Chapter 5%
The cloth peeled back inch by inch, revealing my lifeless face beneath it. My eyes were still wide open, frozen in a permanent stare, filled with so much resentment and sorrow. My once–loose blue maternity dress clung to my body, now soaked through with dark crimson.%
Even I felt a shudder run through me, looking at my own corpse. It took a certain kind of courage to face your own death head–on. Hugh’s face turned sheet–white. For the first time, his arrogance faltered, his lips parting slightly as if he wanted to speak but couldn’t find the words./
I had always taken care of my appearance–not glamorous like Sienna, but neat and presentable, the kind of appearance befitting his wife. This was the first–and last–time since knowing him that I had ever looked this wretched. This miserable.%
“This… is Ava?” His voice cracked slightly, disbelief thick in the air.%
The assistant gave a stiff nod. “Yes, sir. This is Madam. After you had her tied up here, you ordered the park closed. No one else has entered since.“%
Hugh took one slow step forward. Then another. His expression was unreadable as he stood over my body, his shadow falling across my bloodied face.%
Without warning, he lashed out and kicked my corpse hard, sending it rolling onto its side./
“What kind of sick joke is this?! This is Ava?!”
His sneer returned, colder than ever. “And that thing just now was supposed to be the child? Don’t make me laugh.“%
He shook his head, turning to the assistant. “Ava wouldn’t die so easily. And as for the child–didn’t the doctor say her due date was still a week away? How the hell could she have given birth already?“%
“Speak! What did Ava give you? Why would you help her to fool me with a dummy?!“%
Hugh’s roar echoed in the room, his fury pressing down like a storm about to break.?
The assistant’s forehead glistened with cold sweat, his legs trembling faintly beneath him. “Mr. Miller, how could that be possible? I’ve worked for you for years–you know my loyalty. And besides…” He hesitated, voice lowering slightly. “Everyone knows how much Madam loves you. Even if you refuse to see it, there’s no way she would ever deceive you like this.“%
Yes. Everyone knew how foolishly in love I was with Hugh.
The first time I met him was in my first year of high school. My grandfather had just passed and my parents had moved me to the city. The unfamiliar chill of the air, the loneliness and the stress all took their toll. I came down with a high fever, coupled with sharp stomach pains that left me curled up on my desk, too weak to even speak.”
Hugh, who was the class president back then, was the one who noticed me first.”
Without hesitation, he lifted me into his arms and carried me straight to the school clinic. Later, the nurse told me my fever had spiked to 104 degrees–if I’d arrived even thirty minutes later, there could’ve been lasting damage.
When I thanked him, Hugh only gave me a warm smile and said it was his responsibility as class president. That smile… it was the first light I’d seen since moving to the city and from that moment on, my world seemed to revolve around it.2
While I lay hooked up to an IV, Hugh stayed by my side the whole time–chatting with me, bringing me water, making sure I was comfortable. When he found out I was new to the city and struggling to fit in, he told me not to hesitate if I ever needed anything.
“It’s my job as class president,” he’d said.”
But to me, it felt like so much more. As a young girl just discovering love, I couldn’t help but start watching him from afar.
When we graduated high school, I quietly chose the same university he did. I thought, maybe if I stayed close enough, there would eventually be a place for me by his side.
But just when I’d gathered the courage to confess my feelings, I stumbled across a scene I would never forget, His mother- devastated by his father’s affair–had crushed a lethal dose of sleeping pills into his drink. With Hugh barely conscious, she dragged him to the rooftop, planning to take him with her in death.
I was the only one who saw.
With everything I had, I clung to his limp body, trying to keep him from slipping over the edge. My hands ached, my body trembled, but I didn’t let go. I hung there, holding on for dear life, until the firefighters arrived.”
When they finally set up the safety cushions below, my strength gave out completely and we fell together from the twentieth floor. The next time I opened my eyes, I rushed to find him–only to see Sienna already at his bedside.
From that day on, Hugh, who had always been indifferent to Sienna, started dating her.”
Even though we were at the same university, I could only watch from the sidelines as the two of them became more and more entwined.%
But their romance didn’t last long–barely six months.
The truth about his mother’s suicide came to light: it was his father and his mistress who drove her to that desperate end. The scandal exploded across the media. His family’s company was dragged through the mud, their stocks plummeting, the entire Miller Consortium on the verge of collapse.
And in the middle of all that chaos, Sienna left him.”
Even after she walked away, Hugh still made sure she had enough money to study abroad. Half a year later, news came that Sienna had married someone overseas.%
10:09 AM
As for Hugh’s father–unable to bear the fallout, the ruined reputation and the collapse of everything he’d built–he jumped from the very same rooftop where Hugh’s mother had died.
That was the moment Hugh changed. The bright, confident boy who once smiled at me in the clinic was gone, replaced by a man whose heart had frozen over.
It was then–when he had no one left–that I finally confessed my love.”
Hugh didn’t give me an answer.
But I still stayed.}
I even knelt in front of my parents, begging them to help him.
I was their only daughter, their precious girl–and yet, faced with my tears and stubbornness, they gave in.}]
At that time, Hugh’s shoulders still carried the weight of youth, but beneath it was a strength that even adults would envy. With my family’s help and his own relentless determination, the Miller Consortium gradually steadied once again.”
Two years after we graduated, my parents went on a vacation–and never came back,{
A car crash took them both, leaving me utterly alone.
Before they passed, they arranged my marriage to Hugh. They entrusted our family business to him, their dying wishes the same, to take care of me and the grandchildren I would be carrying.
Since then, slowly but surely, he began to let me into his heart.M
