Chapter 3
975 Words
The sharp scent of antiseptic pierced through her nostrils, dragging Evelyn's fading consciousness back from the depths.
The weakness still clung to her limbs, the dull ache in her stomach and the persistent itch of her skin stubbornly refusing to fade.
She glanced around the room, but the figure she had expected to find waiting at her bedside was nowhere to be seen.
With trembling fingers, she groped for her phone on the pillow. The screen lit up, revealing a w******p message. Sent three hours ago.
Aiden: Emergency meeting at the office. Had to go ahead. If you're feeling better when you wake up, go home and rest.
Short. Impersonal.
No inquiry about her condition. No explanation for leaving her alone in a hospital bed. Not a single word of comfort.
As if collapsing unconscious the previous evening had been nothing more than a mild cold.
Evelyn yanked the IV needle from her arm, ignoring both her body's weak protests and the nurse's startled objections. She signed herself out.
The taxi pulled up before the imposing glass tower of Cross Group headquarters.
She didn't know why she had come. Perhaps to see with her own eyes the truth she already knew in her bones.
She rode the elevator to the top floor and walked quietly toward the conference room. Through the thick frosted glass, she could make out shadowy figures seated around the long table.
Something compelled her forward. She pushed the door open just a c***k.
At the head of the conference table sat Aiden in his perfectly tailored suit, listening to a presentation with that sharp, cold profile she knew so well. His attention appeared fixed on the speaker.
Beside him, practically pressed against his shoulder, sat Iris.
Bored, the girl scrolled through her phone, occasionally leaning in to murmur something against his ear.
Each time, Aiden would tilt his head slightly to catch her words. No impatience. No distance. Just quiet accommodation.
Then Iris extended a single finger and tapped lightly on Aiden's laptop screen.
The screen went dark.
The presenter, mid-sentence, faltered visibly.
Aiden's reaction made Evelyn's blood run cold.
He didn't lose his temper. Didn't scold her. Didn't even frown.
Instead, he simply turned his head toward Iris, and there, there at the corner of his lips, was the faintest hint of a smile. "Stop fooling around," he said quietly.
His tone carried something Evelyn had never heard directed at her: indulgent affection. The gentle exasperation of someone humoring a beloved child.
Once, years ago, Evelyn had visited him at the office during a meeting. She had missed him so intensely she couldn't stay away.
Too afraid to disturb him, she had waited silently in the lounge outside his office.
When Aiden finally noticed her, his brow had creased slightly. He had led her into his office and spoken to her in a low, firm voice. "This is the office, Evelyn. Not home. Wait here and don't wander, it looks unprofessional."
But now, here he was, allowing another woman to casually disrupt a serious meeting, to touch his equipment, to demand his attention whenever she pleased.
The realization crashed over Evelyn like freezing water.
She had been lying to herself all this time.
Devastation hollowed out her chest. She staggered away from the conference room door, her feet carrying her numbly down the corridor toward Aiden's office.
She pushed open the heavy solid wood door, and his familiar scent washed over her, that clean, crisp fragrance she had always associated with him. Now it carried something else beneath it. Something faintly sweet. Unfamiliar.
The office remained immaculate, as always. Precise. Efficient. A testament to the man who occupied it.
But her gaze snagged on the leather sofa in the lounge area.
The sleek, minimalist sofa she remembered was gone, buried now under a heap of fluffy, cartoonish plush toys. Pastel-colored rabbits and bears with oversized eyes sat propped against each other, their soft forms utterly alien against the office's austere, sharp-edged modernism.
Evelyn walked toward them in a daze. Her trembling fingers reached out to touch one, a rabbit dressed in a ridiculous princess gown, complete with tulle skirt and plastic tiara.
The office door opened behind her.
Grace, Aiden's assistant, stepped in with her arms full of files. When she saw Evelyn standing there, the plush toy in her hand, a flicker of discomfort crossed her professional mask.
"Madam..." Grace hesitated. "These were Miss Smith's request. She said the CEO's office felt too cold, too uncomfortable. She insisted on having these placed here."
Miss Smith's request.
So Iris had asked, and Aiden had simply... agreed. Had broken years of his own rules, his own boundaries, his own carefully maintained distance. For her.
A sharp, stabbing pain gripped Evelyn's heart, so intense she nearly doubled over.
"What are you doing?"
The deep voice came from the doorway.
Aiden stood there, the meeting clearly ended. His gaze immediately locked onto the plush toy in Evelyn's hand.
He crossed the room in swift strides and, there was no other word for it, snatched it back from her fingers.
Then, with meticulous care, he returned the rabbit to its place on the sofa. He adjusted its position slightly, tilting its head to rest more comfortably against the cushion beside it.
Only after completing this small ritual did he turn to face Evelyn. His expression had already settled back into its usual composed mask. "Why are you here? I told you to go home and rest."
Evelyn stared at him.
And suddenly, she wanted to laugh.
Her husband had just snatched a toy from her hands as if she had been trespassing in someone else's sanctuary. As if the soft, foolish thing mattered more than the woman standing before him.
As if the space beside him had never been hers to occupy at all.
- Writer
