Chapter 18

Tyler glared at Sebastian as his eyes darkened. "Even if I divorced Vicky, do you think you can marry her, a high-born woman who has fallen off her pedestal and has married once before?" Tyler sneered sarcastically. "If only you were persistent, I wouldn't have been the one who married Vicky back then."

Sebastian froze.

He was right. The moment the Shaw family fell, Vicky was no longer considered a match for the Mills family.

His family had always been snobbish, and before the Shaw family fell, Missus Mills had fawned over them and wished that her son could marry Vicky. Once the Shaw family met their downfall, however, Missus Mills instantly distanced herself and forbade Sebastian from contacting Vicky by sending him overseas despite his protest.

More precisely, Sebastian had not protested enough. Had he insisted on staying, no one could have forced him to leave. However, rumors that Vicky had slept with Tyler started circulating just as he fought his family for a chance to be with Vicky. Disheartened, he agreed to his mother's arrangement and left the country.

Tyler took one last glance at Sebastian, who was frozen in place, and went into one of the rooms where he saw him walk out of.

...

Vicky was half asleep when she heard the sound of footsteps approaching, but she decided to ignore it as she was too exhausted to react.

At first, she had thought that Sebastian had returned with the doctor. However, the person who walked in said nothing at all.

Knowing that she could not survive another 'accident', she struggled to open her eyes. Tyler's slender yet towering figure came into sight.

She looked up dazedly and instantly sobered up when her eyes landed on his elegant features.

"Why are you here, Mister Hart?" she said, her voice weak. "Oh, I see. You're here to check if I'm dead, aren't you? Since we can't get married, being widowed...seems like a good alternative."

He narrowed his eyes coldly. "Vicky Shaw!"

She glanced at the dark look on his face, as her pale lips curled into a sarcastic sneer. "Are you mad because I'm right?"

He studied her face and noticed that she was on the brink of fainting, so he slowly regained his composure and asked, "What happened?"

Though she had merely said a few words, it had already exhausted all her strength. After taking a few seconds to catch her breath, she looked up again to meet his eyes again, her dark, doe-like eyes an extreme contrast with her pale skin.

"If I tell you what happened, are you going to make it right?"

He scowled. "You haven't even told me what happened."

She paused for a few moments before answering, albeit hoarsely, "Shortly after you left, Sasha pushed me into the pool."

He shot her a look. "I thought you knew how to swim."

"My leg cramped after I was pushed inside. Not only did she not help me out, but she even took photos of me drowning until I was rushed into the ER," she said expressionlessly.

Tyler did not respond and simply stood thoughtfully. A while later, he took out his phone to make a call.

"Mister Hart, if you want to call Sasha here for a confrontation...save it," Vicky said. "As you can see, I'm in a terrible state, and I don't have energy left for her."

He studied her for a few seconds. "I understand."

Instead of making a call or leaving, he took a seat on a chair nearby while she decided to ignore him and went back to sleep.

She was about to drift back to sleep when the ringing of Tyler's phone echoed in the room.

She opened her eyes again and watched as Tyler hung up and switched his phone to silent mode.

Before he could put his phone away, his phone began vibrating again. Frowning, he decided against hanging up and glanced at Vicky, noticing she was awake. "I'm going outside to take this call. I'll be back soon."

She did not respond when he exited the room.

Vicky turned and spotted her phone on the nightstand next to the bed. Her phone was water-proof and had not short-circuited from being soaked in water.

She unlocked the screen swiftly as she did not have any password set for her phone and the menu popped up. She opened the contact history and saw Tyler's name all over the screen from a few hours earlier, right after she had been rescued.

The employees of Hart Corporation had not seen her before, but most of the members of the elite society knew that she was Tyler's wife and had probably used her phone to call him. The doctor seemed to have made a few calls with her phone as well an hour after she had been rushed to the hospital, but none of the calls was answered.

She narrowed her eyes bitterly.

She had called Tyler frequently over what had happened with Cece. Alas, he ignored her calls mostly and would hang up before shutting his phone off completely once he ran out of patience.

'That's probably what happened just now...I guess,' she thought. 'As for why Tyler is here, it's probably because of Sheila.'

Vicky placed her phone back onto the nightstand. Shortly after, Sebastian returned with the doctor to check on Vicky.

"Miss Shaw's condition has stabilized, so she only needs to rest to recover."

Sebastian nodded. "Thank you, Doctor."

Once the doctor left, he turned to look at Vicky. "Where's Tyler? Isn't he here with you?"

"He went outside to take a call. Maybe he's busy," she replied casually.

Sebastian scowled in annoyance but decided against speaking ill of Tyler. "I'll stay with you for a while, then."

She shook her head. "It's fine. You should go home."

"Vicky..."

"We might be friends, but I've lost my memories, and I don't really remember you," she said, her voice gentle even when she interrupted him. "Besides, I'm a married woman, and it's inappropriate for us to be in a room alone. You should go back. Tyler should be back soon. Thank you for staying with me just now."

Knowing how stubborn she could be, Sebastian sighed and did not insist. "We're friends, so you don't have to thank me... Call me if you need anything. I'll drop by tomorrow again."

Silence fell over the room after Sebastian left, and Tyler, who promised to be back, had not returned.

Exhausted, Vicky soon drifted off to sleep.

…

Thud!

An unknown period of time had passed when she heard the sound of the door being slammed open.