Chapter 2

I'd been frail since birth, my body barely able to carry a child. Three years married to him, and I could no longer count the pills I'd swallowed, the needles I'd taken.

But none of it mattered to him. Not the man he used to be, not the man he'd become.

Neither of them ever cared what it cost me.

Not the night I drove out into a downpour at three in the morning to collect him from some dinner.

Not the three months I spent begging people, cashing in every favor, to land the funding that saved one of his deals.

And least of all did it matter that today, the day I learned he was bankrupt, I knelt at my parents' door for a whole day to beg the ten million he needed. In the end it was nothing but a joke.

Marcus lifted my hand into his. I didn't have the strength to pull it back.

"Don't worry. I've already found you a professional nurse. You'll recover in no time, and then I'll take you to Iceland to see the northern lights, the trip you've always wanted."

Their conversation from last night surfaced in my mind on its own.

I already had the answer to that phone call.

Marcus still wouldn't choose me.

I sighed. And all at once, I understood.

When I said nothing, he assumed I was still angry. But he didn't try to coax me anymore.

Of course. Ten years from now, Marcus had everything he wanted, and no patience left for soothing anyone.

"Rest well. I'll go heat up the chicken soup for you."

I caught sight of the bowl on the corner of the table. Only half left.

He hadn't even bothered to keep up the act. He was giving me what someone else had already drunk from.

I pulled together everything I had left and got out one word.

"Get out!"

Marcus stood over me, too guilty to meet my eyes.

"All right. I know you're angry. I'll come back when you've calmed down. I made that soup for hours, so make sure you drink it. I'll have someone bring it in."

Then he walked out.

As my mind blurred, I began to see things that weren't in my memory.

"Marcus! It's her or me. Choose!"

I saw everything in the house smashed to pieces, a woman clutching a child and sobbing, while I hurled things at them like a lunatic.

Then, a crack.

Suddenly I was my future self, and when his palm landed across my face, the pain burned.

"If you're sick in the head, go get treated! You can't have kids, so what, I'm supposed to waste my whole life playing along with you?"

The Marcus in front of me was a stranger, so much so that I trembled.

I asked him through my tears.

"You promised. You said if you ever cheated, you'd die in front of me."

His cold laugh cut sharper than anything.

"Are you an idiot? That's a line you feed a three-year-old. I love you, but not enough to die, and not enough to throw away the rest of my life's happiness. When I'm old I want someone to inherit what I've built, children and grandchildren around my knee."

The pain in my chest kept climbing, and the world spun again.

The scene changed. This time, it was that sanatorium.

Someone shoved me to the floor. The cold bit into me, and it hurt to the bone.

"I didn't push him!"

Marcus clenched his fist, fury pressed between his brows.

"He's just a child. Are you saying he's lying? How did I never see how vicious you are, that you can't even stand a little boy!"

"I already agreed to keep them set up elsewhere. I told you I wouldn't divorce you. And still you won't let it go. You won't be satisfied until they're dead, will you!"

I looked at him, and understood.

Nothing I said would ever change his mind.

After a long silence, he tossed a hospital gown at me.

"You stay here and recover. Without my permission, you're not to come out and bother them."

In the last second before the door closed, a fierce will to live drove me to my knees, begging him through tears.

"I was wrong. I'll divorce you, I won't cling to you anymore, just let me go!"

But Marcus only looked at me, his eyes flat and cold.

"Now you know you were wrong? Too late. Don't worry, you'll live just fine in here."

I clung to his leg with everything I had, refusing to let go.

But in the end, he shook me off without mercy.

The closed door warped before my eyes, and my whole life began to spin past me like a lantern turning.