Zoe stepped closer and gasped.

After James and I broke up, I couldn’t find work anywhere.

Eventually I ended up at this nightclub, hired on as cleaning staff.

One night, some big, bloated guy started harassing me. He had his arm around my waist and backed me into a corner. He was huge, and I couldn’t push him off.

Someone got it on the security feed and uploaded it. The caption read: Nightclub princess kept by a rich daddy.

It hit our high school group chat and blew up.

People kept tagging me, demanding that I explain.

The pressure was suffocating, and I couldn’t breathe.

I left the group chat and deleted all the messages.

“Why didn’t you say something? Why are you such a coward?” Zoe was almost yelling.

I tried to play it off and gave her a small smile.

“Isn’t this perfect, though? Now James can really give up on me.”

She grabbed my arm and I flinched, hissing through my teeth as my brow knotted up.

“They do this to you?”

“Wren, I’m taking you to James. We’re going to tell him right now. The whole thing is a misunderstanding.”

“Do you know how much he’s hated you these past two years?”

I shook my head and took a step back.

I worked the back rooms of a nightclub and was almost cut off from the outside world.

But I wasn’t stupid. From all the chatter that passed through that club, I knew exactly how James was doing.

His career was thriving. He had a beautiful woman on his arm.

We lived in different worlds now, and going back to explain anything didn’t mean a thing anymore.

“Isn’t it better if he hates me?”

I smiled a little. “Let him live the rest of his life hating me. Better than carrying me around forever.”

“I have a blood disorder, a serious one. Treatment costs a lot.”

“I’m not going to last much longer, Zoe.”

“Promise me. Don’t tell anyone.”

Zoe’s face went grim, and her eyes started to fill up.

Then something seemed to click. “Blood disease? Six months ago, James got sick too. Some kind of blood disorder. He only made it because somebody donated bone marrow anonymously, and...”

Her eyes went huge, like the pieces had just landed.

“That was you, wasn’t it. You were the donor.”

I gave her a small, bitter smile.

When I found out James was sick, I drained every cent I had, got typed through the NMDP, registered as an anonymous donor, and flew across the country to the matched hospital to go through with the procedure.

But it was a long way home. I spiked a fever on the way back, and once I got home, the surgical site got infected badly.

I had no health insurance. The bills piled up, and I missed the window for proper treatment.

After that, my immune system malfunctioned, triggering a string of subsequent health issues.

That was also when I saw the news. James had been so moved by Sienna’s devotion through his illness that he’d decided to get engaged to her.

I’d already promised myself I wouldn’t love him anymore, that I wouldn’t step into his life again.

But seeing that photo of him with her on his arm, and the way he was looking at her, something in me dropped right through the floor.

I knew that look.

It was the way he used to look at me.

I felt the ache hit my chest all over again.

Zoe sucked in a sharp breath.

“How can you not have money for treatment? Didn’t James’s mother give you a check when you broke up? Did you not cash it?”

She pulled out her phone. “Okay, fine. I won’t tell James what’s going on with you. But this, I can’t sit on.”

“They all said you only cared about money and had no dignity. They said all sorts of awful things about you.”

“Wren, you’re my best friend. I’m not letting them talk about you like that.”

I panicked and grabbed her hand.

“Don’t.”

I said it quietly.

“I took the money.”

James’s mother had handed me a check for half a million dollars and told me to walk away from her son.

“I know your grandmother needs money for her treatment.”

“I can help.”

“But there’s a condition.”

I didn’t have to think to know what it was.

“Leave my son.”

The air went very still.

She sat across from me, calmly picking up her coffee as if none of this mattered.

“You know Thorne Capital is waiting for him to take over.”

“But all he does is fuss over those useless paintings. He’s going nowhere.”

“You want what’s best for him too. Don’t you?”

I couldn’t breathe and couldn’t say a word.

I’d always known James had been born with a silver spoon. Thorne Capital had been waiting for him since the day he was born.

But he didn’t want business. He wanted to paint.

After college, he cut every tie with the family company and threw himself into his art.

He was new, and nobody was betting on him yet. His apartment was stacked with canvases, and most of them never sold.

I’d told him I’d wait. I’d wait until the day he made it.

Then my grandmother took a turn. She needed chemo immediately.

She’d raised me. My parents were always working somewhere far away, barely home, and it was always just her and me.

I couldn’t lose her.

James couldn’t bear to see me like that, and he sold off all his favorite paintings, dirt cheap, just to scrape together her first round of treatment.

But there was a second round coming. And a third.

I couldn’t wait anymore.

He hadn’t given up on his dream, and I couldn’t be the one to make him.

But on my own, I couldn’t save her.

I sat there looking at that check, my fingertips shaking.

“I want you to take this money and leave him immediately. I want him to see that without money, love doesn’t even survive.”

“That’s the only way he’ll take Thorne Capital willingly.”

I nodded. My heart was bleeding.

“You never told James any of this?”

“Mm-hm.” I closed my eyes.

“I promised his mother. I had to keep it quiet.”

“But, well.”

I sighed and looked over at my grandmother’s photo.

“Grandma. Her treatment came too late, and she was already so old, so fragile. After a few rounds, she passed.”

My head dropped.

“I lost the last person I had in the world.”

“What about the rest of the money? Wasn’t there enough left for your treatment?”

I shook my head.

“The rest, I used to buy back every painting James had sold off. All of them. I paid above market and donated them to a museum.”

“I didn’t want to owe him too much.”

“There were maybe ten thousand left. I donated it to a children’s education charity. Those kids needed it more than I did.”

After that, Zoe started coming by every few days.

She brought food, vitamins, clean clothes.

Later, she said she’d found me a cheap little place to rent. It was out of the way, but anything was better than living in a nightclub bathroom.

I was grateful, but I said no.

I was getting weaker, and the pain was getting worse.

I knew I didn’t have long.

I didn’t want to leave too many debts behind in the time I had left.

I couldn’t pay them back anymore.

One stormy night, the bar owner found me passed out in the cleaning closet.

The hospital tracked down the only contact I had. Zoe.

After the emergency treatment, the doctor came out of the trauma bay and shook his head at Zoe.

“Our department knows Wren’s case well. She’s the one who gave up. She had a last shot. There was a donor lined up, and she refused it, letting an eight-year-old girl have it instead.”

While the doctor was talking, a small girl in a face mask peeked over at us, looking nervous.

“Doctor, is Wren going to be okay?”

Zoe didn’t answer, just reached out and gently smoothed the girl’s hair.

Back in the room, the doctor told me I didn’t have many days left. Whatever I wanted to do, I should do it.

By the time Zoe came in, I was already drifting and saying things that didn’t make sense.

But I could hear myself.

“James.”

“James, please.”

Zoe got it immediately and pressed the phone into my hand. “Wren, you want to call James? I’ll dial.”

He picked up almost right away.

“It’s... it’s Wren.”

Just those two words took everything I had.

Silence on the other end.

Then his voice came through. “Wren? Why are you calling me? Where’s your sugar daddy? You miss me? Regret it now?”

The chill was there, but underneath it, something probing.

I was so weak. My lips trembled, and I couldn’t get anything out.

He spoke again.

“What. Did I hit it on the nose?”

“Wren, I have a girlfriend, and I’m getting married. So even if you do regret it, I’m not coming back. We’re not happening.”

“This is your choice. Isn’t it.”

I felt my mouth pull into a small, weak smile.

“I don’t regret it.”

“Be happy.”

I forced my voice flat and tried to sound okay.

But he caught it instantly.

“What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

“Why do you sound like that?”

We’d been apart for two years. This was the first time I’d heard his voice again, and the first time I’d heard him worried about me.

It all hit at once, and tears just spilled.

“It’s nothing.” My voice was hoarse.

“I just had a baby. I’m recovering. It’s the rich guy’s baby.”

Dead silence.

Then, through clenched teeth, “Wren, you are really shameless.”

“Wren, even if you died tomorrow, I wouldn’t blink an eye.”

A sweet, syrupy voice in the background.

“James? Who is that? You sound off.”

He took a breath.

“Nobody. Just some lunatic.”

The line went dead.

My heart sank like a stone.

James, right now, you must be so happy.

Forgive me for lying to you, again and again.

I’m sorry.

When Zoe called back, Sienna picked up.

“Wren. Are you done yet?”

“You walked out on him. Now you’re the one stalking him? Have you no shame?”

Zoe’s voice was urgent. “Put James on. Sienna, Wren is dying. She doesn’t have much time.”

Sienna took a slow breath.

“If I remember correctly, James just said that Wren could die and it would have nothing to do with him.”

“Stop calling. Goodbye.”