Chapter 1

Ping.

The transfer notification came through. Vivian Hart had sent me the $200,000 after all.

I managed a stiff little smile. Some things never changed. Beneath that sharp tongue, she still had the softest heart I knew.

I was at the hospital cashier's window when a stir broke out behind me. Since losing my sight, I'd grown almost absurdly sensitive to sounds. Judging by the crowd gathering and the sudden flurry of footsteps, somebody important must have arrived.

I unfolded my white cane and felt my way toward a quiet corner, where I settled down to wait for my specialist to call my name.

A familiar pair of heels clicked twice across the floor. Then stopped directly in front of me.

Thinking I was blocking someone's path, I lowered my head and started to fold up my cane.

"I just sent you two hundred grand," a woman said. Her voice was unmistakable, even wrapped in contempt. "If you're going to sell yourself to me, the least you can do is look up and smile for your sugar mama."

A pause.

"It's been a while, Ryan."

Vivian.

My hand clenched around the handle of my cane. I'd imagined this reunion a thousand times over the past five years. Now that she was here, every word I'd saved up vanished.

I settled for the most careless grin I could manage and held up my phone with my payment app already open.

"Another fifty thousand and I'll smile a whole lot wider."

My shamelessness infuriated her. The next instant she grabbed my arm and hauled me out of the chair.

My body had already been ravaged by illness. The sudden pull sent a hot blade of pain through my stomach.

"Ryan, do you have no shame at all?" she shouted.

I didn't answer.

Someone hurried over to soothe her. "Viv, calm down. Is this...your ex?"

I'd heard that voice often enough on television to recognize it. Blake Prescott, the actor the tabloids had been linking to Vivian.

I couldn't see him inspecting me, but I could hear the disgust in his polished voice.

"He's asking for more? Fifty grand wouldn't even buy Vivian a pair of shoes. I'll give it to you. Consider it my thanks for you not marrying her."

I gave a humorless smile. The offer didn't make it any easier to breathe.

My mind slipped back five years.

Vivian had always been warm and beautiful. Above all, there were her eyes, so bright and expressive that I could never find the right words for them.

She'd been the standout student in our university's acting program. I was a penniless kid from a small town, with no family, no connections, and very little to offer. I never understood what she saw in me.

But she loved me. Somehow, that had been enough.

Even back then, the film industry had begun to notice her extraordinary eyes. I was working as hard as I could to build a career of my own, determined to give us a future.

Then fate played its cruelest trick on us.