My father forced me to marry a billionaire who had been in a coma for nine months. Everyone said Ethan Thornton couldn’t hear me, couldn’t feel anything, and would never wake up. But that night, when I leaned close to the husband I never chose and whispered the truth, his finger moved—and his first words nearly stopped my heart.

The words were barely a breath, but they hit the quiet room like a thunderclap.

“Don’t trust Jason.”

I sat frozen, my hand still resting inches from his hand, my heart hammering against my ribs. Ethan’s eyes—a striking, deep charcoal gray—were open, but they struggled to focus in the sunlight. His chest rose and fell in shallow, rapid breaths as the heart monitor’s steady rhythm suddenly spiked into a frantic, high-pitched beeping.

"Ethan?" I whispered, my voice trembling. "Ethan, can you hear me?"

His lips parted again, but no sound came out. The immense effort of speaking those three words seemed to drain the last of his strength. His eyelids fluttered, heavy and exhausted, before closing once more. The room slipped back into that suffocating silence, save for the rapid warning chime of the monitor.

Before I could process what had just happened, the heavy oak door of the bedroom was thrown open.

A young private nurse, a woman named Chloe whom I had seen hovering during the ceremony, rushed in with a syringe already in hand. Behind her walked Jason Thornton, his hands slid casually into his pockets, a sharp, calculating glint in his eyes.

"What happened?" Jason asked, his eyes immediately darting to the wildly pulsing heart monitor. "Did he have a seizure?"

"His... his eyes," I stammered, standing up so fast my chair scraped loudly against the hardwood. "His finger moved. He spoke to me."

Chloe’s hand froze for a fraction of a second. She quickly recovered, stepping up to the IV line and preparing to inject the clear liquid from her syringe. "That's medically impossible, Mrs. Thornton. Post-coma muscle spasms are common, but vocalization after nine months of intubation without therapy is unheard of. You must have imagined it due to the stress of the wedding."

"I didn't imagine it!" I insisted, stepping between Chloe and the IV port. "He said—"

"Claire, cousin, relax," Jason interrupted, his voice smooth, but his grip on my shoulder was deceptively tight as he pulled me away from the bed. "My grandmother has had the best doctors in the country look at him. If there was a spark of brain activity, we would know. You're exhausted. Why don't you let Chloe administer his evening sedative so we can all get some rest?"

I looked at the syringe in Chloe’s hand, and then at the faint, sweet scent of almonds or chemicals in the air—no, it was the sterile scent of the room, but my mind was screaming.