Chapter 2

The canoe trip. It replayed in my mind.

The dark water, the panic, Ethan' s hand reaching for me.

Eleanor Cole had been relentless after that.

"Sarah, dear, Ethan is so taken with you. And after what he did... it' s a sign."

A sign I should chain myself to a man I didn' t love, to pay a debt.

Eleanor hoped I would "cure" Ethan of his obsession with Olivia Hayes.

Olivia, who was then engaged to Marcus.

It hadn' t worked.

The past three years were a blur of Ethan' s coldness, his barely concealed resentment.

His girlfriends. So many of them.

He' d always said they were just... distractions.

Now, listening to him with Eleanor, I wondered.

Could it be? Was he playing a role even before this?

The thought made me sick.

He wasn' t just cruel; he was a master manipulator.

"Marcus wouldn' t leave Olivia alone for a second," Ethan was saying to Eleanor, his voice confident. "I need to be with her. Console her."

Eleanor murmured something I couldn' t catch.

"Sarah? She' ll believe whatever we tell her. She always does. That sense of obligation runs deep."

He was right. It had.

My friend Chloe, a fellow nurse, had tried to warn me.

"Sarah, he treats you like dirt. That' s not love. That' s not even obligation. That' s... something sick."

I hadn' t listened. I owed him.

But now, the debt felt different.

It wasn' t a life saved; it was a life stolen. My life.

The baby inside me, conceived in that loveless, deceitful marriage...

It felt like a chain, binding me to him, to this family built on lies.

I couldn't. I wouldn't.

A quiet decision formed in my mind, cold and hard.

The debt was paid. I owed Ethan Cole nothing.

I would terminate the pregnancy.