Chapter 1

I was three months pregnant when my fiancé, Julian Sinclair, lost his memory.

He fell in love with Chloe Grant, the same woman who had bullied me for years, and he joined right in. Then he killed our baby.

So I dropped him and gave my heart to someone who actually deserved it.

When Julian found out, he showed up at my doorstep on his knees, eyes bloodshot and voice shaking.

"Ashley, quit playing around. Come back to me, okay?"

*****

After Julian's car accident, he woke up and remembered everything, everyone, except me.

Once he was discharged, he started dating someone new.

Her name was Chloe, the same girl who had led the charge to bully me all through middle school.

Because of her, I spent five years isolated and tormented, and the depression that followed was so severe I had to transfer schools.

Now, on a cruise ship anchored along the harbor, Julian had arranged a grand fireworks show over the water, all to make Chloe smile.

I stood on the deck and watched blue fireworks crack open across the night sky.

Just one month ago, on this very ship, Julian had set off fireworks and then proposed to me with nine hundred and ninety-nine helicopters circling overhead.

When I found him, Chloe was curled up against his chest.

She noticed me first and shot me a smug little look.

Then, in the next breath, she scrambled off him and ducked behind his back, her eyes wide and anxious. "Ashley, please don't be upset. I'll go, I was just leaving."

Julian frowned and gave me a flat warning. "Chloe is my woman now. Don't push it."

He signaled the bodyguards to step forward, ready to move on me if I so much as tried anything.

He really was a good man.

I held out the bottle of stomach pills I had brought and spoke to him softly, the same way I had for the past seven years.

"You haven't taken your medicine today. And your stomach can't handle anything too cold or too spicy, so go easy."

His stomach had always given him trouble, and he never remembered to take his pills.

After seven years together, reminding him had become second nature to me.

But this was the last time I would see him, so I let myself say a little more than usual.

Julian clicked his tongue in irritation and didn't spare the medicine a glance. "Quit hovering like some babysitter. It's annoying."

Chloe slipped her arm through Julian's and leaned into him with a playful pout. "You set up that seafood dinner for me, right? Let's invite Ashley to eat with us."

She tilted her head and smiled. "She came all this way. It'd be rude not to."

The color drained from my face, and I turned to Julian. "I can't. I'm allergic to seafood."

Julian barely looked at me. "It's one meal. It's not gonna kill you."

His bodyguards "escorted" me to the dining room and sat me down.

The more seafood I ate, the wider Chloe smiled.

Red welts crept around my lips, and the itching spread across my body until it was unbearable.

But no one told me to stop, so I kept eating.

I speared another piece of salmon with my fork and forced it down.

Julian's face darkened. "Enough."

Chloe's eyes welled up on cue, her voice cracking. "Julian, this is all my fault. I had no idea her reaction would be this bad."

Julian's voice went cold. "She didn't speak up. That's on her."

I sat there watching the coldness in his eyes, that flat, total indifference, and something shifted inside me. I was relieved.

Thank God I had not told him about the pregnancy.

I was already planning to leave.

He had fallen in love with someone else, and if that was how things stood, then I didn't want him either.

*****

The cold wind hit me the moment I stepped off the ship, and the itching across my skin grew worse with every second.

My legs gave out, and everything went dark.

When I opened my eyes again, I was lying in a hospital bed. The first face I saw was Peter Hayes, my therapist.

"Ms. Lane, you need to rest. Too much stimulation could be harmful." He adjusted the gold-rimmed glasses on his nose, his whole presence calm and composed. "If you're not careful, you could trigger a relapse of your depression."

I nodded and took in the room around me. It was clean, quiet, and comfortable.

"Dr. Hayes, were you the one who brought me in?"

Something flickered behind his eyes, too quick to read. "I happened to be driving along the coast and found you."

A dull wave of disappointment washed over me. Probably just the pregnancy hormones.

Whenever I got sick, Julian was always the one who took me to the hospital. He would be more panicked than I was, typing every word of the doctor's instructions into the notes app on his phone.

I let out a small, bitter laugh. Julian was with Chloe now. He probably couldn't even remember I existed.

I pushed the ache down and met Peter's eyes. "Dr. Hayes, thank you. I mean it."

He paused for a moment, then spoke in that same gentle tone he always carried. "Ms. Lane, you're allergic to seafood. You should be even more careful about what you eat now that you're pregnant."

The memory of Julian's cold indifference during my allergic reaction came flooding back, and my heart clenched with a sharp pain.

For the worst years of my life, Julian had been my only light and one of the few reasons I kept breathing. Now I was carrying his child, and he had become the one person threatening both our lives.

At least I had already made up my mind to leave.