Chapter 9: Taking Back What Was Hers
1676 Words
At St. Gabriel Medical Center, Cecilia woke to sunlight and a room full of people who loved looking worried for her.
Richard Bennett had arrived early, still in his work suit, his expression serious until he saw Cecilia sitting up in bed with a blanket around her shoulders.
His stern face softened at once.
“Cecilia,” he said, crossing the room. “How do you feel?”
“Much better, Dad.” Cecilia smiled weakly. “I’m sorry. You had work.”
“What work could be more important than your health?”
Eleanor, seated beside the bed, immediately nodded. “Exactly. You frightened us.”
Tristan stood by the wall with his arms folded. “She still says she doesn’t want to trouble anyone.”
Richard frowned. “Nonsense.”
Cecilia’s eyes shone. “I just didn’t want everyone to fight because of me.”
Everett stood near the window.
He had barely slept. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Aurora at the nurses’ station, signing her discharge papers as if she were dealing with a stranger’s accusation.
First, I am here because you shoved me hard enough to split my forehead open.
He had not known she had been in the hospital all night.
Room Five.
Next door.
The knowledge sat uncomfortably under his ribs.
Richard noticed his silence. “Everett, thank you for staying with Cecilia.”
Everett turned. “It was nothing.”
“You have your own company to manage,” Richard said. “If you need to leave, Tristan can stay.”
Everett hesitated.
He had not planned to mention Aurora.
Then he said, “I saw Aurora this morning.”
The room changed.
Eleanor looked up sharply. “Here?”
“At St. Gabriel Medical Center.” Everett’s voice was low. “She was discharged this morning.”
“What was she doing here?” Tristan asked immediately. “Did she come to bother Cecilia?”
Everett’s jaw tightened. “No. She was hospitalized before Cecilia arrived. She was in the next room.”
Silence.
Eleanor’s lips parted. “Hospitalized? Because of her forehead?”
“She said she got into a car accident after leaving the house.” Everett paused. “She stayed overnight for observation.”
Richard’s brows drew together.
For the first time, something like concern crossed Eleanor’s face. “A car accident? Is she all right?”
Tristan gave a cold laugh before Everett could answer.
“You believe that?”
Eleanor turned to him. “Tristan.”
“Mom, think about it. She said yesterday she wanted to cancel the wedding. Today Everett sees her at the hospital. Isn’t that convenient?” Tristan’s expression was full of contempt. “She probably wanted him to feel guilty.”
Everett’s fingers curled at his side.
He wanted to reject the idea.
He did not.
Because if Aurora was using the hospital to make him feel guilty, then he had not been wrong to ignore her last night. He had not been wrong to go to Cecilia. He had simply refused to be manipulated.
That explanation was easier to accept.
Cecilia lowered her head. “She was really angry yesterday. She even said she wanted to break the engagement.”
Richard’s face darkened. “That child.”
Eleanor sighed. “She has always been sensitive.”
“She isn’t sensitive,” Tristan said. “She’s jealous.”
Cecilia’s eyes reddened instantly. “Tristan, don’t say that. It really was my fault. If I hadn’t tried on the dress…”
Tristan softened at once. “You did nothing wrong.”
Richard patted Cecilia’s hand. “I’ll talk to Aurora another day. She needs to have less jealousy in her heart.”
Everett listened to them.
The tightness in his chest eased.
Yes.
This was Aurora.
Quiet, stubborn, desperate to be seen. She had always wanted the Bennetts to care more. She had always hated how easily Cecilia drew attention. Yesterday’s scene had been the worst version of that jealousy.
The hospital, the sharp words at the nurses’ station, the so-called cancellation of the wedding—maybe it was all part of the same outburst.
She would come back.
She always did.
His phone vibrated.
Everett looked down.
Aurora Bennett.
For a brief second, he stared at the name.
Then a faint, humorless smile touched his mouth.
Tristan was right.
He stepped into the corridor before answering.
“Aurora,” he said, voice cool. “If you’re calling to apologize, I can overlook what happened this morning. But if you say the engagement is off again—”
“I’m not calling to apologize.”
Her voice was calm enough to cut him off cleanly.
Everett’s expression stiffened.
Aurora stood outside the ICU corridor, one hand resting on the handle of her suitcase. Linda had gone to arrange the first payment. The hospital noises around her blurred into the background.
She looked at Ruth through the glass.
Then she said, “I’m calling about HeartMirror.”
Everett went still.
“What?”
“The HeartMirror AI Cardiac Risk Prediction System,” Aurora said. “The patent is under my name. The core model code is mine. I gave Stone Biotech access to it as part of what was supposed to be my contribution to our marriage.”
Everett’s voice dropped. “Aurora.”
“The marriage is not happening.”
“Aurora, don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m taking it back.”
For the first time since he picked up the call, Everett did not answer immediately.
She could almost hear his mind moving.
Calculating.
Stone Biotech had already built too much around HeartMirror. Product testing, investor presentations, technical planning, projected launch schedules. Everett knew exactly what she was talking about, even if he had once acted surprised that she could build anything worth serious money.
When she had first given him the patent documents and model code, he had looked at her as if he were seeing an unexpected side effect from an otherwise ordinary person.
Later, after experts confirmed its value, he had taken her to Paris for a week.
At the time, she had been touched.
Now she realized he had simply rewarded a useful asset.
“Aurora,” Everett said slowly, “Stone Biotech has already invested heavily into that system.”
“That sounds like a Stone Biotech problem.”
“You gave it to me.”
“I gave it to my future husband,” she said. “You are no longer that.”
“You’re angry.”
“I’m busy.”
“Aurora Bennett.”
She closed her eyes briefly.
That tone again.
The one that used to make her anxious.
Now it only made her tired.
“My lawyer will contact you if necessary,” she said. “But I’m giving you one chance to handle this cleanly. If Stone Biotech wants to keep using HeartMirror, you’ll sign a licensing agreement and pay for it.”
“A licensing agreement?”
“Yes.”
“You want money.”
“I want ownership respected.”
His laugh was short and cold. “So this is what it is. You cut up the wedding dress, throw the ring, make a scene at the hospital, and now you want to use a patent to force me to bow my head?”
Aurora opened her eyes.
Through the ICU glass, Ruth lay motionless beneath white sheets.
Aurora’s voice turned colder.
“No, Everett. I want back what belongs to me.”
“You really think you can just take it away?”
“Yes.”
“That product is already in development.”
“Then I suggest you resolve the licensing issue quickly.”
His breathing changed.
“Aurora, don’t push this too far.”
“Everett,” she said, almost gently, “you took my wedding dress and gave it to Cecilia. You pushed me hard enough to make me bleed. You left me to go take care of her fever. You don’t get to keep my work too.”
A long silence.
When Everett spoke again, his voice was tight.
“You’re serious.”
“Completely.”
“What do you want?”
Aurora looked at the ICU doors, at the hospital bill already waiting to be paid, at the suitcase beside her feet that held everything she had taken from the Bennett family.
“I want a formal licensing deposit,” she said. “And future royalties from any product using HeartMirror.”
“Aurora—”
“If Stone Biotech continues using my model without authorization, you’ll receive a legal notice.”
Everett’s anger finally broke through the polite surface.
“You’re threatening me?”
“I’m informing you.”
“You really changed overnight.”
“No.” Aurora’s fingers tightened around the phone. “I just stopped letting you take things for free.”
Then she ended the call.
Everett stood in the quiet hospital corridor with the dead line pressed to his ear.
For the first time that morning, he did not think of Aurora’s tears.
He thought of the product pipeline.
The presentations already made.
The investors.
The code sitting inside Stone Biotech’s system.
And the woman he had dismissed as jealous and emotional, calmly reaching for the one thing that could make his company bleed.
Inside the ICU corridor, Aurora lowered the phone.
Her hand was shaking.
Not from regret.
From exhaustion.
Linda hurried back, eyes still wet. “Aurora, I put in what I could. They’ll start preparing once the deposit is confirmed. Did you… did you find a way?”
Aurora looked at Ruth through the glass.
“I will.”
Linda took her hand and squeezed it.
Aurora squeezed back.
She had no family behind her now. No fiancé. No Bennett allowance. No engagement. No home except the one she had not yet reached.
But she had her work.
Her name.
Her patent.
And for the first time in ten years, she was going to use them for herself.
- Writer
