Lily Carter

Lily's POV

The bus dropped me at the bottom of the hill just after six, and I walked the rest of the way to the Blackwood house. My feet hurt, but my heart felt lighter than it had in weeks. Noah had laughed today. He had eaten a whole cup of pudding and told me the nurses were nicer than me.

Then I saw the black car parked by the front steps, and the lightness went away.

It was the same car that had been outside the hospital. Marcus was standing next to it, and he gave me the same small nod he had given me through the window. He didn't say a word. He didn't need to.

Rosa met me at the door. "Mr. Blackwood is asking for you, Mrs. Blackwood," she said quietly. "He said to come up as soon as you got home."

"Is he okay?" I asked.

Rosa looked at the floor. "He seems fine. He's just very quiet."

I climbed the stairs slowly. Each step felt like a mile. I kept thinking about the visitor book at the hospital and the name I had written in it. Lily Carter. My own name, in my own handwriting, for anyone to see.

Ethan was sitting up in bed when I walked in. Duke lay on the rug beside him and lifted his head to wag his tail at me. Ethan didn't smile. He was holding his phone, and he turned the screen so I could see it.

It was a video of me. I was standing at the front desk of the hospital, bending over the book, writing my name.

"Close the door," Ethan said.

I closed it. My hands were shaking so badly that I had to hold the handle for a second before I could let go.

"Lily Carter," he said. He spoke slowly, like he was tasting the name. "Twenty-four years old. You work at a diner on Fifth Street and clean offices at night. You have a twelve-year-old brother named Noah, who had heart surgery eight days ago." He put the phone down on the blanket. "Marcus is very good at his job."

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

"Sit down," he said, "before you fall down."

I sat in the chair beside the bed, the same chair I had sat in the night I married him. "Please," I whispered. "Please don't tell them. If the Sinclairs find out, you know, they'll stop paying the hospital. Noah still needs months of care. He'll lose everything."

"Then tell me the truth," Ethan said. "All of it. If you lie to me one more time, I will call Margaret Sinclair myself."

So I told him.

I told him about the diner and the night shifts and the bills piling up on our kitchen table. I told him about Dr. Patel and the three hundred thousand dollars and the one month deadline. I told him how Margaret Sinclair had found me in the hospital cafeteria and looked at my face like she had seen a ghost. I told him I said no the first time and how Noah's heart stopped at two in the morning and how I called her back with my face still wet from crying.

By the end I was crying again. I wiped my face with my sleeve and hated myself for it.

Ethan listened to all of it without saying a word. When I finished, the room was so quiet I could hear Duke breathing.

"So the Sinclairs sold me a fake bride," he said at last. His voice was cold and hard. "Vanessa didn't want a husband who might never wake up, so they found a girl who looked like her and paid her to take her place."

"Yes," I said.

"And how much are they paying you?"

"The surgery," I told him. "And if you lived, five hundred thousand dollars after one year."

He laughed, but it wasn't a happy sound. "I was engaged to Vanessa for two years. I bought her a ring that cost more than most people's houses. And the first time I needed her, she was in Paris buying shoes. " He shook his head. "I should throw you out tonight."

My stomach dropped. "I know."

"But I'm not going to."

I looked up at him. I was sure I had heard him wrong.

"Think about it," Ethan said. "Somebody in this house put sleeping pills in my medicine. Somebody wanted me to stay asleep forever. My uncle smiles at me like a man waiting at a funeral, and my own nurse was paid to keep me weak." He looked right at me. "And the only person in this house who isn't trying to kill me is a waitress who signed someone else's name on my marriage papers."

"I would never hurt you," I said.

"I know," he said. "That's the problem. You're the only one I can trust, and you're a liar."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I said nothing.

"Here's my deal," Ethan went on. "You keep being Vanessa in front of my grandmother, in front of Richard, and in front of everyone. I'll keep your secret, and I'll make sure your brother's bills get paid no matter what the Sinclairs do. In return, you help me find out who drugged me. You watch every pill, every meal, and every person who walks into this room."

"And when it's over?" I asked.

"When it's over, we'll talk about what happens next," he said. "But from now on, you don't lie to me. Not once. Do you understand?"

I thought about Noah laughing with pudding on his chin. I thought about the blue pill in my hand at breakfast. Then I nodded.

"I understand," I said. "No more lies."

He held out his hand. It was still thin from the long weeks in bed, but his grip was strong when I took it.

"Good," he said. "Then welcome to the family, Lily Carter."

It was the first time anyone in that house had said my real name to my face. I didn't expect it to feel like that. I didn't expect it to feel like I could breathe again.

Then someone knocked on the door.

I let go of his hand fast. Ethan leaned back against the pillows and made his face go tired and weak, as if someone had flipped a switch.

"Come in," he called in a soft, slow voice.

Rosa opened the door. Her eyes went from me to Ethan and back to me, and she looked nervous.

"I'm sorry to bother you, sir," she said. "But there's a visitor downstairs. She says her name is Vanessa Sinclair, and she's asking to see her husband."