MoboNovels
“Hello, the number you have dialed is currently unavailable. Please try again later.”
In the quiet emergency room, the automated female voice echoing from the receiver felt especially cold.
“Still no answer?” The nurse was clearly losing patience.
Eleanor lowered her phone, offering a strained, apologetic smile. “Can I just sign for myself?”
The nurse muttered about time-wasting, then handed over the anesthesia consent form.
Seven calls and Alex still hadn’t picked up. It really was a waste of time. If she’d needed a life-saving procedure instead of just a palm wound cleaning, she’d be long gone waiting for family to sign.
After the local anesthetic, the doctor meticulously picked out tiny, sharp glass shards from her palm with tweezers, curious about how she’d gotten injured.
“No special reason, really. Just couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d do some chores to pass the time. Who knew I’d be so unlucky? Wiping a window and the glass just shattered.”
The doctor, out of professional habit, asked if she suffered from chronic insomnia.
Eleanor shook her head. She usually slept like a baby. Tonight’s insomnia, though, had a very specific reason.
And that reason…
Ding-dong.
A text notification interrupted their conversation. She picked up her phone, opened it, and saw a video from an unknown number.
The video was shot in dim light, so it was hard to make out much, but Eleanor recognized Alex instantly.
The man was still wearing the suit she’d picked out for him that morning. His long, straight legs were propped lazily on a table. His tall, athletic frame was sprawled back on a sofa, and his perfectly sculpted features (the kind God himself must have carved) were flawless – the type of face that could make women scream anywhere. But his eyes were too sharp, too cold. Even when he smiled, there was an ‘approach with caution’ sign plastered all over him. Except for the woman beside him.
After three years apart, she recognized the other woman immediately: Olivia Rockefeller, her husband’s beloved.
Olivia was pressed close to Alex, wearing a vintage silk gown that made her skin look like flawless porcelain. Three years studying abroad had only added to her artistic, almost ethereal aura. Her delicate eyes gazed at Alex with such deep affection, undeniably captivating.
People nearby were egging them on to drink a ’toast of intertwined arms.’ Olivia’s face flushed with shyness, but her eyes were brimming with expectation.
Alex kept his lips curved in a casual smile, a hint of nonchalant charm in his eyes. He raised the glass in front of him.
The video cut off there. Eleanor clutched her phone, offering a bitter laugh.
No wonder he didn’t pick up any of her seven calls. She should have known he’d be with Olivia today, considering she just got back to the city.
If she hadn’t suspected it, why else would she be completely sleepless tonight? But thinking it is one thing; seeing it with her own eyes is another entirely. She couldn’t just ignore it.
Eleanor typed with her freshly cleaned right hand, her fingertips trembling. “Tomorrow morning at 10 AM, meet me at the courthouse.”
In their three years of marriage, Alex had never looked at her with such tenderness. In his eyes, she’d only ever seen disgust.
Yes, he loathed her. Because the person who made him marry her was someone he despised, and because marrying her forcibly separated him from his darling for three years.
But back then, she had no choice. Her grandfather had cancer and an unfulfilled last wish. The anti-cancer medication cost a million a shot. She had no option but to agree to marry Alex, as his aunt Vivian had demanded.
Her original intentions hadn’t been pure, and she felt guilty towards Alex. For three years, she’d diligently looked after his every need, and no matter how cruelly he spoke to her, she remained steadfast.
Three years – even if you raised a dog, you’d worry about it when it got sick. But Alex? When she needed his signature for surgery, he was out clinking glasses with his precious darling.
A sharp, painful ache spread through her chest. Eleanor raised a hand to cover her eyes, tears slipping through her fingers.
It was late when she left the hospital, her IV drip complete. Just as she started her car, her phone rang. The custom ringtone told her it was Alex.
Her mind screamed at her to hang up, but her fingers, out of habit, answered before she could stop them.
Eleanor inwardly cursed herself for being so weak, offering a flat, “Hello?”
“Eleanor, Alex is drunk at the Midnight Lounge. Come pick him up, quickly.”
Before she could even open her mouth, the line went dead.
Eleanor didn’t want to go, but then a thought struck her: what if Alex ended up spending the night with Olivia Rockefeller and it messed up their divorce plans tomorrow?
She couldn’t not go.
Midnight Lounge.
After parking, Eleanor glanced at the gauze wrapped around her right hand. Then, thinking of Olivia Rockefeller’s elegant beauty tonight, she decisively ripped off the unsightly bandage. She wouldn’t lose face, no matter what. Eleanor couldn’t appear disheveled.
Walking into the private room, she saw a bunch of people slumped over, clearly wasted. Only Alex still held the same seated posture from the video, seemingly asleep, his usual sharp edge softened by unconsciousness.
But Eleanor’s first glance wasn’t for him. It was for Olivia Rockefeller, who was leaning softly against him, clearly emboldened by the alcohol. Her cheeks were flushed, giving her a distinct, alluring beauty.
Eleanor, having left in a hurry, had simply thrown a cardigan over her loungewear, her face bare—the quintessential image of a housewife. The contrast with Olivia Rockefeller at that moment was stark, like night and day.
Catching sight of her, Olivia Rockefeller shot upright like a startled bird, nervously explaining, “Mrs. Sinclair, please don’t misunderstand! I just had a couple too many drinks and felt a little weak, so I leaned on Alex’s shoulder.”
And of course, someone piped up, backing her play: “Sis, don’t push Alex’s buttons just because he likes you. Everyone knows how much he despises her! He hates it when anyone calls her Mrs. Sinclair!”
As Olivia Rockefeller’s sister, Mia Rockefeller, blurted this out, the private room instantly erupted in jeers. Everyone’s gaze at Eleanor was as contemptuous as ever.
“Mia, don’t say that. Whether Alex likes her or not, she’s still Alex’s wife.” Olivia Rockefeller jumped in again, playing the good cop, giving her sister a half-hearted lecture before flashing Eleanor an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, my parents spoiled her rotten.”
Eleanor wasn’t angry. “It’s fine. She’s not wrong. Alex does hate me.”
“At least you know your place,” Mia scoffed.
Eleanor smiled at her. “But what can I do? As much as he hates me, I’m still Mrs. Sinclair. And as much as he likes someone else, they have no title.”
That was practically pointing a finger at Olivia Rockefeller and calling her a homewrecker.
Olivia Rockefeller’s flushed cheeks paled slightly.
“Eleanor, who are you calling a homewrecker?! You were the one who crashed my sister and Alex’s relationship! If it weren’t for you, they’d have kids by now!” Mia furiously accused.
Kids? Yeah, right. A fat chance of that. Why don’t you ask Alex if he could even get it up for your sister? If I hadn’t been diligently detoxing him for three years, Alex would have been useless in bed his entire life, all show and no go. Now that he’s cured, and I haven’t even gotten to enjoy it yet, Olivia Rockefeller gets to reap the benefits?
The thought stuck in Eleanor’s throat, a bitter pill.