I am the top cardiothoracic surgeon at St. Luke’s Medical Center. But after I single-handedly secured tens of millions in sponsorships, my husband, Ethan, suddenly went back on his word. He gave the Vice-Chair position he had promised me to Mia. He even swapped me out as the attending physician for several VIPs I had just dragged back from death's door, handing them over to her. His excuse was that I needed to rest my body to prepare for IVF. But behind my back, he joked with his friends. "That old man Bennett is still lying in a coma! Chloe has no backing anymore... If it weren't for her family doing mine a favor, and my old man forcing me to marry her on his deathbed, the Clarke family's daughter-in-law would only be Mia!" "Divorce? Impossible. We have an understanding... If she throws a tantrum, I'll just pacify her with some of Mia's old jewelry! Isn't that what we've always done?" I laughed. At the board meeting the next day, I slammed my leave slip right in front of Mia. "The two months of PTO I've saved up? I'm starting it today." —— 1 "Leave?" The woman chased me into my office in her stilettos, running so fast her makeup was smudging. "I don't approve!" I didn't even bother looking up, continuing to pack up the patient files I needed to hand over. "The former Chairman of St. Luke's said that I can bypass anyone for time off... This slip is just a notification, not a request." "Don't you dare!" Mia slammed her hand on the leave slip on my desk. "If you dare to take leave, I'll fire you." She regretted the words the second they left her mouth. As the ace of St. Luke's cardiothoracic surgery department, the hospital would grind to a halt without me. Let alone the Wall Street billionaires who only invested here because they trusted my surgical skills. "Fine by me..." I smiled, raising my eyes. "I'll just treat it as an extended vacation! I'll leave all these complex, life-or-death cases in your capable hands, Vice-Chair Scott." I shoved a heavy box full of medical records into Mia's arms. As I turned to leave, she violently grabbed my arm. "You are not allowed to leave!" She was anxious and furious, her manicured nails digging painfully into my skin. "Old Mr. Clarke is dead. Ethan gave me control of the board. I am the one calling the shots at St. Luke's now!" Before she could finish her sentence, I slapped her hard across her left cheek. The blinds in my office were wide open. The passing doctors and nurses saw everything clearly. An angry, flushed red crept from Mia's neck all the way to her eyes. I should have delivered this slap six months ago, the day I found out about her and Ethan. But back then, my dad had just been diagnosed with a brain tumor and was at the most critical stage of his treatment. He had held my hand, begging me to live a good life with Ethan. He said that way, he could die in peace. Ethan had apologized and sworn, like every other cheating man, that he would cut her off completely. More importantly, he had made me a promise. Only by becoming the Vice-Chair of St. Luke's could I fulfill my father's lifelong dream: rolling out AI-driven emergency medical robots in public spaces nationwide. Ultimately, Ethan needed my surgical skills, and I needed his administrative power. The familiar sound of leather dress shoes approached faster than expected. "Why did you hit her?!" Along with the roar came a tearing pain in my right wrist. Ethan pulled Mia into his arms with one hand, glaring at me furiously. "You know exactly what your father promised me." Three years ago, St. Luke's was hit by an unprecedented nursing strike. Staff resigned in droves, and hospital operations completely paralyzed. I wished I could clone myself a dozen times over, sprinting from the ER to the maternity ward, eventually collapsing from severe myocarditis. I nearly died. Ethan's father—the former Chairman of St. Luke's—bowed deeply to me in front of a room full of patients. "This is a debt that I, and St. Luke's, owe you! From this day forward, ask for whatever you want!" I struggled to free my wrist, but his grip was iron. "Since Ms. Scott is the Vice-Chair now, she inherits the debt St. Luke's owes me." "Forget about slapping her..." I raised an eyebrow coldly. "Even you, the Chairman—I could slap you right now if I wanted to!" "Chloe!" The veins on the man's temples throbbed. "Don't push it!" Agonizing pain shot from my wrist straight to my chest. I forced out a cold sneer. "If you squeeze any harder, you're going to have to find a new chief surgeon for St. Luke's." The threat worked. I massaged my aching wrist and let my gaze sweep over Mia. I smirked and turned to walk away. Just as I reached the elevators, the woman shouted down the hall. "Chloe Bennett, you're nothing but a barren hen!" "A woman who can't produce a Clarke family heir will never secure a place in this house!" 2 My footsteps abruptly halted. I glanced back. Ethan's face was completely emotionless. He just crossed his arms, looking like he was enjoying the show. Without hesitation, I walked right back and stopped in front of Mia. The woman, who was half a head taller than me, stared down at me with smug provocation. She was young, pretty, and a decent doctor. Most importantly, her womb worked. Six months ago, she had given birth to Ethan's baby boy. "Has Ms. Scott ever wondered why, six months later, you still haven't been allowed to step foot inside the Clarke family estate?" I tapped a finger against her flat stomach, smiling sweetly. "Want me to ask him for you? Ask if he'll ever let you and your bastard cross the threshold?" Mia's face instantly drained of color. Ethan's chest heaved slightly, his brows furrowed as he glared at me. I stepped up to him and placed my hand over his heart. Leaning in close, the familiar yet foreign warmth made me space out for a fraction of a second. Thankfully, it was only a second before I snapped back to reality. "You were the one who wronged me first, Ethan." "So keep your dog on a leash, or I have plenty of ways to make your Wall Street backers pull their funding." I took the crumpled leave slip from Mia and tucked it neatly into the breast pocket of his tailored suit. "When I come back in two months, you'd better pray no major medical emergencies happen while I'm gone." When I looked up, Ethan's face was black as thunder. I bent down, unbuckled my designer heels, and dangled them in front of his face. "I don't like second-hand goods. You can have them back." —— I didn't feel the sharp, stinging pain in the soles of my feet until the Uber was miles away. I lifted my feet; they were bleeding heavily. The driver looked back in the rearview mirror, concerned. "Ma'am, should I take you back to the ER to get that treated?" "No, keep driving to LAX." There was only one direct flight to Paris a day, and I wasn't going to miss it. I expertly dug out the first-aid kit from my bag, but an ultrasound photo slipped out of my wallet. As I bent down to pick it up, scalding tears splashed onto the back of my hand. I hated crying. Crying was the most useless thing a person could do. Over the years, I had only cried twice: the night my dad fell into a coma, and the day I learned my eight-month-old fetus had died in my womb. It was at the absolute peak of the COVID pandemic. Every hospital in Los Angeles was overflowing. Medical staff were getting infected and dropping like flies. I was already on maternity leave, but Ethan literally begged me to come back and take the helm. I worked back-to-back shifts for over two weeks, eventually caught the virus, and was forced to terminate the pregnancy. When I heard the news, I locked myself in a hospital bathroom and wailed until I lost my voice. I had known Ethan for twenty years. My dad was once St. Luke's top cardiothoracic surgeon, a brother-in-arms to Ethan's father. I had buried all my teenage, girlish love for him beneath the guise of a strategic business marriage. He knew full well that losing that baby was my deepest trauma. Yet he personally handed the knife to Mia. —— When I landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport, I turned my phone back on to a flood of missed calls and texts. Even my work inbox was maxed out. Buried in a pile of frantic emails from St. Luke's was an invitation from a man I hadn't seen in years. I opened it, read it, and replied with three words. We'll see. During my twelve-hour flight, Ethan had been looking for me like a madman. Just as I predicted, the VIP ward had gone up in flames. First, a New York Senator's cardiovascular stent reclogged; he needed the old one removed and a new one installed. Then, a Silicon Valley tech CEO's aortic aneurysm suddenly expanded, risking an imminent rupture. Unfortunately, both of these powerful men were in terrible overall health. No one else dared to take on the surgical risks. In other words, I was the only person alive who could save St. Luke's from a massive PR disaster. Mia, the newly minted Vice-Chair, simply didn't have the risk tolerance or skill to handle it. Ethan was only willing to swallow his pride and beg me because he was trying to protect her. I turned my phone off. I sat on a bench in a Parisian park, sipping a coffee as I watched a breathtaking sunset. Ethan and I had our wedding at a cathedral here in Paris. Every white dove in the square had witnessed our half-fake, half-real happiness. And my genuine heart, which had loved him for ten years, hidden behind corporate interests. But ironically, it was also here in this city that he bought a luxury villa for Mia to safely carry out her pregnancy. My phone rang abruptly. It was the old friend who had sent the email. "I'm back stateside." "Have you thought about coming to my hospital? Whatever St. Luke's can't give you, I can." "No," I smiled softly. "I'm still wearing the title of the Clarke family's wife. It wouldn't be right." After hanging up, I checked my watch. It was time for my daily video call with the private nurse taking care of my dad. But the panicked face on the screen told me something was terribly wrong. "Dr. Bennett, your father is gone... Someone came to the facility an hour ago and took him." Without a second thought, I dialed Ethan's number. "You took my dad, didn't you?" He paused, but didn't even try to hide it. "I miss you. Let's meet." 3 The meeting place was set in Paris, in the exact private suite of the hotel where we held our wedding reception. Outside the window was a sea of roses; inside, the atmosphere was freezing. "Why did you take my dad?" "Take? That's an ugly word," the man said, picking up his espresso and leaning back lazily. "I just felt bad that my father-in-law has been bedridden for so long. I wanted to take him out to sea to relax." "Out to sea?" My heart dropped. The sudden click-clack of high heels was especially grating. Mia walked in wearing the exact same haute couture gown I had worn on my wedding day, resting her head lightly against Ethan's shoulder. "Yes, out to sea..." She picked up Ethan's phone from the table, unlocked it easily, and handed it to me. "Ethan specifically picked out his most luxurious yacht." The video feed on the screen was violently rocking back and forth. On the yacht's deck, lying on a starkly out-of-place hospital bed, was my father, in his vegetative state. Because of the crashing waves, his ventilator and heart monitor were violently shaking. I stared at the fluctuating vitals on the screen, my eyes turning red. "My dad is a critical patient! How could you take him out into the wind and freezing spray?" Ethan smirked. "I am the Chief of Neurosurgery. I know my father-in-law's condition better than anyone." "The sea breeze will stimulate his cerebral cortex. If I say he's fine, he's fine!" "Ethan!" I slammed my hands on the table and stood up, losing control of my emotions in a rare break of composure. My mother had died of an illness when I was very young. After my miscarriage, my father was my only living blood relative. "If anything happens to my dad on your boat, it's involuntary manslaughter!" "Oh, now you're panicking?" Mia stood up and slapped me hard across the face with a cold scoff. The ring on her finger cut my lip, drawing blood. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of panic in Ethan's eyes. But he quickly regained his cold composure. "Based on the timeline, the yacht is already in international waters... If something happens in international waters, US federal law can't touch me." The video only showed the vast, endless ocean. He wasn't lying. Even if he ordered his men to throw my dad overboard right now, it would be incredibly hard to convict him. Watching my dad's precarious ventilator, my nails dug so hard into my palms they drew blood. "What exactly do you want?!" "Cancel your leave and fly back immediately to do the surgeries." Ethan reached out and looped his arm around Mia's neck, absently playing with her earring. "From now on, you cannot take leave without Mia's approval, and you are never to mention the debt the Clarke family owes you again." He slapped a legal agreement onto the table. If I signed it, it meant I would be trampled under Mia's feet for the rest of my life. "And if I refuse?" Ethan tapped his phone. "The breeze on the deck isn't strong enough. Let my father-in-law experience something a bit more thrilling." Before I could process what was happening, two men in black suits appeared on the video feed. They tied my father's hands with rope and hoisted him up, suspending him over the yacht's railing. The massive waves crashing against the hull instantly soaked him to the bone. Though his oxygen mask was still strapped to his face, it looked like it could be ripped off by the wind at any second. "If you keep stalling, I'll have them turn off the oxygen..." Before Ethan could finish his sentence, a dark red stain blossomed across his shoulder blade. I gripped my dessert fork and violently drove it another half-inch deep into his flesh. "If my dad dies, I'm taking you to hell with him!" The man's dark eyes were suddenly filled with monstrous hatred. Mia shrieked and ordered his guards to pull me off him. The moment the fork was ripped from my hand, I was slammed face-first into the table. Mia grabbed a knife, looking like she was about to gouge my eye out. "Enough." Ethan ripped his shirt open; the puncture wound was gruesome. "The pillar of St. Luke's cardiothoracic department can't be blind. We still need her reputation to secure funding." He bit down on a piece of gauze, his eyes freezing cold. "Make a call to my father-in-law's old friend." I froze instantly. "The family of the cartel boss he refused to operate on eight years ago... they just got deported back to the States." "No!" When I realized what he meant, a guttural, desperate scream tore from my throat. "That's no different than sending my dad to his death!" "Ethan!" I tasted iron in the back of my throat, my eyes bloodshot. "If you hate me this much, why don't you just divorce me?!" "Divorce?" Ignoring the pain in his shoulder, he grabbed my jaw tightly. "In your dreams! So you can divorce me and take half my assets, including my shares in St. Luke's?" "Don't think I don't know your dad's lifelong dream was to push his AI emergency tech nationwide! Isn't that the whole calculated reason you married me?" The metallic scent of blood flooded my nose, and my heart stopped. He had calculated every single possible motive, except the one that mattered: love. The boy who once praised my steady hands, who told me I was better suited for a scalpel than a paintbrush. The Ethan who smiled and said he hoped we could fight side-by-side in the OR at St. Luke's. He never knew I was terrified of blood. He never knew the sheer willpower it took for me to drop out of art school and throw myself into the medical field. The "genius surgeon" everyone praised? I was just a clumsy bird who forced down her nausea and practiced suturing through the night until my fingers bled. Something shattered completely in my mind. Looking at the massive breach-of-contract penalty in the agreement, Ethan had hit my only weakness. "I'll sign." 4 My dad was safely brought back. I immediately transferred him to Mt. Sinai Hospital and gave strict orders that absolutely no one but me was allowed within fifty feet of his room. After performing back-to-back grueling surgeries on the Senator and the Tech CEO, I was so exhausted I could barely stand. Yet Mia still ordered me down to the ER to take in new trauma patients. Walking past the VIP ward, I heard the Senator heavily praising Mia, the "newly appointed Vice-Chair," for her bold leadership. She deflected the praise with fake humility, casually dropping hints about her "special relationship" with Ethan. I didn't have time for gossip. The ER had just been flooded with victims from a massive wreck. A Greyhound bus had collided head-on with a semi-truck. The truck driver died on impact. The bus was carrying a senior citizen tour group. The ER was instantly at maximum capacity. I did a pericardiocentesis for a collapsed lung, then grabbed the defibrillator to literally drag a man back from the grim reaper. I survived the entire day on a single black coffee. I was starving, dizzy, and seeing spots. I had barely sat down when an emergency call came from the Obstetrics ward. "Eight months pregnant. Shattered ribs punctured the heart. Massive blood loss causing fetal hypoxia." "We need an emergency open-chest surgery immediately." It was a race against the clock, yet staring at the pregnant woman's swollen belly, I couldn't move. Cold sweat opened like floodgates, soaking through my scrubs. Why did it have to be eight months pregnant? "I don't feel well." "The surgery is straightforward, have another cardiothoracic attending do it!" The charge nurse stammered, "Today is Thanksgiving. Vice-Chair Scott gave most of the senior attendings the day off... The closest surgeon is Dr. Miller, and even with sirens, he's thirty minutes out..." Thirty minutes. Both the mother and the baby would die. I suddenly remembered my previous panic attacks in the OR. The only way I had forced myself through them was by having Ethan stay on the line and talk me through it. "Quick, dial Dr. Clarke." "Ethan." I panted heavily. "The ER just brought up a pregnant woman with massive blood loss. I'm having a..." But the sound of a baby crying on the other end froze me in place. "Ethan, did you hear that? Did he just say Dada?" Mia's voice was vibrating with excitement. "Our Tommy is talking at only six months! He definitely inherited your genius genes!" The man shushed her affectionately. "Chloe, what were you saying about a pregnant woman?" "Nothing... Happy Thanksgiving to your family." I hung up the phone. The world went dead silent in my ears. I picked up the scalpel again. "Let's begin." When the OR doors finally opened two hours later, my legs completely gave out, and I slid down the wall to the floor. The surgery was a success. Mother and baby were safe. I let out a massive sigh of relief. Stumbling against the wall, I headed toward the vending machines to buy a stale sandwich so I wouldn't pass out. As I passed the breakroom near the maternity ward, I heard two nurses whispering. "Swapping Dr. Bennett's fertility injections for birth control shots all these years... isn't that just pure evil?" "What are we supposed to do? Orders from the top. Her husband is the one who doesn't want her getting pregnant. It's marital drama, let's just keep our mouths shut!" My brain violently buzzed. Every ounce of pain, suffering, and humiliation I had endured... it was all orchestrated by Ethan. The bone-deep exhaustion of working non-stop hit me all at once, and my vision went black. I collapsed—straight into a man's warm embrace. "Is your previous offer still on the table?" "As a condition of the exchange, I'll go negotiate the transfer paperwork with those VIPs."
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