He Traded Me for My Sister Twice, But I Planned the Second Time novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Man Who Stood Up
At Cecily's gala Imogen films Hugh rising from his wheelchair to catch her sister, hands back her ring, and hears Leland say 'not like last time'.
At my sister's charity gala, Hugh Maddox stood up out of his wheelchair.
Nobody saw it but me.
I had come back to this night with one rule: watch the people I used to trust, and stay out of their way.
In my first life I died on the east dock, in a warehouse that smelled of diesel, waiting for two men to return with money for my sister.
They never came back for me.
Now I stood on the hotel terrace with a glass of water, and eleven days were left before that warehouse.
My sister had been on stage all evening, thanking donors in a pale blue dress.
She had spotted my hands shaking before the doors opened and pressed a mint into my palm.
"You're pale, Imogen," she had whispered. "Eat something. I'll cover for you if Dad asks."
She was always kind like that, and everybody loved her for it.
Hugh sat at the edge of the terrace in his chair, the same chair he had used for two years, ever since a fall from a horse that left him unable to walk.
A waiter carried a tray past him.
Cecily's heel caught on the stone step by the stage door, and she pitched sideways toward the railing.
Hugh was on his feet before she cried out.
He caught her by the elbows, steadied her, and held her against his chest for a long second.
Then he glanced over his shoulder, saw the terrace was empty except for me, and froze.
I already had my phone up.
I had filmed all of it.
"Imogen," he said. His voice was low and quick. "It isn't what you think."
"You're standing," I said.
He lowered himself back into the chair with a small, practiced wince.
Cecily was already laughing and brushing off her dress, thanking him for a catch she thought he had made from his seat.
She had not noticed.
I walked into the ballroom and found Leland by the champagne tower.
My fiancé, in his black suit, with his hand resting warmly on the small of my back as it had for two years.
"Leland, I need you to watch something."
He read the screen once.
His face did not change.
He took the phone out of my hand, pressed delete, and slid it back into my palm.
"Hugh hasn't felt his legs in two years," he said, smiling for the room. "You're tired, and you've misread an accident. Don't make a scene at Cecily's gala."
"I filmed him walking."
"You filmed a man catching a woman who was falling," Leland said. "That's all it was."
It was the same tone he had used in the first life, right before he drove away from the warehouse.
I looked at his hand on my back.
I looked at the ring on my own finger, the one he had chosen with Cecily's help.
So I took it off.
I held it up between my fingers, where the chandelier caught it, and the people near us stopped talking.
"I'm giving this back," I said. "I'm not marrying you."
Leland laughed under his breath.
"Imogen."
"I'm not marrying anyone who calls a man walking an accident."
A woman near the tower gasped.
My father started across the floor, already scowling.
Leland closed my hand around the ring and held it there.
"Don't do this," he said, very quietly. "Not like last time."
My stomach dropped.
He had said it too evenly.
He knew exactly which time he meant.
I pulled my hand free and set the ring on the champagne tray beside his glass.
"Cecily will be heartbroken," my father said, reaching us.
"Then tell her I'm sorry she had to see it."
I walked out of the ballroom with every eye on my back.
At the front doors, a man I did not know held one open for me.
He was tall, in a plain dark suit, and his eyes went over me once, quickly, to see I was unhurt.
"Mind the third step," he said. "It's loose."
I stopped on the top step, and then the next, and the third one tilted under my heel.
I caught the rail and did not fall.
When I looked up he had already gone back inside.
My phone buzzed against my palm.
It was Leland.
"I remember it too, Imogen," the message said. "Both of us. Answer me."
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