"Cara, listen to me."
Charles took a deep, shuddering breath. I could see the muscles in his jaw clenching, his sharp, corporate mask cracking for the first time since I'd known him. He looked like a man about to confess a murder, or perhaps something even worse.
He was opening his mouth to speak when the world suddenly tilted.
At first, I thought it was the painkillers. I expected a wave of dizziness, but instead, everything went eerily silent. The kind of silence that presses against your eardrums right before a storm breaks.
Then the white walls of the hospital room vibrated. A tray of medical instruments toppled over in the corner, the silver tools clattering loudly. A glass vase on the windowsill shattered, water and flowers spilling across the floor.
Then the sirens started. A high, piercing wail that sliced through the sudden chaos.
"What's happening?" Edward's face went the color of the hospital sheets. All his bravado, his "puppy dog" act, vanished in an instant, replaced by raw, naked panic.
His eyes darted around the room like a trapped animal looking for an exit.
The door flung open, banging against the wall with a violent crack. A nurse, her hair disheveled and eyes wide, leaned into the room. "We have to evacuate! It's an earthquake! Move, now!"
She didn't stay to help. She didn't have time. She disappeared into the hallway where the sound of running feet and shouting voices was growing louder by the second.
"Edward, I'm so scared!" Violet whimpered from the corner where she had been standing.
She didn't look at me. She didn't check if her "best friend" could even stand or walk. She didn't ask if I was okay. She simply reached out for Edward, her fingers digging into his sleeve like a lifeline.
Without a moment's hesitation, without even glancing in my direction, Edward swept Violet into his arms like some shining hero from a bad romance novel. He cradled her against his chest as if she were made of glass.
He did not spare a glance of concern for his own brother. He did not look back at me. He simply ran out of the room, his footsteps swallowed by the chaos in the hallway.
I stared at the empty doorway for what felt like a full minute, a coldness spreading through my chest that had nothing to do with the hospital's air conditioning. Even though my mind was still foggy from the drugs, even though my head throbbed with every distant crash and scream, I tried to process the image burned into my brain.
My boyfriend had just abandoned me in a collapsing building to save another woman.
Not just any woman. My best friend.
The two people I trusted most in the world had just left me to die.
My prank had turned into a beast I could no longer control. I had wanted to play a harmless little joke, to watch Charles squirm for a moment. Instead, I had stumbled into a truth I never wanted to know.
Cussing Edward out in my head wasn't enough. I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw something. But my throat felt like it was lined with sandpaper, and my arms felt too heavy to lift.
Then the ground shook again, a violent trembling that woke me from my horrified reverie. A crack split the far wall, spiderwebbing from floor to ceiling. Dust rained down from the ceiling tiles.
Charles snapped back into action. He didn't hesitate. He didn't ask permission. He simply rushed to my side, slid one arm under my knees and the other behind my back, and lifted me off the bed as if I weighed nothing at all.
He held me tight against his chest. His heart thumped against my ear—a steady, powerful rhythm that cut through the chaos like a drumbeat.
"Hold on tight, Cara," he commanded. His voice was low, steady, utterly calm. As if carrying a woman out of a collapsing building was something he did every day.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and held on.
The next thing I knew, he was running. Down the stairs, dodging panicking patients and frantic staff, leaping over debris that had already begun to fall. I remained silent, my face pressed against his shoulder, my eyes squeezed shut.
Every bounce in his arms sent a fresh spike of pain through my bandaged head. But I was too emotionally drained to even wince. The physical pain was nothing compared to the hollow ache in my chest.
When we finally burst out of the hospital doors into the cold morning air, I forced my eyes open. I looked around desperately, searching for a flash of sandy-colored hair, for Edward's familiar silhouette.
There was nothing.
He was gone. They were both gone.
The realization hit me like a physical blow. Simple. Brutal. Unforgivable.
He didn't care if I died. He hadn't even checked to see if I was okay. He had saved Violet as if she were the one he loved. As if she were his girlfriend. As if I were the stranger.
I had just wanted to play a harmless little prank, I thought bitterly as dust and ash tickled my nose. I didn't know I was playing with a man who would leave me to burn.
I looked up at Charles. His jaw was set in a grim line of determination, his eyes scanning the crowd for danger even now. His arms never loosened around me. His heart never stopped its steady, reassuring beat.
Was this some cosmic punishment for lying? For trying to be clever?
But a small, stubborn part of my brain, the part that wasn't foggy with drugs or numb with betrayal whispered the truth: Edward wasn't taking advantage of my "amnesia" to pull a fast one on me.
He had been planning this long before I ever fell down those stairs.
What chilled me to the bone was how quickly he had made the plan to push me toward his brother. As if he and Violet had been seeing each other behind my back for months. As if I was just an obstacle to be passed off to someone else.
The humiliation felt like a hot stone in my belly, heavy and burning.
And yet, in a wild, twisted way, Charles's arms felt like the only safe place left in a world that was literally falling apart around me.
***
The car ride was a blur of traffic and the low hum of the engine. Like a dutiful boyfriend, Charles had insisted on taking me home, saying that the hospital was obviously not safe after the earthquake.
Since I had been about to be discharged anyway, I didn't argue. Plus, I was too mentally drained to form a coherent objection.
I must have drifted off, because when I felt the car come to a smooth stop, I felt more alert than I had all day. I raised my head, looking out the tinted window, and my brow furrowed in confusion.
"But... this is not my apartment," I blurted out before I could stop myself.
The silence that followed was heavy. Charles turned in the driver's seat, his eyes narrowing as he peered into my face. The "Corporate Devil" was back, his gaze sharp and calculating.
"How do you remember that this is not your apartment, Cara?"
My heart did a frantic somersault in my chest. I had slipped. The "amnesia" mask had cracked.
"I... Erm..." I stuttered, my mind racing for a save. Think, Cara, think. "I just meant... it doesn't feel right. This place looks... it looks like I can't afford it."
It wasn't entirely a lie. The house before us was a magnificent brick estate, sprawling and ancient, with ivy climbing the weathered walls and a circular driveway that screamed "old money." It wasn't a home. It was a fortress. A monument to generations of wealth and power.
Charles looked into my eyes for a long, agonizing moment. His gaze was unreadable, searching, probing. He looked like he was about to call my bluff, to demand I stop the charade right there in the driveway.
Then, slowly, he turned his face toward the house. His expression softened into something I couldn't name.
"I just felt it would be better for you to recover here," he explained quietly. "At my house. It's safer. More private."
He turned back to me, fixing me with a strange, dark look that sent a shiver racing down my spine.
It wasn't the look of a boss checking on an injured employee. It wasn't even the look of a concerned friend.
It was the look of a man claiming a prize.
"You are my girlfriend, after all," he said, his voice dropping into a husky register that made my stomach flip. "I'm supposed to take care of you. Isn't that right?"
I stared at him, trapped in the leather seat, trapped in the lie, trapped in the web I had so carelessly woven.
I was in his territory now.
And the harmless little prank had officially become a war.