POV: Spencer

The sharp, sterile smell of antiseptic in the corporate medical lounge was suffocating, but I barely noticed it.

I sat on the edge of the examination table, my jaw tight as the company medic carefully peeled away the ruined, soaked fabric of my dress shirt. The skin on my right forearm was blistered and an angry, raw red.

Every time the medic dabbed the burn ointment onto my flesh, a searing pain shot up my arm.

But compared to the dark, violent thrill currently thrumming through my veins, the physical agony was absolutely nothing.

I looked down.

Brooke was sitting on the small stool right beside me. She was utterly silent, her face pale, her beautiful eyes fixed on my wound. But for the first time in five years, she wasn't looking at me with that impenetrable wall of ice and defense. For the first time since she woke up in that hospital, she had willingly grabbed my arm and walked by my side.

Grant, you absolute fool, I thought, a twisted, triumphant sneer curling in my mind as I looked at her soft profile.

He had spent five grueling years melting the ice around Brooke’s heart, building an impenetrable fortress of a marriage. And today, with a single cup of boiling water and his own arrogant, amnesic pride, he had taken a sledgehammer and smashed it all to pieces. He had practically gift-wrapped my woman and handed her right back to me.

The medic wrapped the white gauze around my arm, the silence in the room pulling my mind backward, plunging me into a memory I had spent the last seven years desperately trying to bury.

Seven years ago.

The exact timeline my idiotic brother’s brain was currently trapped in.

Back then, Brooke had been mine.

I could still vividly remember the blinding sunlight pouring into my penthouse, illuminating the custom-designed, five-carat diamond engagement ring I had slipped onto her finger. We had been weeks away from the wedding of the century.

And then, in a single, catastrophic night, I had destroyed my entire universe.

It was a massive corporate gala celebrating the firm's international acquisition. As the heir apparent to the Whitmore empire, I had been surrounded by vultures, investors, and ambitious climbers. I remembered accepting a flute of champagne from a new marketing intern—a girl named Chelsea.

Within twenty minutes of finishing that glass, a heavy, paralyzing wave of heat had crashed over my nervous system.

My vision had blurred. My pulse had roared deafeningly in my ears. A toxic, synthetic haze had completely hijacked my cognitive control. I had stumbled away from the ballroom, dragging myself to my private suite upstairs, desperately trying to clear my head.

I blacked out.

When I finally regained consciousness hours later, my skull was splitting with an agonizing migraine.

And lying right beside me in the king-sized bed, with her clothes deliberately scattered across the floor in a perfect visual trap, was Chelsea.

I was paralyzed by the sick, nauseating realization that I had been drugged and framed by an intern who wanted to blackmail her way to the top. I knew, with absolute certainty, that my body had been too incapacitated to even touch her. Nothing had happened. It was a flawless, vicious setup.

But before I could even drag myself out of the bed to throw the scheming woman out, the door to the suite clicked open.

The memory of that exact second still made my chest violently contract.

Brooke stood in the doorway.

She was wearing a stunning evening gown, holding a massive bouquet of red roses she had brought up to surprise me for closing the deal.

I would never, for as long as I lived, forget the look in her eyes. The shock. The devastating betrayal. The instantaneous, absolute shattering of her trust.

The roses slipped from her trembling fingers. The heavy bouquet hit the hardwood floor with a dull thud, the crimson petals scattering across the floorboards like drops of fresh blood.

"Brooke... wait..." I had scrambled out of the tangled sheets, my head still spinning violently from the drugs.

I reached out for her, desperate to explain. I wanted to scream that I was spiked, that it was a trap, that I hadn't touched the woman in the bed.

But I hesitated.

I was young, arrogant, and poisoned by the pride of being a Whitmore. Facing the woman I loved, I felt a suffocating sense of humiliation. I didn't want to admit in raw, ugly detail that I, the untouchable Spencer Whitmore, had fallen victim to a cheap, sordid trick by a twenty-two-year-old intern. I stammered. I tried to shield her from the ugliness of the corporate trap, thinking I could handle it quietly later.

That single moment of arrogant hesitation cost me my life.

"Don't touch me," Brooke had whispered.

There were no hysterical tears. There was only a cold, terrifying fury that completely eclipsed her sorrow. She reached down, ripped the custom diamond ring off her finger, and hurled it directly at my face with all her strength.

The heavy diamond clipped my cheekbone, cutting the skin and drawing a drop of blood before clattering into the dark corner of the room.

"We're done, Spencer. You disgust me."

She turned and walked away. And she never looked back.

I spent the next few months descending into a manic hell. I fired Chelsea, I destroyed her career, I recovered the security footage proving I had been drugged, and I stood in the pouring rain outside Brooke’s apartment, begging for her forgiveness.

But Brooke’s pride was absolute. Her heart had turned to stone.

And while I was drowning in the ashes of my own mistakes, Grant stepped out of the shadows.

My quiet, righteous younger brother. The man who had secretly harbored a burning, forbidden obsession for his future sister-in-law for years.

He didn't care about the scandal. He put on the armor of a devoted savior. He used his unwavering, sickeningly perfect patience and absolute devotion to slowly, meticulously heal Brooke's broken heart. He gave her a safe harbor when she was drowning, and eventually, he legally made her his wife.

For five agonizing years, I had to stand on the sidelines like a defeated dog. I had to clench my fists and watch the woman I loved walk down the aisle toward my own brother. I had to watch him kiss her at family dinners. The daily torture of being a mere bystander in her life was a thousand times worse than the burn currently searing my arm.

"Spencer."

A soft, hesitant voice pulled me sharply out of the nightmare of the past.

I blinked, the sterile white walls of the medical lounge coming back into focus. The medic had finished bandaging my arm and quietly slipped out of the room, leaving just the two of us.

Brooke was looking up at me, her eyes lingering on the thick white gauze wrapped around my forearm.

"Does it hurt?" she asked, her voice carrying a trace of genuine guilt.

I stared into her beautiful eyes, the dark, predatory ambition in my chest finally breaking free from its five-year cage.

I reached out with my uninjured hand, gently brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear. She stiffened slightly, but she didn't pull away.

I smiled—a bitter, yet fiercely determined smile.

"As long as you're willing to stay by my side, Brooke," I murmured, my voice low and thick with emotion, "this pain is absolutely nothing."

Because the real pain hadn't even started yet.

Grant had personally smashed his own marriage. He had physically driven the love of his life straight into my waiting arms.

And I couldn't wait for the day his amnesia broke. I couldn't wait to see the look on his face when he remembered everything, only to realize he had personally handed his wife to the brother he hated.

That cremation of Grant's heart was going to be a spectacular show.

POV: Brooke

The blinding flashes of the cameras hit me like a torrential downpour.

"Mr. Whitmore! Miss Brooke! Is it true that you two are finally tying the knot after all these years?"

"Brooke, look over here! Are you and Spencer officially back together?"

I walked down the crimson red carpet, my arm securely looped through Spencer’s. I maintained a perfectly curated, flawless smile for the cameras, but beneath the designer silk of my gown, my heart felt like it was drowning in acid.

To the rest of the world, I was just Spencer Whitmore's "ex-fiancée" from seven years ago, a woman who had finally found her way back to her rightful place.

Because no one in this room knew the truth.

No one knew that for the past five years, I was actually Grant's legal, wedded wife.

Five years ago, when Grant and I fell in love, he had made the incredibly difficult decision to keep our marriage completely hidden from the public eye. It was to protect the Whitmore Group's fragile stock prices, but more importantly, he did it to protect me. He didn't want the media tearing me apart, labeling me with vicious, slut-shaming headlines for marrying my ex-fiancé's younger brother.

We chose an absolute, ironclad secret marriage.

For five years, that secrecy was my ivory tower. It was a testament to Grant's extreme, obsessive need to protect me from the world's cruelty.

But tonight, that exact same secrecy had mutated into a suffocating, inescapable tomb. It buried all my legitimate claims, all my grievances, and all my agonizing pain, forcing me to watch my own husband slip away while I couldn't even scream his name.

The massive crystal chandeliers inside the Whitmore family’s annual charity gala bathed the ballroom in a golden, opulent glow.

Spencer kept me close all evening, his hand resting possessively on the small of my back. He played the role of the devoted partner flawlessly, whispering intimately in my ear, making us look like a couple deeply, profoundly in love.

I didn't push him away.

I was gambling with the very last ounce of my dignity. I was desperately hoping that when Grant saw me wrapped in his brother's arms, the impenetrable wall of his amnesia would finally crack. I wanted to see him lose control.

A sudden ripple of murmurs moved through the crowd near the grand entrance.

Grant had arrived.

And he wasn't alone.

Because the world didn't know I was Mrs. Whitmore, the socialites and business tycoons naturally flocked to Olivia, treating her as the undisputed woman by Grant's side.

I gripped my champagne flute, my knuckles turning white as I stared at him.

But when Grant’s dark, commanding gaze finally swept across the room and landed on Spencer and me, my chest violently collapsed.

His eyes were as calm and dead as a frozen lake. There was no jealousy. There was no possessive fury.

Instead, he calmly raised his glass in our direction, offering a polite, distant nod. It was the chilling, appropriate greeting of a man acknowledging his future sister-in-law.

A second later, Olivia shivered dramatically, complaining about the ballroom's air conditioning.

Without a single moment of hesitation, Grant slipped off his tailored suit jacket—the one that still carried his body heat and his signature cedarwood scent—and draped it gently over Olivia's bare shoulders. He leaned down, his lips brushing against her temple as he murmured something soft and comforting into her ear.

I had to look away before my tears broke through my meticulously applied makeup.

When the orchestra began to play the opening waltz, Spencer smoothly pulled me onto the dance floor.

I let him guide me through the steps, but my eyes uncontrollably searched the crowded floor.

Come and take me away, a pathetic, desperate voice screamed in my head. Grant, please. Look at me. Get angry. Take me away from him.

But he didn't.

Grant was dancing with Olivia just a few yards away. His strong arm, the arm that had held me through countless nightmares, was wrapped securely around her waist.

Olivia looked up at him and whispered something playful.

I watched as Grant lowered his head and let out a deep, genuine laugh.

It was the very first time I had seen him smile since the car crash.

Then, right there in the middle of the dance floor, under the gaze of hundreds of New York's elite, Grant cupped Olivia's face in his large hands. He closed his eyes and leaned in, capturing her lips in a deep, breathtakingly tender kiss.

That public, legitimate kiss hit me with a force far more devastating than the heavy truck that had nearly killed us.

During our five years of secret marriage, we could never kiss under the spotlight. We had to hide our love in the shadows. And now, he was giving the public devotion I had always secretly craved to a woman who had tried to disfigure me just yesterday.

I missed a step, my heel catching on the hem of my dress.

I finally understood. My pathetic tests, my fake dating with Spencer, my desperate hopes—it was all just a delusional, one-man show.

His heart was completely empty of me.

An hour later, the charity auction commenced.

The final, highly anticipated lot was brought out onto the velvet podium: a legendary antique sapphire necklace known as the "Tears of the Deep Sea."

When the auctioneer pulled away the silk cloth, the massive, ocean-blue jewel glittered under the spotlights, stabbing directly into my eyes.

This was my necklace.

Or, at least, it was supposed to be.

Just a month before the crash, Grant had held me in our bed, kissing the bare skin of my shoulder. He had told me that he was going to buy the "Tears of the Deep Sea" at this exact auction and place it around my neck for our fifth anniversary. He had promised it was his way of compensating me for the years of hiding in the dark.

The bidding started.

Spencer, eager to play the perfect fiancé, immediately raised his paddle.

"Two million!"

But from the front row, Grant calmly raised his hand. "Three million."

The price skyrocketed in a senseless display of sibling rivalry.

"Ten million!" Grant finally declared, his deep voice echoing with terrifying finality through the silent ballroom.

Spencer lowered his paddle, giving me an apologetic smile.

The auctioneer slammed his gavel. Sold.

When Grant stood up and was handed the velvet box containing the sapphire, my heart betrayed me one last time. It hammered frantically against my ribs.

For one brief, fleeting second of absolute stupidity, I thought: Does he subconsciously remember? Does he remember the promise he made to me in the dark? Is he going to walk over here?

I held my breath.

But Grant didn't even look in my direction.

He walked straight past my table, his eyes fixed entirely on Olivia.

The room erupted into thundering applause as Grant stopped in front of his ex-girlfriend. He opened the box, took out the breathtaking sapphire, and gently fastened it around Olivia’s neck. The cameras flashed furiously, immortalizing the romantic gesture.

Grant took the microphone from the MC, his dark eyes looking softly at Olivia.

"This color suits your eyes perfectly," Grant said, his deep, resonant voice echoing through the speakers. "Consider this a compensation for the seven years I missed out on loving you."

The applause roared like a tidal wave, drowning me completely.

I sat frozen in my chair, watching the entire room celebrate the perfect love of the golden couple. I felt the very last drop of warmth, the very last shred of hope for my marriage, drain out of my body.

Because of our secret marriage, my husband was currently standing in front of the whole world, using the private promise he made to me, to love another woman.

And I didn't even have the legal or social right to stand up and slap him across the face.

"Brooke?"

Spencer’s voice was laced with genuine concern. He reached under the table and tightly wrapped his warm hand around my freezing, trembling fingers.

I didn't cry.

The pain had finally surpassed the threshold of tears. I slowly turned my head and looked at Spencer, who was looking at me like I was the only person in the room.

Since Grant had used the most ruthless, public method to announce his new life, why was I still destroying myself? Why was I trapping myself in the agonizing prison of this invisible marriage, begging for a man who didn't even want our past anymore?

I turned my hand over and firmly squeezed Spencer's hand back.

A few moments later, Grant and Olivia began to make their way back to their seats. Their path took them directly past our table.

Just as Grant’s tall frame entered my peripheral vision, I stood up.

I looked directly into Spencer's eyes, offering him a calm, resolute smile.

"Spencer," I said.

I didn't shout, but my voice was clear, steady, and just loud enough for the man walking past us to hear every single syllable.

"I accept your proposal. Let's get married."

I didn't turn my head.

I didn't look at Grant's face.

Therefore, in that retrospective moment, I couldn't possibly see what happened the very second the word 'married' left my lips.

I couldn't see how Grant's footsteps abruptly and violently stopped dead in their tracks.

I couldn't see how the gentle, aristocratic smile on his face instantly vanished, leaving behind a complexion completely drained of all blood.

And I couldn't see how his large hand—the one securely holding Olivia's—suddenly began to spasm with a violent, uncontrollable tremor, as if an invisible, catastrophic agony was tearing his heart straight out of his chest.

POV: Brooke

I didn't sleep a single second that night.

Even though I had stood under the blinding lights of the charity gala and loudly, publicly accepted Spencer’s proposal, a pathetic, desperate corner of my heart had still been waiting.

I had sat on the edge of my bed in the dark, staring at the closed bedroom door, absurdly hoping that it would suddenly burst open. I hoped Grant would storm in, his eyes blazing with the jealous fury I used to know, violently demanding that I take it back. I hoped he would pin me against the wall and tell me I wasn't allowed to marry anyone else.

But the door remained shut. The hallway remained dead silent.

He never came.

When the morning light finally crept through the curtains, I looked at my pale, exhausted reflection in the mirror. My heart felt like it had been hollowed out with a blunt knife, but I made one final, reckless decision.

I was going to force his memory open. Even if Dr. Evans warned that it could cause a psychological break, I couldn't just sit here and watch him slip away into another woman's arms.

I pulled my suitcase out from the closet and unzipped the hidden bottom compartment. Inside was a small, fireproof lockbox.

It contained the only physical proof of our five-year secret marriage. There were a handful of polaroids we had taken on our private honeymoon, and more importantly, there was a necklace.

It wasn't diamonds or sapphires. It was a small, delicate silver swallow. Three years ago, Grant had locked himself in his private hobby workshop for three consecutive nights, meticulously melting, hammering, and engraving the silver with his own hands to make it for me. It had our initials carved into the back.

Clutching the box to my chest, I took a deep breath and walked out of my room, heading straight for Grant's suite.

But I didn't even make it down the hall.

Olivia was leaning against the doorway of the second-floor sitting room, her arms crossed over her chest. When she saw me, the pitiful, innocent facade she wore in front of the Whitmore brothers completely dissolved, replaced by a vicious, mocking sneer.

"Going somewhere, Mrs. Whitmore?" Olivia drawled, purposefully emphasizing the title with dripping sarcasm.

I stopped in my tracks. "Move out of my way, Olivia."

"You're really pathetic, you know that?" She took a step closer, her eyes flashing with malicious triumph. "You actually think you're his wife. But look at you. Even when you were married, he hid you like a dirty little rat in the sewers. You couldn't even stand next to him in public. Do you really think a few cheap trinkets are going to make him want you back?"

Before I could react, Olivia lunged forward.

She was taller than me in her heels, and with a sudden, vicious yank, she snatched the lockbox right out of my hands.

"Give that back!" I screamed, lunging for her.

But the box wasn't locked. It popped open in the struggle. Olivia saw the polaroids of Grant kissing me, and a flash of pure, venomous jealousy twisted her features.

She grabbed the stack of photos, turned around, and threw them directly into the roaring flames of the sitting room fireplace.

"No!"

I threw myself toward the hearth, desperately reaching into the flames to grab them. The fire licked at my fingers, burning my skin, but I was too late. The glossy paper curled, blackened, and turned to ash right before my eyes.

My heart violently stopped.

"Oops," Olivia sneered. She looked down at the box still in her hand and pulled out the delicate silver swallow necklace. She dangled it from her manicured fingers, inspecting it with disgust. "What is this cheap garbage?"

"Don't you dare touch that," I breathed, my voice shaking with raw terror. I scrambled to my feet, my burned fingers trembling. "Put it down."

Olivia held my gaze, her lips curling into a wicked smile.

She opened her fingers and let the necklace drop to the marble floor. Then, she raised her foot and brought the sharp, metal heel of her stiletto down directly onto the silver swallow.

Crunch.

I heard the delicate silver clasp snap. I watched the meticulously carved wings bend and warp under her heel as she brutally ground it into the marble.

"Stop!" I sobbed, dropping to my knees. I wildly pushed her leg away, desperately trying to salvage the broken pieces of my husband's love.

Just as my hands touched the ruined silver, heavy, hurried footsteps echoed down the corridor.

Grant was coming.

The moment Olivia heard his footsteps, her vicious expression vanished in a split second. She let out a blood-curdling, terrified shriek and threw herself backward.

She landed hard on the floor right next to me, intentionally dragging her palm across a rough edge of the fireplace grate so it immediately began to bleed.

"Ah! It hurts!" she wailed.

The sitting room door was violently shoved open.

Grant stood in the doorway. He took in the scene in a fraction of a second: me, kneeling aggressively on the floor with red, crazed eyes, and his "girlfriend" collapsed beside the fireplace, bleeding and sobbing.

A terrifying, thunderous rage darkened Grant's face.

He closed the distance between us in two massive strides. Before I could even open my mouth to explain, Grant's large hand clamped down on my shoulder. With a brutal, uncompromising force, he violently shoved me backward.

I hit the floor hard, my wrist twisting painfully, but he didn't even look at me.

He immediately dropped to his knees, carefully gathering the sobbing Olivia into his arms.

"Grant, I'm so sorry!" Olivia cried, burying her face in his chest, her tears soaking his shirt. "I just wanted to talk to Brooke... I wanted to tell her not to be mad about last night. But she suddenly started screaming that I stole her place... she kept shouting that she was your real wife, and then she pushed me..."

"That's a lie!" I screamed, my voice tearing through my raw throat. I pointed a shaking, burned finger at her. "She burned our photos! She destroyed my necklace!"

Grant slowly turned his head to look at me.

The look in his eyes made the blood freeze in my veins. There was no confusion. There was no hesitation. There was only absolute, unfiltered disgust.

"You are out of your mind," Grant said, his voice dropping to a freezing, lethal octave. "You're actually psychotic."

"Look at it!" I cried frantically, holding up the crushed, bent piece of silver. My tears fell uncontrollably, blurring my vision. "Look at it, Grant! This isn't just a necklace! You made this for me! You stayed up for three nights in your workshop, hammering this out by hand because you said you wanted to give me something money couldn't buy! How can you not remember?!"

Grant stared at the cheap, mangled piece of silver in my trembling, soot-stained hands.

Not a single flicker of recognition crossed his face. Not a shred of empathy.

He let out a harsh, mocking scoff that sliced straight through my soul.

"Me?" Grant sneered, his tone dripping with toxic condescension. "The CEO of the Whitmore Group, locking himself in a room to make a piece of cheap, worthless trash for my brother's fiancée? Brooke, your delusions have crossed the line into full-blown schizophrenia. You need psychiatric help."

I stopped breathing. The air was physically punched out of my lungs.

Cheap, worthless trash.

Then, Grant did something that completely, irreparably shattered whatever was left of my dignity.

He reached into the inner pocket of his tailored suit jacket and pulled out a sleek, black Centurion credit card.

Without breaking eye contact, he flicked his wrist and threw the heavy metal card directly at my face.

The sharp edge of the card struck my cheekbone with a stinging slap before clattering loudly onto the marble floor, landing right next to my knees.

"It's just a damn necklace," Grant said, looking down at me like I was a beggar on the street. "There's no limit on that card. Take the money. Go buy a new one. Buy ten of them. Buy whatever it takes to satisfy your pathetic greed."

He tightened his arms protectively around Olivia, lifting her up from the floor and pressing her safely against his broad chest.

He looked down at me one last time, delivering his final, merciless verdict.

"But from this second on, keep your insane delusions to yourself. And stay the hell away from my fiancée."

He turned his back on me. He carried Olivia out of the room, his long strides echoing down the hall until they completely faded away.

The sitting room was dead silent again, save for the crackling of the fire that had just consumed our memories.

I didn't look at the limitless black card lying on the floor.

I just sat there, kneeling on the cold marble, my fingers gripping the crushed silver swallow so tightly that the sharp, broken metal pierced the skin of my palm. Warm blood slowly slid down my wrist, dripping onto the floor.

But I didn't feel the pain. I didn't feel anything at all.

My mind was entirely consumed by the last three words he had spoken before he walked away.

My fiancée.

For five long years of hidden, secret marriage, he had never once given me a public title. He had never defended my honor in front of the world.

And now, he had taken that title, weaponized it, and publicly crowned the woman who had just destroyed our past.

I lowered my head, staring at the blood pooling in my hand, and listened to the sound of my own heart finally stopping its desperate, foolish beating.

Fiancée.

I repeated the word silently in my mind, the last breath of my love turning into ashes.

Fine, Grant.

As you wish.