Chapter 4

Getting a cab out of the private gated community was nearly impossible.

I walked slowly. The nearest bus stop was half an hour away.

Thankfully, the cemetery agent drove out to pick me up. By the time Julian was driving along the main roads searching for me, I was already long gone.

Flipping through the catalog with the agent, picking a spot was easy—there were only a few prime locations available.

Back then, my mother couldn't bear to let my father go, so she kept his urn at home.

Now, I could finally lay them to rest together.

I was afraid my mother was still angry with me. My father had always been the gentle one. Whenever I made a mistake growing up, he would always smile and plead with my mother on my behalf.

I pressed my cheek against the cold ceramic urn, whispering to him:

"You always spoiled me the most, Dad. Visit me in my dreams, okay? Help me smooth things over with Mom. Tell her not to be mad at me anymore."

"Just one dream. Please. I miss her so much."

In that small, dark plot of earth, I buried the only two people in the world who had ever tucked me into bed and brought me warm soup when I was sick.

From now on, there would be no more phone calls where they talked endlessly while I listened. Now, I would speak to a cold stone slab, and they would listen from beneath the frozen ground.

I shoveled the dirt in myself.

When the dark earth finally swallowed the urns, the brave face I had worn for days shattered completely. The delayed grief crashed over me like a tidal wave.

I collapsed to my knees before the headstone. I pressed my forehead against it, but there was no warmth left to feel.

Only icy marble.

It sent shivers through my bones.

Tears poured out like a violent summer storm, tearing through my chest. My sobs echoed through the empty cemetery, raw and gut-wrenching.

It was pitch black by the time I stumbled out of the gates.

I didn't want to go back to my old apartment.

Because I no longer had a home.

My flight was early the next morning, so I went straight to the airport.

Meanwhile, parked outside my family's old brick townhouse, Julian leaned against his car. The orange glow of his cigarette flared and faded in the dark. He had lost track of how many packs he had gone through.

Ever since I walked out of the villa, I had vanished off the face of the earth.

Calls, texts—everything vanished into a black hole.

It was only then that he realized I had virtually no close friends.

The few acquaintances I had were tabloid editors and PR managers I had met while cleaning up his cheating scandals.

How pathetic.

Anxiety and dread gnawed at his gut, so he kept feeding it nicotine.

A sinking feeling crept into his chest: he had messed up.

He shouldn't have let Mia take the ring from the floor.

Worse, he should never have tossed the ring at my feet like spare change.

A proposal wasn't supposed to look like that.

There should have been flowers, fireworks, a knee on the ground, and a vow to spend a lifetime together.

Chloe was always traditional and shy. She would have blushed, offered her hand, and only allowed him a chaste kiss on the forehead.

Julian caught himself smiling at the thought.

A desperate spark of hope flared in his chest.

He remembered my mother in the hospital.

Chloe was stubborn, but she was devoted. She would never abandon her mother.

Especially not with the transplant right around the corner. She couldn't possibly leave now.

Julian crushed the cigarette butt beneath his shoe, pulled open the car door, and sped toward the hospital under the pale morning light.

At that exact moment, the airport intercom chimed:

[Attention, passengers on Flight 886 to London. Final boarding is now commencing at Gate 2. Please have your boarding passes ready.]

Under the clear blue sky, the plane climbed into the clouds.

I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes, waiting for the brand-new life that awaited me across the Atlantic.

At the hospital, Julian burst through the door of the private suite, the hopeful smile on his lips freezing instantly.

The room was completely stripped.

There was no trace of human life.

In an instant, a wave of terror swallowed him whole.

He walked toward the bed. The sheets were freshly laundered. The bathroom was spotless. The vase on the nightstand no longer held the fresh flowers I replaced every morning. Even the patient chart at the foot of the bed was gone.

Julian felt a dizzying wave of nausea.

Dropping all pretense of dignity, he sprinted down the hospital hallway, grabbing a passing nurse by the arm.

"Where is the patient in Suite 3? Was she transferred?"

"Where did she go?!"

The nurse pulled back, looking at him with utter confusion.

"Mr. Sterling, didn't Miss Evans tell you?"

"The patient passed away. Two days ago."