My Fiancé Replaced Me, His Alpha Rival Chose Me

The last thing I saw before the dark swallowed me was Noah on his knees beside my blood, screaming my name.

The first thing I heard when I woke was a nurse saying, "Five years, honey. You've been gone five years."

Five years earlier, a wildfire had torn through Cedar Ridge, a small town in northern Washington. Noah Harrington and I had just graduated from Westbridge University's finance program. We were broke and stubborn, and we were in love. We sponsored a sixteen-year-old fire survivor named Ava Morales.

I found her a host family. I paid her tuition. I bought her winter coats and school shoes.

"When you graduate high school," I promised her, "I'll help you apply to college. Any school you want."

Noah and I had been together seven years by then. We started out as rivals who fought over every curve in Professor Lindqvist's class. Then we became partners and built Harrington Capital out of a crummy apartment with one shared desk, cold pizza, and coffee that tasted like burnt pennies.

When he proposed, he held my hand so tight it hurt.

"One day, we'll have everything we dreamed of. Together."

On our wedding day, Ava burst through the church doors.

"Noah, please don't do this!" She grabbed his arm, sobbing. "You're the only one who cares about me. If you marry her, I'll lose you!"

I stepped down from the altar. "Ava, sweetheart, nobody's leaving you—"

She jerked away from me and stumbled into the lighting rig beside the stage. The metal frame groaned and tipped toward Noah.

I shoved him out of the way.

Then everything went black.

---

Waking up turned out to be the easy part.

Learning to talk again took weeks. Walking took months. Some memories still flickered like a bad signal. My legs shook after twenty steps.

On the day of my discharge evaluation, Dr. Okonkwo called Noah four times before he finally showed up.

He stopped dead in the doorway.

The charcoal suit fit him like it was sewn on. Gold-rimmed glasses sat on his nose. The ratty gray hoodie he used to live in was gone. So was the boy who wore it.

I pushed myself upright against the pillows and smiled.

"Noah. It's been a while."

His eyes went red. He crossed the room in three strides and grabbed my hand.

"Isa…" His voice cracked. "You're really here."

"I'm really here." I squeezed back as hard as my weak fingers allowed. "So tell me. How have you been? How's the company? Did you ever learn to cook, or—"

The door swung open.

A young woman in a cream-colored mini skirt walked in. Her makeup was flawless. Her heels were expensive. She dropped to her knees beside my bed.

"Isabella, I'm so sorry." Tears spilled down her cheeks. "What happened was my fault."

I blinked at her. It took a full second to place that face.

"Ava?"

The scared, skinny sixteen-year-old was gone. This woman was twenty-one, polished, and she glanced at Noah the way you glance at someone whose moods you know by heart.

I opened my mouth to answer her.

Noah got there first. He frowned and hauled her up by the elbow.

"Ava, get up. You're making a scene."

Then he turned to me, easy and sure, like he was reading from a script. "Isa knows you didn't mean for anyone to get hurt."

My smile stiffened.

He hadn't asked me. Not once. He'd simply decided I forgave her.

Ava gazed up at him with wet eyes. Noah looked away, awkward. A beat later, he shrugged off his suit jacket and draped it over her shoulders.

"It's cold out. Don't get sick again."

*Again.*

I watched his hands smooth the collar flat on her shoulder. They'd done that a hundred times, maybe more. I could tell.

I sat in my hospital bed feeling like a stranger who had wandered into someone else's living room.

---

Discharge paperwork took an hour. Noah spent most of it on the phone.

"No, tell Fenwick the term sheet stands." He covered the receiver and snapped at Ava. "You sent the wrong deck to Morrison. Again."

"I already fixed it." She handed him a folder without looking up. "And your three o'clock got moved to two-thirty. I put it in your calendar."

"Fine."

They moved around each other like a well-oiled machine. I signed my name with a shaky pen and nobody noticed.

In the parking garage, a black Mercedes chirped as it unlocked.

"What happened to the Honda?" I asked.

Ava slid into the passenger seat, buckled her seatbelt, and checked her lipstick in the mirror.

Noah froze, halfway to the driver's door. He looked at me standing alone on the concrete, then at Ava in the front seat.

"Oh—God, Isa, sorry." He hurried over and pulled open the back door. "The Honda died years ago. This one's better. Safer."

"Sure," I said.

I climbed in slowly. My knees protested.

A pink fuzzy charm dangled from the rearview mirror. The air smelled like vanilla and something floral. It wasn't my perfume. I'd never worn perfume in my life.

Five years ago, Noah used to throw his gym bag in the back so the front seat would always be clear for me.

"Your seat," he'd say. "Always."

I stared at the back of Ava's head the whole ride.

---

He pulled up outside the townhouse we'd bought the spring before our wedding.

"Isa, I'm so sorry." He twisted around in his seat. "We've got a major investor meeting. I have to be there. Go inside, rest, and I'll call you tonight. Okay?"

"Okay."

Ava rolled down her window and waved, sweet as a kid at a parade. "Feel better, Isabella!"

They drove off.

My key still worked.

Nothing had changed. The blue couch. The crooked curtains I never fixed. Our engagement photos lined up on the mantel. In the study, the calendar on the wall was still open to the day before our wedding. My handwriting circled the date: *Last day as Isabella Reed!*

I laughed out loud. It came out wrong, too high and too thin.

He'd kept it. All of it. He must have been too heartbroken to touch a single thing.

Then I opened the bedroom closet.

My dresses hung in a neat row. His side was empty. Not one shirt. Not one tie.

The bathroom had no razor. The fridge held a box of baking soda and nothing else. The milk carton in the door had expired four years ago.

Nobody lived here.

He hadn't saved this place as a shrine.

He'd just walked away from it.

---

At 2 a.m., the metal frame came down on me again.

I jolted awake, gasping, and reached across the bed for Noah.

Cold sheets.

My hands trembled as I dialed. I still knew the number by heart. Seven years of it.

It rang. And rang.

Finally, a click.

"Isa?" His voice was thick with sleep. "What's wrong?"

Behind him, sheets rustled. Someone shifted and sighed softly.

A woman.

I curled my fingers around the phone until my knuckles ached.

"Noah," I whispered. "Where are you?"

"Mm. I'm home."

I stared into the black, empty bedroom we had picked out together. The tears came hot and fast, and I didn't wipe them away.

"Which home, Noah?"

The line went dead quiet.

Then, in the background, a soft female voice murmured, "Noah? Who is it?"