Chapter 2

I lay there, listening, my body frozen but my mind racing. The conversation continued, drifting down the hallway, each word another nail in the coffin of the life I thought I had.

"So what's the plan now?" Mark asked. "You just stay 'dead' forever?"

"That's the idea," Ryan's voice was smooth, confident. "I'm my own long-lost twin brother, 'Rick Miller.' Just moved to town to look after my brother's grieving widow and his... other grieving widow. It' s perfect. Ava and I can be together without any of the questions or the judgment. Everyone just sees a supportive brother-in-law stepping up."

The sheer arrogance of it stole my breath. He had thought of everything. He had planned his escape with the same meticulous detail he used to plan firefighting strategies. Only this time, I was the burning building he was leaving behind.

I thought of all the years I had supported him, working double shifts at the hospital so he could pursue his dream. I thought of the nights I'd spent waiting, praying he' d come home safe. I had built my entire world around him, and he had demolished it with a lie, all for a twisted sense of "duty" to Ava.

The pain was a physical thing, a deep, hollow ache in my chest. It wasn't the soft, sorrowful grief from before. This was a jagged, angry wound. He didn' t just leave me; he erased me. He made my love for him a joke.

The door to my room creaked open, and Liam stepped inside, his face etched with concern. He was holding two cups of coffee.

"Hey, you're up," he said softly, his eyes scanning my face. "I brought you something. Hospital coffee is terrible."

He stopped when he saw my expression. The shock, the rage, the utter devastation must have been plain on my face.

"Scarlett? What is it? What's wrong?" he asked, putting the cups down and rushing to my side.

I looked at him, at his kind, honest face. Liam, who had loved me since we were kids building forts in his backyard. Liam, who had always been there, a steady presence in the background of my life. He had proposed once, years ago, before Ryan. I' d gently turned him down, my heart already belonging to someone else. Someone who had just ripped it out and stomped on it.

A wild, desperate idea took root in the ruins of my heart. A way forward. A way to prove to Ryan, and to myself, that I was not the fragile, broken thing he' d left behind.

I ignored his question. My voice was raspy, but clear and steady.

"Liam," I said, meeting his worried gaze. "Do you remember what you asked me, a long time ago, under the old oak tree by the lake?"

He looked confused, but he nodded slowly. "Of course I do."

"Is the offer still on the table?"

His eyes widened in disbelief. "Scarlett... what are you saying?"

"I'm asking you, Liam," I said, my voice gaining strength with every word. "Will you marry me?"

For a second, he just stared at me, speechless. Then, a slow, brilliant smile spread across his face, a sunrise after a long, dark night. It was a look of pure, unadulterated joy.

"Yes," he breathed, his voice thick with emotion. "God, Scarlett, yes. A thousand times, yes."

He reached for my hand, his grip warm and solid, a stark contrast to the cold emptiness I' d been feeling. He was so happy he looked like he might float away.

"We can do it right away," he started rambling, caught up in the moment. "A small ceremony, just us. We can find a house, a new place, far away from here. We can start over, really start over…"

His words were a balm to my raw nerves, a promise of a future I hadn't dared to imagine just ten minutes ago.

But as he spoke, a shadow fell across the open doorway.

I looked up.

Ryan, in his new identity as "Rick," was walking down the hall with Ava clinging to his arm. She was weeping theatrically onto his shoulder, and he was stroking her hair, the picture of a concerned family member. He didn't look in my room. He didn't see me.

But I saw him.

I saw the lie, living and breathing, walking away from the destruction he had caused, on his way to his "true love."

Liam followed my gaze, his happy chatter dying in his throat. He saw them too. He didn' t understand the full picture, but he saw the woman I' d been mourning with, now clinging to a man who looked exactly like my dead husband.

His hand tightened on mine, a silent question in his touch.

I turned back to him, my gaze hard as steel. "Let's start planning," I said, my voice cold and final.