Stigma

"Stop pretending to be unconscious, Katherine. Do you still want to marry me? If you don't apologize to Emily, then I'll never marry you."

At the sound of a man's voice, Katherine Holt pressed a hand to her pounding head and fought to open her eyes.

She looked toward the speaker—Preston Barnes, who was standing beside the bed.

A deep frown sat on his face, impatience plain in his eyes. Emily Wilson leaned against him, quiet and fragile-looking.

It took Katherine a long moment to process what had happened.

So she was still alive.

A few hours earlier, she and Emily had been in a car accident.

She had called out to Preston for help. Yet he had rushed to save Emily instead, the daughter of the Holt family's housekeeper.

The truck driver had hit the brakes hard, and the vehicle came to a sharp stop.

Katherine had been dragged beneath it, her leg trapped under the heavy bumper. The bone snapped the instant the weight crushed down on it.

Pain tore through her body. Cold sweat covered her skin as she struggled to breathe and looked through the narrow space beneath the truck.

She saw Preston holding Emily in his arms, worry written all over his face as he checked her injuries.

Emily had only twisted her ankle and gotten a few minor cuts.

"Call an ambulance..." Katherine forced the words out with the last bit of strength she had.

However, no one answered her.

A few moments later, the sound of an ambulance siren rushed closer, and several paramedics climbed out with a stretcher.

Preston stayed close beside Emily as he helped her into the ambulance. Then he told the paramedics to leave with them.

Katherine was left beneath the truck.

If a passerby hadn't stopped to call for help, she would've bled out on the roadside long before the police and firefighters arrived to pull her free.

From her hospital bed, Katherine looked at Preston and Emily, both perfectly fine, and felt her heart turn cold.

After her father's accidental death, her mother couldn't bear the emptiness in the house. She'd taken in three boys from an orphanage—Preston, Carson Howard, and Tyler Clark—and raised them as her own.

Her mother had also decided that one of the three would eventually marry Katherine and inherit the Holt family's business with her.

As absurd as it sounded, she, the Holt family's heiress, mattered less to the three than the daughter of the housekeeper.

Katherine said nothing and only looked at him. For some reason, her silence irritated Preston.

Normally, the second he showed even a little anger, Katherine would've already been flustered, clinging to his arm while apologizing with tears in her eyes.

But today, she stayed completely quiet.

Had the accident scared her that badly?

In his eyes, it had only been a car accident. The truck hadn't even run her over completely. He didn't think it was serious at all.

"Katherine, enough already," Preston snapped. "You're awake, aren't you? Apologize to Emily right now!"