Chapter 4
Two notifications lit up her screen.
One from Richard:
“If I don’t see $150,000 in my account within three days, I’ll slit my wrists outside the Graham mansion. I’ll destroy your reputation!”
One from Travis:
“Nicole, don’t think you’re untouchable just because you’ve got Alexander Hayes in your corner! Look at who he is and who you are – you’re just his latest plaything!”
When she read these messages, a suffocating despair wrapped around her throat like poison ivy.
The hopeless tendrils squeezed tighter until she could barely breathe.
She sat on the hospital windowsill, feet dangling eighteen stories above, and closed her eyes in despair.
Days later, in her new journal, she wrote a single line: “Through death comes rebirth. From today onward, I am no longer who I was.”
In the following weeks, Travis was too busy finding elite physical therapists for Lucy to notice Nicole’s absence.
And Nicole, who had always flooded Travis’s phone with calls and messages, hadn’t reached out in two whole weeks.
Travis noticed Nicole had become strange, unfamiliar.
But with new projects demanding his attention, he didn’t investigate further. He was confident she would come crawling back, as always.
A month later, after he returned from his business trip to Boston, their housekeeper rushed to tell him Nicole had moved out. Only then did he sense something was wrong.
But remembering how Nicole would always dramatically “run away” to her friend’s apartment when angry, he dismissed it.
“Let her go. This place is better without her!”
“Sir, she took everything – even Mimi.”
Mimi was Nicole’s rescued street cat, her precious pet.
Travis, being obsessed with cleanliness, had always despised the cat. He’d banned Nicole from their bedroom after touching it. So she had kept the white stray confined to the guest room.
Whenever Nicole “ran away” before, Travis would check the guest room.
As long as Mimi was there, Nicole would return within three days. Usually, she came back the very next day. Her excuse was always that she couldn’t abandon Mimi.
But he knew the truth: she simply couldn’t leave him.
Now hearing that Nicole had taken Mimi, Travis felt his unease creeping into his heart.
He tossed his coat on the leather sofa and rushed upstairs. When he opened the guest room door and heard no familiar “meow,” a sense of foreboding washed over him.
“Is she serious this time?”
Travis still couldn’t believe that the woman who had desperately loved him for nearly twenty years would really leave him.
This was the same woman who had even barked like a dog for him, after all.
Everyone in the city knew that Nicole had chased after Travis for years. So surely, she couldn’t bear to leave him now.
Even as these thoughts crossed his mind, Travis’s feet carried him quickly down the stairs toward his car.
Five minutes later, his black car sped away from the Graham estate.
When Travis arrived at the Neurology Department and entered Nicole’s former hospital room, he found a stranger in the bed.
He grabbed a passing nurse. “Where’s the patient who was staying here?”
The nurse startled at his fierce expression.
“I’m sorry, sir… I just started. I don’t know.”
Frustrated, Travis turned to the nurses’ station to inquire.
That’s when he learned Nicole had been discharged three days ago. He pulled out his phone and called her, but no one answered.
In an elegant French restaurant, soft music played as a woman in a green off-shoulder evening gown moved with natural grace.
She raised her wine glass to clink with a foreign gentleman’s. He complimented her beauty, noting her elegant features. The beautiful woman’s phone kept buzzing in her designer bag beside her.
“Do you need to get that?” the foreign gentleman reminded her.
She glanced at the screen, seeing “Travis Graham” displayed.
She shook her head. “Let’s continue discussing business. I’m very interested in your partnership proposal.”
The gentleman’s eyes lit up as he eagerly detailed his intentions.
It was 10 PM when she returned to her newly rented apartment.
The moment she opened the door, Mimi came padding over, tail high, meowing and rubbing against her long, fair legs.
Nicole picked her up and gave her a kiss.
After her shower, Nicole finally checked her phone: three missed calls and three messages from Travis.
“What game are you playing now?”
“If Grandfather’s birthday wasn’t in two days, you think I’d bother contacting you?”
“Grandfather loves you so much – don’t forget his 75th birthday!”
In the past, such messages would have upset Nicole deeply.
But now, she merely glanced at them, reading without replying.
Nicole received a call from Travis’s grandfather, William Graham.
“Nicole, darling, come have dinner with Travis tomorrow.”
“Of course, I’ll definitely be there for your birthday, Grandpa.”
“That’s my sweet girl, always so thoughtful!”
William didn’t notice that Nicole had said “I’ll be there” rather than “we’ll be there.”
After hanging up, Nicole walked to her full-length mirror and studied her reflection. The bruises had faded. Only the cigarette burns on her arm remained an angry red.
The moment Travis arrived at the penthouse, he received a stern call from his grandfather.
“You spoiled brat, have you been mistreating Nicole again? Apologize to her this instant!”
William launched into his lecture the moment Travis answered.
Travis shot back just as sharply.
“Grandpa, has Nicole been playing victim again?”
“It doesn’t matter whether she said anything or not. Just apologize.”
As always, William took Nicole’s side without hesitation.
To Travis, this was clearly Nicole manipulating his grandfather again.
Hmph, so this was her strategy – giving him the cold shoulder while secretly using his grandfather to force a reconciliation.
With this realization, Travis’s mood lifted considerably.
Ha, so this woman still loved him, still cared about him after all.
This conclusion brought him an unexpected pleasure.
He didn’t understand why he felt this way.
But it didn’t matter – he would never fall in love with Nicole.
After ending the call with his grandfather, Travis immediately dialed Nicole’s phone.
Nicole saw his name light up her screen.
Knowing they’d see each other tomorrow at the Graham estate anyway, she decided to answer.
“Nicole, you’re so damn manipulative! Running to Grandpa with your sob stories again, aren’t you? Is this all you know – these dirty, underhanded tricks? Give it up already. Even though Grandpa forced me to marry you, I’ll never accept you as my wife – not in a million years!”
