He Faked Infertility, I Signed His Divorce Doom

Chapter 3

A week earlier, the head of a top-secret overseas medical research project had reached out to her. They said she was a rare compatible match, and invited her to join a clinical trial that connected a prosthetic leg directly to the leg's nerves.

If the trial succeeded, the prosthetic would work and feel exactly like her original leg. She'd even be able to dance again.

But if it failed, she would almost certainly lose chunks of her recent memory, maybe a couple of years, maybe a whole decade.

Back then, she'd been terrified of forgetting Arkin, so she'd turned them down.

Now? If she could forget him, that would only be a blessing.

"Yeah, I have a few things to wrap up here first. I won't be able to leave for another month..."

She'd barely gotten the words out when the door to her hospital room swung open and Arkin walked back in.

"Pia, where are you going in a month?" he asked.

Pia hung up the phone and gave him a cool, polite smile. "Just traveling."

Her gaze flicked to the pastries in his hand from that shop in the south of the city.

"Did you really have to wait in line for hours to get these?"

Arkin glanced down at the pastries he'd sent someone else to pick them up just to keep her from getting suspicious, then smiled and nodded. "Forgot to give them to you earlier. Anything you want is worth waiting as long as it takes."

"Don't bother. I'm tired of these," Pia shifted her gaze away, her voice flat and unreadable.

She'd tasted those same pastries once before, back when a friend from her dance troupe ordered them from the south-side shop for delivery. The flavor was exactly identical.

That order had taken less than an hour from clicking buy to landing at her door.

At the time, she hadn't thought anything of it. She'd just assumed it was a different shop with a similar recipe.

But now she saw it for what it was. She finally understood why Arkin insisted on going to 'wait in line' in person to buy them for her.

It was just a cheap excuse to go meet his mistress.

Arkin froze for a split second, a weird, unreadable flicker flashed across his eyes, then he just nodded. "All right. I'll go get you something from another shop instead."

From that day on, Arkin moved his entire office into her hospital room to take care of her full-time.

But she knew exactly what he was up to.

Every night, when he thought she was fast asleep, he’d sneak out of the hospital room on quiet feet.

He’d spend the whole night by Ava’s side, then slip back in right before dawn.

*****

One week later, on the day of her discharge, Arkin insisted on taking her out to celebrate.

Pia had zero desire to go, but he still lifted her into the car and drove her straight to the theater.

When they walked in, she couldn’t believe her eyes. The lead dancer standing center stage was none other than Ava.

A wave of nausea crashed over Pia, and searing, throbbing pain shot through the stump of her amputated leg.

The phantom limb pain was back again.

Her fingers curled instinctively around her wheelchair’s armrests, and cold sweat broke out across her back, soaking it through in seconds.

"Are you feeling unwell again?" Arkin noticed something was wrong right away. He detached her prosthetic leg and started massaging the stump, his movements practiced and smooth after so many times.

“Pia, just hold on a little longer. This dance company’s performance is a really rare opportunity.”

Not long ago, if her phantom limb pain flared up even in the dead of night, Arkin would drop everything to rush her to treatment.

But this time, even though his hands kept rubbing her stump, his eyes never strayed from Ava on the stage.

The second Ava took her final bow, he shot straight to his feet.

"Pia, I’m gonna go get your pain meds. I’ll be right back."

The throbbing phantom pain mixed with a roiling, stomach-churning nausea, so Pia turned her wheelchair and headed for the bathroom.

Right outside the bathroom door, she heard soft, heated, breathless sounds drifting from the next stall over.