Chapter 4

Alisha walked straight past Jason without so much as blinking.

"Think I'm filthy?" he called after her with a sneer.

"Aren't you?"

"So what? No matter how filthy I am, you’re still the one who’s moaned beneath me all these years."

Before marrying Jason, Alisha had heard countless stories about unfaithful men.

Childhood sweethearts, soulmates, starry-eyed lovers—no matter how beautiful their beginnings had been, so many of those relationships eventually ended in betrayal and tragedy.

She had always believed she would be different.

She had been naïve enough to think Jason would never betray her, that their marriage would stay happy, that the two of them would love each other forever, and that they would eventually have children together as the natural, tangible proof of everything they had built.

But reality had other plans.

Her marriage had become a complete disaster. She and Jason would never have children together, and instead of cherishing the years they had shared, they now used the most intimate memories of their relationship as weapons, deliberately choosing whatever words they knew would hurt the other most.

"Jason..."

Alisha closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, whatever emotion had been there was gone, leaving behind a gaze as cold as ice.

"Don't make me regret ever loving you."

Jason's body went rigid, but before he could respond, a nurse hurried over.

"The surgery starts in half an hour, Dr. Poole. You need to begin preparing."

"Got it."

...

Alisha was currently a neurosurgery resident at Verivale Central Hospital. She wasn't yet qualified to lead operations herself, so her role in the operating room was to assist the chief surgeon.

Even so, a craniotomy that lasted several hours was mentally and physically exhausting, and her night shift afterward left her with even less time to recover.

After finishing her evening rounds, she retreated to the breakroom for a rest. The moment she closed her eyes, however, her confrontation with Jason came rushing back.

Jason had always been fiercely ambitious and relentlessly devoted to his work. Over the years, it wasn't unusual for him to end up hospitalized after drinking too much during business dinners and negotiations.

In the early days of their marriage, whenever he drank beyond his limit, he had been terrified that Alisha would worry or get angry.

Despite being the son of a powerful politician, he would sneak off to cheap neighborhood clinics for IV fluids rather than let her know how badly he had overdone it.

Eventually, one of those back-alley clinics had managed to turn a simple stomach ulcer into acute gastric bleeding through sheer incompetence.

The night he was rushed to the hospital, he had run straight into Alisha, who was completing her internship there at the time.

She had been furious and heartbroken in equal measure. She had scolded him relentlessly, yet refused to leave his bedside for even a moment.

"If you ever drink like this again, I will divorce you! I'll kick you right out!"

"I'm sorry. I promise it won't happen again."

"Don't hide anything from me, and no more drinking!"

"Alright, my queen."

At the time, the exchange had felt almost sweet, the kind of argument that only happened between two people who loved each other deeply.

Looking back now, however, it seemed almost like a warning she had failed to recognize. She had begged him to stop drinking, but Jason had never listened.

When they had still been madly in love, throwing around the word "divorce" had been nothing more than playful banter, an exaggerated threat neither of them took seriously.

Ironically, as the years passed and their relationship deteriorated, that same word became something neither dared mention, no matter how viciously they fought or how cruel their insults became.

That was until yesterday, when she handed him the divorce agreement.

...

After resting for about half an hour, Alisha changed out of her lab coat, slipped on her down jacket, and headed downstairs to find something to eat.

The elevator doors opened, and she stopped short.

Rory stood inside, dressed in a bespoke black suit that fit him perfectly, his entire appearance radiating the effortless luxury and authority that came with the position he had fought his way into.

Even in the sterile hospital lighting, he looked strikingly composed and distant as he regarded her with his usual unreadable expression.

Alisha stepped inside, and the doors slid shut behind her.

With no one else there, Rory stood tall and imposing. And when Alisha happened to glance up, her eyes traced the sharp line of his jaw.

For some reason, the sight pulled her straight back into high school.

He had once stood beside her just like this, and back then, she had constantly stolen sideways glances at him whenever she thought he wasn't paying attention.

At 17, Rory had possessed the same refined, striking features, though there had still been something distinctly boyish about him. He had been just as quiet and aloof then as he was now.

The biggest difference was that, back then, he had been dirt poor. The most valuable thing he owned had probably been his faded, somewhat gaudy Midtown High track jacket, striped in red, black, and white.

No one could have imagined that the boy who had once owned almost nothing would eventually become a business titan. His rise had been nothing short of extraordinary—a living example of someone climbing to heights most people could only dream of reaching.

As her gaze drifted downward, Alisha noticed the Tupperware lunch box in his hand.

"Is someone in your family in the hospital?" she asked, breaking the silence.

"Yeah." Rory nodded.

His answer was brief and emotionless, making it clear that he had no intention of elaborating.

Alisha didn't press him, but the moment he mentioned his family, she remembered what lay directly above the Neurosurgery department.

It was Psychiatry.

Rory's mother suffered from severe mental illness, the result of a tragic accident that had changed his family forever.

Back in high school, when Alisha had been determined to pursue him, Rory had refused to give her anything. No matter how many questions she asked, he had remained tight-lipped, never offering so much as a glimpse into his private life.

Naturally, his refusal only made her more determined. Eventually, she had bribed one of their classmates to find out what Rory liked and what he was interested in.

The classmate had somehow gone far beyond what Alisha had asked for and accidentally uncovered Rory's entire family history instead. And that was how the rumor about his mother's mental illness had spread throughout the school.

Teenagers could be cruel, especially when they had something vulnerable to exploit. Once the story got out, some students twisted it into vulgar insults and deliberately used it to humiliate Rory.

Alisha hadn't understood how deeply those words must have cut him. Instead, she had approached him with the naïve confidence of a girl who genuinely believed she could solve any problem if she simply tried hard enough.

"I'm going to study medicine and cure your mom," she had declared. "In return, you have to dedicate your life to me and marry me."

Rory's face had gone rigid, his gaze turning icy and menacing.

It wasn't until Alisha entered medical school and began her clinical training that she understood how ignorant she had been.

Psychiatric illnesses were fundamentally different from neurological disorders. They weren't something a neurosurgeon could simply operate on or cure, and her chosen field had little to do with what Rory's mother needed.

Still, perhaps that early experience had left a deeper impression on her than she realized. The medical path she had eventually chosen might have been influenced, at least in part, by the desire to make good on a promise she had made.

More importantly, she knew that Rory's mother's condition had become public knowledge partly because of her. Even though the reckless teenage crush she had once had for him had long since disappeared, the guilt had never completely gone away.

"Let me know if you need any help," Alisha said as the elevator doors opened, keeping pace with Rory as they stepped out. "I work in Neurosurgery, and I'm close with several of the doctors in Psychiatry. If there's anything I can do, just reach out."

Rory only glanced down at her before looking away again.

"I don't need your help," he replied, blunt and unyielding.

For some reason, his tone sounded even colder than it had back in high school, almost carrying a trace of rejection.

The Alisha of those days would never have been affected so easily. She had once been loved, confident, and full of life—a bright, fearless girl who could face Rory's coldness without feeling ashamed or questioning her worth.

That girl was gone now.

After his blunt rejection, the boundless enthusiasm that had once come so naturally to her simply failed to appear. Only a quiet emptiness remained.

Perhaps, Rory was right after all.

With the wealth and influence he possessed now, what top-tier medical resources could he possibly lack? Compared with everything he could access on his own, her offer probably sounded like nothing more than empty politeness.

Alisha said nothing more. She stopped at a diner and ordered a bowl of hot soup before returning to work. But when she reached the breakroom, she found Jason standing outside the door.

His eyes fixed on her, his expression heavy with displeasure.

"Where did you go?" he demanded.

Alisha didn't answer, and Jason scowled. "You give me this sour attitude every day. Don't you ever get tired of it?"

"Not as tired as you must be from running around screwing other women," Alisha shot back, fixing him with a frigid stare. "Have you signed the divorce agreement yet?"