Chapter 1

“How does an ordinary girl marry into a wealthy family?”

The top-liked reply read:

“Fake an illness, girl. I pretended to have leukemia for three years, and now the Hayes heir wipes my mouth and feeds me every day. The house and car are all in my name!”

I thought it was hilarious. Ethan Hayes happened to be my fiancé, so I forwarded it to him.

He replied with two words.

“Immature.”

Later, I treated the post like a joke and pulled it up whenever I needed a laugh.

Until the night before our engagement party, when she uploaded a new photo.

“You all said a toad like me was dreaming of eating swan meat. Does this count as a slap in the face?”

In the photo, a man sat beside a white hospital bed, lowering his head as he peeled an orange for her.

A dark green emerald ring sat on his left ring finger.

It was my grandmother’s heirloom. There was only one in the world.

The inside of the band was engraved with my grandmother’s birth date.

I enlarged the photo three times.

The tiny words inside the ring were blurry, like a piece of my heart had been carved out.

“The ninth day of the winter moon, Year of the Wood Goat.”

My grandmother’s birthday.

I turned my phone facedown on the marble counter, then turned it over again.

The photo was still there.

The woman lying in the hospital bed was named Chloe Reed. I had been reading her posts for nearly six months, ever since she’d asked, “Should someone with terminal cancer even bother going on blind dates?”

From there, I watched her show off the Hayes family’s cards and cars.

I treated every post like a joke and forwarded it to Ethan.

Every time, he replied, “Immature.”

Or, “Stop giving attention to people like that.”

Sometimes, he didn’t reply at all.

I called him. It rang seven times before cutting off.

The second time, his phone was switched off.

Our engagement party was scheduled for noon the next day at the Ritz downtown. Three hundred and eighty invitations had already been sent.

Clutching my phone, I walked into the dressing room and took out the box that held the ring I was supposed to wear the next day.

I opened it.

It was empty.

A round impression remained in the red velvet lining, like a fingerprint that had been pressed there for a very long time.

My grandmother died when I was twelve. She had placed the emerald in my palm and said,

“Claire, this ring chooses its owner. Whoever wears it will be cherished for the rest of their life.”

I met Ethan when I was sixteen.

At twenty-three, I put on the ring.

At twenty-six, I took it off my finger and placed it inside his suit pocket myself.

He said he was going to have it cleaned and reinforced, then put it back on my finger at our engagement party.

That had been seven days ago.

I grabbed my car keys and went downstairs. The hum of the central air-conditioning drilled into my temples like a mosquito.

I drove to the VIP entrance of St. Mary’s Hospital. It was one in the morning.

The nurse at the front desk wouldn’t let me through.

I gave her the name of Ethan’s personal assistant, Jack Carter. She checked the system, and her expression shifted. Then she let me go upstairs.

The eighteenth floor was quiet. At the end of the long hallway, the hospital room door was slightly ajar.

I walked over along the wall.

There was laughter inside. A woman’s laughter—soft and sticky sweet.

“Do you think your fiancée knows this ring used to belong to her? Do you think she’ll cry?”

“She doesn’t know.” Ethan’s voice was slow and indulgent. “I’ll replace it with a Cartier tomorrow. She won’t be able to tell the difference.”

“How can you bear to lie to her?”

“Chloe, you’re this sick. How could I worry about anything else?”

My fingers dug into the wall. One of my nails split.

I pushed the door open.

It wasn’t locked.

Chloe was propped against the headboard. Her soft hair rested against her shoulders. Her face was pale in a strangely deliberate way—pale, but with rosy lips and bright eyes.

When she saw me, she froze for a moment.

Then she smiled.

Slowly, like a cat licking cream.

“Mr. Hayes,” she said, her voice weak and delicate. “Who’s this?”

Ethan turned around.

He was still holding half of an orange. White strands of pith clung to his knuckles. His ring finger was bare.

The emerald was on Chloe’s left middle finger, hanging loosely as if it could fall off at any moment.

“Claire.” He stood up, frowning. “What are you doing here?”

Not “You’re here.”

“What are you doing here?”

I stared at his face. He looked as unfamiliar as a stranger I might meet at a convenience store after working late.

“Ethan, give me back the ring.”

“What ring?” he asked.

I laughed.

“The one in your inside pocket—or the one on her hand?”

His hand instinctively touched the left side of his chest. Then he went rigid.

Chloe slowly lifted her left hand and brought the emerald to her lips. She kissed it.

“Miss,” she said sweetly, “Mr. Hayes told me this ring belonged to his grandmother. He said it was meant for the person he loved most.”

“I thought I could wear it for the rest of my life.”

Her eyes turned red, and tears began falling one by one, each at a perfectly measured interval.

Ethan stepped forward and blocked her from view.

“Claire, Chloe is seriously ill. Don’t upset her.”

“Outside.”