenly, the slideshow on the screen flickered and was replaced by a breaking news report. The anchor's face was grim.

"We interrupt this program with a developing story. Renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carter was involved in a multi-car pile-up on the interstate this afternoon. He has been declared brain dead at Saint Jude's Hospital."

The name hit me like a physical blow.

Dr. Ben Carter.

My breath caught in my throat. The glass of water slipped from my fingers and shattered on the marble floor. A cold wave of something immense and terrible washed over me, so powerful it buckled my knees. A sound tore from my lungs, a raw, agonized scream that had nothing to do with the woman I was supposed to be.

The ballroom fell silent. Every eye was on me.

"Ben," I whispered, the name a shard of glass in my mouth. "No."

I didn't understand. Why did it hurt so much? I barely knew the man, a doctor I'd heard of, a name in the medical community. But the grief was an animal, clawing its way out of my chest, a primal, overwhelming agony that blotted out everything. Tears streamed down my face, hot and unstoppable. I collapsed, my hands clutching my head as a pain I couldn't name ripped through me.

People stared, confused. Emily looked triumphant for a moment, then her expression soured into confusion. Why would I be hysterical over a stranger's death?

But Ethan wasn't confused. He was staring at me, his face pale with a dawning horror. The champagne glass hung forgotten in his hand. He took a step towards me, his mouth opening as if to say my name.

He looked at my unrestrained, inexplicable grief, and for the first time in three years, the confident mask he wore cracked, revealing a deep, unsettling fear. He knew. Or he was beginning to remember something he, too, had helped me forget.

His eyes met mine, and in that moment, the indifference I had cultivated so carefully was shattered by a pain so profound, so alien, it felt like it belonged to someone else.

Someone I used to be.