Chapter 1

The words hit me from the hallway.

I'd only meant to bring Ethan a fresh coffee.

He was inside Veronica's private room at Lenox Hill.

My sister. Still, after three months, lost in a coma.

His voice, usually so calm, so measured, was a raw sound I didn't recognize.

"Veronica," he rasped, the word thick with a desperate, almost carnal longing.

My hand froze on the doorknob.

"I'll marry her, your sister," he was saying, his voice cracking. "I'll marry Amelia. Just so I can be here. Every day. With you."

A choked sound followed, something primal.

My coffee cup slipped.

It shattered on the polished hospital floor.

The hot liquid splashed, scalding my ankles through my jeans.

I didn't feel it.

All I felt was a coldness spreading from my chest, a numbness that reached my fingertips.

Ten years. A decade of loving Ethan Hayes.

A decade of quiet pining, of hoping.

For this.

To be a placeholder. A key.

A way for him to be near the woman he truly loved.

My sister.

I didn't go in.

I turned and walked away, the shards of ceramic crunching under my heels.

The next day, a sleek black town car, the kind that whispered money, pulled up to our Upper East Side brownstone.

Mom gripped my arm, her eyes wide with a familiar fear.

"Amelia, what have you done?"

"It's not what I've done, Mom."

The man who stepped out was not Marcus Thorne himself, but his representative. Impeccably dressed, radiating an aura of quiet power that made Dad visibly shrink.

Dad, Richard Walker, was already in the drawing-room, practically bowing.

"Mr. Davies," Dad was saying, his voice too loud, too eager. "Such an honor. Mr. Thorne's interest in... in our family..."

Mr. Davies didn't smile. He simply placed a heavy, leather-bound proposal on the antique coffee table.

"Mr. Thorne is prepared to offer a solution for Miss Veronica Walker's condition."

My breath caught.

"His biotechnology firm, Thorne Advanced Dynamics, has developed an experimental treatment. Highly promising for cases like Miss Walker's."

Dad leaned forward, his eyes gleaming. "A treatment?"

"There is, of course, a condition," Mr. Davies said, his gaze flicking to me for a fraction of a second.

Mom's grip tightened on my arm. "What kind of condition?"

"Mr. Thorne wishes to marry Miss Amelia Walker."

Mom gasped. "Marry? But... Amelia is engaged to Ethan Hayes!"

"Engagements can be broken," Mr. Davies stated, his tone leaving no room for argument.

"But Marcus Thorne..." Mom whispered, her voice trembling. "They say... they say he's... damaged. From that incident overseas. That he's not... whole."

She meant the rumors. That a rival's attack had left him impotent. A shell of a man.

"A man like that... Amelia, you can't!"

Dad, however, was already looking at the proposal.

"Mr. Davies," Dad began, his voice slick, "while we are... immensely grateful for Mr. Thorne's generous offer of medical assistance... Amelia's prior commitment..."

Mr. Davies raised a hand.

"Should Miss Amelia Walker agree to the marriage, Thorne Advanced Dynamics will provide the treatment for Miss Veronica Walker. Free of charge."

He paused.

"And as a wedding gift, Mr. Thorne will also settle the Walker family's outstanding debts."

Dad's eyes, which had been calculating, now shone with pure, unadulterated relief.

Our family's finances, always precarious under Dad's management, had been teetering on the brink for months.

I looked at Mom. Her face was pale, torn between her fear for me and her desperate hope for Veronica.

I thought of Ethan's words.

"I'll marry Amelia. Just so I can be here. Every day. With you."

A bitter laugh almost escaped me.

Marrying a "damaged" man, a man with a fearsome reputation, to save my sister.

A sister who, even in a coma, held the heart of the man I loved.

The irony wasn't lost on me.

"I'll do it," I said.

My voice was quiet, but it cut through the tension in the room.

Dad beamed. "Amelia! My dear girl!"

Mom just stared at me, tears welling in her eyes.

Mr. Davies finally allowed himself a small, almost imperceptible nod.

"The arrangements will be made."

Later that night, Mom came to my room.

"Amy, are you sure? There has to be another way."

I was sketching, my charcoal stick moving furiously across the page, creating dark, angry lines.

"There isn't, Mom."

"But Ethan... you love him."

I pressed down so hard the charcoal snapped.

"Love?" I said, the word tasting like ash. "What I thought was love was a joke, Mom. A cruel, decade-long joke."

I didn't tell her what I'd heard.

I didn't tell her about the coffee cup, or the scalding pain I hadn't felt.

Some things were too raw, even for a mother's comfort.

"He's a monster, they say," Mom whispered. "Marcus Thorne."

I looked at the jagged, broken lines on my sketchpad.

"Maybe I need a monster," I said, my voice flat. "Maybe that's all I'm good for now."