Chapter 2

Ellery POV:

Evans was silent on the other end of the line for a long moment. I could practically hear the gears turning in his brilliant mind, processing the sheer desperation in my voice.

"Ellery, this isn' t a spa treatment," he said finally, his tone shifting from sleepy to sharply alert. "This is a radical, irreversible procedure. It' s designed for soldiers with extreme PTSD, for victims of catastrophic events. What in God' s name happened?"

I couldn' t tell him. I couldn' t form the words. To speak it aloud would be to make it even more real, and I was already drowning in the reality of it.

"Is your husband... is Brendan okay?" he asked, his voice softening with concern. He knew our story. He knew Brendan had been my rock, my biggest supporter, the man who had literally pulled me from the wreckage of a car crash years ago.

"He' s fine," I said, the words tasting like ash. "He' s just fine."

"Then what is it? Ellery, you' re one of the most resilient people I know. You built a life, an empire, from nothing. Whatever this is, you can get through it."

"No," I whispered, staring at my reflection in the dark window-a hollow-eyed stranger. "Not this. Some things you don' t get through. You just... cut them out."

He sighed, a heavy, weary sound. "The protocol isn' t even finalized. We have no idea what the long-term side effects could be. Wiping a specific traumatic event is one thing, but what you' re implying... erasing a person, a whole section of your life... it could cause cascading memory loss. It could change who you are."

"Good," I said, my voice flat. "That' s the point. I don' t want to be this person anymore."

"Are there... are there any test subjects needed for the special element you mentioned? The one that could provide a clean slate?" I asked, remembering a detail from our dinner conversation. He had mentioned a component, a serum, still in its theoretical phase, that could not only erase but help build a new, albeit blank, identity scaffold.

His voice turned serious, almost stern. "Ellery, what are you asking?"

"I' m volunteering," I stated, my resolve hardening with every second that passed. The muffled sounds from down the hall had stopped, and a new, more terrifying silence had taken their place. Soon, he would slip back into our bed, his body smelling of another woman, and pretend nothing had happened.

"This is not a decision to be made at two in the morning," he insisted.

"This is the only decision," I countered. "Evans, please. You' re the only one who can help me. I need to disappear. I need to forget."

There was another long pause. I held my breath, my entire future hanging on his answer. He knew my history, my deep-seated fear of abandonment, the fierce loyalty I placed in the family I had built for myself. He knew that for me to want to detonate that family, the betrayal must have been absolute.

"Meet me at the lab tomorrow afternoon," he said finally, his voice laced with grave resignation. "We' ll talk. And Ellery... don' t do anything drastic until then."

But it was already too late. The most drastic thing had already been done to me.

I hung up the phone and slid back under the covers, turning my back to the door. I lay perfectly still, my body rigid, my eyes wide open in the dark. I practiced my breathing, slowing it down, mimicking the rhythm of sleep.

Minutes later, the bedroom door creaked open.

I didn' t flinch.

I felt the dip in the mattress as his weight settled beside me. I felt the warmth of his body as he moved closer, the familiar scent of his cologne now tainted with something else-the faint, cloying perfume Kiya always wore.

His arm snaked around my waist, pulling me against his chest. His lips, the same lips that had been on her just moments ago, pressed against the back of my neck. A wave of nausea rolled through me, so powerful I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from gagging.

I flinched and pushed his arm away, a purely instinctual reaction of disgust.

"Ellery?" he murmured, his voice thick with fake sleepiness. "Baby, you awake?"

"Go to sleep, Brendan," I said, my voice muffled by the pillow. "You have an early meeting."

He didn' t seem to notice the ice in my tone. He just chuckled, a low, satisfied sound that made my skin crawl. He wrapped his arm around me again, tighter this time, his hand splaying possessively across my stomach.

"Just dreaming," he mumbled into my hair. "Dreamed you left me. Scared the hell out of me."

The bitter irony of it was a physical pain. He was scared.

"I' m here," I said, letting him believe his lie. But in my mind, I was already gone. I was picking out a new name. June. June Bennett. A simple, unassuming name. A name with no history, no ghosts. I was picturing the new ID, the new passport. I was planning my escape, liquidating my assets, charting a course to a new life where the name Brendan Wiggins meant nothing.

The sounds of his quiet snores soon filled the room. He was exhausted, of course. He' d had a busy night.

I waited until the sun began to bleed through the blinds before I moved. He left for his morning run, and I went straight to the bathroom, brushing my teeth until my gums were raw, trying to scrub the phantom taste of his betrayal from my mouth.

When I came downstairs, the scene in the kitchen was so grotesquely domestic it felt like something from a nightmare. Kiya was sitting at our breakfast bar, sipping orange juice, her bare legs tucked under her on the stool. She was wearing one of Brendan' s oversized t-shirts, the neck hanging off one shoulder. She looked up as I entered, her expression a perfect mask of innocent sweetness.

"Morning, Ellery!" she chirped. "You' re up early."

Brendan was at the stove, flipping pancakes. He turned, a broad, handsome smile on his face, a smile that had once made my heart soar and now just made me want to vomit.

"Morning, baby," he said, his voice full of warmth. "I saved you some batter." He pointed with his spatula to a plate he' d set at my usual spot.

"You' re so lucky, Ellery," Kiya sighed, propping her chin on her hand. "Brendan is the most attentive husband in the world. He spoils you rotten."

I met her eyes over the rim of my coffee mug. The challenge was there, glittering in their depths.

"He is," I said, my voice dangerously calm. "He gives everyone exactly what they deserve."

Brendan, oblivious, chuckled. "I just take care of the people I care about. My wife, obviously, comes first. But I look out for my wife' s protégée too."

The casual way he compartmentalized us, his wife and his mistress, sitting at the same table, was breathtaking in its arrogance.

I set my mug down with a soft click. "Brendan," I asked, my voice very clear. "Do you love me?"

He looked startled by the directness of the question. Kiya froze, her fork halfway to her mouth.

"Of course I love you," he said, his brow furrowing in confusion. "You' re the only woman I' ve ever loved. You know that."

His words were a well-worn script, smooth and practiced. But last night, I had heard the unscripted version.

"I was just wondering," I said, stirring my untouched coffee. "Do you think it' s possible for a man to love two women at the same time?"

He scoffed, a confident, dismissive sound. "No. Of course not. Love isn' t something you can divide. When you truly love someone, there' s no room for anyone else. It' s all-consuming."

I held his gaze, my own expression unreadable. "I agree."

"Why are you asking these strange questions, El?" he asked, a hint of irritation in his voice.

"No reason," I said, taking a slow sip of coffee. "Just a hypothetical. If you ever did fall in love with someone else, you' d tell me, right? You wouldn' t just... keep me around?"

He came around the island and put his hands on my shoulders, leaning in to kiss my forehead. I had to fight the urge to recoil.

"That will never happen," he said, his voice a low, sincere promise. "But if it did, I would never hold you against your will."

"Good to know," I said, my voice a dead calm. "Because if that day ever came, I wouldn' t fight. I would just leave. And I would make sure I forgot everything about you."