Chapter 9
Maisy looked up at him, her whole body cold to the bone.
She’d already accepted that, in his heart, she’d never measure up to Melinda. But now… now she wasn’t even as important as Melinda’s grandmother. Was that really all she was to him?
“I don’t agree.” With a sudden burst of strength, she yanked her hand away. “I’m not just some living organ donor.”
She spun on her heel, ready to leave it all behind.
But the next moment, pain exploded at the back of her neck–sharp, brutal, knocking the breath. right out of her. Patrick’s hand struck with terrifying speed. She didn’t even have time to react before her legs gave out, the world blurring and going dark.
The last thing she remembered was Patrick scooping her up, shouting to the doctor, “Get the OR ready!”
When Maisy woke again, a tearing pain ripped through her abdomen, so sharp it stole her breath. Shaking, she lifted her hospital gown just enough to see a blood–stained bandage across her stomach.
“You just had a liver transplant. Please, don’t move,” a nurse said, gently holding her down.
Maisy bit her lip until she tasted blood.
He really did it.
For Melinda’s grandmother, he’d forced her into surgery, taken part of her liver.
The ache in her body was almost unbearable, like someone stirring up her insides with a dull knife. But even that was nothing compared to the pain in her heart.
Her fingers trembled as she touched the ugly scar on her stomach.
What a joke. The deepest wound she had was given by the man she loved most.
Days passed. She lay like a lifeless doll in her hospital bed, listening to laughter and happiness drifting from the room next door.
‘Melinda’s grandmother is so lucky to have such a loving granddaughter and grandson–in–law!”
“Patrick is such a good man, doing everything for his wife’s grandma…”
Wife?
Maisy wanted to laugh, but she couldn’t even find the strength to smile.
She stayed in the hospital for two whole weeks. Every day, she heard Patrick in the hallway, fussing over Melinda and her grandmother. He never once set foot in Maisy’s room.
On the day she was finally discharged, Maisy was gathering her things when she overheard
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Chapter 9
Melinda’s teary voice around the corner.
“Patrick, why do you keep doing so much for me when I keep turning you down? Why… would you even give my grandma your wife’s liver?”
Maisy stopped in her tracks, pressing herself against the wall. She heard Patrick’s low, hoarse voice say, “I’ve said it a hundred times–I love you, Melinda. I want to be with you. What do you want from me, to rip out my heart before you believe it?”
For a long moment, there was only silence. Then Melinda finally spoke, her voice shaky but
determined.
“I… I’ll say yes. I’ll be with you. But I have one condition.”
Patrick’s excitement was obvious. He wrapped her up in his arms, desperate.
“Anything,” he said, voice rough. “Name it, I’ll do it.”
“I won’t be your mistress,” Melinda said, every word clear. “I want to be with you openly… after you divorce your wife.”
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Maisy started counting her heartbeats–one, two…
By the seventeenth, Patrick finally spoke.
“Okay.”
Just one word. So light, but it shattered everything.
Maisy slid down the wall, sinking to the cold floor. Her stomach burned with pain, but it was nothing–nothing compared to the feeling of her heart being ripped out.
When she got home, Maisy burned the last love letter she’d ever received.
As the flames ate the paper, she remembered the boy Patrick used to be–standing under her window, snowflakes caught on his eyelashes, grinning as he handed her the letter. “Maisy, this is my ninety–ninth love letter. Be with me, okay? I’ll love you forever.”
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