Chapter 3

"Tell your father-in-law to hire a private concierge doctor. There's nothing I can do," Jaxson's muffled voice drifted through the door.

The door hadn't fully latched shut. The sickening, breathy sounds of frantic kissing and rustling clothes pierced the quiet porch.

His mother was hooked up to life support, fighting for her final breaths in a sterile ICU, and he was busy tearing off his mistress's shirt.

Standing on that porch, the last lingering shadow of the man I loved disintegrated. My three-year search was over. I had my answer, and it was uglier than I ever could have imagined.

I didn't knock again. I turned on my heel and left.

An hour later, I was hauling my suitcase through the airport terminal, only for the ticketing agent to hand my passport back with an apologetic smile.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. Your ticket was just canceled by the cardholder."

Before I could process the confusion, a hand clamped down on my wrist. I spun around to find Kian, his chest heaving as if he'd sprinted through the entire departure hall.

"You're just leaving?" Kian demanded, his eyes wide with panic. "You finally find Jaxson, and you're just hopping on a plane by yourself?"

I stared at his gripping hand, then up at his face, utterly unimpressed. "Didn't he make it perfectly clear? He isn't Jaxson."

Kian flinched but scrambled to keep the con alive.

"You know he's sick, Bryndis! He has trauma-induced amnesia. His brain is protecting him. You're his wife—you can't just be so heartless and abandon him!"

Abandon him?

A bitter laugh bubbled in my throat. Who abandoned who?

Who planned a fake drowning in the Caribbean just days after I showed him a positive pregnancy test? Who left his aging parents to drown in grief for three years?

Before I could eviscerate Kian, the automatic glass doors of the terminal slid open.

Jaxson and Mirelle strolled in, weighed down by shopping bags from the airport's boutiques. Seeing them here, out blowing cash while Elowen was dying, made my stomach turn.

Mirelle spotted me. She marched over, reached into one of her designer bags, and shoved a cheap, foil-wrapped wedding favor against my chest.

"Since you're still lingering around like a stray dog, you should come," she smirked, practically vibrating with smugness.

"Jaxson and I are getting married this weekend. Maybe seeing him put a ring on my finger will finally cure your little obsession."

Jaxson wrapped a protective arm around Mirelle's waist, looking at her with a tender gaze.

"It's a shotgun wedding," he added, his tone dripping with affection for her.

"Our boy is due in seven months."

Seven months.

The words twisted like a serrated blade in my gut.

A week before our disastrous honeymoon, I had told him I was pregnant. The entire family had celebrated.

Jaxson had spun me around, kissed my forehead, and smiled—all while secretly booking the getaway boat he would use to fake his death and abandon me.

Even my carrying his flesh and blood hadn't been enough to make him stay.

If he despised our marriage so much, he could have just broken the engagement. He could have walked away cleanly.

Why did he pretend to love me? Why did he have to drag me to hell and destroy my body along with my mind?

The hard edges of the wedding favor dug painfully into my palm. Mirelle's triumphant smile was meant to mock me, but it only crystallized my clarity.

Jaxson's strategy was glaringly obvious. This sudden, rushed wedding wasn't just out of love. He needed to bind himself to Mirelle right now, so that when he successfully "regained his memory" and returned to the Cross family, the billionaire trust would have no choice but to legally recognize Mirelle and her bastard child. He was trying to lock in her status as a billionaire's wife.

Jaxson met my gaze. "If you're still in town, you're welcome to attend."

I stared at him in silence. Then, I nodded.

"Alright," I said, my voice dead calm. "I'll be there."

Maybe seeing him at the altar with another woman was exactly what I needed to euthanize whatever pathetic remnants of my heart still cared about him.

From the looks of those boutique bags, Jaxson was bleeding cash.

Since fleeing his pampered life as the sole heir, he'd been scraping by, relying on loan sharks and maxed-out credit cards to play sugar daddy to Mirelle. It made perfect sense why he was rushing to finish this amnesia act.

To the Cross Family Fortune, the massive debt he had accumulated was nothing but pocket change. He thought he could just waltz back into the boardroom and have his debts wiped clean.

But Jaxson didn't know one crucial detail.

He was never going back.