Chapter 2

Haylie Camacho POV:

The world went silent. The clerk' s voice, Joselin' s frantic denials beside me, the low hum of the office fluorescent lights-it all faded into a dull, roaring buzz in my ears.

Annulled.

Married.

To Joselin.

I felt a hysterical laugh bubble up in my throat. I had dragged my barely functioning body out of a hospital bed, fueled by righteous fury, to end a marriage that hadn't existed for almost a year. The universe had a sick sense of humor.

I turned and walked out of the registrar' s office, leaving Joselin sputtering behind me. The city air was crisp and cool, a stark contrast to the firestorm raging inside me. I had been erased. While I lay in a coma, fighting for my life after giving my husband a part of my body, he and my sister had quietly, efficiently, written me out of my own story.

The next few days were a blur of medical tests at the hospital. Doctors and nurses marveled at my recovery, calling it a miracle. They spoke of my resilience, my strength. They had no idea I was a ghost haunting my own life, my insides hollowed out and scraped clean. I refused all visitors, especially the two people whose faces were burned into my memory.

Finally, I couldn't stand the silence anymore. I needed answers. I agreed to see him. Not Jeremy. His father.

Edmund Glass, the patriarch of the Glass empire, walked into my private room with the same cold, calculating air he brought to a boardroom. He was a man who saw people not as human beings, but as assets or liabilities. It was clear which category I had fallen into.

"You look well, Haylie," he said, his voice devoid of warmth.

"Cut the crap, Edmund," I rasped. "Why?"

He didn' t pretend to misunderstand. "Jeremy is the heir to the Glass Corporation. His image is paramount. A wife in a persistent vegetative state was... inconvenient."

"Inconvenient," I repeated, the word tasting like poison. "So you had my marriage annulled while I was unconscious?"

"It was necessary," he said, without a flicker of remorse. "And Joselin was a suitable replacement. Ambitious, presentable, and most importantly, healthy."

A wave of nausea washed over me. I was a broken appliance, discarded and replaced with a newer model.

"And Jeremy just went along with it?" The question was a whisper.

Edmund' s lip curled in a slight sneer. "My son is weak. He does what is best for the family. As should you." He placed a crisp manila folder on my bedside table. "This is a prenuptial agreement. You will be marrying Elliot Meyers."

The name hit me like a physical blow. Dr. Elliot Meyers. The brilliant, quiet trauma surgeon who worked at this very hospital. I' d admired him from afar for years, his calm competence a steady presence in the chaos of the ER. I also knew he was the sole heir to the vast Meyers pharmaceutical fortune. And, I remembered with a sickening jolt, he had been in a devastating car accident six months ago. He was in a coma. Just like I had been.

"You want me to marry another man in a coma?" The absurdity was breathtaking.

"The Meyers family needs a respectable bride to manage the estate and maintain appearances until Elliot recovers. You, a dedicated nurse who miraculously recovered from a similar state, are the perfect candidate. It' s a symbiotic arrangement."

He was trading me. Like a piece of property. My sacrifice, my pain, my miracle recovery-it was all just a commodity to be leveraged.

The fight went out of me, replaced by an icy calm. "Fine," I said, my voice flat. "I' ll do it."

Edmund looked surprised, but quickly hid it.

"But," I added, meeting his cold gaze, "I want to go home first. To the house Jeremy and I shared. I need to get my things."

A flicker of something-annoyance? unease?-crossed his face before he nodded curtly. "I' ll have Jeremy pick you up."

An hour later, Jeremy stood in my doorway, his handsome face a mask of tortured concern. He was holding a bouquet of my favorite lilies, their scent now overwhelmingly funereal.

"Haylie," he breathed, stepping toward me. "My love. You' re really back."

He reached for me, his hands hovering in the air as if afraid to touch me. The gesture, once so endearing, now just looked cowardly.

"I' ve missed you so much," he whispered, his eyes welling up with perfectly timed tears. "Every day was an eternity."

I felt nothing. Not rage, not sadness. Just a profound, empty disgust.

"Take me home, Jeremy," I said, my voice as sterile as the room around me.

His face lit up, misinterpreting my request as a sign of forgiveness. "Of course, anything. I' ll get you settled. We can finally be together again."

As he turned to speak to a nurse, my hospital room door opened again. Joselin walked in, a bright, fake smile plastered on her face.

"The car' s ready, honey," she chirped at Jeremy, before turning her gaze to me. "Haylie, I' m so glad you' re coming home with us. We' ve missed you so much."

Us.

Jeremy' s back was to me, but I saw his shoulders tense. He turned, a panicked look on his face. "Joselin, I told you to wait in the car."

"Don' t be silly," she said, linking her arm through his. "We' re a family. Of course I' m coming."

Jeremy looked at me, his eyes pleading for understanding over his new wife' s shoulder. His shallow, performative love couldn' t even extend to sparing me this one last, humiliating cruelty.

He wanted to take me home. With her. To the home that was now theirs.