When He Knelt, I Had Already Turned Away

Livy's POV

The biggest mistake of my life was falling in love with my childhood best friend, Cole Blackwood.

I grew up with Cole. He was my childhood best friend. When my mom died in a car accident in high school, his mother Lillian, my mom's best friend, saw that my stepmother didn't like me and took me in. She arranged our engagement. Cole protected me from bullies in high school. I fell for him. We secretly married at eighteen.

Shortly after the wedding, he was kidnapped. That's when everything fell apart. I threw myself off a cliff to draw the kidnappers away and save him. I was in a coma for three months. But when I came back to him, weak and broken, he thought some woman named Sophia Vanderbilt had saved him instead. He started hating me for "abandoning him" and grew cold. I tried to explain. He only believed what Sophia told him. My words meant nothing.

Cole wanted to divorce me, but his parents refused to allow it. I refused too. Sophia drugged him to get pregnant and trap him into marriage, but he stumbled into the wrong room. He slept with me instead. I got pregnant. She faked videos to make him think they'd been together. She forged evidence that I'd cheated. He wouldn't listen to a word I said.

Then we were both kidnapped and held hostage on a rooftop. Cole chose to save Sophia. I fell. I lost the baby. After Sophia was rescued, she went to the hospital for a checkup. They found leukemia. She needed a bone marrow transplant. I was the only match, but after everything, my body was too weak. Cole used the "debt" I owed his family to force me to donate.

I refused. Sophia "died." Cole locked me in a psychiatric hospital and tortured me until I died.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day he demanded my bone marrow. This time, looking at his desperate eyes, I said yes and decided to divorce him and leave him for good.

...

I was back.

"For the sake of my mother raising you, you must save Sophia."

I snapped my head up. Cole stood by the window with his back to me.

"Sophia's leukemia is getting worse." His voice was cold. "You're the only compatible match. You have to save her."

My chest tightened. I knew this exact moment. Every word he was about to say.

And I knew what happened when I said no. This time, I decided to trade the donation for my freedom.

"Are you listening to me?" Cole spun around, pissed off that I wasn't responding.

He said, "The procedure is already scheduled."

I stared at him, thinking about how stupidly I'd loved him in my past life.

"Well?" He clenched his jaw. "Don't waste my time with theatrics. You will do this."

I nodded slowly and finally spoke.

"I can donate."

Cole's eyes widened. "What?"

"I'll do it."

He stared at me for a long time, then suspicion crept into his expression. "What do you want?"

I looked straight into his eyes. "I only want a divorce."

Silence stretched between us.

Cole's face darkened. "Don't play games with me, Livy."