Chapter 1

They said her legs were gone.

Just like that.

One moment, she had been floating in silk and lace, her arms raised as the tailor pinned the last detail to her gown. The next, she was weightless and weighty at the same time, crushed by something she couldn’t see and too numb to scream.

Cayleigh didn’t remember the impact, only the silence that came after. A silence so loud it still echoed in her bones.

Now, she sat in her room—a room too beautiful to belong to someone broken. The curtains fluttered gently from the breeze, spilling light onto the polished floors of her Montemayor estate. Her mother had ordered the nurses to repaint the walls a calming ivory, as if color could make up for lost limbs. Her father installed railings and ramps with military efficiency. A mechanical hospital bed was wheeled into her once-princess-like chamber, dwarfing her antique dresser, erasing her past with every beep and hydraulic hiss.

And Knile... Knile came only when necessary.

He brought flowers she couldn’t smell, cards she never read, and silence that hurt more than the truth.

Her hands clenched the thin blanket draped over her lap, hiding the truth beneath.

She didn’t look down.

She hadn't in days.

The door creaked open quietly. She knew it was him before he spoke. She could feel his presence—too cautious for a friend, too reverent for a servant.

“Miss Montemayor,” he said gently. “Good morning.”

Cayleigh turned her face toward the window, pretending not to hear.

Aki stepped closer. “I brought breakfast. Soft poached eggs, just like you asked.”

“I didn’t ask,” she said, her voice brittle.

“You didn’t,” he admitted. “But you haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

“I’m not hungry.”

He didn’t argue. He simply placed the tray on the side table and adjusted her pillows.

She hated how careful he was. Every movement calculated, as though she were glass.

“What are you even doing here?” she snapped suddenly. “Do you think this makes you a good person now?”

“No,” he said simply. “I’m not a good person. But I want to help.”

Her voice wavered, fury clashing with exhaustion. “You ruined me.”

His breath caught, but he didn’t flinch. “Yes. I did.”

She turned to face him now—really face him. His eyes were darker than she remembered, like coffee left too long in the pot. Sleepless. Hollow.

“You know,” she whispered, “when I woke up and realized they were gone, I didn’t cry.”

He lowered his gaze.

“But do you know when I did?” she asked, biting back the lump in her throat. “When I saw my wedding shoes. The ones I was supposed to wear when I walked down the aisle.”

Silence.

Then, softly, Aki said, “I’ll take them away.”

“No.” Her voice cracked. “Let them stay. I want to remember. I need to remember.”

He nodded once, a fragile understanding passing between them.

The days blended together after that. Aki rarely left her side. He wheeled her through the Montemayor gardens in the early mornings, when the sky was still shy and the sun hadn't claimed its strength. He helped her bathe, gently, respectfully, never letting his hands linger too long.

And she let him.

Because despite everything, he was the only one who didn’t treat her like porcelain.

Knile had stopped touching her altogether.

One afternoon, while Aki was trimming a rose bush near her chair, she finally asked, “Why did you take the deal?”

He looked up, surprised by the suddenness of the question.

“I mean it,” she continued. “You could’ve run. Fought. Gotten a lawyer. Why this?”

He clipped one final rose, then sat on the edge of the fountain nearby.

“I wasn’t thinking,” he said. “I just knew I had to do something. Anything. You were in pain, and I caused it. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try to... I don’t know... make it right.”

Cayleigh blinked slowly. “And is this right? Living like this? Watching me suffer every day?”

“I’d rather suffer with you than forget and live free.”

The words hung in the air like perfume. Too tender. Too dangerous.

She turned away.

At night, when everyone else in the house had long gone to sleep, Cayleigh would lie awake in silence. The phantom pain came often—sudden, sharp shocks where her legs used to be, her body screaming for something it could no longer locate.

One night, she couldn’t take it anymore. She gritted her teeth against a sob as the pain wracked through her hips.

Within minutes, Aki burst into her room, eyes wide. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

She didn’t answer. She just held out her hand.

And he took it.

He sat beside her on the bed, and she clung to his warmth like a lifeline.

She didn’t ask for words. She just needed not to be alone.

She didn’t realize she had fallen asleep until she woke up, still holding his hand.

And he hadn’t let go.

She didn’t realize she had fallen asleep until she woke up, still holding his hand.

And he hadn’t let go.

The morning light seeped in quietly, soft and golden, catching the delicate outlines of her lashes and the curve of her cheek. Her eyes fluttered open, disoriented for a moment by the stillness. Her gaze fell to the side of the bed—where Aki sat slouched in the armchair, his head resting on the edge of the mattress, their fingers still loosely entwined.

He looked exhausted. There were deep shadows under his eyes, and a slight stubble traced his jaw, a sign he hadn’t slept properly in days. His hand was warm against hers—steady, solid, real. She studied the faint callouses on his fingertips, the faint burn scar near his thumb, the quiet wear of a man who had once lived for beauty but now lived to serve.

She thought about pulling away.

She didn’t.

For once, her thoughts weren’t racing. There was no self-pity, no anger boiling under her skin. Just a strange calm—a silence that didn’t crush her but held her.

Her voice, when it came, was barely above a whisper. “You stayed.”

Aki stirred slowly, lifting his head, his dark eyes meeting hers. “Of course I did.”

No apology. No grand gesture. Just truth.

And for the first time since the accident, Cayleigh didn’t feel broken.

She felt... seen.

They stayed like that for a long moment, suspended in the quiet dawn, where pain still lingered—but so did the possibility of healing.

And though neither of them said it aloud, something had shifted.

Something neither gratitude nor guilt could fully explain.