Chapter 1

Charlotte's POV

“Charlotte, your sister and Nathan are engaged now.”

My father’s voice landed heavily in the living room, calm and detached, as though he were announcing something trivial. He sat on the couch, one leg crossed over the other, cigarette between his fingers.

Smoke curled lazily into the air, filling my lungs, making it hard to breathe, as if the house itself was rejecting me.

Beside him sat my mother, Megan Dean, her posture straight, her eyes sharp, already waiting for me to react. Waiting for tears. For protest. For drama.

“Stop bothering Nathan,” my father continued coldly. “I’ve already bought you a plane ticket abroad.”

He leaned forward and slid the ticket across the glass table toward me. The sound it made felt louder than it should have, slicing through the silence. “You’ll stay there for a few years. Don’t come back until your sister’s wedding is over.”

I stood there, unmoving. My mind felt distant, as if I were watching the scene from outside my body, like a stranger peering through glass. The words registered, but my heart was strangely quiet.

No screaming, no begging.

Just a dull ache that felt far too familiar.

My mother suddenly shot up from her seat. “Hey!” she screamed, storming toward me. “You brat, we’re talking to you! Did you hear me?”

She stopped inches away from my face, her eyes blazing with irritation and impatience. I turned my head slightly and looked into her eyes, calm, almost innocent. I still didn’t speak. Not because I couldn’t—but because I was tired.

Tired of this house.

Tired of these people.

I was tired of being invisible.

Two years ago, Nathan Mills—CEO of Mills Corporation and the man I loved, had been involved in a fatal car accident that severely left a huge wound on his head. The doctors said it was a miracle he survived at all.

He didn’t die, but he might as well have. He slipped into a coma that swallowed him whole, taking everything with it.

Everyone else moved on. I didn’t.

I stayed.

Day after day, night after night, I sat beside his hospital bed. I talked to him, read stories to him, held his hand, brushed his hair, begged him to wake up.

I told him about my day, about the weather, about how much the city had changed, even about the trivial things, hoping somewhere deep inside, he could still hear me.

The doctors warned me. They told me I was pushing myself too hard, that I needed rest, that I would break down if I kept this up. They spoke gently, cautiously, like they were already preparing me for the worst.

But how could I leave him?

“You’re all I’ve got, Nathan,” I whispered one morning, standing beside his bed with a termination letter clenched in my hand. I had lost my job that day because I spent too much time at the hospital. I didn’t care. Jobs could be replaced. He couldn’t.

I knelt beside him, tears blurring my vision as I brushed his hair back gently. “I need you to wake up. Please… my love. I need you.”

Months turned into a year.

A year turned into two.

And then, one morning, Nathan woke up.

But I wasn’t there.

And worst still, he lost his entire memory.

The doctors called it retrograde amnesia. They said the impact to his head had erased huge parts of his past. Faces, moments, emotions, gone. He didn’t remember the accident. He didn’t remember the hospital. And most painfully, he didn’t remember me.

Just an hour before it happened, my mother noticed his finger twitch. She froze, then grabbed my father’s arm, whispering urgently. Their eyes met, and in that brief exchange, a decision was made, one I didn’t know at the time, but would suffer for forever.

They sent me home.

“Go and tidy the house,” my mother said sharply. “Wait for us there.”

I hesitated. The maids had already done that. Something felt wrong, deep in my chest, like a warning I couldn’t quite name. But I knew better than to argue. I obeyed.

By the time I returned to the hospital, everything had changed.

The first person Nathan saw when he opened his eyes wasn’t me.

It was my sister, Celine, seated right beside him.

“Nathan, you’re awake,” she said softly, holding his hand, her eyes glistening with perfectly timed tears, as though she had rehearsed this moment.

Standing behind her were my parents, their faces lit with excitement, as if this miracle belonged to them. As if they had been the ones praying beside his bed all this time.

“Who are you… Where am I?” Nathan gasped weakly, his eyes were unfocused, confused, searching.

Celine glanced at my parents briefly, then clasped his hand tightly, like she was anchoring herself to him.

Then suddenly, something like a flash hit him and he held his head. He turned around as if looking for something or someone.

My mother rushed forward before anyone else could speak. “Oh, thank goodness you’re awake, Mr. Mills,” she cried dramatically. Then her expression hardened instantly. “I’m Megan Dean, and this is my husband – Johnson Dean, and my daughter, Celine.” She said excitedly, pointing at them one after the other before returning to him. “You had a fatal accident two years ago and have been in coma since then. My first daughter, Charlotte, your girlfriend, was with you two years ago when you had this accident. But that useless girl ran off with another man just a day after you were admitted.”

Nathan’s eyes widened in shock. The confusion in them deepened, replaced slowly by hurt.

“It was Celine who stayed,” my father added calmly. “Day and night. She took care of you. You lost your memory, son. But she never left.”

Celine nodded, her expression gentle and sincere, tears rolling down at just the right pace. “I begged her not to leave you, Nathan. I really did. But she said she couldn’t wait anymore… she thought you’d never wake up. And when the doctors said you might not remember anything, she said it was too much.”

Nathan struggled, his breathing uneven, his head throbbing as he tried to piece together fragments that no longer existed.

With no memories to contradict them, no past to rely on, he had nothing but their words.

In the end, he believed them.

Two years. They told him I abandoned him for two years. They told him Celine loved him, waited for him, sacrificed everything for him.

And me? I was designated the black sheep.

The gold-digger.

The heartless woman who left when things got hard.

And with his memory gone, he accepted it all as truth.

When I found out, I begged my parents to tell the truth. For four months after his discharge from the hospital, I pleaded with my parents to tell the truth.

“Mom, Dad, please,” I cried, kneeling before them, clutching my father’s hand. “Please tell him the truth. He doesn’t remember anything. I was the one who stayed. I was the one he loved.”

My father flung my hand away in disgust. “Nathaniel loves Celine. Not you. Even without his memory, he chose her.”

Nathan Mills was one of the youngest and wealthiest men in the country, and just like always, my parents wanted him for their favorite child.

They walked away and left me there, sobbing on the cold floor, my cries echoing through a house that never felt like home.

I didn’t give up. I went to Nathan myself, hoping that the love we shared in that one year before his accident could make him see the truth. I believed love would recognize love, even without memory.

“Nathan, please believe me,” I pleaded, holding his hand tightly. “I was the one by your side all these years. Not Celine. You lost your memory, but I didn’t.”

He pulled his hand away and looked elsewhere, his jaw tight, his eyes cold and unfamiliar.

“You said we’d always be together,” I whispered desperately. I leaned forward before I could stop myself and kissed him, hoping something, anything, would spark.

The next second, pain exploded across my face.

His palm landed on my cheek with a hot slap that instantly sent me to the ground.

“Charlotte, or whatever you call yourself, how can you be so shameless?” he shouted. “You destroyed everything the moment you abandoned me. I don’t even remember loving you. The only woman I love is Celine. Got it?!”

He turned and walked away with his assistant who was now his map to his assets.

That was when I understood, I had lost the man I truly loved. Not just his heart, but his memories of me too.

I watched as my sister and parents took everything from me; my love, my sacrifices, my place.

Now, standing before them again, something inside me finally snapped.

Enough.

I lifted my head and faced them, my voice gentle but firm. “Alright. I’ll go.”

My mother stared at my father in shock before turning back to me. “You… you’re really leaving?”

I responded quietly, the calm in my voice unsettling even to me. “Weren’t you both dying to get rid of me?”

They looked stunned.

“Well,” I continued, “I’ve conceded.”

“What?” my mother snapped.

“You don’t believe me?” I asked calmly.

My father stood and walked toward me, pretending concern. “We’re glad you’ve come to your senses. You’ll leave in half a month. Behave yourself until then.”

I didn’t answer immediately.

I stepped forward, picked up the plane ticket, and straightened slowly. My expression was unreadable, and that unnerved them more than my words.

“Got it,” I said.

I turned and headed for the door. The room felt too small, too suffocating to continue living in delusions.

Just before I reached for the doorknob, my phone buzzed.

A message from Nathan.

“Come to Olive Hotel, Room 2206, at 9 pm.”

My eyes shut out wide. “What does he want now?”