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All Chapters of Too late, I am no longer your wife: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

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CHAPTER 41 The Singapore Connection

Dr. Warren's email arrived before I finished my first cup of coffee.Spoke to someone in Singapore last night. There's a foundation I think you should know about. I've made an introduction.His name is Daniel Chen. He's expecting your call at two p.m. his time—six a.m. for you. Sorry about the hour. He travels in the afternoons.Typical Dr. Warren. He never gave you more than you needed. If there was a story, he believed it belonged to the person who lived it.By six the next morning I was at my desk with another cup of coffee that had already gone cold.I dialed the number.It rang twice. "Mr. Chen?" I said when he picked the call,"Daniel is fine." His voice was calm. "Thank you for calling so early," he replied"And thank you for making time." I said in response"I've heard a little about your foundation," he said. "Dr. Warren gave me enough to know why we're speaking.""And what did he tell you?" I asked"That you walked away from funding because it came with conditions you couldn

CHAPTER 42 - Natasha’s Son

I was on my way to the ward allocation meeting, already running late, when I saw Natasha sitting by the window.Her son was asleep against her shoulder. An open picture book rested across her lap, and she was smiling down at him as he stirred.“You’re awake already?” she whispered.He rubbed his eyes. “Finish the story.”A soft laugh escaped her. “I thought you were asleep.”“I was listening.”“You always say that.”“Because I do.”She turned the page. “The bear looked everywhere,” she read. “Across the river, over the hill…”He frowned thoughtfully. “He’ll find home.”“I think so too.”“Because stories always end happy.”Natasha’s fingers paused against the page.“They don’t always,” she said.“This one does.”For a moment, she simply looked at him. Then she smiled, a little more gently than before.“Yes,” she said. “This one does.”That was when she looked up and saw me.Our eyes met across the waiting room, and neither of us moved; surprise flickered across her face before she lowe

CHAPTER 43 - Charles’s List

By the time I got home, the hospital had called twice about administrative matters, and I had answered three emails concerning the foundation's next phase.As I reviewed the revised proposal, a message from an unfamiliar number appeared on my phone.Dr. Tina, I'm sorry to bother you. Someone at the hospital told me there might be an issue with the foundation's funding. Should I be worried about my son's treatment?I reread it, but before I could respond, another message arrived.Please don't misunderstand me. I'm only asking because my husband is worried.I stared at the screen for a moment, then typed a careful reply asking her to contact the hospital's patient liaison team so her concerns could be addressed properly. I wasn't going to offer assurances about a concern I hadn't yet investigated; I saved the messages.Then I returned to the proposal.An hour later, an email arrived from a colleague at a hospital forty minutes away.We hadn't spoken in weeks.Thought you should know. I

CHAPTER 44 -Adrian and Tina Closer

By four o'clock, the partnership documentation had taken over the desk entirely: drafts of the data-sharing terms, the outcome-reporting framework Daniel Chen's lawyers had sent back with three small but precise amendments, and the budget projections Tina had been revising since lunch. There was nowhere left to put a coffee cup that wasn't already occupied by paper.Adrian had pulled his chair around to her side of the desk an hour ago, because it made no sense for them to keep passing pages back and forth across."This line here," Adrian said, leaning in toward the page in front of her rather than pulling it toward himself. "The reporting cadence is quarterly, but only on aggregate outcomes, not patient-level data. That's the bit his lawyers actually care about.""I know." She leaned in too, close enough that their shoulders nearly met over the paper, both of them looking at the same six lines of text. "I think it's the right line to hold.""I think so too." He replied, neither of th

CHAPTER 45 - The Living Witness

Her name was Diana Osei. She was sixty-three and lived two hundred miles from where her father's company had once stood, in a flat above a laundromat. According to the records Charles's investigator had pulled, she had paid her rent on time every month for the last nineteen years.She had been the eldest of four. The file Charles had built listed the other three by the ages they'd been when the company folded: five, eight, and eleven. Diana herself was twenty-three by then, living and working two cities away when the call came telling her to come home because her father needed help finding a way to keep the company afloat.But he never did keep it. Charles had traced the rest through public records, a single newspaper clipping about a "promising precision components firm" filed away in an archive that had not been digitised until last year, and a planning application her father had submitted nine years later for a workshop a third the size of what he'd lost.She had watched him rebuil

Chapter 46- Thursday at Three

The email arrived at 2:17 p.m.Tina read it once, then again, paying particular attention to the final paragraph.The prospective funding partner had decided to suspend its discussions with the Sam Foundation pending clarification of concerns about its research practices and financial oversight.Tina forwarded the email to Adrian.His response came less than a minute later. Another one? It saysShe typed back. Apparently, she replied.Her phone rang.There was work to do, and worrying about what someone might have heard would not complete any of it.A knock sounded at her door.“Come in.” She called outThe nurse who entered gave her a brief update on a patient before mentioning that she had a visitor.“One of the patient’s mother is here to see you.”“Did she say what it was about?” She asked“She said she wanted to speak with you,” the Nurse replied“Alright. Please show her in.”Natasha entered a few minutes later, dressed neatly and carrying herself with composure.“Tina.” She ca

CHAPTER 47 - The Cost of Doubt

The call came at 8:12 the following morning.I was reviewing the foundation's weekly operations report when Adrian called.“Have you seen the email from Larkwell Trust?” he asked.“No. What happened?”“They've put their funding discussions on hold.”I sat up straighter. “Why?”“They said they've received concerns about how we handle our research. They want an independent review before they consider funding us.”I closed the report in front of me.“Did they say who raised the concerns?”“No. They only said the information came from an outside source.”“Forward the email to me.”“I already have.”We ended the call, and I opened my inbox.Larkwell Trust had been considering funding the foundation's next phase of work. We hadn't signed anything, but our discussions had gone far enough for us to start planning around the possibility of their support.Now, everything was on hold.I opened their email and read through the questions. They wanted details about parental consent, research approva

Chapter 48 - What the Agreement Allows

The email from Larkfield arrived before I had finished reading Miriam’s report.I recognised the name and opened it at once. For a moment, I thought they might have reconsidered their decision to pause the funding discussions.They hadn't.Following our review of information received concerning your foundation's research and treatment programmes, we require further clarification before we can consider moving forward.I read the sentence again.The email went on to raise concerns about how children were selected for treatment, how decisions about their care were made, and whether the foundation had handled patient information properly. Larkfield wanted a response to each concern, along with details of our selection process, our research methods, and the steps we took to protect the children in our care.They also wanted to know whether our records could support the decisions we had made.I placed the email beside Miriam’s report.There was no accusation that we had harmed a child. No d

CHAPTER 49: Daniel Chen

Larkfield's decision left me with more questions than answers. They had received information from an outside source, and some of the questions they were asking were too close to the hospital's earlier request for me to ignore.I still didn't know who had supplied the information or whether the two incidents were connected.We had arranged the meeting with Daniel Chen before Larkfield paused its funding. Until then, the Mei Foundation had been another possible source of support, one we could explore while we worked through the existing problems.Now, I needed to know whether that option was still open.I gathered the documents Daniel had requested and reviewed them one more time. Whatever concerns he had, I would answer them with what I could prove.Daniel Chen did not offer me coffee.He greeted me, invited me to sit, and opened the folder I had brought before I had finished settling into my chair.“I hope you don't mind,” he said. “I'd rather begin with the documents.”“That's why I

CHAPTER 50: The Regulatory Submission

By seven the following morning, the article had not been published but that did not reassure me.The journalist had given the foundation until noon to respond to questions about Clause 14, the proposed Crestfield partnership, and allegations that children had been enrolled in research without their parents receiving adequate information.The clause was genuine but the agreement was not finalised and that distinction was the foundation of my response, but I knew how easily it could disappear beneath a headline.Adrian arrived at my office carrying two printed pages.“They've sent us the proposed headline.” he saidI took them from him, the headline read:QUESTIONS RAISED OVER SAM FOUNDATION'S SECRET COMMERCIAL PARTNERSHIPWhile the paragraph beneath it says;The article described Clause 14 as a provision that would give Crestfield access to sensitive patient information. It also referred to allegations of inadequate parental consent and undisclosed research practices.While nowhere in

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