He Healed Her Broken, Brilliant Heart

s brilliant, naive Elodie. Last night

riend, showed me the picture

s meant to save his dying fiancée. But then I overhear

f kidneys," he told his

kmail to force me onto the operating table. I wasn't

red. He underestimated his

y death and

fic journal. And he's about to find out that the woman he tried t

pte

die

ast night, he held me and called me his future. Today, his sister

ngineer, my world was a precise, controlled environment of bio-printers, hydrogels, and the tantalizing promise of creating life from scratch. I lived

were a chaotic, unpredictab

great, sprawling, secret i

stensibly funded my research, the charismatic older brother of my best friend, the man whose touch co

workday settling deep into my bones. The latest batch of kidney prototype

finall

into me. Anona Ball, my best friend and the unwittin

arms pinned to my sid

solitude of the lab, recoiled fro

I managed to get out, p

r bright blue eyes. "Sorry, El! I' m just so excited t

I said, dropping my keys into the cerami

. "Oh, please. You never answer. Besides, we were all swamped

nauseating drop, like an elevator car snapping its cables. The a

ement

o process it. It was a glitch in the code

epic. Dad flew in the caterers from Paris, and the floral arrangements alone proba

y laptop bag digging into my shoulde

ally faltering as she took in my f

ost of its usual self. "Bar

f course. She looked like an actual princess. That dress?

woman who desperately needed a kidney transplant. The

a cousin? Another Barrett in your family I don't know about?" The question sounded insane ev

aw nerves. "Silly! My brother, Barrett Ball! Who else? He

c" lodged in my t

row furrowed with genuine concern. "Y

Can I see? A picture?" I needed to see it. I needed the fin

. She swiped through a few pictures before landi

wrapped possessively around the waist of Dallas Fernandez. She was stunning in a glimmering silver gown,

n Barrett's wrist. A Patek Philippe. The one I had saved for two years to

to, tagged for all the world to see: Ba

patterns on my back. Just a little longer, Elodie, he' d murmured into my hair. Once

t was a

hat spread through my entire body. My throat felt thick,

voice was a

pulling away from her, from the phone, from t

ctuary, which now felt like a crime scene. I shut the door and twiste

side. "Okay... I'll just order some takeou

ought I was just tired. The innocenc

en strangling finally ripping from my chest. It was a raw, ugly sound. The sound of

ood enough to sleep with, good enough to develop a life-saving technology fo

me look he gave me. The same intense, focused adorati

y of i

red "I love you," every promise of a future together-it all replayed in my mind, now tainted, gr

h the grief. I wouldn't be his fool. I w

. I had to he

Barrett was a man of habit. If he wasn't at a board meeting or a fundraiser, he was at the same e

c calendar confirmed it: "B

nging my skin. The grief was a storm, but my scientific mind was already reas

the door, ignoring Anona' s call from

ut, the slam of the apartment do

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