Beeping.
Soft, steady, rhythmic beeping.
It was the first sound I heard before the pain arrived—sharp, burning, curling through my ribs like fire. My eyelids felt glued shut, but I forced them open. The world came to me in blurry fragments: a white ceiling, the metallic taste of blood on my tongue, and a sharp scent of antiseptic that stung my nose.
Am I… dead? No.
If this was the afterlife, it was painfully underwhelming.
A muffled voice drifted through the ringing in my ears. "She's waking up—Doctor! She's waking!" Someone touched my arm. I flinched, groaning as pain shot through my body like lightning.
"It's okay," the nurse said gently. "You're safe. You're in St. Andrew's Hospital. Can you hear me?"
Safe.
Funny word.
I blinked hard, and the world slowly sharpened. The room was pale and sterile, a single IV drip hung at my side, and my right arm was wrapped tightly in bandages. My head throbbed in a slow, suffocating rhythm. I swallowed, my voice barely a rasp.
"What… happened?"
"You were hit by a car," the nurse said softly. "You're lucky to be alive."
Lucky.
I almost laughed.
The memory crashed into me all at once—the rain, the headlights, the horn, Ethan's voice calling my name, and then—
Impact.
My pulse spiked. The monitor beside me began to beep faster.
"Try not to move," the nurse soothed, adjusting my IV line. "You suffered a mild concussion and a fractured arm. But you're stable now."
Stable.
Physically, maybe.
Emotionally? I was a collapsing building.
The nurse pressed a button to lower my bed slightly. "You've been unconscious for almost twelve hours."
Twelve hours.
A hollow feeling spread in my chest.
Did he know?
Did Ethan even care?
I closed my eyes, tears burning behind my lids. The rain had washed away everything that night—my dignity, my trust, my marriage—but I still woke up asking for him like the fool I was.
My chest tightened painfully at the memory of him with another woman…
A single tear escaped down the side of my face.
"We tried contacting your emergency number," the nurse continued. "One man came earlier. He said he was your husband."
My breath hitched.
"He stayed for a few minutes, then stepped out to make a call. He said he'd be back."
Of course he did.
Ethan Cole always came back.
But never for the right reasons.
He was probably checking whether I died before the contract ended, just to see how it would affect the paperwork. For him, everything was business. Even me.
The nurse adjusted the blankets around me, her expression warm. "You should rest. You've been through something very traumatic."
Traumatic didn't cover even one percent of it.
My heart didn't just crack.
It imploded.
When the nurse left, the room fell silent except for the beep-beep of the machine and my own shaky breathing. Pain pulsated behind my eyes, but it wasn't from the accident.
I stared at my bandaged arm and whispered, "Why did it have to be him?"
Why Ethan?
Why the one man I never should've fallen for?
I closed my eyes—and the world slipped away again.
Only this time, it didn't go dark.
It fell backward.
One year earlier.
The hospital smelled the same back then. My mother lay in a bed with thin sheets and too many tubes, her breaths shallow, her hands cold no matter how tightly I held them. Bills piled like mountains I couldn't climb. I had two jobs, barely enough money for food, let alone treatment.
The doctor's words played in my head even now:
"Without immediate surgery, she won't make it."
I'd gone to the hallway, slid down the wall, and cried into my hands. Not softly. Not quietly. Ugly, desperate sobs that shook through my bones.
That's when he came.
"Miss Rivera?"
His voice cut clean through my crying.
I looked up.
A stranger stood above me—tall, immaculate, sharply dressed in a charcoal suit that probably cost more than my yearly salary. Dark hair slicked back, jawline sharp enough to cut ice, eyes cold steel.
Ethan Cole.
I didn't know him then. But he looked at me like he already knew everything.
"You're Liana Rivera, correct?" he asked.
I wiped my eyes, embarrassed. "Yes. Who are you?"
He didn't sit. Didn't offer a hand. He simply said, "I have a proposal that may benefit both of us."
I blinked, confused. "I'm sorry… what?"
He extended a thin envelope toward me. "My company's board requires me to meet certain criteria before I inherit my father's position. One of those criteria includes marriage."
I stared at him, thinking he must be joking.
He wasn't.
"I need a wife." His tone was calm, emotionless. "A temporary one. One year is all I require."
My heart sank. "Is this some kind of sick—"
"In return," he continued, "I will pay for your mother's full treatment. Immediate surgery. Post-operation care. Anything she requires."
My breath caught.
My mother…
"I know everything about your situation," Ethan said. "Your debts. Your work schedule. Your mother's declining condition. I'm not here to pity you. I'm offering a business exchange."
Business.
That was all it ever was for him.
"What exactly are you asking me to do?" I whispered.
He opened the envelope. Inside was a neatly printed document.
A marriage contract.
It had three bold conditions:
1. No romantic involvement.
2. No interference in each other's personal lives.
3. No divorce before one year unless both parties agree.
"If you accept," Ethan said, "your mother will be taken into surgery tomorrow morning."
My chest tightened painfully. "And if I refuse?"
He didn't soften. Not even a little.
"Then she dies."
The tear that slid down my cheek burned like fire. "Why me?"
"You're discreet. Replaceable. And you have no intention of staying in my life after this contract ends."
Replaceable.
The word cut deeper than I expected.
I should've walked away. I should've told him to go to hell. But desperation makes fools out of people. And love makes slaves out of fools.
I took the pen.
My hand shook as I signed the line.
"Good," Ethan said, taking the contract without even looking at me. "We have a deal."
We didn't shake hands.
He didn't thank me.
He didn't even smile.
He only said, "From now on, keep our emotions out of this."
Funny.
He never realized I was the one who failed to follow that rule.
A voice dragged me out of the memory.
"Liana?"
My eyes flew open.
He was there.
Ethan stood at the door, drenched from the rain, breath uneven like he had run all the way here. His shirt clung to him, sleeves rolled, hair messy—nothing like the polished man I met a year ago.
His eyes were on me.
Wide.
Terrified.
Broken.
"Liana…" he whispered again, stepping closer.
My heart twisted, traitorously responding to the man who destroyed it.
But I remembered the brunette in our bed.
And the pain hardened inside me like stone.
I turned my face away.
The machine beeped, echoing the silence between us