Eva's POV
The words hang in the air like poison.
"My name is Eva Hart. And three years ago, I broke your heart and ran away to Barcelona."
Dominic staggers backward like I've physically hit him. His face goes totally white. The baby—Lily—squirms in my arms, but I can't look away from him.
"That's not funny," he whispers. His voice shakes. "That's sick. Eva is dead. She died three months ago in Spain."
My stomach drops. "What?"
"Don't play games with me, Celeste." But even as he says it, uncertainty flickers across his face. He's looking at me like I'm a ghost. " Eva died in a car crash. I went to her funeral. I saw her—" His voice breaks. "I saw her coffin."
The room spins. I died three months ago? But I just woke up here yesterday. How is that possible?
Jenny, the nurse, steps forward slowly. "Mr. Thornfield, I know this sounds impossible—"
"Impossible?" Dominic laughs, but it's a terrible sound. "My business partner just tried to kill my wife. There's a secret camera in this room. And now my dead ex-girlfriend is saying she's somehow inside Celeste's body?" He runs his hands through his hair. "I'm losing my mind."
"You're not," I say desperately. "Dominic, please. I know how this sounds. But it's me. It's really me."
"Prove it." His eyes are wild now, angry and scared all at once. "If you're really Eva, prove it. Tell me something only she would know. " My mind races. What can I say? What story can I share that would convince him?
"The night you proposed," I start, my voice shaking. "We were at that little Italian place in Brooklyn. The one with the terrible drawings of Venice on the walls. You ordered us the most expensive wine on the menu even though I knew you couldn't afford it."
Dominic's jaw clenches. "Anyone could know that. It was in the papers when we broke up. The media loved the story of the poor builder boy and the girl who left him for Europe."
" But they don't know what you said after I said no." Tears run down my face now. "You asked me why. And I told you I needed to focus on my job. But you knew I was lying. You looked at me and said, 'You're running because you're scared. Scared that if you stay, you'll lose yourself in loving me. But Eva, don't you see? You already have. And so have I. And that's okay.'"
His breathing gets faster. His hands shake.
" And I said—" My voice breaks. "I said you were wrong. That I didn't love you enough to stay. And then I left. And I never looked back because I was too much of a coward to admit you were right."
"Stop." Dominic's voice is barely a whisper. "Just stop." " I was terrified," I continue, unable to stop now. " Terrified of losing myself. Of becoming just 'Dominic's girlfriend' instead of Eva the planner. So I destroyed us first. I ran to Spain and threw myself into work and tried to forget you. But I never could. Every building I planned, every success I had—none of it filled the hole I'd carved in my own heart."
Dominic stares at me. Really stares. Looking past Celeste's face to something deeper.
"The morning I left," I whisper, "I stood outside your flat for twenty minutes. I almost came back. Almost knocked on your door and told you I'd made a mistake. But I didn't. And that choice killed me every single day for three years."
Silence. Long and heavy and oppressive.
Then Dominic takes a step closer. His eyes search mine—these blue eyes that aren't mine but somehow are now.
"You used to hum in the shower," he says slowly. "This old jazz song your mother taught you. What was it called?"
My breath catches. "Autumn Leaves."
"And you took your coffee—"
"Black. No sugar. You always said I was a monster for drinking it that way."
"Your favorite building in the whole world—"
"The Guggenheim. Not because it's great, but because it dares to be different."
His hand reaches toward my face, then stops. Trembling in the air between us.
"This is insane," he breathes. "This isn't possible."
"I know."
"You died. I mourned you. I—" He stops, his face crumbling. "I never stopped loving you. Even after you left. Even after I married Celeste. Even after—"
His phone buzzes. He ignores it. It buzzes again. And again.
With shaking hands, he pulls it out. His face goes from white to gray.
"What?" I ask. "What is it?"
He shows me the screen. It's a text from an unknown number: "We know what happened in that hospital room. We know about the move. And if you don't want the whole world to know that Celeste Thornfield is actually a dead woman walking, you'll do exactly what we say."
Another text comes through. This time it's a picture.
Of me. The real me. Eva Hart. Lying in a hospital bed in Barcelona. Machines keeping me alive.
Except according to Dominic, I died three months ago.
The message below the picture makes my blood freeze: "She's not as dead as everyone thinks. And neither is the story of what really happened the night she crashed. Come to Pier 17 at midnight. Alone. Or we pull the plug on Eva Hart's body—and reveal your wife's little secret to the world."
Dominic looks up at me, his eyes wide with shock and something else. Something that might be hope or might be fear.
"If you're really in Celeste's body," he says slowly, "then where is your original body? And who's been keeping it alive all this time?"
The machines attached to my—to Celeste's—body start beeping wildly. The room tilts. And suddenly I understand.
I'm not dead. I'm not truly reborn.
I'm in two places at once.
And someone knows.