Chapter 2 THREE DAYS

Elena counted her breaths on the stairs.

One. Two. Three.

She had cried herself empty in the hospital. She had died with her heart in pieces. She was not going to walk into that hallway like a woman who knew too much.

She put on the old Elena's face. The soft one. The one that smiled first and asked questions later.

"Good morning," she called.

Damien and Elise stepped apart so fast it was almost funny.

"Lena!" Elise's smile was bright and sweet. She pushed her hair behind her ear, the way she always did when she was lying. Elena had never noticed that before. How many times had she missed it? "You're up early. We were just talking about the wedding."

"I heard," Elena said.

Nobody breathed. Elise's smile froze.

"I heard you laughing," Elena finished. "It sounded nice."

Elise let out a small, quick breath. Damien rubbed the back of his neck. His eyes would not meet hers.

Elena looked at him.

Twenty-three years old. No blood on his face. No gray on his lips. His shirt was clean and his hair was messy, and he looked so alive that her chest hurt.

This was the boy who had held the umbrella over her head.

This was also the man who had begged her to disappear.

She did not know which one hurt more.

"You look pale," Elise said, stepping closer and touching her arm. "Did you sleep badly? You must be so nervous."

"A little," Elena said. "Marriage is a big thing."

"You'll be fine." Elise squeezed her arm. "You've always loved Damien. Everyone knows it."

Everyone knows it. Elena almost laughed. In her first life, that sentence had been a prayer. Now it sounded like a rope around her neck.

She looked at her sister's face. Really looked. The same eyes as hers. The same small mole near the left ear. Alive.

Before she could stop herself, she pulled Elise into a hug.

Elise went stiff. "Lena? What are you doing?"

Elena held on. Her sister's body was warm. Her heart was beating. Her perfume smelled like roses, the same cheap rose perfume she had worn since they were sixteen.

At the funeral, there had been roses everywhere. Elena had never been able to smell them again.

"I missed you," she whispered.

"We saw each other last night," Elise said, half laughing, half confused.

"I know." Elena swallowed. Her throat burned. "I just did."

She let go and wiped her eyes quickly, as if it were nothing. Elise stared at her. For a second, something real crossed her face. Then it was gone.

"You're being strange today," Damien said.

His voice was careful. He was looking at her now, and she saw a small line between his brows.

"Strange how?"

"I don't know." He shrugged. "Calm. You're never calm before big days. You usually call me ten times and make me promise nothing will go wrong."

"Maybe I got tired of worrying," Elena said lightly.

"Tired of what?"

"Of being the one who always worries."

Damien opened his mouth. Closed it. He looked at her like a man who had stepped on a stair that was not there.

Elena almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

"We should go," Elise said quickly, tugging his sleeve. "The dress fitting. Remember? We'll be late."

"Go," Elena said. "Have fun."

She smiled at them. A perfect smile. The kind she had practiced for years in front of mirrors, when she needed to look like a happy wife.

At the door, Damien turned back once. He did not know why. She could see that he did not know why.

Then they were gone, and the house was quiet.

Elena stood in the hallway with the smile still on her face. Slowly, it slid off.

She walked back upstairs, shut her bedroom door, and sat on the floor with her back against the bed. Her whole body started to shake.

She had a memory she did not want.

The funeral. Black umbrellas. White roses. Elise's photo on a stand, smiling.

Damien had stood at the front, wearing black, his eyes hollow. Elena had come to stand beside him, and he had not looked at her. He had only spoken, very softly, so no one else could hear.

"It should have been you."

Six words. She had carried them for the rest of her life.

Elena pressed her fist against her mouth and bit down hard, so she would not make a sound. Tears ran down her wrists. She cried the way she had been taught to cry as a wife, silently, with her shoulders only shaking a little.

After a while, the tears stopped, because even grief gets tired.

She got up. She washed her face. She sat at her desk and opened a notebook, and she wrote with a steady hand.

1. No begging.

2. No waiting by the phone.

3. No crying where he can see.

4. Do not let Elise die.

She stared at the last line for a long time.

Elise was about to take her place. Elise was about to marry the man Elena had loved for seventeen years, and she would do it with a smile and a lie. Elena had every reason to hate her.

But Elise had been so young in her coffin.

Her twin sister. Her other half. The girl who used to steal the blanket and then cry when Elena was cold.

You are not innocent, Elena thought. But you do not deserve a grave.

Elise did not know it, but she had only a few years left. In the first life, Adrian's business rival had killed her. She was caught in a fight that was never hers.

To stop it, Elena needed to stand close to Adrian. Close enough to see the danger coming.

And suddenly, from the dark corner of her memory, a picture came.

The back of the church. The last row. One man standing alone, in a black coat, long after everyone else had gone.

Adrian Cole.

He had not cried. He had not spoken to anyone. But when Elena walked out, shaking, with nobody beside her, he had stepped into her path.

"I am sorry for your loss," he had said.

Five words. Plain and quiet. And he had meant them. It was the only time in that whole awful week that someone had looked at her like she was a person and not a problem.

She had been too broken to notice. She had only nodded and walked on.

Elena pressed her fingertips to her eyes. Why had she never thought about that man again? Why had no one ever told her that he had never married?

She opened her laptop. She typed his name.

Adrian Cole. Twenty-eight. Head of Cole Group. Cold. Disciplined. Never photographed smiling.

She read every article she could find. She noted his meeting days, his office address, his assistant's name. She did not know what she was doing exactly, but her hands moved like they knew.

When the sun was high, she picked up the phone and called the Cole Group main number.

"Mr. Cole's office," a polite woman said.

"My name is Elena Hart," Elena said. Her voice was steady, and she was proud of it. "I need to see Mr. Cole. It is about a private matter."

A pause. Papers moving.

"Miss Hart," the woman said slowly, "are you not engaged to his brother?"

Elena looked at the notebook. At the line she had just written.

"Please ask him," she said. "He will want to hear this."

The line clicked. Elena sat very still.

Ten minutes later, her phone buzzed.

"Miss Hart? Mr. Cole will see you today at three o'clock." The woman hesitated. "He also asked me to pass on one question."

"What question?"

"He wants to know why the woman who is supposed to marry his brother is asking to see him in secret."

Elena looked at the clock on the wall.

Then she smiled, small and calm.

"Tell him I'll explain in person.”