The first thing she remembered was his voice.

It wasn't the sterile beeping of the machines, or the bright hospital lights pressing against her eyelids. It wasn't the antiseptic smell, or the dull ache blooming behind her temples.

It was a name.

Dylan.

The sound of it circled her mind like an old song she couldn't shake. She tried to open her mouth, to ask for him, but the syllables tangled in her throat.

When her lashes finally fluttered open, she saw a stranger standing by the bed. Tall, broad-shouldered. A suit instead of scrubs. Eyes dark as polished glass.

"Candice," he murmured, brushing a hand across her cheek. "Thank God you're awake."

His touch was careful, almost tender. But there was nothing gentle in the way he watched her—nothing familiar, either.

She swallowed, her pulse skittering.

"I—" she rasped. "I don't...know you."

The stranger's jaw tightened. A flicker of something unreadable passed across his face.

"You will," he said quietly.

And in that moment, she knew two things with absolute certainty.

The man she loved was nowhere in this room.
And she had just woken up in someone else's life.