---- Chapter 13 Chloe looked at him, her brow furrowed with concern, but she answered cheerfully. "Oh, yes! It was a beautiful ceremony, even with your... little fainting spell. Ava looked stunning! And Liam was so handsome. They looked so happy together, Ethan. Like a real fairy tale. They left for their honeymoon this morning, | think. Somewhere exotic and private." Her words, meant to be reassuring, were like individual daggers to Ethan's heart. Happy. A real fairy tale. His fairy tale, stolen. A despair so profound it was suffocating washed over him. He had lost. Irrevocably. There would be no winning Ava back. She was Liam's wife. She was happy with Liam. "No..." he whispered, the word a broken sound. "She loves me ... She was supposed to wait..." Chloe looked confused. "Ethan, what are you talking about? Ava married Liam. She seemed very much in love with him. Why would she wait for you? You're with me." She touched her engagement ring, a bewildered expression on her face. Ethan stared at her, at the ring he'd given her, the symbol of his 'do-over'. It all felt like a sick joke. He made a decision. A desperate, last-ditch effort to reclaim ... something. Anything. He reached into his bedside table, where his valet had placed his belongings. He pulled out a small, sealed envelope. The ---- information from the Boston neurological institute. The cure for Chloe's amnesia. He'd kept it, hidden it, for weeks. He'd wanted to prolong his "dream" with Chloe, his perfect past. He'd been so sure Ava would wait, that he could have it all. His selfishness, his arrogance, had cost him everything. If he'd given this to Chloe weeks ago, when Liam first found it if Chloe had recovered her memory then... would Ava still have married Liam? The thought was a fresh torment. "Chloe," he said, his voice flat, devoid of emotion. "Take this. It's from a clinic in Boston. It might... it might help with your memory." A flicker of hope, then fear, crossed Chloe's face. "Help my memory? But... what if | don't want to remember? What if the past is... painful?" She sensed, perhaps, that the truth would shatter the fragile reality she was living. "You need to know, Chloe," Ethan said, a new, cold resolve in his voice. He couldn't undo his mistakes with Ava, but he could, at least, end this charade with Chloe. It was the only decent thing left for him to do, though his motives were far from pure. Maybe, just maybe, if he fixed this one thing, if Chloe was "cured" and out of the picture, Ava might... No. He was deluding himself again. But he had to do something. "| don't want to, Ethan!" Chloe cried, tears welling in her eyes. "I'm happy now! With you! Why would you want to change that?" "Because it's not real, Chloe!" Ethan snapped, his patience ---- gone. "None of this is real!" He called his parents, his voice hard. "Chloe needs to go to Boston. To that clinic Liam found. Immediately. I'll arrange everything." Chloe was terrified. She tried to refuse, to plead. But Ethan was relentless. He was a man on a new, desperate mission. As the arrangements were made, as Chloe packed her bags under the watchful eye of a nurse Eleanor Carter had hired, she wept. "I don't understand, Ethan! Why are you doing this to me? To us?" Ethan couldn't meet her eyes. He was too consumed by his own bitter reflections. The cure had been there all along. So simple. His delay, his selfish manipulation of her condition, had been for nothing. It had cost him Ava. He finally understood. Ava wasn't his possession. She wasn't bound to him by some unbreakable vow of eternal devotion he'd simply assumed. She had agency. She could choose. And she had chosen. She had chosen Liam. The weight of his regret, his loss, was crushing. It was a physical ache in his chest, a hollowness that consumed him. He had played a dangerous game and lost everything.