Dead Before "I Do": His Ultimate Regret

One week before our wedding, Eden pinned my car against the bridge guardrail. She threw her modded Hummer into reverse and slammed into my sedan at highway speeds.

She rammed me eighteen times.Paramedics dragged me from the mangled steel cage just as Alistair arrived. He ignored my crushed car and sprinted straight for the Hummer.

The massive truck only lost its bumper.

He yanked the door open and pulled a shaking Eden into his arms."Alistair, your fiancée needs immediate transport." The medic's voice shook. "Her vitals plummet by the second." Alistair blocked my stretcher.

He barely glanced at my ruined body.Ice dripped from his words. "Not a drop of blood on her. Superficial." "The storm gives Eden severe panic attacks. Thunder triggers her.

Take Eden to the ER first." He abandoned me.I curled into myself and hooked weak fingers into Alistair's coat.He frowned, peeled my fingers off, and grabbed my hand. "Eden didn't hit you on purpose.

A medical episode blinds her right now. You hold a medical license, Sloane. Show some empathy for a patient." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a liability waiver.

He wrapped his warm fingers around my freezing ones, shoved a pen into my grip, and made me sign. "Another rig arrives in five minutes.

Just hold on." He let go.I didn't make it to the next ambulance. Chapter 1 I opened my eyes, only to find myself hovering above the mangled wreckage.

Freezing rain battered my abandoned corpse on the asphalt. I wrapped my arms around my chest to ward off the chill, but my hands phased right through my ribcage.

A bitter smile touched my lips. I had already died. Alistair loved throwing my profession in my face. You hold a medical license, Sloane. Yes. I do.

So I knew exactly what eighteen highspeed vehicular impacts did to a human body. Eden never planned to let me walk away from this bridge.

Yet Alistair, the absolute authority in trauma surgery at River City Hospital, diagnosed me with a single, fleeting glance. Superficial. I never should have held out hope.

Whenever Eden entered the equation, everything else ceased to exist. Even my life. Sirens wailed in the distance, the sound slicing through the storm.

A second ambulance screeched to a halt as paramedics vaulted out the back doors and sprinted through the deluge toward my mangled remains.

I floated above them, forced to watch as they scooped up my limp, shattered body and hauled me onto the gurney. "Give her a shot of epi!" the lead medic roared over the thunder.

The defibrillator whined and jolted my chest. Once. Twice. The monitor flatlined. "Get PD to clear the intersection!

Tell General Hospital to prep Trauma One right now!" he screamed into his radio. "We're going to lose her if we don't move!" A young nurse slammed the dispatch phone back onto its receiver, her eyes burning red. "They rejected the transfer." "What?" "Three times!" She struck her fist against the metal wall. "Isn't Dr.

Sloane supposed to be Dr. Sterling's fiancée?

How could he hijack the entire trauma floor and all our resources for a woman without a single damn scratch!" A sob tore out of her throat. "Sloane won't make it." Dead silence swallowed the back of the ambulance.

Only the steady hum of the flatline remained. Every medic in this city knew the unspoken rule at Alistair’s hospital. The topfloor VIP suite always stayed empty. Waiting for Eden.

Eden was his late wife's younger sister. A horrific storm had claimed Genevieve's life years ago, and she had taken brutal, lethal abuse to shield Eden.

The trauma shattered Eden’s mind, leaving her with crippling astraphobia. Every thunderstorm triggered a violent psychotic break.

And only Alistair possessed the magic touch to pull her back from the edge. Chapter 2 Ten times. He abandoned me at the courthouse ten different times.

And every single time, Eden conveniently had an episode. I finally snapped. "A drizzle triggers her?

A distant rumble of thunder triggers her?" I had screamed at him. "Does she really just see you as her sister's husband?" When his palm struck my cheek, the sound was sharp.

Alistair froze.

He looked away, his jaw tightening. "If you can't tolerate Eden," his voice was absolutely hollow, "we don't have to get married." I looked at him, disbelief washing over me.

It felt like a jagged knife twisting right through my chest. I tipped my head back and swallowed hard against the tight knot in my throat, but the tears spilled over anyway.

On the third day of his silent treatment, I gave in. I caved. I had prepared a surprise for him.

I had driven toward the hospital to surprise him, but instead, Eden had weaponized her Hummer and crushed me to death. My spirit flickered. I forgot something. Something crucial.

But an invisible tether yanked me forward, drifting straight through the hospital walls, right back to Alistair. The penthouse VIP suite overflowed with white coats. "Dr.

Sterling, the scans are clear. Miss Eden is fine," the attending specialists promised repeatedly.

Eden ignored the room full of elite specialists, burrowing deeper into Alistair's chest.

She shook like a leaf, her eyes bloodshot. "Alistair," she whimpered, her voice trembling. "The rain is so loud. Bad people are coming.

I'm scared…" Alistair opened his mouth to soothe her just as his phone buzzed. The caller ID flashed. It was my department.

Eden’s eyes snapped to the screen, and a highpitched shriek ripped from her throat. She snatched his phone and hurled it against the marble floor.

The screen spiderwebbed into a hundred pieces. "Bad person!" She thrashed wildly in his grip. "Sloane is a bad person! She wants to kill me!

Save me, Alistair, save me!" Alistair didn't even glance at his ruined phone. He wrapped his arms around her thrashing body, heartache softening his features. "I've got you, Eden.

Don't be scared," he murmured into her hair. "Sloane isn't coming here.

I won't let the bad person hurt you." She buried her face into his neck, her arms locking around him in a suffocating grip.

A manic giggle slipped through her sobs. "You can't leave me. You stay with me forever. You belong to me." Her voice dropped to a venomous hiss. "Sloane steals you. She's bad.

She needs to die…" "Okay. She's bad.

She can die." Alistair rubbed soothing circles onto her back, keeping the steady rhythm going until her manic breathing slowed and she fell into a deep sleep.

He stepped out into the hallway and headed to his office.

Pulling the bricked phone from his pocket, he dragged a weary hand over his face and reached for his desk phone to dial the internal line for my department. The door burst open.

A scrub nurse hurried in. "Dr. Sterling! Mass casualty trauma just rolled in. MVA. The patient's internal organs are pulverized.

They need you in OR One immediately." Alistair bolted out of his chair. Then, he froze. "What's the weather forecast for today?" he demanded. The nurse blinked, totally thrown off.

She checked her phone. "Heavy rain all day. A twoday storm warning." Alistair nodded slowly and sank back into his leather chair. "Page Dr. Russell. Tell him to scrub in.

I have a critical patient here.

I can't leave." His tone brooked no argument. "Cancel all my consults for the next fortyeight hours." The nurse stared at him. "But doctor… you're the only surgeon on staff who has successfully pulled off a reconstruction this complex." His eyes darkened. "Will this entire hospital collapse if I take a day off?" He slammed his palm flat on the desk. "Get out.

Unless Eden's condition deteriorates, do not bother me. With anything." She opened her mouth to argue, but the absolute ice in his glare shut her down.

She spun on her heel and fled. I hovered in the dark corner of his office. My lungs no longer existed, but they burned. A crushing pressure caved in my phantom ribs.

A hot, thick drop slid from the corner of my eye. It looked like blood, but it felt like tears.

Chapter 3 Trapped inside that mangled steel cage, one thought echoed in my fading mind. Alistair. You finally got your wish. We are never getting married.

For the next two days, Alistair barely left Eden’s side, catering to her every whim.

But in the dead of night, he pulled his shattered phone from his pocket and dragged his thumb across the black screen. Nothing. I drifted beside him.

I knew exactly what he was thinking. My pathetic obsession built this monster. I never let two days pass without contacting him.

Even after our most explosive fights, I always crawled back, apologizing within hours. The silence suffocated him. He hated losing control. A dull ache throbbed behind his temples.

He yanked his desk drawer open, his fingers blindly searching for the custom herbal tincture I'd spent months learning to brew just to manage his chronic migraines.

He found empty air.

Slamming his fist onto the intercom button, he snapped, "Did anyone page me?" "You canceled all appointments, Doctor," the nurse replied. "Nobody asked for you." He gave the order himself.

Yet, a sudden, suffocating weight crushed his chest. He slammed the receiver down, shoved the dead cell phone back into the drawer, and kicked it shut.

He stalked past the nurses' station, stopped abruptly, snatched a clinical tablet from the counter, and fired off a text to my number. "Sloane, drop the dramatic act.

Your car took a minor hit. Not a single drop of blood. Stop playing the victim.

If you want to play games, don't ever contact me again." I hovered inches away, a hollow, broken laugh escaping my lips. My pathetic, toxic devotion only fed his god complex.

It made him utterly convinced I would never survive without him. This time, he got it right. I would never call him again.

The storm finally broke that afternoon as sunlight sliced through the blinds.

Eden’s manufactured panic vanished, and she widened her eyes into perfect, teary pools of guilt. "Alistair, I swear I blacked out," she whimpered, her voice trembling. "I didn't mean to hit Sloane.

Please let me apologize to her. I'll do anything to fix this." Alistair stared blankly at the wall. "Don't worry about it. The wreck looked bad, but she didn't even bleed.

She probably just bruised. She understands it was a medical episode." "But… what if she calls the cops?" Eden bit her trembling lip.

Alistair cracked a soft smile and stroked her hair. "I already forced her to sign a liability waiver. You are completely untouchable." Eden beamed and leaned into his touch.

She dragged her soft cheek against his knuckles, her eyes filled with deep reliance. "I knew I was always your priority." The air in the room suddenly thickened.

Alistair met her burning, heavy gaze, the raw, feverish heat in her eyes scorching his skin.

He flinched, snatching his hand back with a sharp intake of air. "Eden, Sloane and I get married next week," he rasped, taking a harsh step back. "Stop calling me your brotherinlaw.

We are just family now. Call me Alistair. Sloane will be your sister. We will look after you together." Eden’s jaw locked, a flash of pure, venomous rage darkening her eyes.

A second later, she blinked, and the perfect, compliant smile returned as she nodded eagerly.

Chapter 4 Alistair stepped out of the VIP suite, passing two nurses gossiping by the med cart who suddenly hushed their voices. "Dr.

Sterling treats his fiancée like royalty," one whispered loudly. "She gets a little spooked, and he commandeers the entire hospital. Such a power couple." "Right?

Meanwhile, that car crash victim from two days ago came in with pulverized organs." The second nurse shook her head. "Nobody even showed up to sign the body release forms.

Some people just get all the luck." Alistair stopped dead in his tracks.

A sudden, violent erratic rhythm hammered against his ribs. "The woman in that room is not my fiancée," he snapped. He hesitated.

His jaw clenched tightly. "My fiancée is a general surgeon. Dr. Sloane." Dead silence swallowed the sterile corridor. He blinked, stunned by his own admission.

He operated like a god among men, never lowering himself to explain his personal life. His silence had bred vicious rumors.

Besides a few close colleagues, the entire staff had assumed I played the role of a pathetic, clingy stalker he simply couldn't shake. His fangirls made my life hell.

They accidentally spilled scalding coffee down my scrubs, and they cornered me in empty restrooms and dumped buckets of freezing, filthy mop water over the stall doors.

They stood there and laughed at my hysterical screams, calling me a delusional gutter rat chasing a man completely out of my league.

I begged him a thousand times to just set the record straight, but he always rolled his eyes and brushed me off. "Words cannot physically harm you, Sloane.

Drop the victim act if you want to survive in medicine." Yet, a blunt intern once muttered that Eden’s panic attacks looked faked, and that intern vanished from the River City medical network the very next morning.

He possessed the power to protect. I just never made the cut. I pressed my translucent, trembling fingers against my hollow sternum. A fractured, silent laugh tore from my throat.

How beautifully tragic. I bled dry chasing that validation while alive, and now, as a ghost, he hands it out for free. Alistair ignored the slackjawed nurses.

He shoved down the rising panic in his throat and stalked down the corridor, needing to verify something immediately. He ran straight into Dr.

Russell right outside his office door. "Alistair, sprinting down the hall?" Russell raised a thick eyebrow. "Heading down to check on Sloane?" Alistair froze, the crushing weight on his chest instantly evaporating at the sound of my name.

His features hardened back into professional ice. "You took her case?" Russell nodded slowly and let out a long, heavy sigh. "It took far too long.

You need to go deal with the aftermath immediately." "Deal with what? Her massive ego?" Alistair scoffed. "I indulge her toxic behavior too much.

A minor fender bender doesn't require this circus.

Eden survived without a scratch, yet Sloane acts like a dying martyr." He sneered. "She made Eden cry out of sheer guilt, and now she sends you here as a flying monkey?" Russell stared at him, utterly dumbfounded, as the realization of Alistair’s delusion finally clicked.

Rage ignited in Russell's eyes. He grabbed two fistfuls of Alistair's pristine white coat and shoved him hard against the wall. "I always thought you just lacked social skills.

I assumed you still possessed a basic moral compass." Russell spat the words into his face. "I never realized you operate as a complete sociopath.

You truly deserve to rot in hell, Alistair.

Sloane giving her heart to a monster like you cemented her tragic fate." "Do you have any idea what actually happened out there on that bridge?

Sloane already—" Chapter 5 Alistair impatiently shoved Russell's hands away. "Already what?

Don't tell me you're about to say she's already dead." Russell froze, the words dying on his tongue.

A cold, mocking smirk twisted Alistair's lips, and he smoothed his rumpled collar with deliberate slowness. "If she wants to play dead to trigger Eden's trauma for attention, then I genuinely hope she gets her wish." He adjusted his tie, his absolute entitlement radiating off him. "Tell her actions have consequences.

If she doesn't drag herself to Eden's room and apologize by tomorrow morning, the wedding is off." He spun on his heel, clutching his broken phone, and stalked away.

Russell stared after him, his face pale with fury. "Good.

It should be off," he muttered into the empty hall. "A monster like you never deserved a girl like Sloane." Alistair sped to a local tech repair shop.

He paid triple the price to have it fixed in an hour. "Sloane…" He pushed open the door to our shared condo.

The air hung stale and cold with no smell of dinner and no soft voice welcoming him home. A sick feeling dropped into the pit of his stomach.

He didn't even bother kicking off his shoes. He bolted straight for the master bedroom and threw the closet doors open.

All my clothes still hung there, and my skincare routine still sat untouched on the vanity.

His knees gave out, and he sank onto the hardwood floor, letting out a long, ragged exhale. A barely noticeable, confident smile touched the corner of his mouth. I knew that look.

It was the absolute certainty that he owned my soul, firmly believing my toxic attachment would never let me walk out that door.

He pulled out his freshly repaired phone and typed out a text, his thumb striking the screen like he was doing me a favor. "Sloane, you're the one playing dead.

Come home right now, apologize properly, and I'll forgive you." Nothing. His jaw tightened, and he fired off another. "Thirty minutes.

If you don't reply, the wedding is permanently canceled." Thirty minutes bled into an hour. The silence in the condo grew suffocating, thick and heavy like a wet wool blanket.

Just when I thought his patience had finally run out, he suddenly stood up. He marched into the kitchen and yanked the fridge open.

Half an hour later, he plated three of my favorite dishes, snapped a photo, and hit send. "I already explained that Eden had a severe panic attack. That's why I triaged her first.

You barely got bumped, but she was crying hysterically. Can you act like an adult and prioritize?" He took a deep breath, typing out his grand concession. "Fine.

I won't force you to apologize to her this time. But do not pull this stunt again. We are getting married soon. Stop acting like a child.

Come home, eat dinner, and we will go get the marriage license." The second the message sent, his screen lit up with an incoming call.

Eden’s bloodcurdling screams pierced the speaker. "Alistair! Sloane is trying to kill me! Get away! Help!

Ahhhh!" Alistair sprinted back to the hospital and burst into the VIP suite.

The room looked like a warzone, and on the nightstand, a Bluetooth speaker looped a track of deafening thunderstorm white noise.

Chapter 6 Eden curled into a tight ball in the corner of the room. She shrieked like a banshee whenever a nurse stepped too close.

Alistair sprinted across the suite and scooped her into his chest. "I'm here, Eden. I've got you." Tears streamed down her pale, blotchy face. "Sloane called me a homewrecker!

She said Genevieve got exactly what she deserved!

She sent me a video…" Eden choked on a sob, her fingers digging into Alistair's shirt. "She said if I didn't back off, she'd make sure I died screaming just like my sister!

Alistair, I'm terrified. Am I a homewrecker? Are you going to abandon me too?" I stared at Eden, completely paralyzed by shock. Her flawless, tearful act was Oscarworthy.

She had crushed my body into scrap metal, and now she stood over my grave and poured acid on my name.

I will never forget her eyes through the cracked windshield right before she floored the gas. No panic. No manic episode. Just cold, venomous calculation. She wanted me dead.

I whipped my head toward Alistair.

I prayed three years of history counted for something, that even if he never prioritized me, he knew my character and knew I could never say those vile things.

But I forgot the golden rule. When Eden entered the room, my worth dropped to absolute zero.

Alistair moved with terrifying calm, reaching over and slamming his hand on the speaker to kill the thunderstorm track.

His dark eyes locked onto my phone number on the screen, and the temperature in the room plummeted.

He carried Eden to the hospital bed and brushed the wet hair out of her face. "You aren't the homewrecker, Eden," he murmured, his voice softer than I had ever heard it. "Sloane is." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a velvet box.

Inside sat the bespoke diamond engagement ring. The one we carefully selected together. The one meant for my finger in exactly three days.

He slid it onto Eden’s left ring finger without a single second of hesitation. "From now on, Eden is my bride." Eden bit her lip, feigning panic. "But Sloane is your fiancée.

She's waiting to marry you.

If I wear her ring… won't she hate me even more?" "Does she even deserve it?" Alistair sneered. "If she has the nerve to weaponize your sister's trauma and threaten you, she can pay the price.

The wedding is off.

And I will personally blackball her from the medical field. "A vindictive parasite like her has no right wearing a white coat." He snatched his phone, his thumbs flying across the keyboard to fire off an ultimatum. "Five minutes.

Drag yourself here and beg Eden on your knees for forgiveness." The screen remained blank with no reply. Alistair let out a dark, humorless laugh as his patience finally snapped.

He always despised nepotism and hated throwing his family's corporate weight around, but for Eden, he crossed the line.

Using his family's billions to pull strings behind closed doors, he had the medical board suspend my surgical license indefinitely, blacklisting my name across the entire state.

My phantom throat sealed shut. A decade of my life. Countless sleepless nights. The blood, the sweat, the absolute sheer will I poured into the career I loved more than anything.

Gone. Burned to ash with a single keystroke. Eden finally broke into a radiant smile, snuggling deep into his chest. "I knew I was always your priority." Alistair didn't say a word.

His knuckles turned white as he gripped his phone, his face looking like thunder as he glared at the blank chat screen.

He fully believed this ultimate threat would force my hand and break me. He didn't know the truth. I could never come back.

Chapter 7 I stared at my translucent fingertips dissolving into the sterile hospital air. I tried to laugh. Instead, my tears fell in heavy, silent drops.

I poured my entire soul into loving him, and it cost my life, my reputation, and my dignity. Now, I existed as a chained phantom, incapable of even floating away from his side.

What an absolute joke. The VIP suite erupted into sickening applause. Everyone in the room cheered, showering the new, twisted couple with congratulations.

Then, a figure shoved through the crowd. A violent slap cracked across Alistair’s jaw, the sound silencing the entire room. "Sloane is already dead!

Why won't you just let her rest!" Alistair's head snapped to the side. A highpitched ringing pierced his ears as he slowly turned back.

He met the bloodshot, griefstricken eyes of Josephine