"If anything happens to her, there's no future for us."
I watched his retreating figure and whispered from where I sat among the broken glass.
"There's no future for us anyway."
I raised my hand. Shards of glass studded my palm, embedded deep in the flesh. The pain was blinding.
By the time the clinic downstairs finished bandaging my wounds, cold sweat had soaked through every layer of my clothes.
The suffocating weight in my chest was what finally made me pick up the phone and reach out to several of the company's shareholders.
When they heard I was selling my thirty percent stake, every last one of them expressed interest.
I told them to name their price. Highest bidder wins.
Thirty minutes later, I signed the share transfer agreement with Les Chavez, the CTO.
He was capable. Ambitious. And Mark had always kept him at arm's length.
With my shares in his hands, he'd become the company's largest shareholder.
I hoped Mark would enjoy the wedding gift I'd prepared for him.
But the ink was barely dry when I heard a furious roar behind me.
"Grace!"
I realized then that he'd called me dozens of times.
Looking at the rage contorting his face, my mind flashed involuntarily to the image of Nellie deliberately throwing herself onto the glass and coughing up blood.
Had something actually happened to her?
Or had he found out about the share sale and come to make trouble?
His eyes were bloodshot as he stormed in, seized my arm, and dragged me toward the door.
"Nellie's kidney ruptured because you pushed her. She nearly died. And you're out here having a date with some random guy?"
I struggled, tried to explain.
"I didn't push her. She threw herself down on purpose—"
Mark shoved me into the car.
"She's already seriously ill. She's already down to one kidney. Why would she risk her own life over nothing?"
Then he turned on Les.
"Can't beat me at the office, Chavez, so you go after what's mine?"
I didn't want Les dragged through the mud. So I grabbed the share transfer agreement and threw it in Mark's face.
I expected him to lose it on the spot. To demand I void the deal.
Instead, he just clenched his jaw so hard the muscle twitched, got in the car, and floored it. The whole way to the hospital, the speedometer never dipped.
He forced me to my knees in front of Nellie's hospital bed.
"Apologize to Nellie. And promise you'll donate a kidney to make up for what you did."
My kneecaps hit the freezing tile. Pain and cold radiated through my entire body.
I tried to stand, but Mark's hand pressed down on my shoulder, pinning me in place.
"Cat got your tongue? Apologize to Nellie. Now."
I swallowed the bile rising in my throat and forced out every word.
"I didn't push her. If you don't believe me, go back and get the security footage from the neighbor's door."
The camera mounted outside the neighbor's door would have captured every second of Nellie's little performance.
But he didn't believe me.
"Grace, you have no idea how disappointed I am. Do you understand what your shove did? Nellie almost died. That's attempted murder. You could go to prison for that."
"She's being generous enough not to press charges. All she's asking for is an apology and compensation. What more could you possibly want?"
"You don't want to go to prison? Then give Nellie a kidney. When you do the math, you're coming out ahead. And I'll even let the whole thing slide about you selling off my company's shares behind my back."
Coming out ahead.
And the man who had always put his career above everything else was now ranking Nellie above a thirty percent stake in his own company.
He really did love her that desperately.
A laugh escaped me, wet with tears. In the end, all I said were three quiet words.
"I'm sorry."
Mark released me and pushed a document in front of me to sign.
He was truly absurd. What made him think that my signature on a piece of paper would actually make me donate a kidney to Nellie?
But I needed to get out of there. So I signed.
Only then did Mark pull me to my feet. Something unreadable flickered behind his eyes.
"Just so you don't go running to my mother and cause a scene, I'm going to need you to bear with what comes next."
"Once I'm done with the act tomorrow, you're coming with us overseas for the kidney transplant. You don't set foot back in this country until Nellie's fully recovered."
It wasn't until he tied me up inside an abandoned building that I finally understood what he meant by making it up to me.
While I was locked away, he wheeled Nellie to the hotel to stage the runaway-bride scene in my place.
I pounded on the door, screaming until my throat was raw, until a scavenging woman nearby heard the commotion and let me out.
I checked the time. My flight was about to depart.
I flagged down a cab and raced to the airport.
As I was boarding, Philippa called.
"Grace, where are you? Mark's saying you ran away from the wedding! Something about fleeing from guilt?"
Before I could answer, she caught the sound of a flight attendant announcing departure information in the background.
"Grace, you're really at the airport? What on earth did you do that made you abandon your own wedding?"
"Philippa, he's already Nellie Simmons' husband. He and I have nothing to do with each other anymore."
Philippa didn't even bother hanging up before turning on Mark, demanding to know if he'd been mistreating me.
His response, fueled by rage that I'd escaped to the airport, came out in a hoarse roar:
"Grace Thornton! You cost Nellie a kidney. You owe her one! If you try to run, I'll call the police and have you arrested for attempted murder!"
He actually pulled out his phone to dial 911, trying to stop me from leaving.
But Philippa's palm cracked across his face before he could.
"Have you lost your mind? Nellie Simmons was born with one kidney. If she'd lost another, she'd be dead already!"
