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Chapter 6

Author: Washing Wheat
"I've neglected you lately. I told you I'd make it up to you. After your prenatal checkup today, let's take a vacation together."

"No thanks."

I cut him off before he could continue.

"You're busy. There's no need to waste your time on me."

Then I added quietly, "And honestly, I have no interest in going on a vacation with you."

For a moment, surprise flashed across Raymond's face, quickly followed by disbelief and then unmistakable embarrassment.

I had never turned him down so directly before.

Not once.

"What exactly is your problem, Annie? The doctor said you haven't gone to a single prenatal appointment. Aren't you worried about the baby?

"I'm telling you right now. You're going for a checkup today and I'll go with you.

"We're leaving now."

I looked at him for a long moment.

Then nodded.

"Fine. If that'll make you happy."

The truth could not remain hidden forever. Part of me wanted to see his reaction when he finally learned our child was gone.

Since he insisted on coming, I did not argue.

After breakfast, we left together.

Raymond drove.

As I opened the passenger-side door, something caught my eye. Several long strands of hair rested against the seat. They did not belong to me.

For a second, I simply stared at them, then I quietly closed the door.

Without a word, I walked around the vehicle and climbed into the back seat instead.

The movement immediately caught Raymond's attention. He turned toward me.

"Why are you sitting back there?"

"It's safer." The answer was simple.

Yet something about it made his expression darken.

He stared at me for several seconds before finally starting the engine.

Then he laughed coldly.

"Annie. I never realized you could be this cold-hearted. So what if Lilian sat in the passenger seat? Do you really have to be this petty?"

Still, I did not respond. The silence seemed to irritate him even more.

"Lilian and I will have more interactions in the future." His voice carried complete certainty. "Don't tell me you're planning to give up on me because of that."

He was so certain of my love that it never occurred to him I might one day let him go.

Then I smiled faintly.

"Whether I want you or not has never depended on me. It depends on the alliance between the Smith Group and the Lowe Group. If you had truly wanted Lilian back then, nothing could have stopped you.

"You could have walked away from everything. You could have followed her and chosen love instead.

"The smile faded from my face.

"However, you didn't.

"You chose power, business, and the alliance.

"And none of that had anything to do with me."

Silence filled the car.

Raymond's expression darkened instantly. Without another word, he pressed harder on the accelerator.

The rest of the drive passed in complete silence.

Neither of us spoke again.

When we arrived at the hospital, we headed toward the obstetrics department.

For the first time, I thought Raymond was finally about to learn the truth.

Instead, fate seemed determined to mock me one last time. The moment we stepped inside, we saw Lilian. Her eyes were swollen from crying.

One hand rested protectively over her stomach, the other clung to the arm of a doctor.

The second she spotted Raymond, her face crumpled.

"Raymond...The doctor says my baby isn't doing very well."

The doctor sighed.

"Her health is quite weak. There are also some complications involving the uterus. This is considered a high-risk pregnancy."

He shook his head.

"It won't be easy carrying the baby to term."

The moment those words landed, tears began streaming down Lilian's face.

Just like that, Raymond forgot I existed.

The moment Raymond followed Lilian away, I turned around and left as well.

I had barely stepped out of the hospital when my phone rang.

As soon as I left the hospital, I received a call from the nursing home asking me to come immediately.

By the time I arrived, my father was already in his final moments.

I sat beside his bed, holding his hand as I stayed with him through the last five hours of his life.

At eight o'clock that evening, the numbers flickering across the monitor gradually slowed before finally settling into a flat, unbroken line.

The doctor quietly turned off the machine and offered his condolences.

I did not shed a single tear.

My father's burial plot had been prepared ten years ago.

My mother had been waiting for him there for a decade. It was finally time for them to be reunited.

I handled the funeral arrangements methodically and without hesitation. The truth was, I had rehearsed this day in my mind countless times over the years.

Calmly, I called the funeral home and then contacted the cemetery to make the necessary arrangements.

Ever since my father had fallen into a vegetative state, he had gradually disappeared from public view. Other than me, his only daughter, no one even knew he was still alive.

Over the past ten years, both of my grandparents had passed away, and control of the Smith family had fallen entirely into the hands of my uncle, Lilian's father.

The irony was that he had hated my father long before any of this happened.

If not for my marriage to Raymond and the protection that came with being Mrs. Lowe, he probably would have discontinued my father's life support years ago without a second thought.

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  • Unlearning You   Chapter 11

    Raymond mobilized every resource at his disposal.For two full months, search teams combed the coastline looking for me.Eventually, my car was recovered from the ocean. However, my body was not.Two months later, Raymond finally called off the search. Not long afterward, he received an anonymous phone call. The moment the call ended, he drove straight to the hospital where I had undergone the procedure.According to what I later learned, he tracked down both the doctor and the nurse who had been involved in my case.That was when he learned the truth.The abortion had been entirely my decision. The ultrasound showed that the baby had been healthy. There had been nothing wrong with the pregnancy.I simply did not want the child anymore.When Raymond walked out of that hospital, he was no longer the same man.Rumors spread quickly. People said the president of the Lowe Group had gone mad after losing his wife.What they did not know was that his madness had nothing to do with

  • Unlearning You   Chapter 10

    Because I had unrestricted access to Raymond's money, I used it to hire a private investigator to look into Lilian.What he uncovered shocked me.Lilian had never been pregnant.The fragile health, the pregnancy scare, the constant concern she demanded from everyone around her — it had all been an act. From the very beginning, the pregnancy had been nothing more than a lie designed to drive a wedge between Raymond and me.The most ridiculous part was that Raymond had believed every word without question.Lilian had manipulated him effortlessly and he had never once suspected a thing.The investigator uncovered something else as well.He managed to track down the cement truck driver responsible for my father's accident.I never learned exactly how he got the man to talk, but eventually the driver confessed.The accident had not been an accident at all.Someone had paid him a substantial amount of money to make it happen.Although he did not know who had hired him, he remember

  • Unlearning You   Chapter 9

    I stared at Lilian's messages over and over again, rereading every word.Lilian was not the type to say things without a reason.Did that mean there had been something suspicious about my father's accident all those years ago?The more I thought about it, the more pieces seemed to fall into place.At the time, my father had been running the Smith Group. My uncle had been forced to step aside despite his resentment because he simply could not compete with my father. The shareholders trusted my father and had little confidence in my uncle.Then, one day, while driving to a meeting, my father was hit by a cement truck.Even back then, I had struggled to believe it was an accident.However, my grandparents had insisted otherwise. There was no evidence, no witnesses and no way to prove foul play.As such, the matter was buried, and my father spent the next ten years on a hospital bed.After he fell into a vegetative state, control of the Smith Group passed directly to my uncle.I

  • Unlearning You   Chapter 8

    How ridiculous.So, Raymond actually remembered that we had a child together.For years, I had assumed the only baby he truly cared about was the one growing inside Lilian.The desperation in his eyes caught me completely off guard.For one brief moment, a question surfaced in my mind. Had he actually looked forward to our child? The thought disappeared almost as quickly as it came.Impossible.If he had cared even a little, he never would have treated me the way he did throughout my pregnancy. He never would have missed every appointment, never would have left me alone again and again, never would have spent more time worrying about Lilian's baby than his own.His fingers tightened around my throat, sending a sharp pain through my neck.Instinctively, I clawed at his hand, desperately trying to force him to let go as breathing became more and more difficult.For one terrifying moment, I genuinely thought Raymond might kill me.The irony was almost laughable.This was a chil

  • Unlearning You   Chapter 7

    So, in the end, I was the only person left in this world who remembered my father.At his funeral, I was probably the only mourner.I did not publish an obituary nor did I not notify distant relatives. I certainly did not tell Raymond that my father had passed away.There seemed to be no point in that.For years, my father had existed quietly on the edge of everyone's lives.Eventually, even his absence became invisible.I spent several peaceful hours at the funeral home.There was no crowd, no flowers sent by business associates, and no endless stream of condolences. There was only my father, myself, and the silence that had accompanied us for the past ten years.It was a simple farewell ceremony.A final goodbye.Then, I watched as his body disappeared behind the crematorium doors.Hours later, I carried his ashes to the cemetery myself.My mother had been waiting there for ten years, and now they could finally be together again.After placing his urn beside my mother's

  • Unlearning You   Chapter 6

    "I've neglected you lately. I told you I'd make it up to you. After your prenatal checkup today, let's take a vacation together.""No thanks."I cut him off before he could continue."You're busy. There's no need to waste your time on me."Then I added quietly, "And honestly, I have no interest in going on a vacation with you."For a moment, surprise flashed across Raymond's face, quickly followed by disbelief and then unmistakable embarrassment.I had never turned him down so directly before.Not once."What exactly is your problem, Annie? The doctor said you haven't gone to a single prenatal appointment. Aren't you worried about the baby?"I'm telling you right now. You're going for a checkup today and I'll go with you."We're leaving now."I looked at him for a long moment.Then nodded."Fine. If that'll make you happy."The truth could not remain hidden forever. Part of me wanted to see his reaction when he finally learned our child was gone.Since he insisted on com

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