Chapter 1

Sarah Miller stared out the window.

The city lights blurred below.

She wasn't seeing them.

She was seeing Aspen, Colorado.

Snow on the mountains, a small cabin, a fireplace.

Ethan Vanderbilt beside her.

That was the dream.

Their dream.

Ethan.

Her Ethan.

He loved her, she knew he did.

He told her so, many times.

But his family, the Vanderbilts, they were old money, powerful.

They had plans for Ethan, plans that didn't include a freelance nature photographer with a love for hiking and not much else.

So Ethan had made a deal with his family.

And then he had made a deal with her.

"Just one child, Sarah," he had pleaded, his eyes full of a love she believed in.

"With Brittany Hayes. You know her, my childhood friend. It's what my grandparents want, to secure the inheritance, the legacy."

Sarah had recoiled. Brittany. Socially prominent, beautiful, everything Sarah wasn't in their eyes.

"Then we're free," Ethan had promised, holding her tight. "After the baby is born, we'll go straight to Aspen. We'll elope. Just you and me."

Sarah had agreed.

For love. For their future.

She would wait.

Brittany had the baby, a boy. Ethan Junior, they called him EJ.

Sarah saw the photos. A perfect Vanderbilt heir.

She waited for Ethan to come to her, to say, "It's done. Let's go."

He came, but the words were different.

"Sarah, I'm so sorry," he'd said, his face etched with a weariness that tugged at her heart.

"EJ... he's so small. He needs his father. My grandparents... they're watching. I can't just leave now."

"When, Ethan?" she had asked, her voice barely a whisper. The Aspen dream felt a little further away.

"Three years," he promised. "Just three years. Then he'll be older. It'll be easier. I swear it, Sarah. Aspen is still our future."

Three years.

She had nodded, tears stinging her eyes.

She would wait. For Ethan. For Aspen.

She loved him. That was enough.

For now.