Loving Ria

"Elise, can you help me stage a car accident? I'll be the one who dies in it."

Alison Wendell's voice was hoarse as she spoke into the phone to her best friend.

On the other end, Elise Leander's anxious voice came through. "What happened? What did that bastard Ivan do this time?"

Alison looked up. Her tears had long dried the moment she discovered Ivan's betrayal. Staring at the sunlight she hadn't seen in ten years, she said, "I want to leave. You're the only one I can rely on now."

Elise didn't hesitate. "In two weeks, my brother will be in the city next to yours for a contract negotiation. I'll have him take you away."

"Okay."

Just then, the bedroom door creaked open behind her. Alison quickly hung up.

A tall, broad figure came up from behind and wrapped his arms around her.

"Alison, I'm sorry. Something urgent came up at the office. I promise I'll go with you to the hospital next time," Ivan Hardman said gently. "Oh, right. How did the appointment go? What did Dr. Sterling say?"

His questions pulled Alison's thoughts back to that morning.

Ten years ago, she had been in a car accident while saving Ivan, leaving her blind.

In order to help her regain her sight, Ivan founded Hardman Medical Hospital and spared no expense. He invested billions to gather the world's top ophthalmologists and funded research into optic nerve regeneration.

For ten years, she went to the hospital every week. A total of five hundred and twenty-one times. Not once did a miracle occur.

She had long since stopped wanting to try. But Ivan knelt before her and begged. Then, after their child was born, he had yet another reason to persuade her.

"Don't you want to see our son with your own eyes? Please, Alison… just keep trying, for me… for him."

Even their son's birthday wish each year was for her to regain her vision.

It was her love for Ivan and her desire to finally see the face of her son that kept her going.

On the day her vision returned, she rushed to Ivan's office, heart soaring with joy. But what she saw instead was Ivan pressing a woman onto his desk, hands roaming, bodies entwined.

His ragged breathing.

Her moaning voice.

The sounds poured over her like ice water, instantly freezing every trace of joy in her heart.

So this was the "emergency meeting" he claimed he had to attend.

Clothes were scattered from the doorway to the desk, and papers were flung across the room. Everything screamed how desperate they were to touch each other.

The sight of them tangled on that desk stabbed her like a blade. In that moment, she wished she had never regained her sight.

Her body went numb. Her right hand clutched at her chest as if her heart might stop. Gasping for air, she turned and fled.

She never expected Ivan would have the audacity to bring his mistress home.

Even more shockingly, the housekeepers didn't bat an eye. They kept working as if nothing was wrong.

Which meant… this wasn't the first time.

What shattered her completely was seeing her son—her own flesh and blood—winking and silently greeting that woman as if it were perfectly normal.

Her son. The one she had wanted to take with her when she escaped. He already knew about this woman. He accepted her.

Everyone knew. Yet, everyone had been hiding it from her.

As all these truths came crashing down in a single day, Alison tore herself from Ivan's embrace in disgust.

She turned and saw the bruises, the kiss marks, the scratches covering the skin beneath his collar.

All those years she'd spent in darkness, believing his arms were warm, his shoulders dependable…

Filthy. It had all been so filthy.

Alison shook her head. "No progress," she lied.

She had already made up her mind to leave. There was no need for Ivan to know that her world was no longer dark.

She would disappear, for good, from both Ivan's and Josh's lives.

Father and son alike… She no longer wanted either of them.