Ice spread through my chest, but I kept my face blank. "I don't know any college students. Why would a stranger agree to give me her kidney?"
Benedict smiled warmly. "She's a very kind girl."
"She told me her mother died of kidney disease years ago. She said she couldn't bear to watch anyone else go through that kind of pain."
"The moment she found out she was a match for you, she volunteered."
A lie. Every word of it.
But when he talked about her—that softness in his eyes, the way his gaze turned tender—that was real.
I knew that look. I knew it intimately.
It was the same look he'd had when he'd traveled a thousand miles just to see me for one day.
The same look when I'd been sick, and he'd stayed awake at my bedside for three nights straight.
The same look on our wedding day, when he'd dropped to one knee and made his vows.
He used to look at me that way.
When I didn't respond, Benedict's voice softened further. "Don't be scared, sweetheart."
"I'll perform the surgery myself."
"As long as I'm here, nothing bad will happen to you."
Hearing those words, I couldn't help but remember what he'd said years ago, the day he'd decided to go into medicine: