The Billionaire Boyfriend Begged for Another Chance

I used to be a top ballet dancer.

The year I was diagnosed with a spinal hemangioma, my boyfriend Julian Blackwood said, "Wherever you go, I go."

We'd been together three years.

He walked beside me as I went, step by step, from the most luminous dancer on that stage to a woman in a wheelchair.

Every time the nerve pain hit and I collapsed, he was the one who lifted me off the floor.

Every round of electrostim and acupuncture, he sat in the corridor outside the therapy room and waited for me to come out.

Before I got sick, he promised me—the night I finished my final performance of Swan Lake, we'd sign the marriage license.

He'd bought tickets for that show three months in advance.

I never stood on that stage again.

And the marriage license never came up.

Until the morning I noticed the collar of his white dress shirt carried a smudge of lipstick that wasn't mine.

I heard him on the balcony.

A woman's voice on the other end.

"Mr. Blackwood, you left your jacket at the hotel last night. I'll bring it over."

I stared at that smear of red, and something in me snapped. I laughed.

"Send me to Westbrook. The locked-down rehab facility. I don't want to drag you down anymore."

Something flickered in his eyes—a brief, animal panic. Then he nodded.

He thought I meant rest.

He didn't know I'd already signed the papers to donate my body to science. I was going there to die.

I looked at my own haggard face in the mirror and hurled the glass in my hand at the corner of the bathroom wall.

The sound of breaking glass rang out, painfully loud in the empty room.

"Clara! What are you losing it for this time?"

Julian shoved the door open and came in.

I was on the cold tile, legs stretched out in front of me like two pieces of dead wood.

A minute ago I'd tried to stand up to wash my face and dropped like a sack.

"Losing it?" I laughed once, cold, and tipped my head up to look him in the eye.

"Right. That's exactly what I am. A woman who can't even stand up. A wreck."

His brow creased. He crossed to me in two strides and bent to lift me.

I fought him, palms slamming into his chest.

"Don't touch me. I can't stand it."

His body went still. Something exhausted and wounded flickered through his eyes.

"How long are you going to do this? I'm tired enough at work every day."

I pointed at the red on his collar. My voice shook.

"Tired? From work—or from a hotel bed?"

He looked down and saw the lipstick smudge.

His face changed in an instant. He covered his collar on reflex.

"Let me explain. It isn't what you think."

I bit down on the inside of my mouth. Tears welled up, but I refused to let them fall.