His Uncle's Priceless Jewel: Unmasking His Regret のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 41 - チャプター 50

THALASSA'S POV:The invitation arrived in a sleek black envelope, hand delivered to my apartment by a courier who looked like he had stepped out of a spy movie. Inside was a card, heavy and expensive, with Alaric's handwriting on it."Gallery opening. Friday night. I know you hate parties, but this one will be different. I promise. Come with me. I want to show you something."I stared at the card for a long time. A gallery opening. His world. His people. The friends and colleagues and acquaintances he had built his life around. He was inviting me into that world, asking me to be seen with him, to be part of something that mattered to him.That was different. That was very different.The old me would have said no. The old me would have found a thousand reasons to stay home, to hide, to protect myself from the judgment and the stares and the uncomfortable questions. But the old me was gone. The new me was learning to say yes.I said yes.The gallery was in a part of the city I had never

CASSIAN'S POV:The charity gala was exactly the kind of event I had been avoiding for weeks. Crystal chandeliers, champagne flutes, and the kind of small talk that made me want to stick a fork in my own eye. But my father had insisted. "You need to be seen, Cassian. The press is still talking about the divorce. You need to show them you are fine, that you are moving on, that the Deveraux name is still strong."So here I was. Standing in a ballroom full of people who were all pretending to care about whatever cause the charity supported, when really they were just there to be seen and to network and to whisper about each other behind their hands.Eulalie was at my side, her hand on my arm, her smile fixed in place. She was doing what she did best, playing the part of the beautiful girlfriend, the devoted companion, the perfect accessory. She had not mentioned the phone call since that night. Neither had I. We were both pretending it had never happened, going through the motions of a re

3RD POV:The call came at two in the morning.Alaric was in his study, going over quarterly reports, when his phone buzzed with a number he had not seen in years. The name on the screen made his heart stop for a second. Dr. Edwin Peters. His mentor. The man who had taken a scared young graduate under his wing and turned him into something more. The man who had believed in him when no one else did.He answered immediately. "Edwin? What is wrong?"The voice on the other end was not Edwin's. It was a woman's voice, strained and shaking. "Mr. Deveraux? This is Margaret Peter, Edwin's wife. I am sorry to call so late, but I did not know who else to contact. Edwin is... Edwin is very sick. The doctors do not know what is wrong with him. They have been running tests for weeks and they cannot find anything. He is getting worse, Mr. Deveraux. Much worse. I am so scared."Alaric was already standing, already reaching for his coat. "Where are you? Which hospital?""St. Mary's. The intensive care

THALASSA'S POV:I closed the file and set the phone down, but the image of Edwin's face stayed with me. Those eyes. That quiet determination. The way he looked like a man who had fought hard and was finally running out of fight.I walked to the window and stared out at the city below. People were going about their lives down there, unaware that somewhere in a hospital room, a man was dying. A good man. A man who had been a father figure to someone I was starting to care about deeply.My medical oath was clear. I had sworn to save lives, to ease suffering, to use my skills for the good of others. That oath did not care about my personal fears. It did not care about the risk of exposure or the complicated feelings I had for a man I barely knew. It only cared about the patient, about what I could do to help.And I could help Edwin. I knew I could. His symptoms were classic for a condition I had seen before, a rare autoimmune disorder that attacked the lungs and the nervous system. The te

THALASSA'S POV:The morning of the surgery, I woke up before my alarm and it was not because I was nervous, though I was or because I had slept badly even though I had. I woke up because my body knew what was coming and wanted to get started.I lay there in the dark for a few minutes, staring at the ceiling, running through the procedure in my head. Edwin's case was complicated, but I had done this before. The autoimmune encephalitis was tricky, the surgery delicate, but I knew exactly what to do. I had mapped it all out in my mind, every incision, every stitch, every possible complication and how I would handle it.The hardest part was not the surgery itself. It was knowing that Alaric would be there. In the hospital. Waiting. Hoping. Watching over his mentor while I worked to save him.I would not see him. That was the arrangement. I would be in the operating room, masked and anonymous, while he waited outside. We would not cross paths. He would never know that the woman who saved E