The Price of a Heart

Lily’s POV

The doctor did not look at me when he said it. That was how I knew it was bad.

“Your brother needs the surgery within the next month, Miss Carter,” Dr. Patel said, staring at the folder in his hands. “His heart is getting weaker. If we wait longer than that, I can’t promise he’ll be strong enough to survive it.”

I held on to the back of the plastic chair so my knees would not give out. “How much?”

He finally looked up. “With the hospital stay and the care after, about three hundred thousand dollars.”

I laughed. I didn’t mean to. It just came out of me, small and broken, because the number was so big it sounded like a joke. I worked mornings at a diner and nights cleaning offices downtown. On a good month, I made enough to pay rent and buy Noah’s medicine. On a bad month, I skipped meals so he didn’t have to.

“Is there any help?” I asked. “A program, a charity, anything?”

“Our social worker can give you some names,” he said gently. “But I’ll be honest with you. Most of those take months, and you don’t have months.”

When he left, I stood in the hallway for a long time. Through the small window in the door, I could see Noah in his hospital bed. He was twelve, but he looked younger lying there with wires taped to his chest. He was reading a comic book and pretending he wasn’t scared. He always did that for me.

I wiped my face, put on a smile, and went in.

“What did he say?” Noah asked before I even sat down.

“He said you’re a pain in the neck,” I told him, and he grinned. “And he said you need an operation soon, but they’re going to fix you.”

He studied my face the way only he could. “Lily, how much does it cost?”

“That’s my job to worry about, not yours.”

“So it’s a lot.”

“Read your comic,” I said, and kissed his forehead so he couldn’t see my eyes.

I was in the hospital cafeteria an hour later, staring at a cup of coffee I couldn’t afford, when a woman sat down across from me. She wore a cream coat that probably cost more than everything I owned, and her pearl earrings caught the ugly light from the ceiling. She looked at me for a long moment, and something strange crossed her face, almost like shock.

“Lily Carter?” she asked.

“Do I know you?”

“No, but I know about you.” She folded her hands on the table. “My name is Margaret Sinclair. I heard about your brother.”

I sat up straighter. “How did you hear about my brother?”

“I have friends on the hospital board,” she said, as if that explained everything. “I’m here because I can pay for his surgery. All of it. The best doctors, the best room, every bill after.”

For one second, my heart jumped so hard it hurt. Then I remembered that nobody gives poor girls three hundred thousand dollars for nothing. “What do you want in return?”

Mrs. Sinclair smiled, but it never reached her eyes. “I need you to get married.”

I stared at her. “To who?”

“His name is Ethan Blackwood. He’s the CEO of Blackwood Holdings. Three weeks ago he was in a car accident, and now he’s in a coma. The doctors don’t think he will wake up.” She said it the way someone talks about the weather. “Before the accident, he was engaged to my daughter, Vanessa. His grandmother wants the wedding to happen anyway. She believes a marriage will bring him luck and help him wake up.”

“So let your daughter marry him.”

“Vanessa refuses to marry a man who might die,” she said flatly. “And the Blackwoods are not people we can say no to. If we break this engagement, my husband’s company loses everything.”

I still didn’t understand. “What does any of this have to do with me?”

She took out her phone and turned it toward me. On the screen was a photo of a young woman with long hair and a bright red dress. My breath stopped. She had my eyes, my mouth, even the same little dimple in her left cheek. She looked like me, if I had grown up rich and never worried about anything in my life.

“That’s Vanessa,” Mrs. Sinclair said quietly. “Now you see why I came. You will marry Ethan Blackwood as my daughter. You will live in his house and play the loving wife. If he dies, you leave with nothing but your brother’s paid bills. If he wakes up, you stay married to him for one year, and then you walk away with an extra half a million dollars.”

“That’s crazy,” I said. “People would know. His family would know.”

“His family has met Vanessa only a few times. She hated the visits and kept them short.” She leaned closer. “With the right clothes and a little training, no one will ever guess.”

I pushed my chair back. “No. I’m not going to lie to a whole family and marry a stranger in a coma. I’m sorry about your problems, but find someone else.”

She didn’t look angry. She just took a card from her purse and placed it next to my coffee. “There is no one else, Miss Carter. You have until tomorrow night.”

Then she stood up and walked away, her heels clicking across the floor.

I left the card on the table. I told myself I was a good person and good people didn’t do things like that. I went back upstairs and sat with Noah until he fell asleep, and I held his hand and told myself we’d find another way.

At two in the morning, the alarms started.

I woke up in the chair as nurses rushed into the room. Noah’s face was gray, and his lips had turned a frightening shade of blue. Someone pushed me back against the wall while a doctor shouted for things I didn’t understand. I stood there with my hands over my mouth, praying harder than I had ever prayed in my life.

They saved him that night. But afterward, the doctor took me aside and said the words I already knew were coming.

“Miss Carter, he can’t wait a month anymore. We need to do this within the week.”

I walked down to the cafeteria in the dark. The tables were empty and the lights were half off. The card was still there, lying next to my cold cup of coffee, as if it had been waiting for me.

My hands were shaking when I dialed the number.

Mrs. Sinclair answered on the first ring, like she had known I would call.

“I’ll do it,” I whispered. “I’ll marry him.”