She drives slowly, signaling every turn. I stay two cars behind, telling myself this isn’t creepy. This is concern. Friendly concern.
The light ahead turns green just as Jasmine reaches it. She accelerates through the intersection, then an SUV comes out of nowhere.
It barrels through the red light doing at least fifty, slamming directly into Jasmine’s driver’s side door. The sound of crushing metal and shattering glass fills the air. Her car spins once, twice, then flips, landing upside down in the middle of the intersection.
Time stops. My heart stops. Everything stops except the sound of my ragged breathing.
I’m out of my vehicle before my brain processes what I’m seeing. “Jasmine! Querida, please! Please be okay!”
Jasmine
The first thing Inotice is the beeping. It’s steady, rhythmic and intrusive. Then the hospital smell hits me.
My eyelids feel as though they’re weighted down with sand. I force them open and immediately regret it. Bright light assault my vision, and a dull throb pulses behind my eyes.
“She’s waking up.” The voice is familiar. Deep, accented, and entirely too close.
I shift my head, which turns out to be a mistake. The room tilts, and I squeeze my eyes shut against the wave of nausea.
“Easy, querida. Don’t move too fast.”
Antonio. Of course, it’s Antonio.
When I open my eyes again, he’s right there, sitting in a chair pulled close to my bedside, elbows braced on his knees, eyes locked on my face. They’re rimmed red, like he’s been crying or hasn’t slept. His hair is mussed, his Henley wrinkled, and a shadow of stubble darkens his jaw where there was none at dinner.
Beyond him, Jessa is curled in a corner chair, arms wrapped around herself, mascara smudged beneath her eyes. Meesha stands at the window, phone pressed to her ear, speaking in low, urgent tones—probably updating Connor.
How long have I been out?
“What happened?” My voice comes out scratchy.
Jessa is on her feet instantly, rushing to my other side. “Oh, thank God. Jas, you scared us half to death.”
“You were in an accident.” Antonio’s jaw tightens. “Some idiota ran a red light. Hit your car.”
Fragments come back to me. The dinner party. Meesha’s joke. That moment of panic when my eyes met Antonio’s. Running. Driving. The other car running the red light before everything went black.
“The other driver?” I don’t know why I ask.
Antonio’s expression darkens. “He didn’t make it.”
The room seems to tilt again, though I’m lying still. Someone died. A person who made a terrible mistake, and now they’re gone.
“Antonio followed you from the house,” Meesha says, lowering her phone. Her eyes are red. “He called 911. If he hadn’t been there...”
Why had he followed me? I’d left that dinner table specifically to get away from him, his stare and the secret threatening to suffocate me.
“My car?”
“Totaled.” Antonio runs a hand through his hair. “You’re lucky to be alive.”
I try to sit up and immediately abandon the attempt. Everything hurts. My ribs, my shoulder, my head. I lift my hand and find an IV line snaking from my wrist to a bag hanging beside the bed.
“The baby.” The words come out before I can stop them.
The room goes silent. Jessa’s hand freezes on my arm. Meesha’s phone slips in her grip. And Antonio goes completely still.
Before anyone can respond, the door opens, and a woman in a white coat enters, tablet in hand. She’s in her fifties with kind eyes and gray-streaked hair pulled back in a practical bun.
