Chapter 2

I decided it was time to give the heart back.

The girl stared at me, frozen.

Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she finally spoke.

"That wasn't your fault."

"Don't be so hard on yourself. What's done is done."

"You have to keep moving forward."

After those few words of comfort, she couldn't help asking one more thing.

"Did her brother ever come after you?"

I shook my head and smiled, though it tasted bitter.

Back then, Ethan hadn't come after me at all. He'd comforted me. Endlessly.

Every night I drowned in guilt, he flew back from Wall Street just to be with me.

When the medication made me sick, he drove thirty miles in the middle of the night to get me the cupcakes I loved.

I thought Ethan loved me.

Then, on our one-year anniversary, he brought a woman home.

After he was done with her in our bed, he looked at me with cold, empty eyes while I sobbed.

"Nina, if you hadn't swapped jackets with Vivian that day, how would the doctors have ever mistaken you for her? How would they have taken her heart and given it to you?"

"Vivian was pampered her whole life. She cried over the smallest things. Do you have any idea how much pain she was in when she died?"

"Nina, I want you to spend the rest of your life paying for what you did to her."

Ethan's reckoning came down hard and fast.

After that day, he started bringing women home constantly, forcing me to watch. He let them hurt me, again and again.

They locked me in a sauna room for three days and three nights.

They tied weights to my legs and threw me into a frozen lake.

Three years of this. I was exhausted.

If Ethan hated me that much for taking Vivian's heart, I thought, then I'd give it back.

I picked up the paperwork from the abortion clinic and went to the hospital where I'd booked my third consultation for the heart removal surgery.

The doctor took one look at me and frowned.

"Ms. Cole, I've told you — you're still pregnant. We can't perform the heart removal surgery under these conditions."

I didn't argue. I set the abortion paperwork on his desk.

"I'm having the abortion today."

"It won't interfere with the heart removal."

"But — once we replace it with an artificial heart, you'll only have a year to live. What's the point?"

"And the father has a right to know. Does he consent to the abortion?"

Would Ethan consent?

The doctor's words pulled me back to a few days ago.

I'd been excited. I'd grabbed the prenatal report and gone to find Ethan.

Instead, I walked in on one of his friends asking him a question.

If I were pregnant, would he still keep up his revenge?

Ethan paused for a few seconds. Then he threw his head back and laughed.