Chapter 1

Two years after I died, my husband, Asher Whitfield, came knocking again, demanding I make it up to his beloved one, Elodie Fairbanks, by giving her a kidney. "Celeste, get out of here.

"If you hadn't pretended to be Elodie, would we have spent all those years apart? Now all I'm asking is for you to donate an organ to make up for what you did. What right do you have to keep making excuses?"

Asher banged on the door so loudly that it caught our neighbor Margot's attention.

He was about to ask where I was when Margot spoke up. "Stop knocking. Celeste is already dead. She had a massive hemorrhage after donating her liver last time and didn't make it more than two days after surgery."

Asher was in disbelief, but quickly decided I'd colluded with Margot to trick him.

Frowning, he scoffed, "She only donated a liver. Now she's faking death to avoid me? Tell her she has three days to show up. Otherwise, I'll cut off her parents' money and leave them to fend for themselves."

With that, Asher stormed off.

Margot watched his retreating back and shook her head helplessly. "But her parents never recovered from losing their child and passed away ages ago, too."

*****

Outside, Asher Whitfield was pounding on the door so hard that the windows buzzed with every hit.

Hearing his constant shouting, I felt like my heart was soaking in ice water.

"Celeste, quit hiding in there and pretending you're dead. Open the damn door." Asher's voice was loud and grating, dripping with undisguised contempt. "If you hadn't faked being Elodie and tricked me into marrying you, would I have lost all those years with her?

"Now she needs a kidney, and you owe it to her. Don't think about playing dumb."

His words made me want to step closer, so he could see that I was nothing but a ghost now.

But he couldn't see me, because, well, I'd been dead for two years already.

"You think locking yourself in there means I can't get to you?" Asher pounded on the door a few more times. When there was still no response, he pulled out his phone and dialed my number.

But his calls kept going straight to voicemail.

"Oh, so you turned off your phone to dodge me? Celeste, you really are pathetic. Come on, it's a kidney, not like I'm asking for your life. Why are you so scared you have to vanish?" he snapped.

Listening to him, I couldn't help but find it laughable. Yeah, in his eyes, donating my liver was nothing, donating my kidney was nothing, and my death was nothing. None of it ever mattered as much as his precious girl, Elodie Fairbanks.

Asher kept yelling and banging on the door, making such a scene that Margot from next door finally stuck her head out to see what was going on.

She hurried over and called out, "Hey, young man, give it a rest. Celeste died long ago."

Asher froze, then spun around to glare at Margot. "Died? Who do you think you're fooling?"

"It's the truth. Why would I make that up?" Margot let out a sigh. "Last year, she donated her liver to someone, but there was heavy bleeding after the surgery, and she didn't make it.

"She was gone in a couple of days. Everyone in this building knows."

Margot's earnest words left Asher genuinely shocked.

He moved his lips, about to press for more details, when his phone dinged with a notification.

It was a message from Elodie: [Asher, stop looking for her. I'll figure something else out for the kidney. Don't make things hard for Celeste.]

If Asher had any doubts about my death before, after reading that message, he was now certain it was all a lie.

Elodie's considerate attitude only made me look like the cold-hearted one who refused to help.

Sure enough, Asher shut off his phone with a cold snort. "Died from donating her liver? What a joke. Last time I asked her to help Elodie, she kept dodging it. Now she's obviously teamed up with you all, trying to avoid donating a kidney.

"Tell her she has three days to contact me, or I'll cut off all her parents' money. No more medical care, no one to look after them. Let them fend for themselves."

When she heard those two names after so long, Margot's sympathy shifted to a look of sorrow.

Her lips moved, as if she wanted to say something, but Asher turned and stormed off. "Celeste, you wait. I'll dig up the whole city if I have to, but I'll find you. I won't let anything happen to Elodie."

He left in such a hurry that he didn't hear Margot's final words about my parents' passing.

It felt like I was tethered to Asher, dragged along behind him as he stormed downstairs, slipped into his car, and punched in Elodie's number.

As soon as she answered, his voice went all gentle. "Elodie, don't stick up for her anymore. Back when she schemed her way into marrying me, did she ever stop to think about the consequences?

"You're way too kind, always worrying about her. Don't stress. I'll make Celeste show up and hand over that kidney. She owes us, and she's going to pay for it."

Elodie was still trying to calm him down, but Asher wasn't having any of it. "Elodie, you're too soft. Scammers like her deserve to pay. If it hadn't been for her, we'd have been married long ago.

"None of these messes would've happened. leave it to me, alright? I've got this."

Listening to Asher's so-called promises, I couldn't help but let out a bitter laugh. For five years, I poured my heart out for him, but in the end, he couldn't be bothered to look at me.

I donated my liver because he begged me, tears streaming down his face, saying Elodie was desperate for a liver donor.

My heart ached for him, so I wanted to help him fulfill his wish, but after the surgery, he never asked if I was alive or dead.

Now, two years after I'm gone, the only reason he was searching for me was so I could give Elodie a kidney, too.

The real joke was that he actually thought dangling my parents over my head would somehow scare me.

But he didn't know that my parents couldn't handle the heartbreak of outliving me, and they both passed away soon after I was gone.