The airport was strange and quiet at one in the morning. Security waved me through. Nobody looked at me and saw a dying girl. Just another passenger. Anonymous and free.
I sat at my gate and watched people sleep in uncomfortable chairs, scroll through phones, live their regular lives.
I’d been afraid of flying since I was twelve. Since my grandmother’s plane went down over the Pacific. Just gone. Vanished.
My mother inherited that fear and passed it down like a family heirloom.
But sitting there, I realized how absurd it was to fear a plane crash when my brain was killing me. What did it matter if I died in the air or on the ground? At least in the air, I’d be choosing the risk.
Getting over my fear of heights. Number one on the list.
When they called my boarding group, I walked down that jetway with wobbly legs and cold hands. I thought about my grandmother and the ocean and my mother’s tears. Then I thought about Dr. Rivera’s face and my father’s throat-clearing and my mother’s soup, and I kept walking.
I took a window seat and watched the ground fall away. The city lights stretched below, then disappeared into darkness. My hands gripped the armrests. My heart hammered. But I didn’t close my eyes. I made myself look. Allowed myself to feel every second of the fear because terror meant I was alive and choosing.
This was living.
CHAPTER 2
Michael
My grandfather blamedhis near-death experience on my inability to sustain a relationship.
Never mind that he’d slipped on the stairs because he refused to use the railing like a normal eighty-four-year-old. Or that he’d been rushing to answer his phone at seven in the morning because he was convinced missing a call meant missing a crisis. According to Augustus Ashford, the real reason he’d almost cracked his skull open three weeks ago was because his only grandson was thirty-three and allergic to commitment.
“If you’d just settle down,” he’d said from his hospital bed, IV dripping into his arm, monitor beeping steadily, “I wouldn’t be so stressed about the family legacy. My blood pressure wouldn’t be sky-high. I wouldn’t get dizzy. This is what happens when your grandson treats marriage like it’s some kind of trap.”
I’d stood at the foot of his bed, exhausted from driving to the hospital at three in the morning, still in the clothes I’d worn to a board meeting.
The man had nearly fractured his skull, and he was using it as leverage in his ongoing campaign to get me married.
That was Augustus though. Relentless didn’t even begin to cover it.
He started the marriage lectures when I turned thirty. Gentle at first—suggestions about settling down, hints about wanting great-grandchildren before he died. Then he’d ramped it up. By the time I hit thirty-two, he was introducing me to daughters of business associates at every function. Last year, he’d escalated to outright threats.
He’d pulled out his will during Sunday dinner—actually pulled out the physical document, spread it across the table next to the roast chicken, and announced that if I wasn’t married within the year, he’d leave everything to charity.
“You’re not serious,” I’d said.
“Dead serious.” He’d grinned like it was the funniest thing he’d ever said. “You think I’m leaving my life’s work to someone who can’t even commit to a woman? What does that say about your ability to commit to anything important?”
“And how exactly does my relationship affect my work?”
“It shows that you’re scared of permanence. And I’m not rewarding fear.” He’d folded up the will, tucked it back into his jacket. “One year, Michael. Find someone, get married. Or watch everything go to the children’s hospital foundation.”
Which was how I ended up engaged to Hannah Pierce.
Now I was sitting across from Hannah in some exclusive Vegas restaurant with exposed brick and mood lighting, and she was wearing an engagement ring that felt wrong every time I noticed it, as if we’re pretending this made any kind of sense.
Hannah was talking about her mother’s latest charity gala disaster. Something about a caterer canceling last minute and the replacement serving salmon to a room full of people who’d specifically requested no fish. She was animated, laughing as she described the chaos, and she looked beautiful doing it. She always looked beautiful—that effortless elegance that came fromgrowing up with money and good breeding and the kind of confidence that didn’t need to announce itself.
Emerald silk dress. Hair pulled back in a way that looked casual but definitely wasn’t. Diamond earrings that shook softly each time she tilted her head.
She was exactly the kind of woman I should want to marry. Except we were better off as friends than lovers.
“So then my mother tried to convince everyone it was done on purpose,” she was saying, wine glass paused halfway to her mouth. “Are you even listening to me?”
I blinked. Hannah was watching me, wine glass paused halfway to her mouth.
