When I woke from the dream, I was still in a daze. That line — "You've got nothing without me" — kept echoing in my head.

I turned and froze. There, sitting right beside my bed with his legs crossed and his laptop open, was Dominic. Two years since I'd last seen him.

He heard me stir and started to speak with a frown, but then he noticed the tears still wet on my face.

Whatever he'd been about to say, he swallowed it. Stiffly, he reached out and wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes.

His fingertips were ice-cold. I flinched.

He felt me recoil. His hand paused, and his gaze drifted to the wheelchair beside the bed.

"When did you get hurt? Why didn't you tell me?"

The concern in his eyes looked genuine.

But Dominic — if you'd come even once, if you'd been anything less than dismissive on a single phone call, you would've seen what was happening to me.

Dominic, the time when I needed you is long past.

"It's nothing. I hurt my foot on the stairs a while back. It's fine now."

"You are still going to be Mrs. Harrington, after all. Having scars on your body will make those paparazzi ask all sorts of questions."

"Dominic, we're divorced. I'm not your property, and I'm not some prop for the Harrington image." I said softly, a little tired.

This was the first time in five years I’d contradicted him. A strange glint seemed to flash in his eyes, but he quickly masked it.

“What trick are you playing now?” He frowned, his tone impatient. “I told you I’d remarry you when the time is right. You just twisted your ankle, yet you insisted on calling me over. You know we’re busy. Do you really have to ruin her mood? She just wanted to show you some photos. You two have been friends for years—you know how she is.”

I looked at the man I’d loved for five years and gave a bitter smile.

After two years apart, he’d left everything in his office and driven hundreds of miles overnight—all to protect the woman who had almost left me homeless.

I stared at him. A rash still lingered on Dominic's neck — the remnants of an allergic reaction that hadn't fully faded.

I thought of my dog — the one I'd given up, the one that ended up dead — and five years of swallowed grief erupted all at once.

"What about me? She has you by her side. What about me?"

I suddenly felt a deep weariness; I didn't want to wait anymore, I didn't want to argue anymore.

"Let me go, Dominic. I don't want to be Mrs. Harrington anymore."

Dominic froze, looking at me in disbelief. This was the first time I'd said something like that. He stood up abruptly, a flash of anger across his face.

"You're just saying that in anger! Are you upset that I haven't cared enough about you?"

I closed my eyes, too tired to argue anymore.

That's when Vivian walked in carrying a glass of warm milk. She stood beside Dominic, all wide eyes and soft voice.

"Claire, I'm sorry. I know how much you love dogs, so I thought you'd like the photos. I didn't realize you'd be so sensitive about it."

Dominic studied me for two seconds. Then a cold, mocking smile crossed his face.

"You're right. I have been neglecting you. I'll take good care of you now."

He shot to his feet and dragged me out of bed. I cried out in pain. Blood surged up my still-injured throat.

Before I could get a word out, he clamped his hand around my jaw and forced an entire glass of scalding milk down my throat.

"Dominic, I'm allergic to — "

Vivian heard me trying to speak and rushed over, throwing her arms around me. Under the cover of the embrace, she pinched me hard several times, then shoved me away and let out a shriek.

"Claire! I was only worried about you! If something's bothering you, just tell me — you didn't have to bite me!"

I collapsed to the floor, clawing at my tongue. In those few wasted seconds, my throat had already begun to swell shut. I couldn't force out a single word in my own defense.

Vivian kept sobbing.

"Look at you — you were like this before, and you're still like this now. How am I supposed to trust you with Dominic?"

Dominic had been walking toward me, but he stopped. Vivian's injury had seized all his attention.

He scooped her up and was about to rush out. Then he turned back, looking down at me from above.

"Vivian begged me to come check on you. She was worried about you. And this is what you do — put on another performance. In all our years together, since when have you ever been allergic to milk? You don't deserve a shred of the concern we've shown you!"

The hem of his coat whipped across my face, leaving an instant welt.

Then his voice — cold as ice — rang out.

"Tell security: kill the cell service at the sanatorium. No one goes in or out. Take Nora with you when you leave."

"Claire, this is what you get."

The room fell deathly silent. This time, I was truly alone.

My throat had swollen so badly I could barely breathe. My vision blurred, and hallucinations began creeping in at the edges.

I dragged myself into the wheelchair and barely managed to call out:

"No... Nora..."

But Nora had already been taken away by the bodyguards Dominic brought with him. My voice echoed through the vast, empty sanatorium with no one to hear it.

A crushing wave of panic consumed me. I regretted putting on a brave face and telling him it was just my foot. I regretted not grabbing the hem of his coat when he turned to leave.

I was terrified of ending up like my mother -- collapsed somewhere no one could find her, crying for help that never came, lying dead for seven days before anyone discovered her body.

I remembered there was a first aid kit downstairs that might have medicine. I gripped the wheelchair and inched my way toward it, but the wheels caught on the carpet. The chair tipped, and I tumbled down the stairs with it.

The wheelchair crashed down on top of me. In my final moments, instinct took over, and I dialed Dominic's number -- because after my parents died, he was the only person who'd ever been there for me.

This time, the call connected quickly. But I could barely speak:

"I was... wrong... help--"

"Ow! Dominic, it hurts so much!"

Vivian's voice drowned mine out once again, and my throat sealed shut completely.

I could barely see anymore. I didn't notice the call had been disconnected. I just kept rasping Dominic's name over and over, until my eyes closed forever.

---

Dominic was driving when something in his chest went hollow. He thought of how I'd been lying on the floor moments ago, and despite everything, a flicker of worry stirred in him.

He was about to call me back when Vivian's sobbing cut him off.

For seven full days, I didn't call to pester him the way I always had. Something in Dominic felt inexplicably empty.

Even back-to-back meetings couldn't hold his focus. The restlessness in him only grew worse.

He told himself that if I called to apologize this time, he'd bring me home immediately.

For reasons he couldn't quite explain, Dominic -- for the first time -- left Vivian's messages unanswered. He pushed aside the rest of his work and pulled up the surveillance feed he hadn't touched in three years.

My bedroom still looked exactly as it had that day. A layer of dust had settled over everything.

A sharp pain lanced through his chest. A sick feeling rose in his gut. With trembling hands, he scrubbed the footage back to the day he'd left -- and watched me pinned beneath the wheelchair, calling his name for a full thirty minutes.

While I lay there screaming for him, he'd been driving Vivian to the hospital. For nothing more than a slight redness on her hand.

He drove to the sanatorium like a man possessed -- that place he'd so deliberately ignored for so long.

When he pushed open the door, Dominic saw me lying on the floor with my back to him. Beside me, the carpet was stained with blood that had long since dried.

The last of the evening sun slanted through the window and fell across my body, and for a moment it was as though he'd been carried back to the night they first met -- her breath warm against his skin as she carefully dabbed at his wounds with a cotton ball.

So perfectly in sync. So achingly intimate.

Dominic stood frozen in the doorway, his face drained of every trace of color.

"Claire..."