Chapter 3

I started my position at St. Helena Medical Center the following Monday. Alexander didn't know. I hadn't told him, and he hadn't asked.

That was the nature of our arrangement — two strangers sharing a last name.

The hospital was where I felt most alive. The sterile scent of antiseptic, the rhythmic beeping of monitors, the controlled chaos of the ER — it all grounded me in a way that the Blackwell penthouse never could.

"Dr. Gale, incoming trauma. Car accident, male, mid-thirties, severe chest injuries," a nurse called out as I was reviewing charts.

I moved on instinct, years of muscle memory guiding me even though, technically, this version of me hadn't yet completed her residency. But the knowledge was there — carved into my brain from a previous lifetime of quiet, desperate study during the years Alexander ignored me.

After he died in my past life — no. After I died. I kept confusing the timeline. The memories of both lives bled together like watercolors in rain.

The surgery lasted four hours. The patient survived.

When I finally stepped out of the operating room, my hands were steady but my legs were shaking from exhaustion. I leaned against the corridor wall and closed my eyes.

"Vivian?"

My eyes snapped open. Alexander stood at the end of the hallway, still in his three-piece suit, looking spectacularly out of place among the nurses and gurneys.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"What am I—" He stopped himself, jaw tightening. "The question is what are you doing here. My assistant told me you've been coming to this hospital every day for the past week."

"You had me followed?"

"I had you monitored. There's a difference."

"No, there isn't."

He closed the distance between us in three long strides. "You're a Blackwell wife now. You can't just—"

"Contract wife," I corrected. "And the contract says nothing about my employment."

Alexander's eyes darkened. "People will talk. If the board finds out my wife is working as a—"

"As a cardiac surgeon saving lives?" I tilted my head. "You're right. How embarrassing for you."

A muscle ticked in his jaw. For a moment, I thought he might actually raise his voice. But Alexander Blackwell never raised his voice. He destroyed people in whispers.

"This isn't a discussion, Vivian. You will resign."

"No."

The word hung between us like a blade. In my previous life, I had never said no to him. Not once. Not when he told me to skip my mother's birthday for a corporate event. Not when he asked me to give up my residency. Not when he brought Serena to our anniversary dinner and introduced her as his "closest friend."

Alexander stared at me as if seeing me for the first time. "Since when are you this stubborn?"

"Since I stopped caring about your opinion."

Before he could respond, a familiar voice echoed down the corridor.

"Alexander? What are you doing at a hospital?"

Serena Mitchell stood at the entrance, wrapped in a cream cashmere coat, her auburn hair falling in perfect waves. She looked like she'd stepped out of a magazine — which she probably had, given that her family owned three of them.

Her gaze shifted from Alexander to me, and something cold slithered behind her doe eyes.

"Oh. You must be Vivian." She extended a manicured hand. "I've heard so much about you."

I shook her hand. Her grip was deliberately firm — a power play disguised as politeness.

"Funny," I said. "I haven't heard a thing about you."

The lie was surgical in its precision. I watched it land — watched the micro-expression of shock, then fury, then composure cross her features in less than a second.

Alexander cleared his throat. "Serena is a family friend. She—"

"You don't need to explain your friendships to me, Alexander." I pulled off my surgical gloves. "I have patients to attend to. It was nice meeting you, Serena."

I walked away without waiting for a response. Behind me, I heard Serena's voice shift to a honeyed whisper.

"She's... not what I expected. Are you sure about this marriage, Alexander?"

I didn't hear his reply. I didn't need to. I already knew what he would say because I had lived through it before.

"It's just a contract. She means nothing to me."

Those seven words had shattered me in my previous life. Tonight, they were just background noise.

I had surgeries to prepare for, research papers to write, and a mother whose treatment I needed to oversee. Alexander Blackwell and his "family friend" could have each other.

But as I rounded the corner, I nearly collided with a tall man in a doctor's coat. He caught my arm to steady me, and when I looked up, I froze.

"Careful there, Dr. Gale," he said with an easy smile. "Long shift?"

Ethan Cross. Chief of Trauma Surgery. In my previous life, he had been the doctor who pronounced me dead.

Now he was looking at me with warm brown eyes and absolutely no idea who I was.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," he said, his smile fading into concern.

I forced myself to breathe. "Something like that."