0
Chapter 100
What kind of monster am I becoming? The question floated through his mind, carried away with the cigarette smoke into the night me.
The door behind him opened, and a doctor stepped out, removing his surgical mask with a relieved expression.
‘Mr. Harding? Miss Scott is stable now.”
Hemy nodded, feeling a weight lift from his shoulders. “Can I see her?”
‘Yes, but briefly. She needs rest and absolutely no excitement or stress.”
When Henry entered the hospital room, Isabella’s eyes immediately filled with tears. She reached out a pale hand, which he automatically took in his own
“You came, she whispered, her voice fragile. ‘I was afraid you wouldn’t.”
What Henry didn’t know was that Isabella was calculating even in her desperation. When the caretaker first called Henry. Though she couldn’t hear Sophia’s voice, Isabella had detected the impatience and urgency in Henry’s tone–the voice he used when he desperately wanted something, when he was being interrupted doing something he didn’t want to stop.
This realization had devastated her.
Henry was with Sophia–not just in her presence, but making love to her. Isabella could sense it. Despite all her efforts to seduce Henry since her return, he had remained unmoved.
Yet Sophia’s body had him enthralled.
Men are creatures unable to separate sex from love.
Despite Henry’s claims of indifference toward Sophia, when had he ever touched another woman?
Isabella felt a sense of imminent danger.
“I was so frightened,” Isabella confessed, her voice perfectly trembling. “When I feel alone, the symptoms always get worse.”
Henry sat beside her bed, guilt etched across his features. “I should have been here sooner.”
Isabella seized the opportunity. “It wasn’t your fault. It was your grandfather who forced me to leave five years ago, not Sophia. I should have told you sooner, but I was afraid.”
Henry’s eyes widened at this revelation. “What are you saying?”
‘Your grandfather threatened to cut you off completely if I didn’t leave,” she explained, tears now flowing freely. “He said your heart condition would worsen under the stress of defying him. I left to protect you, Henry. Not because I wanted to.”
The lies flowed easily from her lips, carefully calculated to drive a wedge between Henry and his family–including Sophia.
‘Please,” Isabella whispered, clutching his hand tighter. “Don’t leave me alone tonight. I’m afraid it will happen again.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Henry nodded. “I’ll stay.”
In the room’s far corner, Nancy lingered in the shadows, observing this interaction with calculating eyes. As Henry settled into the chair beside Isabella’s bed, Nancy discreetly removed her phone from her pocket. With practiced stealth, she captured several photos of the intimate scene–Henry holding Isabella’s hand, leaning close to her, their foreheads nearly touching in apparent tenderness.
Within minutes, these carefully framed images appeared online with inflammatory captions, suggesting Henry had abandoned his wife to be with his true love during a medical emergency.
Comments flooded in: “That poor sick woman needs him!” “His wife is so selfish to compete with someone fighting for her life!” “Sophia Wilson is a homewrecker who stole Henry from Isabella years ago!”
1/2
Chapter 100
Back at Maple Grove, I finally managed to free myself from the bindings after nearly an hour of paintul aruguling. My wrist cal
but the physical pain pated in comparison to the emotional devastation.
I moved silently through the darkened house, entering Billy’s room, gently lifting my sleeping son into my arms, cradling bite agatove may chant as he murmured softly in his dreams. He instinctively curled into me, trusting and innocent.
“We’re leaving, sweetheart, I whispered, though he couldn’t hear me. And this time, we’re
fot coming back.”
Chapter Comments
LIKE
POST COMMENT NOW
< SHARE
