Chapter 4

Getting hung up on pushed Cecil over the edge.

Gregory stood off to one side, watching the storm on Cecil's face, and asked carefully, "Mr. Harding, should we keep setting up the proposal venue?"

"Set it up. Not only set it up, move it up." Cecil ground the words out through his teeth. "Book every big screen downtown. Tomorrow night, eight o'clock. I want the whole city to see it."

"She wants to make a scene? Let's see how she keeps up the act once the entire city knows I'm proposing to her."

Cecil was certain of it. Give the spectacle enough scale, and I would break down sobbing with gratitude and crawl right back to his side.

But the next afternoon, Roberta showed up at the hospital instead.

She wore a couture dress and four-inch heels, and she stood at the foot of my bed.

I had just come out of the resuscitation room, tubes running into me everywhere, unable to breathe without an oxygen mask.

Roberta covered her nose and looked down at me with open disgust. "Sonia, your little suffering act is almost too convincing, isn't it? You even had them hook up the oxygen? To force Cecil to marry you, there's really nothing you won't do."

"Cecil is proposing to you tonight at the downtown plaza. But he says if you dare not show up, he'll announce right there in front of everyone that he's proposing to me instead."

She bent down, brought her mouth close to my ear, her voice thick with vicious triumph. "Looking like this, you'd only embarrass yourself by going. If I didn't refuse to have children, you think Cecil would ever have looked at you? You're nothing but my stand-in. The one he's always loved is me."

"If you know what's good for you, get out of this city right now and stop being an eyesore."

I looked at her, and it settled in my chest. So this was what Cecil had done it for. But now I didn't even have the strength to speak.

The line on the heart monitor was flattening out, its beeping quick and shrill.

The pain rolled over me like a tide, and my vision began to scatter.

Doctors and nurses rushed into the room and shoved Roberta aside. "V-fib! Get the defibrillator ready!"

Roberta stumbled from the push, and she looked at my ashen face and the blood soaking the bed, and finally understood I hadn't been faking.

Her own face went white with fear, and she fled in her high heels.

Eight o'clock that night.

The downtown plaza roared with the crowd. Every big screen in the city lit up at once, all of them showing a photo of Cecil and me from six years ago.

Cecil wore a bespoke suit, holding an enormous diamond ring, standing high above the plaza.

He was waiting for me to appear, waiting for me to wag my tail and crawl over and thank him for his mercy.

Minute by minute the time passed, and the crowd began to whisper.

The look on Cecil's face got worse and worse. He pulled out his phone and dialed my number.

"We're sorry. The phone you are calling is switched off."

He let out a cold laugh and turned to Gregory. "Find out where she is and drag her here to me. This wedding happens today whether she wants it or not."

Just then, his phone suddenly rang.

An unfamiliar landline number.

A smug little smile pulled at the corner of Cecil's mouth. He hit answer, his tone laced with condescension. "Sonia, so now you know you were wrong? Too late."

But the voice on the other end was tired and heavy. "Hello. Is this Mr. Cecil Harding?"

Cecil frowned. "Who is this?"

"This is City General Hospital. Miss Sonia Fox passed away ten minutes ago. Resuscitation was unsuccessful."

"She left your number with us. Please come to the morgue as soon as possible to identify the body and handle the death certificate."

The smile froze on Cecil's mouth.

The diamond ring slipped from his hand with a small clatter, hit the ground, and rolled into a pitch-black drain.