Chapter 1

Ava Miller felt the world tilt.

The latte Ethan handed her tasted normal, but a fog quickly clouded her mind.

She slumped in her chair at AuraSynch, her limbs heavy, unresponsive.

Her eyelids fluttered.

Sounds became distant, then sharpened with an awful clarity.

Ethan Reed, her Ethan, was talking to Liam Hayes, his voice low, urgent.

"It's all set," Ethan said. "The clinic is ready. A private, off-the-books procedure."

Ava fought through the haze. Procedure?

"Chloe needs it, Liam. Her kidney. Complications from that old illness. Ava's a perfect match."

Chloe.

The name echoed in Ava's dimming consciousness.

Ethan's ex-fiancée.

The woman he was still obsessed with.

"I'll tell Ava it was a benign cyst," Ethan continued, his tone casual, as if discussing a software update. "Sudden, necessary. Then, when she's recovering, I'll propose. That's what she wants, right? Consider it compensation."

Compensation. For her kidney.

A cold dread seeped into Ava, more potent than the drug.

She tried to scream, to move, but her body was a lead weight.

Liam's voice, usually calm, was strained, appalled.

"Are you insane, Ethan? After everything Ava did for you? She pulled you back from the brink when Chloe bailed on you during the Series A funding crisis!"

Liam' s words were a torrent.

"Ava worked twenty-hour days! She didn't take a salary for months! And Chloe? Chloe made you pressure Ava into terminating her pregnancy! Because she couldn't stand you having a child with someone else! Ava still thinks that was a mutual, heartbreaking decision, not Chloe' s goddamn ultimatum!"

Pregnancy.

Terminating.

Chloe's ultimatum.

The words hammered Ava.

Each one a fresh betrayal.

She had mourned their baby, their "mutual" loss, for years.

Now, this.

Ethan's voice was dismissive, cold.

"Chloe is what matters. Ava will understand. She always does."

He didn't care. He truly didn't care.

The value he placed on her, on a decade of her life, was zero.

Less than zero.

She was just a resource.

A spare part for the woman he truly loved.

A sharp, cold pain pierced Ava's side.

The anesthesia, she vaguely registered, was taking full effect.

But the pain in her heart, a raw, jagged agony, was far worse than any scalpel.

Ten years.

A decade since Stanford, a decade of loving Ethan Reed, of building his dreams, of sacrificing her own.

She' d poured her talent, her loyalty, her very soul into him, into AuraSynch.

For this.

To be carved up, lied to, discarded.

She was nothing to him.

Absolutely nothing.

The kidney they were taking felt like the last piece of her foolish, hopeful heart being ripped out.

Ava woke in a sterile white room.

A private clinic. Groggy. A dull ache throbbed in her side.

Ethan was there, his face a mask of concern.

"Hey," he said softly, stroking her hair. "The cyst removal went well. You were so brave."

Liar.

The word screamed in her mind, but her throat was too dry to speak.

He didn't stay long.

"Chloe just woke up," he said, already halfway to the door. "She's craving a specific artisanal donut from that bakery in Pike Place Market. You know how she gets. I need to get it for her, even with this Seattle downpour starting."

He left. Just like that.

Abandoning her for Chloe's whim. Again.

Later, two nurses chatted outside her door, their voices low but audible.

"Mr. Reed is so devoted to Ms. Vance in the other wing."

"I know, right? Recovering from a serious infection, poor thing. He barely leaves her side."

Serious infection. Another lie.

The truth was a gaping wound.

Clarity, cold and sharp, cut through Ava's pain.

This was not just a betrayal. This was a desecration.

He thought she was weak, pliable, endlessly forgiving.

He was wrong.

Her hand fumbled for the burner phone she kept hidden in her purse – a relic from a paranoid phase during a corporate espionage scare.

Her fingers, clumsy but determined, dialed a number she knew by heart.

Noah Evans.

Founder of InnovateX in Austin. Ethan' s biggest rival.

A man who, unlike Ethan, was known for his principles.

A man who had, she suspected, admired her from afar since their Stanford days.

A stunned silence greeted her hoarse voice.

"Noah," she rasped, "are you still looking to acquire top talent... or maybe a wife?"

The silence stretched.

"I'm asking you, Noah," Ava pressed, her voice gaining a desperate strength. "I'm done with Ethan Reed. Completely done."

Noah' s voice, when it came, was cautious, intrigued.

"You have my attention, Ava. Why me?"

"Because you're Ethan's biggest competitor," Ava said, a bitter smile touching her lips. "And because of that photo on your desk. The one from the Stanford hackathon."