Chapter 2

Five years passed.

I managed the sprawling Thornton estate, a place that never felt like home.

I managed Ethan' s round-the-clock care, a routine of nurses and hushed reports.

And I raised Leo and Lily, our children. My children. Conceived through medical intervention Eleanor had insisted upon shortly after the "wedding," to secure the Thornton lineage.

They were my world, the only warmth in that cold, grand house.

The public saw Sarah Thornton, devoted wife, capable manager, mother of two beautiful children. They saw a woman who had, against all odds, found a stable life.

Inside, I was just Sarah, waiting. For what, I didn' t know.

Then, the miracle Eleanor had prayed for, and I had quietly dreaded, happened.

Ethan woke up.

His eyes, once vacant, focused. First on his mother, then, with a frown, on me.

The doctors were ecstatic. Eleanor wept with joy.

I stood by, a ghost at their reunion.

His first coherent words to me were not of gratitude, or even curiosity.

"Who are you?" he rasped, his voice rough from disuse.

Eleanor quickly explained. "This is Sarah, Ethan. Your wife. She' s taken such good care of you."

Ethan' s eyes, the same arrogant blue I remembered from old society pages, narrowed.

"Wife?" He looked me up and down, a sneer forming. "She looks like a gold-digger."

The words hit, but I didn' t flinch. I had expected little else.

"I see," he said, his voice gaining strength. "A convenient arrangement for everyone but me." He coughed, then his eyes lit with a different, urgent light. "Ashley. Where' s Ashley?"

Ashley. His girlfriend from before. The one he paraded in magazines, the one whose picture was still, discreetly, in his old university rooms.

Eleanor' s face tightened. "Ethan, dear, that was a long time ago."

"It was everything," he insisted, his gaze flicking back to me with contempt. "This... this is a mistake."

Later, when we were alone, after the doctors had left and Eleanor had gone to make calls, I spoke.

"Ethan," I said, my voice calm, "I understand this is a shock. If you want me to leave, I will. We can arrange things quietly."

He laughed, a harsh, bitter sound.

"Leave? After you' ve feathered your nest for five years? I don' t think so. You married me for the name, for the money. Don' t pretend otherwise."

He thought my offer to leave was some kind of trick, a way to get more.

He had no idea how much I longed to walk away.