When the out-of-control car barreled toward us, my fiancé, Julian, and my brother, Lucas, let go of my hands.
They turned in unison, reaching out to pull my adopted sister, Mia, to safety.
I was sent flying by the brutal impact.
While I drifted in and out of a coma at the hospital, the fragmented conversations outside my door shattered whatever hope I had left in them.
When I woke up, I didn't cry or make a scene. I simply stopped caring.
I arranged for a hospital transfer, left the country, and vanished from their world entirely.
Five years later. New York.
The first thing I did upon returning to the city was visit my mother at the private family estate cemetery on Long Island.
I had just placed a bouquet of white lilies at her marble headstone when hurried footsteps crunched the grass behind me.
I turned around and saw Lucas.
He stopped a few feet away. The white lilies in his own hands slipped, scattering across the grass.
"Chloe! Is it really you?"
I straightened up. My voice was as calm as if I were discussing the Manhattan weather.
"Sir, you have the wrong person."
"Your sister, Chloe, died in that car crash five years ago."
~~~~~
The word sir landed like a slap. All the color drained from Lucas's face.
He lunged forward, reaching for my wrist. I shifted slightly, letting him grasp empty air.
"Chloe... I'm your brother!"
I let out a soft, dry scoff. "Brother? I thought Mia was your only sister."
Raw pain flashed in his eyes.
The memory rushed back unbidden.
The day Mia threw herself down the estate stairs, I had been standing right there on the landing. She had tilted her head up at me, a tiny smirk playing on her lips, before falling backward.
Amidst the maids' screams, Lucas rushed over and scooped her into his arms.
She gripped his lapel, squeezing out tears on command. "Don't blame my sister. I just lost my footing..."
Lucas looked up at me, pure disgust in his eyes.
He spat the words out, syllable by syllable: "Chloe, how can you be so vicious? I don't have a sister like you."
"From today on, I only have one sister. Mia."
Those words had rooted me to the spot, stripping away any urge I had left to defend myself.
Lucas's bloodshot eyes pulled me back to the present. "I searched for you for five years... You vanished without a trace. We thought you had an accident."
"An accident?" I met his gaze head-on. "When that car was speeding toward me five years ago, did you ever stop to think I might actually die?"
He swayed on his feet. His lips parted, but no sound came out.
I picked up my Birkin from the grass. "Don't call me your sister. You lost that right five years ago."
He threw an arm out to block my path. "Chloe, wait. Tell me where you're staying. At least let me—"
"No."
I turned toward the exit.
Desperation took over, and he grabbed my wrist. "Come back to the estate. Father and I... we want to compensate you."
I yanked my arm free and stared at his frantic, pleading face with ice in my veins. "Compensate? With money? Shares? Or with guilt that's five years too late?"
He froze. His hand dropped limply to his side.
Without giving him another glance, I walked away.
He shouted after me, his voice cracking with a broken desperation, "Chloe... Julian is looking for you too! He never gave up!"
My footsteps faltered for a fraction of a second.
Then I kept walking. I didn't look back.
As I pulled open the door of my waiting sedan, I caught one last glimpse in the rearview mirror.
The once-proud billionaire heir sank to his knees before our mother's headstone, his shoulders collapsed in utter defeat.
I looked away.
This trip back to New York was strictly to handle my mother's estate. Soon, I would be on a flight back to London.
There was absolutely no reason to reconnect with ghosts.