I Hate That I Still Want Her

Chapter6

Chapter 6: Marcus Knew Before I Did

The nurse was still waiting by the curtain, one hand resting politely on the frame, and for a moment Ethan forgot she existed entirely, forgot the monitor, forgot the sterile hum of the hospital around them, forgot everything except the five words still ringing in his ears. Marcus knew before I did.

The sentence kept replaying itself in his mind even as he tried to focus on the woman in front of him, five simple words that somehow managed to unravel five years of careful, disciplined understanding about exactly who had wronged whom in this story. He had spent half a decade believing himself the only true victim of that terrible night, the wounded party in a betrayal orchestrated entirely by a woman who had simply grown tired of him. Now, in the space of two days, that narrative had cracked apart twice, first with the truth of her illness, and now with the suggestion that even her illness had been known, watched, and weaponized by someone else long before she herself understood what was happening inside her own body.

What are you talking about, he said, low and urgent, his hand still locked around hers. Knew what, exactly. Knew you were sick? How is that possible, Amelia, you found out from your own doctor.

Amelia's eyes darted toward the nurse, and something passed between the two women, some silent, practiced negotiation, because the nurse nodded once and said, I can give you two more minutes, before withdrawing back through the curtain and leaving them alone again in the dim, humming quiet.

Two years ago, Amelia said quickly, quietly, the words tumbling out now with the urgency of a woman who suspected she would lose her nerve if she slowed down. When I was going through my father's old files after he passed, I found an email. From Marcus. Dated three weeks before my actual diagnosis. Before I ever collapsed at that gallery, before any doctor ever ran a single test on me.

Ethan's stomach dropped. What did it say.

It was addressed to my father, she said. Asking about succession contingencies for Cross Designs in the event of what he called a health related departure among key shareholders. He specifically named me, Ethan. Not my father, not Sophie. Me. Three weeks before I even knew anything was wrong with my own body.

That could mean anything, Ethan said, though even as he said it he could hear how thin the argument sounded in his own mouth. Maybe he was talking about your father's health. Maybe it was a coincidence.

I thought that too, at first, Amelia said. I told myself that for months, because the alternative was too disturbing to sit with. But then I found the second email, from a month later, congratulating my father on quote handling the diagnosis situation with such discretion, close quote, sent the same week I was diagnosed. The same week, Ethan. Before I had told anyone outside my immediate family. Before the hospital had even finalized my chart.

Ethan felt something cold and sharp settle into his chest, a fury entirely separate from the fury he had carried for five years, a new and specific kind of rage reserved for men who treated other people's suffering as an opportunity to be exploited rather than a tragedy to be mourned. Someone told him, he said slowly. Someone inside the hospital, or inside your father's company, told Marcus you were sick before you knew it yourself.

I don't know who, she said. I never had the courage to find out. I told myself it didn't matter anymore, that whatever he knew or didn't know, the diagnosis was real regardless of how he found out about it. But now, with this contract, this merger clause, everything you found today, I keep thinking about timing, Ethan. He didn't just happen to be circling both our families for years. He knew exactly when to start circling, because he knew things about my body before I did.

The curtain rustled again, more insistently this time, and the nurse's voice came through, gentle but firm. Ms. Cross, we really do need to get you down to imaging now.

I have to go, Amelia said, her hand finally loosening around his, though her eyes held his gaze with a new, fragile intensity. Ethan, promise me you won't do anything reckless with this. Marcus is patient and he is careful and if he thinks either of us is coming for him before we have proof, he will bury it so deep we never find it again.

I promise, Ethan said, though even as the words left his mouth he was already turning over the beginnings of a plan in the back of his mind, some cold, methodical corner of himself that had built an entire logistics empire out of exactly this kind of patient, unglamorous investigation. I'll be right here when you get back.

She managed a small, exhausted smile as two orderlies wheeled her bed out from behind the curtain, and Ethan stood in the narrow, empty space where she had been, listening to the wheels squeak away down the corridor, his mind already racing through five years of half remembered conversations with Marcus, searching for every small detail that might have been a clue he was simply too heartbroken to notice at the time.

He found Sophie in the waiting room twenty minutes later, hunched over a vending machine coffee she clearly had no intention of drinking, her eyes red rimmed and distant. He told her everything Amelia had said, watched her face go through disbelief, then horror, then a kind of grim, resigned understanding that suggested some part of her had suspected something like this for longer than she had ever admitted out loud. He found himself, unexpectedly, apologizing to her, for five years of silence, for every holiday and birthday he had let slip past without so much as a phone call because he could not bear to hear the Cross name spoken aloud in his own home.

You don't have to apologize to me, Sophie said, though her tired smile suggested the apology had still meant something. I understood, mostly. I was angry with you for a long time, but I understood. What I couldn't forgive, not for years, was watching my sister carry all of it completely alone, because she decided the two people who loved her most, you and me, both deserved to be protected from the truth more than we deserved to actually help her survive it.

There's a man, Sophie said slowly, once the ache of that admission had settled between them. Works in medical records compliance at the hospital network my father used for all our executive physicals. His name is Warren Doyle. He and Marcus used to golf together, back when I was in high school. I always thought it was strange, a hospital administrator and a shipping heir having anything in common, but I never thought about it twice until right now.

Ethan felt the pieces sliding into place with a kind of sickening clarity. Can you get me anything on him. Employment records, financial history, anything that would show a payment from Marcus around the time of Amelia's diagnosis.

I can try, Sophie said. But Ethan, if this is what it looks like, if Marcus paid someone to leak my sister's private medical information two years before her own doctor told her, that's not just corporate manipulation anymore. That's a crime. That's the kind of thing that ends with people in prison, not just people losing their board seats.

Good, Ethan said, and something in his voice made Sophie look up at him sharply, some flat, dangerous certainty that had not been there five years ago, back when he was still the kind of man who believed the worst thing another person could do to him was break his heart in front of a room full of strangers. He deserves worse than prison for what he's done to both of you, but I'll settle for prison if that's what it takes to make sure he never touches either of you again.

Sophie studied him for a moment, something like cautious relief passing over her tired features. It's strange, she said quietly. I spent five years thinking of you as the enemy, or at least as someone who had chosen to become a stranger rather than fight for the truth. Watching you right now, I almost don't recognize the man who used to bring my sister flowers just because it was a Tuesday. I don't know if that's a good thing or a terrible one.

Maybe it's both, Ethan said. I think I stopped being that man the night your sister walked away from me, Sophie. I'm not sure I get to have him back just because the truth turned out to be different than I thought. But I can be someone useful now. Someone who fights for her instead of just missing her.

They sat together in tense, wordless silence for the better part of an hour, watching the clock above the nurses station tick through the kind of slow, suspended time that only exists in hospital waiting rooms, until the automatic doors at the far end of the corridor slid open with a soft mechanical hiss, and Ethan looked up expecting to see a doctor, or an orderly, or anyone at all except the one person who had absolutely no business walking through those doors uninvited.

Marcus Vale strolled into the waiting room wearing a cashmere coat over his suit and an expression of carefully calibrated concern, as though he had every right in the world to be there, as though he had not spent the last twenty four hours orchestrating a corporate takeover disguised as a business partnership.

I heard what happened, he said, striding toward them with the easy, unhurried confidence of a man who had never once in his life doubted his welcome anywhere. I came as soon as I could. How is she?

Sophie went rigid beside him, her jaw tightening, and Ethan felt every muscle in his own body coil tight with a fury so complete it took real, physical effort not to close the distance between them and put his fist through that carefully composed face.

You need to leave, Ethan said, his voice flat, quiet, and unmistakably dangerous in a way that made even Marcus's easy, practiced smile flicker for half a second.

Marcus tilted his head, studying him with something between amusement and genuine curiosity. That's an unusual way to greet a business partner who drove across town out of concern for a mutual friend, he said. Is something wrong, Ethan? You look like you've seen a ghost.

I know about Warren Doyle, Ethan said quietly, watching for it, watching for the smallest c***k in that polished, unbothered facade, and for one brief, satisfying instant, he saw it, a flicker of something cold and calculating behind Marcus's eyes before the pleasant mask slid smoothly back into place.

I don't know what you're talking about, Marcus said, but his voice had changed, some warmth draining out of it, replaced by something flatter, more careful.

I think you do, Ethan said. I think you've known exactly what you were talking about for two years, Marcus. Long before any of the rest of us did.

For a long moment the two men simply stared at each other across the sterile waiting room, years of manufactured friendship dissolving into something far colder and more honest, while Sophie sat frozen beside them, watching a war finally declare itself in the open after five years of quiet, patient maneuvering.

Marcus's expression settled into something entirely new, something Ethan had never once seen on him in a decade of friendship, a kind of calm, almost curious menace that made the hair on the back of his neck rise. Careful, Ethan, he said softly. You're standing in a hospital, worrying about a woman who might not survive the next hour, and you're choosing to spend that time making accusations you can't prove. That doesn't sound like a man thinking clearly. That sounds like a man about to lose everything he actually cares about, right when he can least afford it.

Is that a threat, Ethan said.

Marcus smiled, and it was the same warm, easy smile he had worn for a decade, and somehow that made it infinitely worse.

It's a fact, he said. Amelia's board seat has been vacant for two years while she recovered. Your board just lost two seats to resignation last quarter. That's a material change in composition on both sides, Ethan, whether either of you wants to admit it or not. My lawy

ers filed the paperwork this morning.