Chapter Four

I stared at the screen. The color drained from my face little by little.

I'd torn every one of them to pieces. I'd swept up the scraps myself. How were they here?

I wanted to rush up and shut the screen off, but my feet were nailed to the floor. All I could do was let the whispers from every side push me toward the edge.

"Cross is about to get married, and the Hart girl still won't give up? Has she no shame?"

"It's Vivian's birthday party. Isn't this a public declaration of war?"

"Poor Vivian. Even after the wedding, she'll have someone living in the house with her eyes on her husband…"

The whispers finally reached the dance floor. Vivian turned, saw the screen, and went white. Trembling all over, she looked at me with red eyes, lifted her skirt, and ran out.

"Vivian!"

Sebastian went after her in long strides. As he passed me, he stopped short and raised his hand.

Smack!

The room went silent.

"Lila, I wondered why you'd been so well-behaved lately. So this is what you were waiting for!"

He hit me so hard I fell to the floor. Half my face swelled up at once, and blood seeped from the corner of my mouth.

My ears were ringing. I couldn't hear anything. I couldn't see anything.

I touched my face with a shaking hand. The moment my fingertips found the mark of his palm, tears began to fall, big and heavy.

Six years. When I had a hundred-and-four fever, he flew back overnight from Tokyo. When I was bullied at school, he came to get me himself. This was the first time he'd ever hit me.

Before I could even pull myself together, he was gone through the doors.

I took a deep breath, pushed myself up off the floor, and ran after them.

Not to explain.

I was afraid. In my last life, Vivian had run out the door just like this, in tears, and never come back. I'd fought with everything I had to tear this life onto a different path. Not so the same crash could happen all over again.

Thunder rolled, one crack after another. Rain hammered down on Fifth Avenue.

In the curtain of rain, Sebastian was holding Vivian tight.

She kept struggling, her voice full of despair. "Today was supposed to be the most important day of my life, and she did that… How am I supposed to stay? If she can't let go of you, fine—I don't want to fight a little girl over you. I'll just give you back to her!"

But Sebastian only held her tighter. "No, Vivian. I could never love her. You know how many years I've loved you. Pushing me toward someone else—are you trying to cut my heart out?"

He said it fast. So fast it was like he was trying to convince himself.

At the end, he leaned down to kiss her.

The next second, blinding headlights and the scream of brakes came straight at them.

I'd just reached the doors. All I saw was red.

I froze where I stood.

…

The emergency room at New York–Presbyterian was chaos.

The doctors wanted to hook Sebastian, the more badly hurt of the two, up to the machines first. But he grabbed the doctor's wrist, his voice weak but not up for discussion.

"Leave me. Save her first."

The doctors had no choice. They wheeled the unconscious Vivian into surgery first.

Before long, a nurse came running out. "She's hemorrhaging, and we're almost out of type A! Is anyone in the family type A?"

Sebastian pushed the nurse aside and swung himself off the gurney.

"I am. Take mine."

"But Mr. Cross, you're—"

"Shut up and hurry."

Bag after bag of dark red blood piled up on the tray beside the bed. His face went white as paper. Only when he was sure Vivian was out of danger would he lie down and let them wheel him into surgery.

I couldn't watch anymore. I turned and walked out of the hospital.

I knew Sebastian loved Vivian. Loved her more than his own life.

If I'd seen that sooner in my last life, would I have ended the way I did?

But in this life, I'd stepped aside—and Vivian had still been hit by a car. And all of it traced back to those letters and drawings.

In the cab, I went over everything from the beginning.

After I tore up the letters that day, I'd gone straight to the consulate. Who had taken the drafts I hadn't gotten around to tearing up from the box? And who had access to the ballroom's AV system?

There was only one answer. The person who'd helped plan the party—and had moved into my room.

But why would Vivian do something like that? She already had Sebastian.

I couldn't understand it. And I didn't dare think about it too hard.

I spent three days at the estate in a daze. On the evening of the third day, Sebastian was discharged.

The first thing he did when he got home was have his security drag me into the cold storage room under the estate.

The instant the steel door shut behind me, the bitter cold wrapped around me.

The shelves were stacked with crates of oysters and tins of caviar. The fluorescent light overhead buzzed. I gave a wry smile.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt cold like this.

When I was eleven, I fell through the ice on a lake in Central Park. After they pulled me out, I spent a month in the hospital, and I'd never been strong since. I felt the cold worse than anyone. That was why the heat at the Cross estate went on in November and stayed on until April.

Sebastian had given that order himself.

Now he'd thrown me in here himself. This was how he'd punish me—for refusing to give up on him, for indirectly hurting Vivian.

I curled myself into a ball, but no matter how small I made myself, the cold crept into the gaps between my bones.

Mary, one of the maids, finally couldn't stand it. She whispered through the door, "Miss Hart, please, just go to Mr. Cross and say you're sorry. With your health, how are you going to survive this…"

My eyes stung.

In my last life, I was in the wrong, so I admitted it.

But in this life, I hadn't done anything wrong. Why should I apologize?

Besides, Sebastian's heart was all Vivian's. He'd never listen to me anyway.

I clenched my teeth and didn't make a sound.

Cold air poured in from the vents on every side. Soon there was a layer of white frost on my lashes.

My heartbeat felt slower and slower. My mind was getting foggier. Fear suddenly welled up from deep inside me.

I'd fought so hard to get a second life.

Was I really going to die at Sebastian's hands again?