If you really love me, you’re not going to ask how much they need. You’re going to donate, period.”

“

Those were the last words Brendan had barked at me through the phone before a hollow-eyed nurse guided me into an examination room and pushed a cold needle deep into the crook of my elbow.

Forty minutes later, I walked out of the blood donor wing at the private clinic in La Jolla on legs made of wet cardboard. A square of sterile cotton was taped tight across the puncture wound. My vision swam with dark spots, but underneath the nausea was an absurd, glowing warmth: the belief that I had just saved the man I loved.

According to his closest friends, Brendan had been rushed here after a catastrophic crash on a private test track near Bakersfield. They had called me at three in the morning, their voices fractured by panic. They claimed his rare blood type wasn’t stocked in sufficient volume, that the trauma team was scrambling, and that every drop I could give would buy him another minute of life.

I hadn’t stopped to brush my hair. I hadn’t put on matching shoes. I had broken three red lights speeding down the coastal highway with my knuckles white on the steering wheel, whispering desperate prayers into the darkness.

Brendan had been my boyfriend for three years. Three years of my life surrendered to his moods, his unpredictable silences, and the heavy burden of trying to make him feel whole. I would have drained every vein in my body if it meant keeping his heart beating.

As I made my way toward the bank of brass elevators, a young orderly in navy scrubs hurried past me, rolling a stainless-steel cooler on squeaking casters. Stuck to the lid was a thermal-printed barcode label.

My name was printed across the top in crisp black letters: *BENNETT, CHLOE. O-NEG. VOLUNTARY DONOR.*

I stopped. My instincts, honed by three years of navigating Brendan’s erratic emergencies, whispered that something wasn’t right. The donor wing was behind me; the intensive care unit was three floors up. The orderly wasn't heading toward the elevator banks. She was turning down an administrative service corridor marked *Authorized Personnel Only*.

I followed her. My sneakers made no sound against the polished linoleum.

She pushed through a heavy pair of swinging double doors. Peering through the small, reinforced glass window, I watched as she opened the cooler, lifted the heavy, deep-red bag of my blood, and without hesitation dropped it into a red plastic biohazard waste receptacle.

The lid snapped shut with a dull, final thud.

My breath trapped itself in my throat. The world tilted sideways. I pressed my palm against the cool plaster wall, convinced that blood loss was finally causing me to hallucinate. Why throw it away? Why discard a life-saving unit when Brendan was supposedly bleeding out on a surgical table?

Then came the laughter.

It was sharp, familiar, and unburdened. It came drifting from a private recovery suite down the hall, the door left half an inch ajar.

“I honestly can’t believe she fell for it again,” a voice drawled.

My heart didn't break; it went entirely still.

I stepped closer, placing one trembling eye to the seam of the door.

Brendan was sitting up against a bank of oversized pillows in a luxury hospital bed. He wore a designer cashmere sweater, his dark hair immaculately styled, his skin smooth and sun-kissed without a single cut, abrasion, or bandage. He held a crystal tumbler of sparkling water in one hand and his phone in the other.

Surrounding him were Mason, Liam, and two other men from his country-club circle—the very ones who had sobbed into my voicemail four hours ago.

“Which one are we on now?” Mason asked, leaning back against the windowsill, choking back a snort.

Liam held up his hands, tapping his fingers together in a mock tally. “Ninety-six.”

A chorus of laughter rattled through the room.

“The anniversary bracelet was still the best,” Liam said, wiping a tear of mirth from his eye. “Telling her you dropped the heirloom charm in the storm drain outside the restaurant. She spent three hours on her hands and knees in the pouring rain searching for a piece of twenty-dollar costume jewelry.”

“She had a hundred-and-three fever the next morning,” Mason added. “And she still dragged herself to your apartment to make you chicken soup.”

“Only three left,” Mason said, grinning wide. “Ninety-nine revenge schemes, and the bet is paid.”

“And then?” Liam asked.

“Then Brendan dumps the little charity case and takes Scarlett to Paris to announce their engagement.”

Scarlett.

The name hit my sternum like a solid lead weight. Scarlett Montgomery. Four years ago, during our senior year of college, Scarlett had been the undisputed darling of the National Collegiate Dance Championship. Wealthy, entitled, and backed by high-dollar patrons, she had treated the trophy as an inherited family heirloom.

And then I won it.

I was just Chloe Bennett, the daughter of an accountant and a third-grade teacher from San Bernardino. I had danced on stage with blisters bleeding through my satin slippers while my parents cheered from the second-to-last row. I never knew that backstage, Scarlett had collapsed in hysterics, demanding that Brendan—her on-and-off high school sweetheart—ruin the girl who had humiliated her.

“Stop making it sound so dramatic,” Brendan said quietly from the bed, his voice chillingly flat. “Nobody forced Chloe to bleed today. She volunteers for the misery. She thrives on playing the martyr.”

I pulled my face away from the door. I didn't scream. I didn't kick the door open. A strange, glacial calm settled over my skin.

I walked out of that clinic, stepped into the morning glare, and pulled out my phone. My mother was calling.

“Chloe, honey? Your father finalized the lease on the Tucson property. We leave next week. Are you sure you won’t come with us?”

I looked down at the dark purple puncture mark on my arm.

“Mom,” I whispered, my voice steadier than it had been in three years. “Save a bedroom for me.”

Just as I hung up, a notification flashed across the screen.

**Brendan:** *I'm home resting. Rough night. Come by tomorrow. We still have three things left to handle.*

I stared at the screen, a slow, cold smile carving its way across my face.