ETHAN'S POV
The highway was empty at midnight. Just him, his car, and the angry thoughts spinning in his head.
Ethan's knuckles were white against the steering wheel. His board had torn him apart today like he was some kid fresh out of college. They questioned his decisions, his leadership, his ability to run Blackwell Industries. These were men he'd been crushing in business for seven years. Men who owed their bonuses to him. And today they'd looked at him like he was nothing.
The speedometer climbed to ninety.
He'd built this company from scratch. His father had left him a foundation, sure, but Ethan had turned it into something massive. Something real. He'd made billions while guys like David Chen from accounting were still struggling with quarterly reports. And yet somehow, one failed project and suddenly he was incompetent.
Ninety-five.
His phone buzzed in the cup holder. He knew who it was before he even looked. Rebecca. Of course it was Rebecca. She'd called three times today already, each time leaving messages that made his skin crawl. Sweet messages. Concerned messages. The kind that made her sound like she actually gave a damn.
When he finally answered the last call twenty minutes ago, she'd said it like she was doing him a favor.
"You know you made a mistake, don't you? With Lily?"
He didn't want to talk about this. Not tonight. Not ever again.
"Ethan, you can't keep pretending that marriage was real. I was there for you before. I know what you need. I know you better than—"
He'd hung up on her mid-sentence. But the words stuck around like poison seeping into his veins.
One hundred miles per hour.
Was she right? Had he made a mistake with Lily? The question felt dangerous, like holding something that could burn him if he wasn't careful. He'd been so sure six months ago. So certain that signing those divorce papers was the right call. Lily was suffocating him. She wanted too much. She needed too much. Every time he looked at her, she wanted something he couldn't give.
Or at least, that's what he'd told himself.
That's what Rebecca had convinced him to believe.
The highway curved ahead. Ethan barely noticed. His mind was somewhere else, spinning back to that night he'd signed the papers. Lily's hands had shaken as she held her pen. Tears had rolled down her cheeks without a sound. She'd looked so small sitting across from the divorce lawyer's desk, like she was disappearing right in front of him.
He'd felt nothing but relief.
That was the lie that kept him awake at night.
A pair of headlights appeared in his peripheral vision, but they were far away. Ethan pressed harder on the gas. One hundred and ten. The car purred beneath him, expensive and powerful. Just like everything else in his life. Just like the company his employees said he'd run into the ground. Just like the marriage he'd destroyed.
Why was he thinking about Lily now? Why couldn't he stop?
Because Rebecca's voice was still in his head, asking if he'd made a mistake. Because somewhere in the last few months, success had started tasting like failure. Because he'd woken up that morning in his empty penthouse and realized he had everything except what actually mattered.
The headlights were getting closer.
They were supposed to be in different lanes. The highway was split. The truck was supposed to stay on its side and Ethan was supposed to stay on his. Basic rules of the road. But sometimes things don't follow the rules. Sometimes things just happen.
The truck veered left without warning.
Ethan saw the massive grill heading straight for him and his brain finally caught up to what was happening. He yanked the wheel hard to the right but he was going too fast. Way too fast. His car fishtailed across lanes. The driver laid on the horn. A long, desperate sound that meant too late, way too late.
Metal screamed as they collided.
His world became a blur of spinning light and broken glass. The impact threw him sideways. He felt his ribs crack against the door frame. The airbag exploded in his face with a chemical burn. His car was being crushed like a tin can by something fifty times its size.
The truck was still pushing him across the asphalt.
Ethan's body jerked with each impact. Pain exploded through him, hot and immediate. His vision started going dark at the edges. Blood was in his mouth, mixing with the bitter taste of rubber and gasoline. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Could barely feel anything except that he was dying and nobody knew where he was.
The truck finally pulled away.
His car came to a stop against the guardrail, crumpled and smoking. The engine was on fire. Somewhere deep in his fractured mind, Ethan knew he needed to move. Needed to get out of the car before it exploded. But his body wasn't listening. His legs were pinned. His left arm hung at an angle that meant broken.
The last thing Ethan Blackwell saw before everything went black was Lily's face.
Not her face from the courthouse, pale and devastated. Her face from five years ago when they first met. Happy. Glowing. The way she'd looked at him like he was the only person in the world who mattered. Like loving him was the easiest thing she'd ever done.
He was drowning and her face was the last good thing he could hold onto.
His last conscious thought was a prayer wrapped in regret: Please. If there's any God left who cares about broken people, let me see her again. Let me tell her I'm sorry. Let me take it back. All of it.
The darkness swallowed him whole.
For three hours, Ethan Blackwell was gone. Not dead. Not alive. Just gone, suspended in the space between two worlds, where wishes and regrets didn't matter anymore. Where it was too late to fix anything.
Sirens found him on that dark stretch of highway at 2:47 AM. Red and blue lights painted the wreckage, turning his shattered car into something that looked like a crime scene. The paramedics had to cut through metal just to reach his broken body. One of them whispered to another that he shouldn't be alive. That kind of impact usually doesn't leave survivors.
But Ethan Blackwell was still breathing.
And somewhere in the city, unaware that her entire world was about to shift, Lily Hart was asleep in her small apartment, dreaming of a man who was finally learning what loss felt like.