His Engagement Was My Final Goodbye

Chapter 4

The hotel engineers carried me out of there.

The gash on my right wrist went all the way down to the bone, and my thumb and index finger were temporarily completely numb.

My ninth rib was cracked, and I'd gotten eleven stitches in my side.

While the doctor was patching me up, I only asked one question.

"Will this hand still be able to do precision calibration work?"

The first batch of on-site staff was supposed to assemble at six the next morning.

Three years of prep, nine rounds of assessments, and of course, the final hurdle had to take out my dominant hand, of all things.

Two hours later, the nerve test results came back.

Thankfully, nothing was severed.

The project's medical team cleared me to enter the site while injured, but I was barred from frontline operations for the first three months.

I'd just finished signing the report when Vivian's test results came out, too.

Mild concussion, no intracranial bleeding.

She had a gauze patch stuck to her forehead, murmuring the same line over and over in a small, shaky voice.

"I didn't do it on purpose. I was just trying to grab her."

I didn't care to listen. I just kept my head down, shoving my medication into a bag.

Creak. The ward door swung open all of a sudden.

Adrian stood in the doorway.

The second he spotted the splint on my hand, he froze solid, like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over him.

"How'd you get hurt this badly?"

He walked over, hand halfway outstretched before he hesitated and pulled back, too scared to touch me.

"What did the doctor say?"

"The nerves aren't severed."

"What about your ribs?"

"One's cracked."

All the color drained from his face instantly. "Why didn't you tell me?"

I stared at him, cold as ice. "When you picked her up and walked off, I was trapped under the platform."

Adrian's lips went dead white in a split second.

"I didn't know! I thought you just took a tumble."

"Mm. You always have an excuse, don't you?"

His eyes went red right away.

Then he squatted down in front of me, just like he used to when he wanted to coax me out of a bad mood, and pressed his forehead to my knee.

"Don't get discharged yet. I'll stay here with you."

"We'll still hold the wedding, but we won't get the marriage license."

"All I promised Margaret was the ceremony."

"I'm only ever getting a marriage license with you."

I almost laughed out loud.

"You think that's the best of both worlds?"

Vivian's voice drifted over from the ward doorway.

"We're not getting the license?"

Adrian stood up, and for the first time, his face was ice-cold when he spoke to her. "I'm giving you the wedding. Isn't that enough?"

"Margaret keeps asking about the marriage license."

"Then tell her the truth."

"Adrian!"

"Vivian, don't push your luck. I owe your brother my life, but I don't owe you my entire damn existence!"

Vivian's eyes were blazing red as she spun around to glare at me.

"Happy now?"

I finished tying the drawstring on my medication bag.

"What does any of this have to do with me? I dumped him on the day of the engagement party."

The ward went dead silent all at once. You could've heard a pin drop.

Adrian snapped his head toward me.

"What did you just say?"

I pushed myself to my feet.

A sharp, stabbing pain shot through my cracked rib, and cold sweat beaded on my forehead instantly.

He moved on instinct to steady me.

I stepped back sharply to dodge his touch, hissed in a sharp breath through my teeth, and bit out every word, slow and sharp.

"I said, Adrian, I'm done with you."

He looked like he'd been knocked clean off balance, as if someone had just smacked him upside the head. He stared at me blankly for a few long seconds, as if he were only just processing what I'd said.

"But we've been together six years!"

Before I could reply, the sharp, even thud of boots marching in step cut through the quiet outside the door.

The project lead, Leo Anderson, walked in, flanked by two uniformed guards.

"Emily, the vehicle is waiting at the back entrance. We depart in ten minutes."

Adrian snapped his head around so fast his neck must have cracked, and he all but shouted, "Where do you think you're going?"

Ethan and Lucas burst in right on Leo's heels. The second they heard the word 'depart', both of them froze in place.

Leo scowled, his gaze flicking pointedly between all the people lingering in the room.

"Emily has been selected for the first on-site team of the national deep-earth exploration program. It's a ten-year, fully closed deployment. She reports for duty today."

The lead glanced at the splint on my arm, and his voice tightened with poorly suppressed anger.

"Emily spent three years preparing for this spot, went through nine rounds of assessments, and didn't miss a single one. Today, she almost lost her place on the first team because of that injury to her right hand."

The air in the room went dead still, heavy enough to press on your chest.

Ethan mumbled, stunned, like he couldn't wrap his head around what he'd just heard. "Ten years fully closed?"