He Used My Family’s Cure to Save His Mistress

The day after the explosion at the Medical Research Institute, a photo titled "The Parker Couple" went viral online. In the picture, Ethan Parker was covered in dust and looked utterly disheveled, yet he held the woman in his arms with fierce protectiveness, shielding her so completely that not even a strand of her hair had been harmed. Everyone said Ethan loved his wife, Clara Quinn, beyond measure. Even in a life-or-death disaster like the lab explosion, he had shielded Clara's face from the cameras to keep the media from hounding her. Together, they had risen from sharing a cramped slum apartment and a battered piece of lab equipment to publishing groundbreaking papers in top-tier journals, becoming the only two leading experts in the emerging field of cancer therapeutics. But only Clara, lying in her hospital bed, knew the truth. From the moment of the explosion yesterday until she woke this morning, her husband had never once stepped into her room. It was not until Clara went alone to collect her medication that Ethan, who was there picking up medicine for Lily Lane, finally noticed her standing bruised and battered in the crowd. Surprise flickered across his face as he frowned and strode over. "You were hurt too? I'm sorry. I was too worried about Lily yesterday, so I took her out first. Why didn't you call me back to save you?" Clara lifted her chin, her gaze calm. "I did call you." But at the time, his eyes had held only Lily. He had braced himself beneath the collapsing beam and lifted it to shield Lily, never noticing that the other end of that same beam was pinning Clara's arm beneath it. A researcher's hands were priceless. She had screamed, "Ethan! The beam is crushing my hand!" They had been only a few feet apart, yet he seemed deaf to the world, carrying Lily to safety without so much as a glance back. Clara had been left to drag the beam off herself inch by inch until every fingernail tore back, exposing raw, bloody nail beds. Ethan rubbed his temple impatiently. "How can injuries like yours compare to Lily's stomach cancer?" He turned to leave, then paused and lowered his voice. "If the media asks about that trending photo, do what you always do and admit the woman in it was you." Clara lowered her eyes. For once, she did not argue. She simply hid the mockery in her gaze behind lowered lashes. She had once believed Ethan's favoritism toward Lily came only from gratitude toward Lily's father for helping him in the past, along with sympathy for Lily's illness. Until not long ago, when Clara had gone to find him with the latest anti-cancer compound she had developed and saw Lily throw herself into his arms, sobbing. "When can we finally be together openly? The last time we were photographed in the garage, you made Clara take the blame. Then again in the lab, and again at that private gala. Now everyone thinks you two are the golden couple of the pharmaceutical world." Clara froze, clutching the formula sheet so tightly it crumpled in her hand. Ethan bent his head and kissed Lily's hair. "Be good. Clara and I aren't divorced yet. If you're photographed now, the backlash will hurt you." "Then when are you divorcing her?" Lily pouted, tugging on his sleeve. Ethan's voice was slow and measured. "Not yet. I still need her family's ancestral medicinal formula to treat your illness. Be patient a little longer, alright?" The chemical burn on the back of Clara's hand spread wider and wider, but she felt none of it. She only stared at the man before her, at the Ethan who had once lived with her in a cramped rental apartment and handed her every cent of the five hundred dollars he earned, who had drunk himself into gastric bleeding fighting senior experts for her patent credit, who had signed over every patent he owned to her before their wedding. How had that man become the calculating stranger standing before her now? When Clara returned to her room after her examination, she found Lily leaning weakly against the doorframe. The moment Lily saw her, she rushed over with teary eyes. "Clara, thank goodness you're alright. Ethan was so focused on saving me yesterday. I kept worrying whether you got out safely." Before Clara could answer, Lily stumbled and crashed straight into Clara's broken arm. Pain exploded through her, and sweat instantly beaded across Clara's forehead as she shoved Lily away. In the next second, Ethan swept Lily into his arms from behind. "Clara, what are you trying to do to Lily now?" Clara pressed a hand over her injured arm. Compared to the pain in her chest, the agony in her body barely registered. She lifted her eyes to meet his. "Didn't you see exactly what happened?" Then she gestured for the nurse to wheel her back into her room, leaving Ethan frozen where he stood. In the past, whenever something like this happened, Clara would fight desperately to defend herself until he believed her. Why was she so indifferent today? Frowning unconsciously, Ethan helped Lily back to her room. Clara leaned against her pillow and opened her phone. Scrolling to the bottom of an old message thread, she found a long-buried text. A: The Pharmaceutical Institute in Northhaven is recruiting. Training there would help your promotion prospects later. Do you want to go? Back then, she had refused without hesitation. She had wanted to stay and develop the anti-cancer drug with Ethan first. But now, she dialed the number. "Professor... is your institute still hiring?"