Chapter 3

Adrian’s arms stiffened around her for a moment. His lips had just begun to part when the ringing of his phone shattered the silence in the hospital room.

The doctor on the other end sounded frantic.

“Mr. Whitmore, Miss Sinclair is having a severe stress reaction. She’s gone up to the hospital roof!

“We’ve already called the police, but she’s extremely agitated. She heard you were at the hospital, too... and says she only wants to see you.”

Adrian’s arms tightened abruptly. His fingers dug into Evelyn’s shoulder so hard they nearly bruised her.

He pressed his lips together. Every muscle in his body was visibly tense, yet he forced two words through clenched teeth.

“Let her...”

Before he could finish, Evelyn reached out and snatched the phone from his hand.

“Tell Vanessa Sinclair that if she wants to die, she should get on with it.

“She’s supposedly having a stress reaction, and now she’s on the roof? What a joke.”

No one understood better than Evelyn what a genuine stress reaction looked like.

When Adrian proposed, he’d knelt before her and promised, “I’ll never let you lose in this life.”

And he’d kept his word. Until they married, he never attended gatherings where other women would be present.

He’d even set a special ringtone on his phone just for Evelyn. Whenever she needed him, he was available twenty-four hours a day.

Those days when they’d been deeply in love were etched into her memory.

That was why, every time she saw him getting intimate with Vanessa, his old promises would crawl out of her memories like ghosts and torment her all over again.

Countless times, she’d struggled to catch her breath before coming to her senses in the emergency room, her body covered in tubes.

She’d thought about ending her life more times than she could count. Only her hatred and unwillingness to accept defeat had dragged her back from the brink.

Vanessa’s little performance was laughably pathetic compared with what Evelyn had endured.

After hanging up, Evelyn tossed the phone back into Adrian’s arms.

He didn’t argue. He simply raised his head slowly and looked at her.

Behind his eyes, beneath the exhaustion of a man pushed to the verge of collapse, was something else.

A trace of lingering hatred.

He actually hated her.

Evelyn almost burst out laughing.

Adrian had been the one to betray their relationship first. He’d driven her to the point where the entire city called her a madwoman. What right did he have to hate her?

Nausea churned in her stomach. Meeting his gaze, she slowly curled her lips into a smile.

“Can’t keep up the act anymore? You’re right. I am a madwoman.

“So, Adrian, you’d better keep Vanessa hidden away. Otherwise...

“Who knows? Maybe one day, I’ll really kill her.”

The hospital room fell silent for a moment.

Their silence stood between them like a wall.

“Evelyn... you’ve misunderstood.”

He finally spoke, his voice painfully hoarse.

The hatred in his eyes receded, replaced by a restraint that looked almost agonizing.

“Things have been tense between you two. I was just afraid she’d get hurt, and you’d end up in a lot of trouble...”

Smack!

The sharp slap echoed through the room.

Evelyn stared at him with open contempt.

“After all this, you still refuse to tell the truth? Liar! Coward!”

Under her merciless gaze, Adrian’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

After a long silence, he closed his eyes briefly and said only, “I need to go calm her down first.”

The door closed softly behind him.

Evelyn leaned against the headboard, exhaustion washing over her like a rising tide.

The lingering effects of the anesthesia were fading, but an icy chill had begun to creep through her.

She took a deep breath and sent a message to Margaret Whitmore, Adrian’s mother.

“I can make sure your son becomes a widower without any pain.

“Does the compensation you promised me for the years of my youth still stand?”

The reply came almost instantly.

A screenshot of a bank transfer appeared, followed by a single line.

“Is this enough? Keep your word.”