The same afternoon everyone told me my boyfriend had died, a video arrived on my phone showing him very much alive, leaning back on a leather sofa with a drink in his hand and laughing about how easy it would be to make me mourn him.
Chapter 2
The room erupted.
“Emma, what are you doing?”
“This isn’t funny.”
“You waited two years for him!”
I looked from face to face.
These were people who had held me at a fake funeral.
People who had watched me stop eating.
People who had brought wine to my apartment and said, “Ryan would want you to move forward,” while knowing Ryan was alive somewhere.
Now they were offended that I refused to follow their script.
Ryan gave a short laugh.
“If she says she doesn’t know me, that saves me a lot of trouble.”
The blonde—Nicole—looked delighted.
She slipped both arms around him.
“I know you.”
Ryan glanced at me before kissing her again.
His friends immediately stepped into my line of sight.
“Don’t watch.”
“He doesn’t remember.”
“You have to be patient.”
My stomach suddenly cramped.
I had been dealing with severe menstrual pain all day, and the stress made it worse. I turned and left before my legs gave out.
Outside the lounge, I made it perhaps twenty feet before leaning against the wall.
A familiar voice came from the shadows.
“Did the dead man scare you that badly?”
I looked up.
Caleb stood near the elevator in a black coat.
The sight of him broke something loose inside me.
Not because I still wanted Ryan.
Because I was tired.
Two years of carrying the secret, pretending I had been widowed by fate rather than abandoned by choice, suddenly became unbearable.
Tears slid down my cheeks.
Caleb’s expression changed immediately.
“Emma.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re sitting on the floor.”
“My stomach hurts.”
Without another word, he lifted me.
“Caleb.”
“Argue later.”
He carried me to his car and turned the heat on.
Then he drove to a twenty-four-hour pharmacy.
A few minutes later, my phone rang with a video call.
Caleb stood in the feminine-care aisle looking deeply uncomfortable.
“They’re out of your usual brand.”
Despite everything, I almost laughed.
“How do you know my usual brand?”
“You leave things at my house.”
He turned the camera toward the shelves.
“Pick one.”
Before I could answer, another voice came through.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
Ryan.
He had entered the same store with Nicole.
“Caleb Vaughn buying tampons for somebody?” Ryan laughed. “Who finally domesticated you?”
He tried to grab Caleb’s phone.
Caleb moved it out of reach.
Ryan backed away.
“Okay. Protective. I respect it.”
Then he said the sentence that changed everything between Caleb and me.
“By the way, thanks again for that fake-death idea. Best thing you ever suggested.”
I froze.
Ryan continued laughing.
“I got two years of freedom out of it. Now Emma finally saw me alive, and those idiots actually used the amnesia story.”
My eyes locked on the screen.
Caleb ended the call.
When he returned to the car ten minutes later, he would not look at me.
He handed me the pharmacy bag.
“I can explain.”
“You gave him the idea?”
Caleb gripped the steering wheel.
“Yes.”
I stared ahead.
The betrayal should have surprised me.
Instead, it fit too neatly.
“The video,” I said. “Why send it if it was your idea?”
“Because I didn’t understand what he meant when he first asked.”
I turned toward him.
Caleb spoke carefully.
“Ryan had been talking for months about wanting space. He joked about disappearing. I told him that if he wanted out so badly, he should act like he’d vanished and stop dragging you through his indecision.”
“You said fake his death.”
“I said it sarcastically.”
“That’s convenient.”
“I know.”
He finally looked at me.
“Then he actually planned it. When I realized how far he intended to go, I should have told you immediately.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
His jaw tightened.
“Because I had spent years wanting you.”
Silence filled the car.
“I hated watching him treat you like something he owned. And when he said he was leaving, part of me thought maybe once he was gone, you’d eventually be free of him.”
“That is a terrible thing to admit.”
“Yes.”
“Did you send me the video because you wanted me?”
“No.”
His answer came immediately.
“I sent it because once they started laughing about your grief, I couldn’t let you mourn a lie.”
I believed that.
I was not ready to forgive it.
“Take me home.”
He did.
But home, by then, was partly Caleb’s place.
Our relationship had grown slowly, almost accidentally. He knew which side of the bed I slept on and how I took my tea. I knew he secretly watched old Westerns on Sunday mornings and called his widowed mother every night at nine.
The man who had once helped create the worst lie of my life had spent two years refusing to lie to me again.
That mattered.
Later that night, Ryan called Caleb.
Neither of us realized the phone had answered on speaker until Ryan’s voice filled the bedroom.
“I’m thinking of throwing an engagement party for Nicole.”
Caleb looked at me.
Ryan laughed.
“It’ll drive Emma crazy. She didn’t even call after seeing me alive. She’s trying to act tough.”
I felt nothing.
That frightened me for a moment.
Then I understood.
Indifference was not emptiness.
It was healing.
Ryan continued.
“I’ll make her jealous for a while, then eventually tell her my memory came back. She’ll forgive me.”
Caleb picked up the phone.
“Why are you so certain?”
“Because she loved me.”
“Past tense.”
Ryan laughed.
“Emma doesn’t move on.”
Caleb’s eyes met mine.
He ended the call.
Three hours later, a message arrived from Derek.
Ryan is getting engaged next Saturday. Please come. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. When his memory returns, he’ll regret everything.
I showed Caleb.
“You’re not going,” he said.
“I am.”
His expression hardened.
“Why?”
“Because Ryan has spent two years assuming I’m still standing exactly where he abandoned me.”
Caleb studied my face.
Then understanding appeared.
“What are you planning?”
“Nothing dramatic.”
“That expression says otherwise.”
I smiled.
“I’m going to attend an engagement party.”
