LOGIN"That way, he might still have had a chance at survival," Giancarlo said.For Giancarlo, curing Thomas had always been the top priority. Whether Thomas, once he genuinely hated Sharon, might have actually killed her — that fell outside the scope of what he'd been willing to consider. After all, he had no particular loyalty to Sharon.Hearing this, Sharon caught Giancarlo's meaning easily enough. She didn't blame him for it. Instead, she asked, "Did it work?"Giancarlo looked at her. "Do you think he hates you?"Sharon shook her head. "No.""Exactly," Giancarlo said with a laugh. "That plan never had a chance. He wouldn't let anyone so much as speak ill of you. My medical team nearly got beaten to death, and I nearly got strangled myself."Even now, just remembering that scene made Giancarlo's blood run cold. Back then, Thomas had barely been responding to the outside world at all. Once he cut off contact completely and sank into his own head, there would have been almost no hop
Sharon nodded quietly. She still didn't know much about the details of Thomas's condition. They'd already had that conversation a few days ago, but whenever she asked him about the specifics of his treatment, he always claimed his head had been foggy and confused back then, and that he couldn't remember most of it.She knew he wasn't forgetting — he just didn't want to talk about it. Whatever he'd gone through must have been brutal. He was holding back because he didn't want her carrying more grief and guilt than she already was.Even if Giancarlo hadn't come to find her today, she would have gone looking for him herself eventually. When Marina had traveled with her to Leistre, Sharon had asked her the same questions, but Marina hadn't known much either."Giancarlo's my mentor's senior apprentice," Marina had told her, "but the man has serious professional ethics. Even as close as we are, he won't casually give up a patient's details. So I don't actually know the specifics either. T
Whether Uriah had actually said that, Sharon had no way of checking. She wasn't some naive girl anymore — she'd long since grown familiar with every inch of Thomas's body, and there was nothing left to be shy about. And yet here she was, face burning, fingers trailing over his skin.Rubbing it in, fine. But why did he have to breathe like that? And why did his eyes have to go so hazy?What used to take ten minutes now stretched past half an hour. By the time she finished each session, her face was flushed, her heart was racing, and she was sweating from head to toe. She should have just let him do it himself from the start.Between the ointment and the "massage," it dragged on for over forty minutes before Sharon finally finished for the day. She was about to head to the shower when Thomas suddenly caught her hand."Sharon." His voice was rough. "I'm in so much pain."The word alone was enough to snap her to attention. "Thomas, where does it hurt? Should we go see Uriah and Dr. Ga
Thomas pressed a kiss to Sharon's forehead, his eyes soft."You have nothing to apologize for. If anything, I'm the one who did so much to hurt you. Sharon, I'm the one who owes you an apology, not the other way around."Sharon hesitated. "You... you don't blame me?""You were thinking of what was best for me. How could I blame you for that?" He pulled her into his arms. "The better you are to me, the harder it is for me to let you go. If you'd been even a little bit worse to me, and I hadn't been able to hold on, you'd have been completely free of me by now."Sharon knew that as lightly as he said it, the pain she'd caused him had been real. And yet, he didn't blame her for it — all he seemed to think about was how good she'd been to him. It only made her feel worse.As if sensing what was on her mind, Thomas went on. "Sharon, you had your own position, your own reasons — and I had mine. You don't need to feel guilty, and you don't need to blame yourself. I chose to keep my memor
Thomas continued, "And then we lost the baby. Losing that child took a toll on your body and your mind that I couldn't undo. If I did something to hurt you again, you wouldn't survive it. But if I stayed near you, I still couldn't control myself — and all I'd ever bring you was more harm. "I thought you'd be better off without me. If someone had to wither away, then let it be me — I never had a future to lose anyway. Whatever future I did have, you're the one who gave it to me. Without you, this was always going to be how it ended for me. "All I was really doing was returning to the path I was always on, giving back what you'd given me. If I actually died, that would've been a good thing, too — no one would be left to chase after you by any means necessary."Hearing this, Sharon felt a pain she couldn't push down. She tried to speak, but Thomas's voice came first."After I got back to Leistre, I meant to hold onto our shared memories and wait quietly for the madness to take me, o
Thomas reached out and gently wiped the tears from Sharon's face."Sharon, before I met you, I could already see the whole shape of my life laid out ahead of me. My ending was always going to be the same as every head of the Ferrero family before me — dead from the madness, or killed by whoever came to seize the title next. "I never expected anything from the future. I didn't even find any joy in being alive, day to day. So I kept looking for distractions — meaningless things, just to scrape together some reason to keep going. "Before you, I never once considered falling in love. I'd already decided I wasn't going to marry. If I wasn't going to live past thirty anyway, why drag anyone else into it? As for children — survival of the fittest is nature's rule. If it was already written that every Ferrero would go mad eventually, there was no reason to keep passing on genes like that."Once he'd become head of the family, every goal he'd ever had was already met, and nothing was left
"Carter's out of town on business," Kelly said lightly, her smile touched with a faint, weary grace. "That's the only reason I could meet with you today. Otherwise..."She let the words hang in the air awhile, then continued, "Otherwise, he'd never have allowed me to leave the hospital.""Is that
"Sharon knows full well Kelly doesn't have much time left, but she keeps playing her little games. Have you forgotten how she faked being sick, even staged a kidnapping just to get my and Theo's attention?"She's been living the high life all these years, and now that she has Theo, there's no way s
Nate's face flushed red with anger. He lunged forward, clearly intent on confronting Sharon, but Xavier intercepted him halfway.With a cool, almost languid tone, Xavier spoke. "Nate, there are so many people here, and yet you still dare to get violent. That says a lot about how arrogant you are on
"You have your position, and I understand that. I'm not blaming you," Sharon said quietly, her expression calm. "Julliard, I have something else to do. Goodbye.""Sharon—"Julliard tried to speak, but she didn't give him the chance. Without a word, she turned and walked away, pulling Wendy along w







