Chapter 2
Ethan's POV
The pristine marble floor of Storm Family Hospital's VIP wing gleamed under the harsh fluorescent lights. I looked down at Lucy Owen, her elegant features twisted in desperation as she knelt before me, fingers clutching the hem of my suit. Teardrops darkened the expensive fabric.
"Please, Ethan," she begged, her voice barely above a whisper. "Just two hours. That's all I'm asking for. To say goodbye to my grandmother."
I felt my jaw tighten. The nerve of this woman. "Federal regulations aren't something you can bypass with money, Lucy. You know that."
She looked up, tears streaming down her face. "But you've done it before. Every time Ivy needed blood, you managed to get me temporary release." Her voice cracked. "My grandmother raised me after my parents died. She was all I had."
"That was different." The words came out sharp, clinical. "Ivy's medical needs are a legitimate reason for compassionate release. A funeral isn't."
"I'll do anything." Her fingers tightened on my suit. "I'll keep giving Ivy blood whenever she needs it. Please, just let me—"
"That's already your obligation." I cut her off coldly. "Or have you forgotten why Ivy she's in that wheelchair?"
Lucy flinched as if I'd struck her. Good. She needed the reminder.
"Please, Ethan," Lucy's voice brought me back to the present, her brown eyes sparked with tears. "Just two hours to say goodbye."
Something in Lucy's current desperate plea tugged at a corner of my heart.
For a moment, I almost wavered. Then I thought of Ivy, condemned to a wheelchair for life because of this woman's jealousy.
How fucking dare she hurt Ivy? She deserved it.
My voice turned to ice. "The answer is no, Lucy. Be grateful you only got one year."
Lucy's POV
I would never forget that afternoon when sunlight streamed through the corridor windows. Ivy stood at the top of the stairs, a mocking smile playing on her lips. "Poor Lucy, did you really think you could keep Ethan forever?"
I stared at her in shock. "What are you talking about?"
Since my marriage to Ethan, Ivy had always been friendly towards me. Her sudden cruelty was incomprehensible.
Malice glinted in her eyes. "You know what? Ethan has been mine since childhood. If you hadn't interfered, we would have been together long ago. You gold-digger, did you think marrying him would help you escape your lowly origins?"
"Shut up!" I lunged forward to stop her slander, but she deftly dodged.
"Getting angry? Planning to hit me?" She advanced, forcing me toward the edge of the stairs. "We'll see how this plays out."
"Are you insane?" I demanded, a sense of foreboding rising within me.
"No, you're the crazy one." She suddenly grabbed my wrist with bruising force. Then, in the next moment, she let go of the handrail and leaned backward.
"No!" I screamed, reaching for her, but it was too late. Her white dress billowed in the air as she plummeted down the stairs. Blood quickly stained her pure white dress.
At that moment, Ethan appeared in the doorway. Seeing Ivy lying in a pool of blood, his expression contorted with rage. "You lunatic! What have you done to her?" he roared, rushing to Ivy's side.
"It wasn't me... Ethan, please believe me..." I choked out, but he violently pushed me aside. My back slammed against the wall, though the physical pain paled compared to the agony in my heart.
"If anything happens to her, I'll never forgive you!" He scooped up Ivy and rushed away, leaving me slumped against the wall.
One month in prison was torture. Every day, I begged the guards to let me see Ethan - he was my only hope if he would just listen to my explanation. When visiting day finally came, I stumbled into the visiting room.
"Ethan!" Through the cold glass, I trembled as I tried to reach for his face. He had clearly lost weight, with dark circles under his eyes that made my heart ache.
But his gaze was cold as steel. "If it weren't for grandmother's plea, you think you'd get off with just one year? Ivy might never walk again!"
"Please believe me! She herself..." Tears blurred my vision as I desperately wiped them away, afraid to miss any change in his expression. "I'm your wife! Don't you trust me at all?"
"Enough!" He slammed the table and stood up, the chair crashing to the floor. "You'd better pray for Ivy's recovery. Otherwise, this one-year sentence is just the beginning."
"Ethan! Please don't go!" I pounded on the glass frantically, my knuckles turning white from the impact. His figure disappeared through the door without a single glance back, my sobs echoing uselessly in the visiting room.
Back in my cell, I collapsed on the cold concrete floor. Before my tears could dry, I heard threatening footsteps approach.
"Well, well, look who we have here? Has our 'lady' finished crying?" Five or six burly inmates surrounded me. Their leader, a bald woman, grinned, revealing yellowed teeth. "Miss Wilson paid good money for us to give you special TREATMENT."
"I didn't push her... I'm innocent..." I curled up in the corner, but before I could finish, a heavy kick landed on my side.
"Slap!" The leader struck my face. "Who do you think you are to claim innocence?"
The beating that followed was merciless. I tried to curl into a ball, but couldn't protect myself from their savage attacks. Someone grabbed my hair and yanked me up while another spat in my face. I felt my ribs crack, and my mouth filled with blood.
"This is just day one, pretty thing," the leader crouched down, gripping my chin. "We've got plenty of time ahead. I'll make you wish you were dead."
When they finally threw me back onto my bunk, I couldn't remember how I'd survived. Every inch of my body screamed in pain, my lips were split, and my eyes were swollen nearly shut.
In the darkness, I wept silently. Someone, please save me. Anyone.
The fluorescent lights of the prison infirmary buzzed overhead as I lay on the narrow cot, my arm throbbing where they'd drawn blood. Eight hundred milliliters - far more than the safe limit. But when had my safety ever mattered to them?
It took two days before I could stand without the room spinning. On the third day, I dragged myself to the common room, only to freeze in the doorway.
The TV was playing Entertainment Tonight. "Wall Street's most eligible bachelor proves money is no object when it comes to love," the host gushed. "Storm Investment Group CEO Ethan Storm spared no expense for childhood sweetheart Ivy Wilson's birthday celebration, with estimates putting the party's cost at over $100 million."
The camera panned across the lavish ballroom of the Plaza Hotel. And there they were. Ivy in her wheelchair, looking ethereal in Valentino couture, her delicate features arranged in a perfect mask of gentle suffering. And Ethan... Ethan beside her, cutting her food into bite-sized pieces with the kind of tender attention he'd never shown me.
"So sweet," the host continued. "Sources say Mr. Storm has barely left Miss Wilson's side since the tragic accident that left her paralyzed last year."
My grandmother was being buried today. Ethan had promised to handle the arrangements when I begged him during the blood drawing. Now I knew why he'd agreed so easily - he'd never intended to go.
The tears came silently, rolling down my cheeks as ten years of delusion finally cracked and shattered.
I loved Ethan Storm for a decade, watching him from afar as our paths crossed at Harvard. He was the crown prince of Wall Street, featured in Forbes "30 Under 30" before he even graduated business school. I was just a medical student from Boston, working three jobs to pay for my grandmother's mounting medical bills.
We were like parallel lines that should never have met. Then came the accident that changed everything.
I still remember the day that changed everything. My grandmother needed experimental cancer treatment that only Storm Family Hospital could provide. The Storm matriarch offered a deal: marry her comatose grandson, and my grandmother would receive free treatment. I agreed without hesitation.
One month later, Ethan woke up furious about our marriage. But when tests revealed my rare Rh null blood type, his anger turned to calculated interest. The divorce was never mentioned again - instead, I became Ivy's personal blood donor.
The heavy iron gates of the prison creaked shut behind me. I was free, finally. Heavy rain pelted against my face, soaking through the thin clothes that clung to my skin.
I stood there, watching cars rush past on the glistening road, spraying sheets of water. No one had come to pick me up - I hadn't really expected them to. Three bus transfers later, I finally reached our Central Park West apartment building, where the doorman eyed me warily.
Ethan was leaving just as I opened the door, briefcase in hand, typing rapidly on his phone. He barely glanced up.
"You're wet," he observed dispassionately.
I caught his sleeve, the fine wool smooth under my fingers. "Ethan," my voice was steady despite the cold seeping into my bones. "Let's get divorced."
He looked at me then, irritation flickering across his perfect features. "Take a shower and clear your head. You're not thinking straight."
The hot water of the bath did nothing to warm the ice in my chest. I turned on my phone for the first time in a year. No messages from him, of course.
However, a notification popped up about Ivy's latest Instagram post: a selfie with Ethan in what I recognized as her private hospital suite. He was peeling an apple, his expression soft with concentration. The caption read: "Thanks for the company."
I sank deeper into the water, letting it fill my ears until the world went silent. The image of Ethan tenderly peeling an apple for Ivy burned behind my closed eyelids.
Ten years of unrequited love, and all I had to show for it was a prison record and an unloving husband. Fucking mocking.
The water had gone cold by the time I got out. I studied my reflection in the steamy mirror, hardly recognizing the woman who stared back.
Heavy dark circles hung beneath my hollow brown eyes, like bruises against my ghostly pale skin. My dark chestnut hair was a tangled mess, clinging to my skull like wet seaweed.
Tears streaked down my face as I secretly resolved to never get involved with them again.
With trembling hands, I cut off all ties to Ivy's world. When I reached Ethan's contact, my finger froze.
Just then, my phone rang---Ethan.