Chapter 2

Caden was back at the hospital with Vanessa, and they looked every bit the happy couple.

"Caden, does Vanessa despise me so much that she's hiding on purpose?

"I never should've come back, never should've thought about seeing you one last time before the end. You don't need to hang around the hospital for me. Go home and make things right with Vanessa. Once I'm gone, you two will patch things up." Kelly looked like she was about to cry as she weakly pushed Caden away from her hospital bed.

Caden gently tousled her hair.

"Silly girl, it's just anemia. You're not going to die. And even if Vanessa won't give her bone marrow, I'll do whatever it takes to find a match for you."

Kelly's eyes filled with gratitude. "Thank you, Caden. Meeting you has been the highlight of my life.

"I don't know how much time I've got left, if I can hold out for another bone marrow match. The doctor said Vanessa's marrow is a perfect match for mine, like nothing he's ever seen before."

With a voice full of resolve, Caden promised, "For you, I'll turn the world upside down to find her."

At that moment, my heart could not help but ache.

They looked so perfect together, like a scene from a painting, bringing back a flood of old memories.

Five years back, my friend set up that wild trek across a snow-capped mountain. Halfway up, we bumped into Caden, a solo traveler with a heavy heart.

It turned out he had just been dumped at the time. His first love ditched him, saying he was not cut out to give her the cushy life she wanted, and went abroad.

I felt for the guy and we ended up chatting for ages.

Eventually, we clicked—same interests, same wavelength.

It was a chance meeting, but in the rush, we forgot to exchange numbers.

I figured that was it, that I would never see him again. However, life was full of surprises. A week later, there he was at a product launch I was at.

He had landed a new gig, with a boss who thought the world of him.

In fact, his job was tied to a project my company was working on with him.

The more we saw each other, the more sparks flew.

He called me his beacon, the one who smoothed over the rough patches his ex left behind.

So, we tied the knot.

He vowed to be my rock, forever and always.

He was, at least at the start.

However, dreams and reality did not always get along.

Three years ago, he took the plunge and started his own thing. I quit my job to be his right hand.

Business being what it was, I ran into my old boss, Jett Parker.

Caden was on fire, snagging deals right from Jett's grasp.

Jett was ticked off and started aiming for our little startup.

To cool things down, I had to play peacemaker.

Jett had one condition. He pointed to a bottle and said, "Down this, and I'll back off."

We were the underdog to his giant—no contest.

Caden's dream was on the line, and I was not about to watch it crumble.

So, I downed that bottle.

The next day, I was in the ER with alcohol poisoning.

That was when they told me—I was a month pregnant.

However, because I had had too much to drink, there was a big chance the baby I had would come into the world sick.

I had no choice but to make the heartbreaking decision to let her go.

Caden was furious, and he stormed off to confront Jett.

However, he could not even get past the front gates of the company.

He made a solemn promise to me, filled with remorse, vowing to turn his life around and spoil me with a good life.

He said once he hit it big, he would never let anyone push me around again.

Sure enough, when he made it, no one else did.

The only problem was, he became the bully himself.

…

A phone call snapped me out of my reverie.

It was from a number he did not recognize. It rang and rang until Caden finally picked up, clearly annoyed.

Whatever the person on the other end said got him riled up. "Who is this? Some actor Vanessa hired? She's fine, why would I need to identify a body?"

I had a hunch about who was calling—it had to be the rescue workers who found my body.

Mom was gone, and Caden was the only family I had left, so they reached out to him.

Unfortunately, he was so wrapped up in his own misconceptions about me that he would not believe anything they told him.

Kelly watched him, worried.

He gave Kelly's shoulder a comforting pat, but his eyes kept darting back to the phone.

What was he waiting for? Hoping I would call to say I was at the hospital, ready to donate bone marrow any minute?

Sadly, that call would never come.

"Get some rest, I'll go grab you something tasty," he said.

He grabbed his phone and walked out of the room. I had no choice but to trail behind him.

I watched as he tried to call back the number that had just rung.

He dialed again and again, but it was always busy. "Hmph, just as I thought, they're trying to trick me. They won't pick up now that I've caught on.

"Vanessa, Vanessa. When will you stop this nonsense?"

I could not, for the life of me, figure out why he kept thinking I was up to something.

Did he really see me as nothing more than a troublemaker without a cause?

The phone buzzed again with a number Caden did not recognize.

He sighed and answered anyway. "A prenatal checkup? I didn't schedule any checkups.

"Is it for my wife Vanessa? You must have the wrong person. She's not even pregnant.

"Got it, you're just another actor she's hired, aren't you? What's she up to? Why does she keep playing these tricks on me?"

He stormed up and down the hallway, fuming. "Listen up, this is the last time I'm warning you. If you keep up with her silly games, I'm calling the cops!"

He ended the call and shut off his phone, not knowing he had just missed an important callback from the rescue team.