Chapter 3

I reached out and put a hand on the butler's arm, stopping him.

"Don't bother," I said, my voice flat and empty. "It's no use."

They didn't understand. They couldn't.

While the paramedics were working on Lily in the ambulance, I had called Ryan. I had called him a dozen times. Each call was rejected instantly, sent straight to voicemail without even a single ring. He was blocking my number.

I knew exactly where he was. He was at some fancy restaurant, enjoying a candlelit dinner with Jessica, completely absorbed in her, oblivious to the fact that his daughter was dying.

Mrs. Peterson frowned, her face a mask of disagreement.

"Sarah, how do you know if you don't even try? Your relationship with Ryan was getting better. He came back to the country, didn't he? He came back for you."

She looked at me, her eyes pleading.

"Trust Grandma. Just try one more time."

Tears streamed down my face again, and I closed my eyes, a wave of despair washing over me.

For me? He came back for me?

Anyone with eyes could see he came back for Jessica. It was always for Jessica.

My mind drifted back, into the fog of the past six years. Six years ago, Jessica had dumped him unceremoniously and moved abroad. Ryan had been a wreck. He spent every day and every night in a different bar, drowning his sorrows in alcohol, a ghost of a man.

It was me, his fiancée by an arranged marriage between our families, who was there. I was the one who picked him up when he was too drunk to stand. I was the one who made sure he ate, who listened to him ramble on about Jessica for hours on end, my own heart quietly breaking.

One night, he was completely wasted. He looked at me, his eyes unfocused, and he called me Jessica. He pulled me close, and in his drunken haze, he mistook me for her. We spent the night together.

When he woke up the next morning, the reality of what he'd done seemed to settle in. He looked at me with a strange mixture of regret and resignation. And for the first time, he finally agreed to marry me, for real.

He even planned a proposal. It was in the middle of winter, and he took me to a park as the snow was falling. It was beautiful, like something out of a movie.

He held me, kissed me there in the falling snow, and put a diamond ring on my finger. He promised me a lifetime together. He promised to be a good husband.

I was so naive. I actually believed him.

Our wedding day arrived. I was in my dress, my heart full of hope. And then, just as the ceremony was about to begin, he got a video message on his phone.

It was from Jessica.

She was crying, her face pale and tear-streaked. She told him she was in a hospital in Germany. She told him she was pregnant with his child. She said she was so scared and all alone.

The change in Ryan was instantaneous. The color drained from his face. He dropped the bouquet of flowers he was holding. He was going to leave. Right there, right at the altar.

I grabbed his sleeve, my voice a desperate whisper.

"Don't go. Please, Ryan, don't leave me here. Don't do this to me. I'll be so humiliated."

He looked at me, but his eyes were vacant. He peeled my fingers off his arm, one by one. His face was as cold and hard as a block of ice. He gave me only three words, stingy even in his apology.

"I'm sorry."

Then he turned and walked away. He didn't look back. Not once.