Chapter 1
On the way to pick up my wedding dress, my fiancé, Finn Sullivan, was kidnapped.
He survived, but he forgot me. Every time marriage was mentioned, he would pass out. The doctor diagnosed it as a dissociative
fugue, a second personality triggered by the trauma.
Then, I found out I was pregnant. “The baby might be the key,” the doctor suggested, “to unlocking the Finn who loves you.”
I clutched the ultrasound report, hope blooming in my chest, and went to find him. But instead, I heard him joking with his friends.
“Damn, Finn, you’re playing the long game. Faking a whole second personality just to dodge the wedding! What’s next, a third and fourth?”
“Nope! I love Elvira. This is the only time I’ll ever lie to her. Once I sleep with ten more girls, I’m done.”
“Only ten? That’s not enough to unlock all the achievements, man. I say you keep this charade up for another year. Elvira would marry you even if you were a ghost.”
Finn’s voice turned cold as he scolded his friend. “I can’t stand to see her upset for that long! Now hurry up and find me some girls. I want the freaky ones who are still technically virgins. One every three days. Nothing can delay my wedding to Elvira!”
1
shredded the ultrasound report with trembling hands and walked straight back to the clinic to schedule an abortion.
The doctor was surprised to see me back so soon, assuming I wasn’t feeling well. When I told him I needed the procedure, he star- ed in disbelief.
“Elvira, you both struggled so hard to conceive. If you terminate now, it might trigger your fiancé, make his condition worse!”
A bitter smile twisted my lips. “If I told him the truth, that would probably kill him.”
After all, he was currently luxuriating in the pleasure of playing the field, convinced he was getting away with it. I couldn’t wrap my head around it–the man who had begged me, tears in his eyes, to marry him, was now faking an illness just to cheat.
The doctor couldn’t dissuade me, but he insisted on calling Finn before I signed the consent forms.
“Ms. Hayes, this isn’t just your decision. Even if his illness makes him say he doesn’t want the child right now, he needs to be here to sign for you, to be with you during the surgery. If there’s a misunderstanding, it needs to be cleared up face–to–face…”
I placed a gentle hand on my stomach. I didn’t stop him. I had PCOS; pregnancy was a miracle for me. Finn hadn’t cared about the risks; he’d even fought with his parents to marry me. If this child was leaving us, Finn deserved to be there to say goodbye.
But as soon as the doctor explained the situation, Finn scoffed. “How much is Elvira Hayes paying you to stage this little drama? I told you, I don’t know her, let alone want to marry her.”
“Tell her to stop trying to trap me with these games. Who knows if the kid is even mine?”
The abrupt dial tone and the echo of his cruel laughter hung in the sterile silence of the operating room.
I signed my own name and closed my eyes.
When I woke up in recovery, my phone was lit up with notifications. All from Finn.
[Whatever we were before, now I am me, and you are you. If you have the energy to hire actors to fool me, you should use it to move out of my house!]
He was very thoughtful. He’d already rented me a fully furnished apartment in the same complex. He’d even paid the first month’s rent. To avoid suspicion, he’d signed a one–year lease with the landlord.
[Consider us even. You don’t owe me for the rent.]
Chapter 1
I glanced at the blurred, bloody image on the ultrasound printout and replied calmly.
[Okay. Thank you.]
That rent money would be the last responsibility he ever took for this child.
I stayed in the hospital for three days. He never contacted me again.
08.29
But his social media was a constant stream of flashing lights and flowing alcohol. It was as if he was trying to reclaim all the wild
youth he’d missed out on because of me.
I knew he was posting it for me to see. I had another, burner account that followed him, and none of those posts were visible there.
So I played my part. I “liked” every video.
When I was checking out, I saw him and a doctor pushing a gurney down the hallway at a run. The moment he saw me, he quickly looked away, pretending I wasn’t there.
But I heard the ER doctor shouting orders. “Prep OR 1! We need O–negative blood, stat! Patient has a ruptured luteal cyst, massive
Hemorrhage!”
“What? We’re out of stock?”
The doctor hung up and quickly relayed the situation to Finn.
