Chapter 6

No divorce. Together for life.

Once, that had been a dream Nicole had clung to alone for longer than she cared to admit. But now, as she watched him look at her as though he had just granted her the greatest mercy in the world, all she wanted to do was laugh.

After tomorrow, all of this would be over. All she had to do now was wait for her father to board the medical flight.

"All right." Nicole slipped her hand free of his grip and tucked it beneath the blanket.

The warmth she had once craved now felt cold and serpentine against her skin. It clung to her like a disease deep in her bones, and it made her sick.

"I won't do it again. Miss Jennings is innocent and kindhearted. I won't do anything to upset her again."

Cedric's hand closed on empty air. His brow furrowed slightly as a restless irritation stirred in his chest.

"Good. I'm glad you've finally come to your senses." Cedric stood. "From now on, remember to drop that high-and-mighty act of yours in front of Hattie."

Not long after Cedric left the hospital room, Nicole received a text from Peter.

Peter: [Miss, the divorce arrangements are complete. All funds have been transferred to the Zervaland account. The medical flight is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. We can depart as planned.]

Nicole's eyes grew damp.

…

Unexpectedly, the next morning, Nicole received a call from her father's caretaker. A clamor of voices filled the background.

The caretaker spoke in a frightened rush. "Miss, you need to get to the hospital right now! I couldn't stop them. There's a Miss Jennings here who claims she's your husband's sister. She's taking your father outside to get some sun. No matter what I say, they won't listen to me..."

Nicole went cold with shock. Her father was in a deep coma, and only a ventilator kept him alive. Harriet was doing this deliberately. She wanted to kill him.

Nicole wasted no time. She hailed a taxi and rushed to the hospital where her father lay.

Outside the ICU, Harriet stood behind a wheelchair. Nicole's father slumped sideways in the seat, his face drained of color. He was so still that he looked as though he had already stopped breathing.

Nicole's legs nearly gave way beneath her. She rushed forward and slapped Harriet across the face. "Have you lost your mind? Who gave you permission to touch my father?"

The slap caught Harriet off guard and snapped her head to the side.

Nicole seized the wheelchair from her hands.

Harriet clutched her cheek. "Nico, I was only trying to help. I heard you were hospitalized for alcohol poisoning, so I came to look after your father for you. If you're not going to thank me, fine, but why did you have to hit me?"

Nicole trembled with fury. "You expect me to believe you did this out of kindness? My father is in a deep coma, and you wanted to take him outside for some sun? Were you trying to kill him?"

Harriet let out a few sobs. Then she slowly straightened and leaned closer, her voice barely above a whisper. "You're exactly right. I was trying to kill him. And what are you going to do about it?"

Her voice turned dark and venomous. "I just wanted to see whether you could keep up that act of not caring if your father died.

"Before I met you, I thought you'd be some fiery little heiress with a real bite. Turns out you're nothing but a stray dog who can't even fight back. Frankly, I find it boring."

Harriet blocked Nicole's path and refused to let her wheel her father back into the room. "So I decided to add some fuel to the fire. And that fuel is your father's life.

"If the first attempt doesn't kill him, I'll try a second time. If that doesn't work, there's always a third. I just want to see whether you can still stand there and look so calm once your father is dead."

Fury consumed Nicole, and her entire body shook. She raised her leg and kicked Harriet hard enough to knock her backward. "Get out of my way."

Harriet cried out and fell to the floor, but a look of satisfaction spread across her face.

She shouted at the bodyguards behind her. "Are you all dead? Are you just going to stand there and watch her treat me like this?

"Ced told you to protect me. Anyone who lays a hand on me gets it back tenfold. Kick her ten times. If you don't, I'll tell Ced you took her side and let her hurt me."

The bodyguards hesitated at first, but then one of them delivered the first kick.

Nicole slammed into the cold wall, and pain sent a wave of cold sweat across her back.

Then came a second kick, followed by a third.

By the tenth kick, Nicole felt as though every bone in her body was about to snap. Yet she crawled back in front of her father and shielded him with everything she had.

"What is going on here?" Cedric's icy voice came from behind her.

Harriet threw herself into his arms and burst into tears, as pitiful as a flower drenched in rain. "Ced, I only wanted to help Nico by taking her father outside for some fresh air. Nico attacked me without even asking what happened. The guards only hit her because they were trying to protect me..."

Cedric turned toward Nicole, his eyes cold as frost. "Nicole, I warned you just yesterday. Did my words mean nothing to you?"

"Cedric, are you blind?" Nicole's voice was ragged. "My father is only alive because of a ventilator. She pulled out his tubes, and you call that fresh air?"

Cedric's brow furrowed. "Hattie meant well. Couldn't you have talked things out with her instead of hitting her?"

He glanced at Harriet's swollen cheek, then issued a cold order to the bodyguards. "Hold my wife back. Do as Hattie says. Take Mr. Southwell outside for some sun. Bring him back to his room in five minutes."

Nicole's mind went blank with shock. "Cedric, have you lost your mind? This will kill him!"

"It's not that serious. Five minutes won't kill anyone. Consider it a small lesson for you." Cedric spoke without a trace of warmth, then walked away with Harriet in his arms. He never once looked back.

The bodyguards restrained Nicole by force, and she could only watch as they wheeled her unconscious father onto a terrace beneath the blazing sun.

Nicole wept the entire time. She clawed and struck at the bodyguards with everything she had, but her efforts were futile.

Five minutes stretched into an eternity. Nicole endured the pain until her body could take no more.

Just as she was about to lose consciousness, Peter's voice finally reached her. "Miss, your father has just been taken up to the rooftop and transferred onto the medical flight. Hold on. The doctor will be here any moment."

"No need." Nicole forced herself upright and gripped Peter's arm.

She answered her phone, which had been buzzing incessantly.

Cedric's calm, distant voice came through. "I've already brought in a specialist from abroad to treat your father's condition. He'll arrive at the hospital for a consultation tomorrow. As long as you behave yourself, your father will recover soon enough."

A faint smile tugged at the corner of Nicole's mouth.

"Fine. Whatever you say." Her voice was quiet.

With that, she let the phone drop.

She gripped Peter's arm and struggled to her feet.

The metallic taste of blood flooded her throat. She coughed up a mouthful of blood and quietly wiped it away.

"Let's go."