Chapter 1

My boyfriend's childhood sweetheart had a congenital heart condition, and she'd finally landed a surgery slot with the top specialist in the country.

But with four hours still to go before her operation began,

my boyfriend showed up at the operating room doors with her in tow,

and demanded, hard-line, that the patient inside undergoing a heart transplant be dragged out so his sweetheart could go in and wait for her surgery.

The moment I heard, I rushed to the hospital,

and threw everything I had into stopping him before he could charge in with a knife and threaten the lead surgeon.

Everything could have gone on as normal. But because things hadn't gone her way, his sweetheart stormed out of the hospital alone in a fit of temper,

and was killed in a car accident on the spot.

Gordon Delgado, oddly enough, said nothing. He calmly handled her funeral,

then went on to propose to me, marry me,

and yet on the very day of our wedding,

he drove me out to the intersection where his sweetheart had died,

and watched, wide-eyed, as a truck came head-on and smashed the drunk me to pieces,

and looking at me, drenched in blood, he laughed with wild triumph.

"Harper Pruitt, you're the one who got Marina killed! If you hadn't stuck your nose in where it didn't belong, how could Marina ever have died under that truck?! This is the debt you owe her. You should go be buried alongside her!"

I died with that hatred lodged in me, watching Gordon's back as he walked away without a shred of pity,

and when I opened my eyes again, the Gordon in front of me was gripping a knife, about to charge into the operating room.

He didn't know

that the person lying inside that operating room right now was the mother of that top surgeon,

and that the one operating on the elderly woman

was the very top surgeon Marina Simmons had waited eighteen years for.

1

"Harper Pruitt, who told you to come?! I'm telling you, Marina's already waited eighteen years for this surgery, and I can't wait one more minute! I'm getting her into that operating room right now!"

Gordon's vicious voice pulled me back to myself.

I looked down at him, one hand clamped tight around my wrist, the other gripping the knife,

and understood that I really had been reborn.

In my last life, this was the exact moment I stopped Gordon.

With everything I had, I held him back, and the heart transplant going on inside proceeded without a hitch.

It wasn't until two hours later that I learned

the person lying in that operating room

was the mother of that top surgeon,

and the one operating on the elderly woman

happened to be the very top surgeon Marina had waited eighteen years for, the only one who could save her life.

Because I stopped Gordon and Marina from causing a scene,

that surgeon thanked me over and over and promised to take charge of all of Marina's future treatment himself,

and said, in his own words, that as long as he was around,

Marina would recover completely.

Everything had been heading toward the best possible outcome,

except that Marina, because things hadn't gone her way, because she hadn't been sent early to wait outside the operating room, got angry.

She stormed out of the hospital in a temper,

barreled across the street without looking, and was killed on the spot by an oncoming truck.

That time, Gordon stayed remarkably calm.

After attending Marina's funeral,

he proposed to me right away.

We walked into marriage even sooner than we'd planned,

and I thought it was all behind us,

except that on our wedding day, after the guests had gone,

Gordon took me, drunk from drinking on his behalf, out to that same intersection by the hospital,

and just stood there, watching, as an oncoming car ground me to pieces,

and looking at me, covered in blood, he laughed, happy and unrestrained.

"Harper Pruitt, this is the debt you owe Marina! Three months ago, if you hadn't stuck your nose in and stopped me outside that operating room, Marina never would have died!"

"Go and die! Go be buried alongside Marina!"

Watching Gordon walk away without looking back, I lay in that piercing agony and watched my own blood drain out of me, drop by drop.

The memory of that miserable last life made me shiver before I could stop myself.

"Hey! Can't you see the surgery time we booked?! It's less than four hours to the operation, and you still won't let us in to get ready?!"

Gordon's furious voice yanked me back.

He was jabbing a finger in the nurse's face, cursing her without any restraint at all.

Marina, who'd said nothing this whole time off to the side, shot me a glance,

then stepped forward, took Gordon's hand, and spoke up in that pitiful, teary little voice,

"Gordon, just let it go, stop fighting. I can see Harper's upset again. I'd rather not have the surgery at all than have you and Harper always fighting over me..."

Marina was always like this, always this same wretched act.

From start to finish I hadn't said one word against her having the surgery,

and yet she would pin all these made-up crimes on me,

and yet, of course, that idiot Gordon ate it up more than anything.

Sure enough, before Marina had even finished speaking,

Gordon's face went cold all at once,

but this time around, I wasn't going to be that stupid again.

I looked at that operating room with its lit sign, took a hard step back, wrenched my wrist out of Gordon's grip, and said coldly,

"I'm not the least bit upset."

"Marina Simmons getting her treatment has nothing to do with me. Do whatever you want."

With that, I turned and walked away from the operating room.