He Sold My Future to Please Her, I Bought My Freedom With His Money Chapter 09

He Sold My Future to Please Her, I Bought My Freedom With His Money Chapter 09

The hospital called the following morning. Julian was refusing treatment — no transfusions, no meds, no cooperation. His wound had gotten infected, and his fever was spiking.

He’d told the staff he’d die in that bed if I didn’t come. I almost hung up.

This was what he did — backed me into a corner using his own pain until I had no choice but to fold. I took a cab to the hospital and pushed open the door to his room.

The room reeked of antiseptic. Julian was lying flat on the bed — ashen, lips cracked, barely conscious.

Something wild flared in his eyes the moment he saw me. “You came.” His voice was wrecked, but triumphant. “I knew you wouldn’t let me die.” His hand reached out, fingers catching the hem of my sleeve.

I stayed at the foot of the bed. “You think you can hold yourself hostage and I’ll just cave?”

“I’m not threatening you — I just needed to see you.” A cough racked him, and his bloodshot eyes found mine. “I know I was wrong. I’ll do the treatment, the transfusions — all of it. Just say you forgive me. Say we can start over.”

“Start over?” I almost choked on the words.

“What does that look like, Julian? Me back in the shadows doing your work, watching you hand it off to someone else? Is that what starting over means to you?”

“No — the company is yours. Every part of it. I’ll work for you.” The words spilled out of him, desperate.

I shook my head. “That’s the thing you never understood. You thought I couldn’t survive without you. But you’re the one who’s never been able to stand on his own.”

“You thought a hundred grand could buy my silence. You were wrong. I was never the one who needed you.”

I pulled an envelope from my bag and dropped it on his chest. “Final divorce decree. The judge back home already signed off on it.”

“Infidelity. Misuse of company assets. The evidence was clear, and the ruling went my way. You and I are done. Legally, officially done.”

His hands shook as he opened it. He read the first page, and the color left his face. “No… this can’t be right…” He shook his head, clawing at the IV line in the back of his hand.

The needle ripped free. Blood ran down his hand and speckled the sheets. “You can’t do this to me — I almost died for you!” He threw himself off the bed, hit the floor, and dragged himself to my feet — his back wound tearing open behind him.

He wrapped his arms around my legs, sobbing — raw, ugly sounds that filled the room. “That wasn’t for me,” I said, pulling free. “That was about control. Your need to own me — even the way you suffer is about keeping me trapped.”

“You think one knife wound wipes the slate clean? You think if you bleed enough, if you look broken enough, I’m required to forgive you?”

“I’m not pretending — I love you!” He looked up at me, his face ruined and wet with tears.

“Your love cost me everything and gave me nothing.” I looked down at him. “I don’t want it anymore.”

“Somebody!” I called out into the hall. “I need a nurse in here! He’s out of control — he needs a sedative.”

Three nurses and a doctor rushed in and held him down. He thrashed against them, but his eyes never left me.

“How can you be so cold?” The words ricocheted off the hospital-room walls.

I stopped in the doorway. “You taught me.”

Behind me, the screaming broke down into something quieter — small, broken sounds that followed me down the hall. I kept walking.