Chapter 2

It was as though I had caught Aiden red-handed blatantly showing his favoritism toward Tracy and having double standards for us both. He was worried I would make a scene or turn it into something that could earn him criticism, so he reluctantly agreed to make a one-time exception for me.

However, I simply said, "I don't need it anymore."

I looked at him and reiterated flatly, without a hint of emotion in my voice, "I don't need it. You should just save for the people you deem worthy of your special care instead."

I then ignored the dark look on his face and took a cab straight home.

On the way back, I stopped by the property agency and canceled the lease on the apartment that Aiden and I were currently renting. We had initially planned to buy the place for our fifth anniversary.

"Ms. Wright, are you absolutely sure that you want to give up on this property?" the agent asked me. "You practically risked your life to secure this place back then…"

I stared at the bright, exquisite scale model on display at the agency.

This apartment was situated in the center of the complex with a north-south layout and excellent natural lighting. It also boasted the best floor plan, floor level, and view of the entire development. But most importantly, it was very close to the hospital where Aiden worked.

Back then, the owner initially refused to sell it to us, so I arranged a dinner meeting between them and us to negotiate the terms.

I kept refilling our alcoholic drinks and toasting them repeatedly to try and convince them to sell. It wasn't until the final drink caused me to suffer a gastric hemorrhage that the owner finally agreed to hand it over to me.

That day, I tried calling Aiden dozens of times, but he never answered.

When he finally answered my calls, he told me that he had been in the middle of a surgery and couldn't leave yet, so he told me to just get in a cab to come to the hospital myself.

I was so busy suppressing the pain in my stomach that I didn't think much about what he said. But later on, I accidentally came across Tracy's Instagram stories and realized that Aiden never had any surgeries scheduled that night. He had simply been keeping her company, organizing specimens in the hospital lab.

Even worse, what shocked me even more was discovering that he had secretly lent Tracy the entire sum of money we'd saved over five years for the apartment, claiming that it was for her mother's medical treatment.

When I learned about the truth, I broke down in tears and had a massive fight with him. In a fit of rage, I'd even told him that I was breaking up with him.

Aiden panicked and tried to explain himself to me, his eyes filled with desperation.

"Tracy lost her dad when she was young and grew up only with her mother. I'm her direct supervisor, so I can't just stand by and do nothing about it."

He even swore to me repeatedly, "She'll repay the money in due time. I promise that it won't delay our plans to buy this apartment at all."

He continued soothing me tenderly all night long, bowing his head to me in a show of vulnerability and accommodating to my every wish. He kissed my hands over and over, humbly pleading with me not to give up so easily on our five-year relationship.

I had softened up back then and chose to give him a second chance.

I snapped back to the present and nodded at the property agent. "Yeah, just cancel it. Just use our deposit as the penalty fee for our breach of contract."

I then went home alone and brought out the first-aid kit to treat the glass cuts from earlier by myself. By then, Aiden had also come home.

He didn't stay at the doorway to wait for me to take his bag or hand him his slippers as usual. Instead, he went straight over to the sink to wash his hands before approaching me and taking the antiseptic from my hands.

His movements were hurried, but it carried an air of unyielding authority.

It kind of reminded me of when I gave up my full-time job as a reporter back home to resolutely follow him here to Tevaville.

Back then, he only had eyes for me and would keep checking in on me almost every hour on the hour. If I accidentally scraped myself, he would immediately crouch over me to carefully bandage my wound and chide me gently.

"How could you be so careless? If you hurt yourself again the next time, I'm going to get really mad at you."

Aiden blew gently on my wounds. "Does it hurt?"

He began frantically explaining himself. "Tracy is an intern that the hospital director assigned to me. There's absolutely nothing going on between us.

"Also, the department is at a critical stage for promotions right now, and everyone in the hospital has their eyes on the director position. I can't afford to have gossip circulating about me mixing personal and professional matters because of you."

The last time, I braved the rain to deliver urgent documents to him and ended up getting soaked to the skin, which triggered a flare-up of an old illness. I was in so much pain that I mentioned his name and used it to get me admitted through the emergency fast-tracked channel.

However, he yelled at me sharply afterward, "Can't you just follow the rules? This is the hospital, not a place for you to demand special treatment or play favorites! You're hogging precious medical resources by using my position to cut in line! What about the other patients waiting in line? Is it fair to them?"

So, to avoid putting him in a difficult position, I endured the pain and waited in line for more than two hours, only to suffer an inflammatory flare-up that nearly sent me into fatal shock.

Yet, that very evening, I saw him personally escorting Tracy—who had nothing more than a mild cold—to the emergency room.

I was unable to hold back my anger and confronted him with the IV drip still stuck to the back of my hand.

He still used the same old line on me.

"Tracy is just my intern. I'm only looking out for her in a professional manner. Stop making a big deal out of everything."

I snapped back to the present once more.

"Here, take this," Aiden said, retrieving a red velvet box from his bag and tossing it at me. "It's from Cartier. You used to like this brand, didn't you? Consider this compensation for what happened."

His tone was dismissive as though he were just brushing off an unreasonable kid.

In the past, my anger would have soothed the moment I saw the Cartier box. I would have foolishly believed that I still had a place in his heart and believed his explanations wholeheartedly about keeping work and personal matters separate at the hospital.

I would have also believed him saying that he was just looking out for Tracy as her mentor.

But now, I just found it hilarious.

Half an hour earlier, I'd already come across Tracy's Instagram story, showing off a brilliant gold necklace from Cartier in its velvet box.