He hung up, his face grim, about to leave,
when Willow stopped him.
“If you leave, the wedding is off, and we’re
not having the baby.”
Willow cried, her distress softening Ethan.
“Okay, okay. I’ll stay and help you pick these
things out. Don’t get upset; it’ll hurt the
baby.”
“Turn off your phone, don’t let calls bother
- us.
33
Ethan obeyed, giving her his phone. Willow
smiled.
But he felt uneasy, ignoring it and continuing
shopping.
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shopping.
At home, he turned on his phone and saw 99+
messages and missed calls. A call came in.
He answered slowly.
“How’s Sarah? Did she try to kill herself?”
“Mr. Reed, why weren’t you answering? This
afternoon, Madam had a massive
hemorrhage. She’s gone.”
Chapter Two
“What…?”
His water glass slipped from his hand,
shattering on the floor, startling Willow. “Someone left the madam outside the
hospital. She was found in a pool of blood.” Ethan felt his mind reel; he stumbled and fell. He scrambled to his feet and rushed to the
hospital, even knocking Willow over as she
L
approached with calming tea, without
noticing.
He burst into my room, furious.
“Sarah, even faking an illness has its limits.
Can’t you be more sensible, like Willow?”
But I wasn’t there.
Ethan’s face hardened. He grabbed the
attending physician’s collar. “What
happened? Where’s Sarah?”
“When the madam was found, her blood
vessels had ruptured, her baby had dissolved,
it was hopeless.”
Those words hit Ethan like a tidal wave.
“What baby…?”
“The madam was diagnosed with late–stage leukemia eight weeks pregnant. If she’d lived to give birth, the umbilical cord blood might
L
have saved her.”
“But when she arrived, someone had injected
her with dozens of highly radioactive and
corrosive agents. The baby dissolved, her
blood vessels were destroyed.”
“BOOM!”
Ethan punched the hospital wall, his knuckles
bleeding.
The smell of disinfectant mixed with the scent
of my medicine.
He remembered a rainy night three months
ago, me huddled on the bedroom window
seat, the bruises on my knees visible in the
moonlight.
“Ethan, I’ve been having nosebleeds…”
My face was pale, my fingertips stained with
blood.
く
He’d just scoffed.
“A little blood? Willow never makes such a
fuss.”
Ethan crouched, clutching his head.
“Eight weeks…”
Two months ago, late at night, he’d been
