Never Again in This Life Chapter 01

Never Again in This Life Chapter 01

The first thing I did after waking from the coma was delete every photo of Maddox Hayes and me.

Then I threw out all the letters Sterling Sinclair had ever written.

The last time I lived this life, I was little more than a prop caught between those two men.

Maddox told me he loved me. But after I gave up my spot in the Oxford exchange program for him, he took Elara Bennett to Europe.

All he left me was a note: “She needs me more than you do right now.”

Those next three months were a blur of misery.

During that time, Sterling brought me my favorite food every day. “I’ve waited eight years for you,” he told me.

I married him.

He came home every night and was never unfaithful.

I thought I had finally chosen the right man.

Then came the winter I got into a car accident. I spent seven days unconscious in the ICU. He never visited me once.

I heard the nurses talking.

“Her husband comes to the hospital every day, but he spends all his time with a patient named Elara Bennett in the room next door.”

Only later did I find out that Maddox had taken Elara to Europe to help her escape a massive debt, a debt Sterling had paid.

I had only ever been a pawn in their game.

This time, I sold my apartment and took my grandmother to England before any of it could happen.

…

“Poor thing in Bed 12. Her husband comes to the hospital every day, but he hasn’t gone in to see her once.”

“He goes next door. To the room with the patient named Elara Bennett.”

Outside my door, two nurses were whispering.

The car accident had left me with multiple fractures, and I’d been lying in the ICU for seven days.

My body wouldn’t wake, but my mind had been conscious the entire time.

I heard the nurses call for Sterling, again and again.

He never came.

I had always thought marrying him was the stability I’d found after leaving Maddox.

In the end, that was a lie, too.

I fought desperately to open my eyes.

But all I could see was the flat line on the heart monitor.

When I opened my eyes again, sunlight was falling across my desk.

I was sitting in my own room. The date on the calendar was unmistakable.

I still had three months before I was supposed to give up my Oxford exchange program for Maddox.