Chapter 1 The Last Words

CHAPTER 1: THE LAST WORDS

The hospital smelled like blood and cold metal.

Elena Hart could not feel her legs. She could barely feel anything, except her husband's hand wrapped around her wrist. It was wet and sticky. His blood or hers, she did not know.

"Damien," she whispered. "Stay with me. Please."

The ceiling lights were too white. They hurt her eyes. Nurses were running. Someone shouted a number. Someone else shouted that his pressure was dropping.

Nobody looked at her. Why would they? Damien Cole was the heir. She was only the wife.

Only the wife. Even now, her mind pressed on those words like a bruise.

Two hours ago, he had pulled her out of bed. He smelled of whiskey. His eyes were red. "Get dressed," he had said. "You are coming with me to see her."

Her. Elise. Elena's twin sister, who had been dead for three years.

Elena had not argued. She never argued anymore. She had put on a coat over her nightdress and sat in the car like a good wife. The road was dark. Damien drove too fast. She said his name once, softly, and he did not answer.

Then came the headlights. Big and white, coming straight at them. Then glass. Then nothing.

Now his fingers moved against her wrist.

"Elena."

She turned her head. It took all her strength. Damien lay on the next bed, only a thin curtain between them. His face was pale. Blood ran from his hairline into his collar. But his eyes were open, and for the first time in three years, they were looking right at her.

Not past her. Not through her. At her.

"I'm here," she said. Her voice cracked. "I'm right here."

"Listen to me." He coughed. A nurse tried to push him back down, but he shook his head. "Please. I need to say it."

Elena's heart jumped, stupid and hopeful. Even now. Even after everything, it jumped.

Maybe he would say sorry. Maybe he would say he had been wrong. Maybe he would say he had seen how hard she tried.

Damien swallowed. His lips were gray.

"If we meet again," he said slowly, "in another life..."

She held her breath.

"Don't come between me and Elise."

The room went quiet. Or maybe it only went quiet inside her.

"Please," Damien whispered. A tear slid down the side of his face. It was not for her. She knew that. "Find another man to marry. Anyone. Just not me. Let me have her. Just once, let me have her."

Elena opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

She was seven years old again, standing under a broken umbrella in the rain, and a skinny boy was pushing it over her head. "You can have the dry side," he had said. "I don't mind getting wet."

She was sixteen, and he was teaching her to ride a bike, laughing every time she fell.

She was twenty-three, and he was standing at the altar with a face like stone.

Seventeen years. She had loved him for seventeen years, and his last words were a request to disappear.

"Okay," she heard herself say. She was crying now, and she did not care. "Okay, Damien. I won't. I promise."

His hand went loose around her wrist.

"Damien?"

A long, flat sound filled the room. The machine beside his bed screamed, and then the nurses were pulling the curtain open, and someone was pressing on his chest, and Elena was trying to sit up, and she could not, she could not.

"Damien!"

A sharp pain cut through her ribs. Her breath came in short pieces. The room tilted. Somewhere close, another machine started to beep, faster and faster, and she realized it was hers.

Nobody was coming for her. They were all around him.

It was fine. She was used to it.

Her eyes drifted to the white ceiling. She thought, very clearly: If I could live again, I would never love anyone like this.

Then the beeping slowed.

Then it stopped.

---

Sunlight.

Warm, yellow sunlight, falling across her face.

Elena's eyes flew open. She gasped, and air rushed into her lungs, deep and easy. No pain. No blood. No smell of metal.

She smelled lemon soap and clean sheets.

She sat up so fast her head spun. The white curtains. The little desk by the window. The shelf with her old teddy bear, the one she had thrown away years ago. It was her bedroom. Her old bedroom in the Hart family house.

"No," she whispered. "No, no."

She threw back the blanket and ran to the mirror on the wall.

A young woman stared back. Smooth skin. Bright eyes. No dark circles. Hair soft and long, not dull and tired. She looked about twenty-three, and she looked alive.

Elena touched her face. It was warm.

She laughed, and the laugh turned into a sob, and she slid down against the wall with both hands over her mouth. She was shaking. She pinched her arm until it turned red. It hurt. It hurt, which meant it was real.

She was alive.

Her phone buzzed on the desk.

She crawled to it and picked it up with trembling fingers. The screen showed the date, and her stomach dropped.

It was exactly three days before the Hart and Cole families would sign the marriage agreement. Three days before the choice that had ruined her whole life.

Under the date, a new message was waiting.

Damien: Three days, best friend. Ready to be stuck with me forever?

Elena stared at it until the letters blurred.

He had sent this message in her first life, too. She remembered how she had hugged her phone to her chest and smiled like a fool. She remembered thinking, he feels it too. He must.

He did not. He never had.

She wiped her face with her sleeve and took a long breath. Then another. Her hands slowly stopped shaking.

Downstairs, a door opened. Voices drifted up through the floor. A woman's laugh, light and sweet.

Elise.

Elena's whole body went stiff. Elise was alive. Elise was just downstairs, laughing, the way she used to laugh before the world took her away.

For one weak second, Elena wanted to run down and hold her sister and never let go.

Then she heard the second voice.

Low. Warm. Familiar to the bone.

Damien.

She moved on bare feet to the top of the stairs and stopped behind the wall, just out of sight. Her heart pounded against her ribs. They were in the hallway below, talking quietly.

"Are you sure about this?" Damien asked.

"Of course I'm sure," Elise said. "Stop worrying. On the wedding day, everyone will be rushing around. I'll take Elena's place in the car, and she will take mine. By the time anyone notices, it will be too late."

"And Adrian?"

"Your brother is a block of ice. He'll marry whoever shows up. He won't even care."

Damien was quiet. Then, softly: "Elena will be heartbroken."

"She'll survive," Elise said. "She always does."

Elena pressed her hand flat against the wall. Her nails dug into the paint.

In her first life, she had never known about this plan. She had found out on the wedding day, sitting in the wrong car, staring at the wrong man. She had screamed. She had begged. She had run back to Damien like a fool and made him marry her, and he had hated her for it until the day he died.

Now she knew everything.

And for the first time since she opened her eyes, Elena smiled. It was a small smile. A cold one.

You want to switch, she thought. You want him so badly.

Fine.

Her fingers curled around the phone. Behind the wall, Damien and Elise were still whispering, still planning, still sure that she would sit quietly and let them take everything.

"Take him, Elise," Elena said under her breath. "Take Damien. I'm done fighting for him."

She lifted her chin.

"But I'm not going to be left with nothing. This time, I'm choosing his brother.”