LOGINWhen Lina jilted Freddie at the altar, she never imagined the night before their wedding would come back to haunt her. Drunk and in a stranger's arms, she found herself in a compromising position with Freddie's best friend, Marcos. But the truth was far more complicated. Now, with a baby in the way that she believes is Marcos', Lina must confront a tangled web of secrets and betrayal. But what happens when Freddie, the man she wronged, becomes the one she can't escape? As they work together, old feelings resurface, and Lina's forced to confront the reality of her situation. But will the truth about her baby's paternity be enough to bring them together, or will it tear them apart forever?
View More"Do not do this to me, Lina."
Freddie's voice was low. Controlled. But his hands were shaking.
She could see them from where she stood. Right there at the altar, three feet away, with two hundred people watching and a priest who had gone very still.
Lina looked at those hands. Then she looked at his face.
Big mistake.
His eyes were burning. Not with anger. With something worse.
Hope.
He still thought she was going to say yes.
"Freddie." Her voice came out steadier than she felt. "I can't do this."
The church went silent. Not quiet. Silent. The kind that presses against your ears.
"What?" He breathed it. One word. Like she'd punched it out of him.
"I'm sorry." She said it to his face, not to the floor. She owed him that much. "We're not meant to be."
Someone in the pews gasped. His mother. Lina recognized the sound.
Freddie didn't move. He just stood there in his perfect black suit, with the white rose boutonniere she had picked out herself, and he stared at her like she was speaking a language he didn't understand.
"Lina." His jaw tightened. "You are standing at the altar."
"I know where I'm standing."
"Then stand there and say the words."
She shook her head.
She watched something die in his eyes. It was quick. And it was brutal.
She walked back down the aisle alone.
Every face she passed was a different version of shock. His cousin Marcus, open-mouthed. His business partner, Giles, already looking down at his phone. Her own mother, pressing a hand to her lips.
And then she passed Marcos.
He was standing near the back, one shoulder against the stone pillar, arms crossed. He wasn't shocked. He wasn't horrified.
He was watching her with a small, slow smile.
Like he had known.
She kept walking.
Outside, the October air hit her like a slap. Cold. Real. She grabbed the iron railing at the top of the steps and breathed.
In.
Out.
She had done the right thing. She was sure of it.
Mostly sure.
Her phone buzzed. A text from a number she didn't recognize.
She opened it.
Three words.
"You'll regret this."
No name. No number she could trace.
She looked back at the church doors. They were still closed.
Then she looked at the text again.
Her thumb hovered over the screen.
And in the back of her mind, like a door cracking open in a dark room, something surfaced. Something she had been trying very hard not to think about for the last six weeks.
The morning she had woken up in a bed that was not her own.
The smell of expensive cologne.
The arm draped over her waist.
And the face she had seen when she turned over.
Marcos.
Her stomach dropped.
The church doors burst open behind her.
"Lina."
Freddie's voice. Right behind her. She turned.
He was standing in the doorway. Tie loosened. Eyes red at the edges. Two hundred guests visible behind him, all watching.
"Tell me," he said. "Look me in the eye and tell me there isn't someone else."
Her mouth opened.
And for one terrible second, the memory of that morning flashed through her mind again. Marcos's bare chest. His sheets. The champagne bottles on the floor.
She closed her mouth.
"There's no one else," she said.
It might even have been true.
She wasn't sure.
And that was the problem.
Clara found out at nine oh two.Not from Raymond. Not from anyone inside the building. From a news alert on her phone that used the words missing and Lenox Hill and Frederick Caldwell in the same sentence and made her put down her coffee very carefully on the desk.She read the alert twice.Then she put the phone face down.Stood up.Walked to the window.Missing.Not critical. Not even deceased. Not the quiet clinical language of a hospital announcing that a patient had taken a turn for the worse.Missing.Which meant Karthy had been in that hospital, and had gotten to Freddie. Karthy has done it well but she should have just finished it all at the hospital.She had asked what would keep him at the hospital for a long time .She had not asked for him to be missing.She turned from the window.Picked up her phone.Called Karthy.It rang five times before she answered.Five rings was unusual for Karthy. Karthy answered calls the way she did everything else. Efficiently. Promptly. With
It was Ashley who noticed first.She had been on this floor for four years and had a specific routine for the start of every shift that she had never deviated from. Check the monitors. Check the IV lines. Check the patients. In that order. Every time.She pushed open the door to room fourteen at seven oh three.And stopped.The monitors were still running.The IV stand was still there.The blanket was folded at the foot of the bed the way housekeeping folded things. Neatly. Deliberately. Like someone had taken time with it.The bed was empty.She stood in the doorway for exactly four seconds.Then she turned around and walked very quickly to the nurses station."He was there at six fifteen," Donna said. She was still in her coat. Had been three minutes from leaving. "I checked him myself. Vitals were stable. Everything was exactly as it should be.""And between six fifteen and seven oh three," the charge nurse said.Donna looked at her. "I handed over at six fifty. Standard handover.
Karthy didn't rush.Rushing was how people made mistakes. How carefully constructed plans fell apart at the final moment because someone moved too fast and left something behind that they shouldn't have.She had twenty four hours.She used sixteen of them.The first thing she needed was access.Not the kind you got by walking through the front door and signing your name at reception. That kind left records. Timestamps. A name connected to a visit connected to a patient connected to a timeline that someone would eventually pull and follow.She needed a different kind.She spent the first eight hours on researchLenox Hill. Staff rotations. Visiting hour policies. The particular rhythms of a hospital floor at different times of day. Which hours were busiest. Which were quietest. Where the cameras covered and where they didn't.She had done this kind of research before.Different buildings. Different purposes. Same method.By the time she left her apartment the following morning she knew
Clara found out at three forty seven in the afternoon.She was at her desk. Freddie's desk. Going through the third set of documents her new executive assistant had placed in front of her since she sat down that morning. Contracts. Pending agreements. The administrative weight of a company that didn't stop moving just because the person running it had changed.She had been moving efficiently through all of it.She liked efficiency. Had always liked it. The satisfaction of a thing done properly and completely and without unnecessary delay.Her phone buzzed.Raymond.She answered."There's a development," he said. His voice had that tigh
"You look different," Freddie said.It was Thursday. Nine o'clock. She was on time.They were standing by the floor-to-ceiling window of his office before the rest of the team arrived. She had made the mistake of accepting coffee from his assistant, which had turned into standing here, close enough
"Absolutely not," Lina said."The contract is already signed." Her boss, Dana, pushed the folder across the desk without looking up. "It's a six-week consulting project. You're the best I have for restructuring work. It's not a conversation.""Dana. Who is the client?"Dana looked up then. And the
"Put it down," Priya said. "Stop looking at it. It's not going to change."Lina was still holding the test."Lina." Priya took it out of her hand and set it on the bathroom counter face-down. "Look at me."She looked."Tell me it's Freddie's," Priya said.Lina said nothing."Oh God." Priya sat down
"You're going to marry him, and it's going to be perfect," her best friend Priya said. "So stop looking at me like the ceiling is about to fall."Lina was looking at the ceiling.The champagne glass in her hand was nearly empty. The hotel suite was full of flowers and satin and the low thrum of a p






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