Chapter Six
KAMIYAH
The sliding doors of Haven Crest Center exhale a breath of sterile air against my face as I step inside, a cold reminder that whatever fragile peace I’ve been pretending to have is about to crack. Again.
Two days. It’s been only three days since Caden agreed to the fake engagement—three days of waking up in his penthouse guest room while pretending the memories of four years ago weren’t wrapping around my throat like ivy. Three days of telling myself that this is all for Anna. Only for Anna.
And yet… each night I’d lain awake in that impossibly soft bed just down the hall from him, listening to the faint sound of him pacing or talking on the phone or undressing on the other side of the wall—my resolve had eroded grain by grain.
Three days, and I already feel dangerously close to falling again.
Which is why I’m here, at the one place that still reminds me why I can’t.
My boots tap against the hospital tile, each step echoing between my ears.
The scent hits me immediately—antiseptic, faint lemon, something metallic beneath it all.
Memories rise like ghosts: long nights sitting curled in vinyl chairs, the steady beep of monitors, the quiet agony of waiting for news that never came.
Anna.
My throat thickens. I fasten my grip on the paper bag in my hand—a new book and the lotion her nurses like to use on her hands. It’s ridiculous, but it makes me feel like I’m doing something, anything. Keeping some piece of her alive while she sleeps in her endless twilight.
As I walk deeper into the wing, the voices of nurses drift around me, calm and gentle, but my heart pounds harder with each step. Because coming here means facing the truth I’ve been running from in Caden’s apartment:
I’m not over him.
I never was.
And sharing a roof with him again, even temporarily, is like reopening a wound I spent four years pretending had healed.
I hit the elevator button and let my eyes slide shut.
It was supposed to be simple, I remind myself. Get his help. Give him the one thing he couldn’t refuse. Save Anna. Leave.
Leave him.
Again.
But even the thought of walking away once I have my freedom and Anna is safe sends a fresh wave of nausea rolling through me. Back then I’d told myself he’d be better off. That disappearing was mercy—mercy for him, mercy for Anna.
Now? The decision feels like taking a blade to my own chest.
The elevator dings. I open my eyes, step inside, and press the button for the third floor.
My reflection in the elevator doors looks tired. Older. Not by much, but enough. Enough to see the toll of sacrifice etched around my eyes, the cracks from stretching myself too thin to cover both duty and grief.
And beneath it all… a flicker of something I’m scared to name.
Hope. Longing. A desperate, foolish ache.
I swallow hard.
Caden agreed because I manipulated his grief, I reminded myself harshly. Not because he wants you. Not the way you want him. He’s doing this for the child you promised. The child he’s always wanted.
But those words don’t soothe. They only bruise deeper.
The elevator slows, doors opening to the familiar hallway leading to long-term care. I step out, each motion purposeful, mechanical. Because if I let myself feel too much now, I won’t make it to Anna’s room before falling apart.
I pass the nurses’ station, nodding to a few familiar faces. Most of them remember me—I practically lived here before my aunt started sending me across the country and the world on her personal campaign to improve our family’s reputation. Before she forced me to abandon everything that mattered.
Including Caden.
Even now, the memory burns. The day she discovered Caden, and I were getting close—her face sharp as broken glass, her voice dripping venom as she reminded me exactly who held Anna’s lifeline.
“Your priorities are confused,” she’d said coldly.
“Sentimentality will get your sister killed. You will go where I send you, or I’ll see to it you never see Anna again. ”
I still remember the way the room spun. How I’d had to sit down because my knees couldn’t hold me.
My aunt hadn’t even tried to hide her satisfaction.
And I—the coward that I was—chose Anna’s life over my own happiness. Over the man who had sat with me night after night while his mother slipped away. The man who held me on the hardest nights, whispering words I still remember. Words I still feel.
Until I walked away. Left him believing I’d simply moved on without a word.
I suck in a shaking breath as I reach the familiar door.
Anna Remington—Room 312.
My fingers tremble as I turn the handle and slip inside.
The quiet hits me first. Soft, thick, almost sacred. Machines hum at steady intervals, the only sign that life is still tethered to my sister’s small, still body.
She lies where she always does, her once vibrant caramel skin pale against the white sheets, her curls detangled neatly by one of the nurses. A tiny stuffed bear—one I brought months ago—rests in the crook of her arm.
My breath catches.
“Hey, Anna,” I whisper, my voice cracking on her name.
I move to her bedside and set the bag on the small table. The sight of her like this never gets easier, but today something inside me shatters completely.
“I know it’s been a few days,” I say softly, brushing a finger against her cool hand. “I’m sorry. Things have been… chaotic.”
Chaotic is an understatement.
Life-altering. Terrifying. Beautiful in a way it shouldn’t be.
I pull a chair close and sink into it. The moment I take Anna’s hand, my chest loosens, like I’ve been holding my breath for days.
“I did something stupid,” I admit quietly. “Or maybe it’s smart. I don’t know anymore.”
A shaky laugh escapes me, humorless and thin.
“I defied aunt Priscilla. Well, I plan to at least. Only she doesn’t know yet.” I stroke my thumb against her knuckles, focussing on the gentle circles. “I asked Caden for help,” I say. “Yeah, that Caden,” I add.
The confession sticks in my throat.
“And he agreed. To everything.”
I trace another circle on Anna’s knuckles, avoiding her face because if I look at her too long, I’ll fall apart.
“We’re… engaged,” I whisper.
Even saying it aloud feels surreal, like I’m speaking someone else’s life into existence. Someone braver. Someone less fragile.
“But it’s fake,” I rush to add. “Just a deal. Just long enough to get both of us what we need. I promised him a baby in return and—”
My voice cracks.
“That part terrifies me, Anna. It terrifies me so much I can barely breathe some nights.”
I lean forward, my forehead hovering near her hand.
“But what scares me more is how being around him again feels like… like drowning in feelings I spent years trying to kill.”
A tear slips down my cheek.
“I’m not over him. God, I’m not over him at all.”
The truth spills from me like floodwater.
“Every hour in his apartment feels like torture. Watching him move around the kitchen, hearing that soft way he says my name… I keep reminding myself it’s fake. That he moved on…loved someone else. That he had a child. A life. Things I’m not part of.”
I squeeze her hand.
“But my heart doesn’t care. It feels like it never stopped loving him.”
The weight of it crushes me.
“And I know,” I whisper, my breaths turning uneven, “I know I’m going to have to walk away again when this is over. Because he deserves someone who chooses him without conditions. Without secrets or a family that hates him. Without obligations.”
My tears drip onto our joined hands.
“And you deserve to live. If the price of your life is my heart breaking a second time, then… fine. I can survive that. I will survive that.”
I sit with her like that for several minutes, letting the quiet wrap around me like a thin blanket. The machines beep steadily, a strange comfort amid the storm in my chest.
When I finally stand to leave, brushing a hand along her arm, a voice behind me freezes my blood.
“Well, well. I thought I might find you here.”
I turn slowly, dread filling every cell.
He stands just inside the doorway, expensive suit, smug smile. The man my aunt wants me to marry.
Damian.
My pulse stutters painfully.
“What are you doing here?” I snap, moving instinctively so my body shields Anna.
He lifts his hands in a mock-innocent gesture. “Looking for you, of course. Your aunt said you’ve been… difficult to reach lately.”
Anger flares hot and instant.
I lie, tilting my chin. “I don’t answer to her,” I bite out, trying to push past him.
He sidesteps, blocking the door with ease.
“Maybe not,” he says smoothly, “but you will answer to me, eventually.”
Revulsion crawls up my spine.
“I’m not doing this with you,” I growl. “Move.”
He doesn’t.
Instead, he steps closer, dropping the polite mask. “You should think twice before disobeying your aunt. She’s given you everything. Protect your sister. You owe her loyalty.”
“Don’t you dare talk about loyalty,” I hiss. “What kind of man agrees to an arranged marriage with someone who doesn’t want him?”
His jaw tics. “A man who understands responsibility. A man who knows that a wife falls in line with her husband’s expectations.”
Before I can react, he grabs my arm—hard. Pain shoots up to my shoulder.
“Let me go,” I grit out, trying to yank free.
His grip tightens. “You’ll learn to behave. Your aunt and I—”
I don’t let him finish.
Footsteps echo from the hallway—sharp, confident, unmistakably familiar. My aunt’s voice follows, clipped and irritated.
Panic flashes through me..
No. Not now. Not here. If she sees me…
Adrenaline surges.
I shove Damian with both hands. Hard.
He stumbles back, shock flaring across his features just long enough for me to bolt past him and out the door.
I sprint down the hallway, heart pounding like a war drum, not daring to look behind me. I burst into the elevator, slamming the button so hard my finger throbs. The doors begin to close just as I hear my aunt’s voice slicing through the air.
I don’t breathe until the elevator drops, carrying me away from all of them.
By the time I reach Caden’s penthouse, my lungs hurt from holding back sobs I refuse to let loose. My hands shake as I unlock the door.
Inside, the apartment is quiet except for the low murmur of Caden’s voice drifting from the living room. He’s on the phone—deep, authoritative, the tone I’ve come to recognize he uses when negotiating with someone important.
I take two steps inside.
He turns.
The second his eyes land on me, his sentence falters. Then it stops completely.
“—I’ll call you back,” he says abruptly and lowers the phone.
His expression shifts—concern first, then something darker, sharper. Protective.
He moves toward me slowly, like approaching a wounded animal.
“Hey,” he murmurs gently. “Honey, what happened?”
That one word—honey—is my undoing.
My lips part, but the only sound that escapes is a ragged breath.
His jaw clenches, eyes scanning my face as if searching for bruises, threats, answers. “What did they do to you?” he asks, voice low and dangerous.
And just like that, the walls I’ve been holding up all day collapse.
I break.