Kyle told himself it was nothing more than a failure of discipline.
That was what he repeated as the image of the girl on the hill followed him through the day, threading itself into moments where it did not belong. He had built his life on control—on the ability to compartmentalize, to lock away anything unnecessary. Curiosity was indulgence. Distraction was weakness.
And yet, she lingered.
The glass walls of Harrington Global reflected his own image back at him—sharp suit, unreadable expression, a man who did not afford himself hesitation. The boardroom filled with familiar voices, numbers flowing across the screen, projections stacked neatly into a future he had designed himself.
"Kyle?"
He looked up.
The head of legal paused mid-sentence. "Your thoughts?"
A fraction of a second passed too long.
"Proceed," Kyle said smoothly, but the room had noticed. He hated that. His mind replayed the forest instead of financial forecasts—the quiet slope of the hill, the stone building watching from above, and her stillness against it.
By the time the meeting ended, irritation coiled tightly in his chest.
This was exactly why he would not dig into her.
Whatever she was, whoever she was, she belonged to a world that had nothing to do with him. People like Kyle Harrington did not chase ghosts standing outside forgotten hospitals. He had done enough damage letting emotions exist unchecked.
So he made a decision.
He would keep running the trail.
Nothing more.
For the next three mornings, he followed the same routine. Dawn. Shoes. Woods. The trail became familiar, predictable. He did not look toward the hill. He did not slow his pace. If he passed the hospital, he treated it like scenery—unimportant, distant, irrelevant.
It almost worked.
Until the fourth morning.
The siren shattered the quiet.
Kyle slowed instinctively, breath catching as red and white lights cut through the trees ahead. An ambulance idled near the base of the hill, its presence violent against the stillness of the forest. Orderlies moved with quiet urgency, their voices low but firm.
His feet stopped moving.
They guided a woman down the slope.
She wore a hospital-issued jacket, too thin for the morning chill, her arms folded tightly across her chest. Her dark hair was pulled back loosely, strands slipping free as she walked. She looked smaller than she had on the hill. Fragile in a way she hadn't seemed before.
And then she turned her head.
Kyle's chest constricted.
He knew that face.
The recognition hit him not as a thought, but as a memory—sharp, intrusive, unavoidable.
White corridors. Antiseptic air. Pain radiating through his ribs as if his body were breaking all over again. And her.
She had stood at his bedside, calm amid chaos, voice steady when his hands shook too badly to hold a glass of water.
"You're not alone," she had told him quietly. "I've got you."
She had worked the night shift at St. Vincent's Private Hospital. He remembered that now. The way she had spoken his name like it wasn't heavy with expectation or tragedy. Just a name. Just a person.
Katie.
No—Kate.
The orderlies helped her onto the stretcher. She didn't resist. She didn't speak. Her eyes drifted briefly across the trees—and for one suspended moment, Kyle felt as though she was looking straight at him.
The ambulance doors closed.
The siren faded.
Kyle stood there long after it disappeared, his pulse uneven, his mind spiraling with a realization he hadn't prepared for.
She wasn't visiting the hospital.
She was being admitted.
Back at the office, the city felt wrong—too loud, too sharp, too indifferent. Kyle moved through the building like a man underwater, his thoughts fractured. By mid-morning, he abandoned the pretense of work altogether.
"Emily," he said as he stopped at his secretary's desk.
"Yes, Mr. Harrington?"
"Close my door. Please."
Minutes later, he stood behind his desk, hands braced against its polished surface. He didn't like this feeling—this pull toward something unfinished, something deeply human.
"I need you to look into someone," he said finally.
Emily's fingers hovered over her keyboard. "Details?"
"Her name is Kate. She used to work as a nurse at St. Vincent's Private Hospital." His jaw tightened. "She's currently a patient at Hollowridge Mental Health Institute."
Emily looked up briefly, surprised, then nodded. "Understood."
"I want to know why," Kyle said. "What happened. How long she's been there. Who admitted her."
A pause.
"Is there a personal connection?" Emily asked carefully.
Kyle turned toward the window, the forest far beyond the city he ruled.
"Yes," he said quietly. "There is."
And as Emily began to dig into Kate's life, Kyle realized something unsettling—
He hadn't run into her by accident.
And whatever had broken her enough to bring her here was about to unravel him too.