When the devastating wildfires swept through the valley a few years after the earthquake that leveled our hometown, my fiancé and I decided to sponsor a high school girl from the hardest-hit area. We didn’t know she would fall hopelessly, obsessively in love with him. She clung to him, inserting herself into every corner of our lives. Preston used to look at her with undisguised disgust. "If I had known it would turn into this kind of mess, I never would have played the good Samaritan," he’d mutter. But on the day of our wedding, she crashed the reception. In the ensuing struggle, she knocked over a massive steel lighting rig. I shoved Preston out of the way, taking the full, crushing weight of the metal myself. I was declared brain-dead. The doctors told him I would likely never wake up. And so, Preston hated her with a violent, consuming passion. Day and night, he dragged her to my hospital bed, forcing her to look at me, spitting the most venomous, soul-destroying words at her as penance. But the day she finally broke, sobbing and whispering, "A life for a life, then," he panicked. Trembling violently, he pressed his hands against her self-inflicted wound, screaming her name over and over. "Lily, you owe me for the rest of your life. I didn't give you permission to die!" She collapsed into his chest, weeping. And that time, Preston didn't push her away. They held each other tightly at the foot of my bed. Neither of them noticed the single tear that slipped from the corner of my unmoving eye. 1 The attending physician had to call five times before Preston finally arrived at the hospital. He shoved the door open, then froze in the threshold, his body rigid, terrified to take a step closer. Pale and weak, I propped myself up slightly against the pillows and offered him a faint smile. "Hey, Preston. It's been a while." He swayed on his feet, his eyes instantly flooding with red. He closed the distance and grabbed my hand, his fingers shaking uncontrollably. "Margot... the doctor said you were awake, but I couldn't believe it. It's really you... You're really..." I looked up at the face I knew better than my own. The night nurse had just told me I’d been in a coma for exactly five years. Half a decade hadn't left many physical marks on Preston, but the boy I knew was gone. His messy hair was sharply styled. The fiery, eager eyes I loved were hidden behind sleek gold-rimmed glasses, and his signature faded grey hoodies had been replaced by a meticulously tailored suit. He looked polished. Expensive. Like the ruthless corporate protagonist of a legal drama. To me, he just looked like a stranger. I was about to speak when a figure darted past the doorway and collapsed by the edge of my bed, sobbing hysterically. "Margot, oh my god, you're awake! I'm so glad. What happened back then, it was my fault... I'm so sorry, I'm so, so sorry..." I flinched, startled. But Preston was already stepping forward, his brow furrowed as he yanked her up by the arm without a second thought. "The floor is filthy. What are you doing down there? Stand up and use your words." He shot a sideways glance at me. "Margot has a good heart, she won't hold it against you. Just don't do anything stupid like this again, Lily." Lily looked up at him through tear-soaked lashes. Preston’s jaw tightened, and he awkwardly averted his eyes. I opened my mouth, then closed it, swallowing the words. Preston seemed to have forgotten to ask if I wanted to forgive her. He poured me a glass of warm water, then shot Lily a sharp look. "Go handle Margot's discharge papers. And be quick about it." She turned to leave, but he called out to her, his brow knitting again. He slipped off his suit jacket and draped it roughly over her shoulders. "Look at the weather outside. Why would you wear a skirt that short? Honestly, Lily, do you ever think?" When the room finally emptied, leaving just the two of us, Preston sat quietly in the chair beside me. I looked out the window. Where there had once been empty lots in my memory, gleaming skyscrapers now pierced the skyline. It was just like Preston. The man who used to share every passing thought, every frustration, and every joy with me had redirected all his anger, tenderness, and exasperation to someone else. For me, he only had this suffocating silence. After the paperwork was signed, I walked quietly beside Preston as he led the way to the parking garage. He spent the entire walk complaining about Lily—how sloppy her case files were, how careless she was with scheduling. He didn't stop until he unlocked a sleek, late-model Audi that I didn't recognize. Without missing a beat, Lily opened the passenger door and slid into the front seat. It wasn't until they both had their seatbelts clicked in that Preston seemed to snap out of a trance. He looked back at me, sudden panic in his eyes, and scrambled to open the rear door for me. "The old Civic finally died on me. The dealership gave me a good trade-in value, so I upgraded." A delicate pink dreamcatcher hung from the rearview mirror. The car’s interior didn’t smell like the crisp freesia scent we used to share. Even though it was faint, I recognized the warm, heavy notes of vanilla. It was Lily’s perfume. The drive was agonizingly silent. I stared out the window at the unfamiliar storefronts and altered streetscapes. When he finally pulled up to our apartment building, he turned to me with an expression twisted in guilt. "Margot, you just got out of the hospital, so go upstairs and get some rest. I have to meet a client right now. It's a massive case, and I really can't reschedule. I'm so sorry." I stood on the sidewalk and watched his taillights disappear down the block with Lily in the front seat. I looked up at the high-rise, my eyes burning. This was the home we had meticulously renovated right before the wedding. I had imagined a thousand times how we would walk hand-in-hand through the courtyard, carrying our overpriced groceries upstairs to cook a messy, chaotic dinner together. If the accident had never happened. I unlocked the front door. The furniture was exactly where I left it five years ago. Even the physical desk calendar on the coffee table was still flipped to the date of our wedding week. It was as if time had stood perfectly still. But the refrigerator was unplugged. And when I opened the closet in the master bedroom, it was completely empty. At two in the morning, I woke up with a gasp from a nightmare. I reached out, my hand brushing against the freezing, empty sheets beside me. The apartment was pitch black. I found my ancient, out-of-date cell phone in my overnight bag and dialed the number etched into my bones. "Preston. Where are you?" His voice was thick with sleep and confusion on the other end of the line. "What? I'm at home." The tears I’d been holding back all day finally broke, spilling over my cheeks. "Which home?" 2 Half an hour later, Preston pushed through the front door, chest heaving. He dropped to a crouch in front of the sofa where I sat, his eyes swimming with guilt and a jagged kind of agony. He stayed like that for a long time before his voice scraped through the quiet room. "I'm so sorry, Margot. I..." "After you got hurt, it was just too much. I couldn't breathe in this apartment. Every time I closed my eyes, I could see you standing in the kitchen, arguing with me over paint swatches." He gently took my hands in his, then pulled me into his chest. It sounded like a promise, but it felt like he was trying to convince himself. "Tomorrow, I'll take you to the firm. I'm going to be with you, Margot. We'll get back the five years we lost. Together." I buried my face in his collar. And then I smelled it. The faint, clinging scent of vanilla perfume. It hit me then—this was the first time he had hugged me since I woke up. The next morning, Preston drove us to the office, filling the silence with disjointed updates about how the business had grown. His phone buzzed incessantly. He had shed every ounce of the green, idealistic kid I once knew, replaced by a man who could effortlessly navigate high-stakes calls and schmooze with anyone. Preston and I had dominated our law school class, taking the top two spots for three consecutive years. After passing the bar, we scraped together everything we had with a few friends to start Apex Law. Back then, we were crammed into a drafty, repurposed loft above a bakery. I had handwritten our firm’s name on a piece of cardstock for the door. I remember how bright Preston's eyes were the day he taped that paper up. He had squeezed my hand and whispered, "We're going to go so far, Margot. I promise." Now, I was standing in a gleaming, glass-walled skyscraper downtown, staring at a brushed steel logo and a sea of faces I didn't recognize. I finally understood. Everyone had kept walking. I was the only one still trapped in the past. Preston ran a hand through my hair. "When we moved into this space, I kept an office entirely empty for you. I knew God wouldn't be that cruel to me. And I was right. You're back." But as we turned the corner toward the corner office, the door was propped open, and three people were actively moving boxes inside. Preston’s face darkened. "What the hell is going on in here?" Lily, clutching an armful of case files, froze. A young, round-faced paralegal beside her chimed in defensively, "You told Lily she could have this office last week, Preston. Did you forget?" Lily’s face drained of color. She looked at him with wide, wounded eyes. Preston looked away from her, his voice turning to ice. "Margot is back. This office is hers." Lily’s voice trembled, cracking with a suppressed sob. "But why? You promised me..." "There is no why," Preston cut her off, his tone brutal. "You're the one who begged and scraped to stay at Apex, Lily. If you don't like how I run things, you can pack up and get the hell out." Lily clapped a hand over her mouth and ran out of the office in tears. The young paralegal stamped her foot in outrage. "You know what, boss? We all see how much Lily does for you. How much she cares. You cross the line sometimes. You break her heart for absolutely no reason." The girl shot me a venomous glare, then chased after Lily. I watched Preston’s body react. His foot shifted, an involuntary reflex to go after her. He forced himself to stay planted, but his right hand balled into a tight fist at his side. The remaining strangers in the hallway stared at me, their eyes heavy with undisguised resentment. They didn't say a word, but the silence screamed at me. I dug my nails into my palms, fighting the urge to yell at them. I was just taking back what was rightfully mine. Why was I being looked at like a home-wrecker? I looked up at Preston's tense, miserable face. "Where's Harper? And Nolan?" The atmosphere in the hallway instantly plummeted. Preston’s jaw worked for a long moment before he answered. "Harper and Nolan left Apex. They opened their own firm a while ago." "I... I texted them that you're awake. We're all getting dinner tonight." He looked down at me, his eyes avoiding mine. "Stay in here and rest, Margot. I need to go handle something." He turned and strode briskly down the hall in the direction Lily had run. I stood alone in the center of the massive, beautiful office. I walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows and let out a bitter, hollow laugh. No wonder Lily wanted this room so badly. The view was spectacular. So spectacular, in fact, that looking straight down into the rain-slicked plaza below, I had a perfect vantage point. I could see a man and a woman down there, entangled in a desperate, emotional embrace. They looked incredibly familiar. 3 We met at our old favorite Italian spot. The second I opened the private dining room door, my best friend Harper collided with me, wrapping me in a fierce, crushing hug. She was laughing and sobbing at the same time. "You're awake. God, you're actually awake. He wasn't lying." She pulled back just enough to punch me hard in the shoulder. "Margot Hayes, how dare you! Five years. How dare you make me wait that long." When she looked past me and saw Preston standing in the doorway, her smile vanished. But when she saw who was standing behind him, her face turned thunderous. "Nolan is in London for a deposition, but he knows. He's trying to get the first flight back," she said to me, her grip on my hands white-knuckled, as if I might dissolve into mist if she let go. It made my throat ache. This was what a reunion was supposed to feel like. Then Harper turned her fury to the door. Lily was standing there, clutching a gift bag, looking like a cornered deer. "What the fuck is this, Preston?" Harper snarled. "You brought her here? Are you trying to make Margot sick?" Preston scowled. "Lily wanted to apologize to Margot face-to-face for what happened. She made a terrible mistake, but she’s spent the last five years trying to atone for it." Harper let out a vicious, barking laugh. "Atone? The woman she put in a coma for five years is Margot. If she wanted to atone, she should have been kneeling by Margot’s hospital bed! Not clinging to your firm like a parasite, using her 'guilt' as an excuse to shadow you 24/7. Not playing your devoted little assistant, bringing you coffee and making sure you eat!" Harper took a step forward, her voice dripping with disgust. "You kept telling us how much you hated her, Preston. How you were going to make her life a living hell. Well? Have you repeated your own bullshit so many times that you actually believe it?" The dinner imploded. I hugged Harper tightly, whispering apologies into her shoulder before we left. On the drive back, Preston drove erratically, his mind clearly somewhere else. He almost rear-ended a cab. His phone kept lighting up in the cup holder. He picked it up, set it down, picked it up again. Finally, his finger "accidentally" swiped the screen, and Lily’s voice filled the car via Bluetooth. She was hyperventilating, sobbing uncontrollably. "I know she's back! I know I have to leave! But it’s not fair, Preston. All I did was love you. Why does it have to hurt this much?" "If I had been the one crushed under that metal five years ago, would you have even remembered me?" "Maybe this was all a mistake. I should have just died in that accident instead of her." Preston slammed on the brakes. The screech of the tires made my chest seize. His face was ashen, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. He turned to me, agonizingly torn. "She got humiliated at the office today, and with Harper... I'm terrified she might actually do something to herself..." I felt the blood drain from my face. I forced the corners of my mouth up into a broken smile. "Go. It's a matter of life and death, right?" Preston let out a breath like he was suffocating. He pulled over, unlocked the doors to let me out on the street corner, and sped off into the night. I hailed a taxi and gave the driver the address to the city cemetery. My father and Preston’s mother, Mrs. Cole, smiled back at me from the porcelain photos on their gravestones. Preston and I grew up next door to each other in a working-class neighborhood. Ten years ago, when the great earthquake ripped through our town, our apartment building collapsed. My dad and his mom had used their bodies to shield us, holding the crushing weight of the ceiling up just long enough for the rescue crews to pull us out. They never made it. Preston had refused to cry at the funeral. He just held me so tightly my ribs ached, whispering over and over, "From now on, Margot, we're the only family we have left. I'll never leave you." I sat on the cold grass, pulling my coat tight against the wind, and started talking to them. "It's been a while, Dad. Mrs. Cole. Don't be mad at me for not visiting. I had a good excuse, I promise." The night wind whipped around the headstones. Suddenly, my cheeks felt freezing. I reached up and realized my face was entirely wet. Only the wind was there to hear my whisper. "What do I do, Dad? I don't think I have a home anymore." 4 On my first day officially back at Apex Law, Preston handed me the most critical corporate merger file the firm had. I sat in front of the monitors, staring at the dense, endless PDFs, feeling a cold knot of dread in my stomach. Five years had passed. The statutes had changed. The precedents were new. Even the basic electronic filing system had been completely overhauled three times. I gripped a red pen, cross-referencing lines of text manually, terrified of making a single mistake. The Gen Z paralegal walked past my open door, glanced at my screen, and rolled her eyes so hard I thought she might hurt herself. "Jesus, Margot, what century are you living in? Just run the contract through Harvey AI. Why are you wasting everyone's time?" My hand froze over the paper. I looked up at her, utterly lost. "Harvey... what?" She stared at me for a second, then burst out laughing like it was the funniest thing she’d heard all year. She walked away, shaking her head. My hands trembled as I pulled out my phone. Feeling like a fossil, I typed the word into the search engine. Five years ago, Preston and I shared a single refurbished laptop in that drafty loft. When the power got cut because we couldn't pay the bill, we lit candles and combed through liability clauses line by line in the dark. He used to kiss the top of my head and say, "Take your time, Margot. We've got nothing but time." But time hadn't waited for me. It had left me in the dust. I looked up, seeking out Preston’s face across the glass-walled bullpen. I found him standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Lily. He gave her a look, and she instantly handed him the exact document he needed without a word. He finished a phone call, a warm, proud smile breaking across his face. He reached out and affectionately ruffled Lily's hair. Exactly the way he used to do to me. "The Horizon case is a win, people!" Preston announced. "And Lily was the MVP. Drinks and sushi tonight, on me!" The office erupted in cheers. Lily flushed a deep, pretty pink, looking up at Preston with sheer adoration. Everyone crowded around them to celebrate. I sat alone in my glass box, staring at the AI prompt screen, a bitter, pathetic laugh escaping my lips. Later that afternoon, Lily slipped away from the crowd and came into my office, carrying a mug. Her smile was a picture of gentle humility. "You should take a break, Margot. I brought you a coffee." I reached out to take it, but her hand suddenly jerked. The scalding black coffee splashed directly across the hard copies of the merger file I had just spent six hours manually editing. "Oh my god! I'm so sorry, Margot, I swear I didn't mean to—" Preston strode into the room at the exact moment of the crash. His face darkened. "Lily, I give you one compliment and you instantly become a liability. You're so clumsy it's a miracle you can dress yourself. Get out." But when he looked at me, there was no apology in his eyes. Just a tight nod before he walked out. After that, the "accidents" became a daily routine. My digital files would mysteriously get corrupted. Crucial discovery exhibits would go missing. High-profile clients would call Preston, furious that I had "ignored" their emails. Every single time, Lily would stand in front of Preston with red, tear-filled eyes, taking the blame. And every single time, Preston would scold her coldly, but the punishment never came. He handled her with kid gloves, leaving me with zero institutional backing to actually discipline her. Until the day she made a massive "error" on a filing deadline, and I finally lost my temper and snapped at her in the bullpen. She covered her face with her hands, letting out a choked sob, and ran toward the elevators. "I know you all hate me!" she wailed. "I'm just a burden to everyone. I'll just leave!" This time, Preston didn't even glance in my direction. He bolted after her. I stood by my corner office window and looked down into the plaza. It was pouring rain. I watched them screaming at each other in the downpour. I watched the frantic, desperate body language. And then, I watched Preston break. He grabbed her arm, yanked her flush against his chest, and buried his hands in her wet hair as he kissed her with a violent, desperate hunger. They looked like the climax of a romance movie—the star-crossed lovers finally breaking through their denial and admitting they couldn't live without each other. And I? I was the tragic ghost of his past. The patron saint of his grief, who was supposed to have died five years ago, but was now just the inconvenient ex-fiancée standing in the way of their happily-ever-after. I reached up to touch my cheek, expecting to find tears. But my eyes were completely dry. I walked to my desk, quietly packed my few personal belongings into a cardboard box, and walked out of the firm I had built with my own hands. Whether Preston’s obsession with Lily was born of hatred, trauma, or love, I didn't care anymore. I was done being collateral damage in their twisted love story. He could have her. I stepped out of the lobby into the relentless rain. I braced myself to run for a cab, but a large black umbrella suddenly opened above my head. A deep, steady voice spoke from behind me. "Sorry I'm late."
? Continue the story here ?? ? Download the "MotoNovel" app ? search for "566315", and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel