She Regretted It When I Got Engaged

For five years, Leif has loved Odessa Wilkerson in secret, hidden from the world at her insistence. When he mistakes her fireworks display for a romantic surprise and buys a ring to propose, he instead finds her kissing another man beneath the lights. A drone she was operating strikes him, and he falls from the mountaintop.

Waking in the hospital, Leif hears Odessa tell him she is merely his neighbor. The truth settles over him: to her, he was never more than a shadow. He calls his older sister, Leah, and agrees to the arranged marriage he once refused, planning to sell the house they shared and leave.

Odessa, unaware he remembers everything, keeps up her charade and tries to draw him back, while Leif answers her with cold distance, determined to walk away.