He Kept Our Marriage Secret For Ten Years

Chapter 2

Nancy handed me a tissue. "Jocelyn, I know you're upset, but you really shouldn't have confronted Dr. Ross in front of everyone like that."

"You think I'm crazy too?" I clenched my fist. My nails dug through the tissue and into my palm.

Nancy sighed, then pulled up Evelyn's social media. "Just look at this. You'll understand."

On the screen was a set of engagement photos. Evelyn and Lance.

I froze. A sick, almost ridiculous chill crawled straight up my spine.

"Dr. Thorne proposed to Dr. Ross a month ago. They've already done their engagement shoot. Everyone thinks the wedding is next. Dr. Ross was his first love, and now she's his fiancée. Of course he'd help her."

Even after I clocked out and went home, Nancy's words kept pounding through my head.

Lance proposed to Evelyn? Then who was I? What the hell did that make me?

I sat on the couch, staring at the wedding photo hanging on the wall.

We'd chosen the cheapest wedding photography package we could afford. No destination shoot. No elaborate venue. Nothing.

Back then, Lance had just started working at the hospital. He had no money, no status—just love in his eyes and a promise that someday he'd make it all up to me.

"Jocelyn, once I'm established at the hospital, I'll make up for everything you've sacrificed for me."

So I waited.

Somehow, 10 years passed.

Last year, a photographer friend offered me a steep discount on an anniversary shoot in Bellara Island.

When I told Lance about it, he didn't even look up.

"I have patients depending on me every day. I don't have time to fly halfway across the world for a photo shoot."

I opened Evelyn's social media again. Then I looked at the wedding photos of her and Lance.

Behind them, Bellara Island looked every bit as beautiful as I'd imagined it would.

At 9 that night, Mom called.

"Did you get promoted?"

"No."

"What? Again? Lance is the Medical Director now. Why didn't he help you? Did you do something to upset him?"

The front door opened just as she said it.

Lance paused for half a second. Then, like he'd heard nothing, he bent down to take off his shoes.

I ended the call. Then I walked over and held up the wedding photo on my phone.

"Congratulations on the engagement, Dr. Thorne."

His fingers paused on the buttons of his shirt. His voice stayed calm.

"Evelyn's mother is seriously ill. She wanted to see Evelyn settled down, so we staged an engagement shoot to put her mind at ease."

I said, "She posted them publicly. Everyone at the hospital thinks you're about to get married."

"If we're pretending, we have to make it convincing."

Lance walked around me and went to the table. He poured himself a glass of water.

When he spoke again, whatever patience he'd had was gone. "Jocelyn, I've been at the hospital all day. When I come home, I just want to rest. I don't want to waste my time fighting with you."

At the hospital, he barely spoke to me because he didn't want people to suspect anything.

At home, he couldn't be bothered to explain because it was a "waste of time."

But no matter how busy he was, he somehow found the time to write Evelyn a 10-page recommendation.

No matter how packed his schedule was, he could still take time off and fly to Bellara Island with her for an engagement shoot.

Even if it was all supposedly an act.

A hollow feeling spread through me inch by inch. I lowered my phone.

"You're right. It is a waste of time."

Lance looked up. "I didn't mean it like that. Don't turn this into another argument."

The next second, his phone rang.

Evelyn's helpless sobbing came through the speaker. "Lance, we just had a critical patient come in. I misdiagnosed the case. What am I supposed to do?"

"I'm coming right now."

Not once in 10 years had he ever answered me with that kind of certainty.

Last year, an enraged patient's family had cornered me at the hospital. One of them had been waving a knife around, screaming insults, yelling that he was going to cut me into pieces.

I locked myself in the physicians' workroom and braced my body against the door while waiting for the police.

Lance had been seeing patients one floor above. He knew exactly what had happened. He never came down.

Afterward, when I finally broke down, he stayed perfectly calm.

"If I'd rushed out there, the entire hospital would've known about us by the next morning. I'm a doctor, not a cop."

Now I watched him hurry toward the door for Evelyn. My voice was so calm it barely sounded like mine.

"Lance, if you walk out that door tonight, we're getting divorced."

His steps paused. Just for a second.

"A person's life is at stake. Can you please be reasonable?"

The door slammed shut.

For a long time, I stood there without moving. Eventually, I forced myself to move.

I picked up my phone and called a friend who was an attorney.

"I need you to help me file for divorce. As soon as possible."