Chapter 3

Eliza POV:

I woke to the sharp, antiseptic smell of a hospital room and the throbbing pain that seemed to radiate from every part of my body. My arm and leg were bandaged, and an IV line was taped to the back of my hand.

Alton Thornton stood at the foot of my bed, his face an unreadable mask of cold indifference.

"The official story is that you trespassed on the property and were unfortunately injured by the guard dogs," he said, his voice devoid of any emotion. "You will not contradict this story. Do you understand?"

I stared at the ceiling, the white plaster tiles swimming in and out of focus. I didn' t have the energy to respond. The physical pain was a dull, distant echo compared to the gaping wound in my chest.

She took the check and left.

Cash' s words played on a loop in my mind. The disappointment in his voice. The easy acceptance of my supposed betrayal.

The door burst open and Cash rushed in, his face pale and frantic. He stopped short when he saw my injuries, his eyes wide with a confusion that felt like another insult.

" 'Liza? My God, what happened? Dad said you..." He trailed off, looking from me to his father.

I just looked at him. Really looked at him. It was like seeing a stranger for the first time. The handsome face I had loved, the eyes I had trusted-they were just features now, assembled into the face of a man I didn' t know at all.

He moved to my bedside, his hand reaching for mine. "Babe, I was so worried. When they said you left..."

The moment his skin touched mine, my body recoiled. Anaphylactic shock. The doctor' s words from years ago, after a severe reaction to a bee sting, came flooding back. Your body now sees it as a poison.

That' s what he was to me now. Poison.

The room started to spin. Black spots danced in my vision. The heart monitor beside the bed began to shriek, a frantic, high-pitched wail.

" 'Liza!" Cash' s voice was filled with panic.

The last thing I saw before the darkness swallowed me was his terrified face. The last thing I felt was a bitter, ironic satisfaction. My body knew, even if my heart had been slow to catch up. He was toxic.

I woke again in the dead of night. The room was quiet except for the steady beep of the monitor. A sliver of light fell from under the door, and I could hear voices from the hallway.

Catherine and Cash.

"You should go home and get some rest, darling," Catherine said, her voice soft and cloying. "You' ve been here for hours."

"I can' t leave her," Cash replied, his voice rough with exhaustion.

"But the baby and I need you, too," she murmured. I could picture her perfectly, her hand on her stomach, her eyes wide and pleading. "I' ve been so worried about you. About us."

There was a long pause.

"I know," he said, and the tenderness in his voice was a physical blow. "I' m sorry, Cat. I' m so sorry this is all happening."

I heard a soft rustling sound, then Catherine' s contented sigh. He was holding her. Comforting her. While I lay broken in a hospital bed, he was in the arms of the woman who orchestrated it all.

They started talking about their day, about a new restaurant they wanted to try, about plans for the nursery. Their voices were low and intimate, weaving a tapestry of a shared life that I had no part in. He laughed at something she said, a low, easy sound that I had once believed was reserved only for me.

That was the moment the last vestiges of my love for him died.

It wasn't just that he had lied, that he had cheated, that he had a whole other life I knew nothing about. It was the crushing realization that his tenderness, his affection, the very things I had built my life around, were not special. They were commodities he dispensed freely, to whomever was most convenient.

I had spent five years believing I was the exception, the one who had broken through his gilded cage. But I was just the appetizer. Catherine, with her fortune and her family and her "legitimate" child, was always meant to be the main course.

He hadn' t chosen her over me. He had simply chosen the path of least resistance, the future his family had pre-approved. He had chosen to have it all.

And I had been left with nothing.

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