Chapter 1

Ricardo said he had severe cardiac asthma. He couldn't handle stress, and strenuous physical activity was out of the question.

That was his excuse for not touching me. Three years running.

I felt sorry for him. I took over every household chore, spent a fortune on specialty medications, and never once asked him to fulfill his duties as a husband.

Then came the fire at the mountain resort.

A burning beam collapsed and pinned my leg. I was trapped in thick smoke, screaming for him.

He stood at the emergency exit with his hand pressed to his chest, his face twisted with helplessness. "Hathaway, the smoke in there is too thick. If I go in, I won't make it out..."

Then his new assistant cried out from the second floor.

Ricardo didn't hesitate for a single second. He charged straight into the flames and carried that young woman out at a full sprint.

So it wasn't that he couldn't push himself physically.

He just didn't think I was worth dying for.

"Ricardo! Help me!"

Thick smoke churned through the corridors of the mountain resort. Flames raced along the carpet in every direction.

A burning wooden beam had my right leg pinned flat to the ground. The heat was intense enough to sear my skin.

The oxygen was being sucked out of my lungs breath by breath. Every inhale felt like swallowing broken glass.

I stretched my arm toward the emergency exit a dozen feet away, desperate.

Ricardo was standing there, completely unharmed, a wet cloth pressed over his mouth and nose.

"Hathaway! Hold on! I'll get someone!"

He shouted it loud, but his eyes were already pulling back. He was scared, and he was looking for a way out.

"I can't move that beam, and the smoke — my asthma..."

He coughed twice, sharp and theatrical, pressing a hand to his chest, doing his best impression of a man who couldn't breathe.

"If I go in there, I'll have an attack. We'll both be trapped."

I stared at him, unable to process what I was seeing.

That was my husband. We'd been together for eight years. Married for three.

For the sake of his so-called cardiac asthma, I had turned down a promotion. Every single day I managed his diet and his medications on schedule.

For three years he hadn't lifted anything heavier than a coffee cup, let alone touched me as a husband.

I thought that was love. I thought it was devotion.

But now, with my life on the line, he wouldn't even try. He had already written me off.

"Ricardo... please..."

The fire was spreading fast. My vision was beginning to blur.

Then, from the staircase at the top of the second floor, a sharp scream cut through the roar of the flames.

"Ricardo! Help! I can't get down!"

Katherine.

The personal assistant Ricardo had hired just last month. Fresh out of college, young, pretty, the kind of girl who found a reason to hover near him in a short skirt every single day.

The moment he heard her voice, every trace of hesitation vanished from his face.

He threw the wet cloth to the ground, and moved like a man possessed — sprinting straight into the black smoke, which was far thicker on her side than mine.

"Katherine! It's okay! I'm coming!"

Not one second of doubt.

I watched him take the stairs two at a time through the burning wreckage, the whole structure groaning under his feet.

A few minutes later, Ricardo burst back through the smoke with Katherine in his arms.

He had wrapped his suit jacket tightly around her, one hand shielding the back of her head.

When he passed me, he didn't glance down. Not even once.

His eyes held only the trembling girl pressed against his chest.

"You're safe, Katherine. I've got you. Don't be scared."

His voice was rough from the smoke, but underneath it was a tenderness I had never once heard him use with me.

I watched them disappear into the emergency exit.

Then I heard the crack of another beam giving way above me.

Something inside me collapsed right along with it.

So he wasn't physically incapable after all.

He wasn't afraid of smoke, or death, or an asthma attack.

He simply didn't care enough about me to find out.

By the time the firefighters broke through the window to reach me, I had already slipped into semi-consciousness.

"Miss! Stay with us! Don't close your eyes!"

Cold water from the hose killed the flames around me. Several firefighters worked together to lift the beam and drag me free.

Outside the ambulance, the night air hit me and I doubled over, coughing up a dark mass from deep in my lungs.

My right leg was beyond pain. It had gone completely numb.

They settled me onto a stretcher. Through the crowd, my gaze drifted to the lawn nearby.

Ricardo was down on one knee.

His face was frantic. Both his hands were wrapped around Katherine's, and he was leaning over her, performing rescue breathing with everything he had.

Katherine was in a thin silk nightgown, her body half-collapsed against his chest.

"Katherine, come on, wake up. Don't scare me like this..."

His voice broke. He was nearly crying.

I bit down on my lip until I tasted blood.

One of the firefighters standing beside me followed my gaze. His brow furrowed slowly.

"Is that someone you know? The way that guy ran into a burning building for her, I figured she had to be his wife."

"Where's your husband? I don't see him with you."

I closed my eyes. Tears cut through the ash and soot on my face.

"I don't have a husband," I said quietly.

The firefighter paused, let out a low breath, and wheeled my stretcher toward the ambulance.

Just as the doors were about to close, Ricardo seemed to finally remember something. He spun around.

He saw me on the stretcher — blackened, burned, barely recognizable.

His eyes flickered. Almost on reflex, he loosened his grip on Katherine's hand and took a step toward me.

Then Katherine "happened" to wake up at exactly that moment.

She threw her arms around his waist and burst into tears.

"Ricardo... I thought I'd never see you again..."

His feet stopped.

He sank back down, pulled her close, and gently patted her back.

The ambulance doors swung shut.

They cut off that perfect picture of two people who had "found each other through crisis."

And they cut off the last three years of my stupidity and grief.