Too Late, Mr. Sterling—I’m Marrying Your Rival Chapter 03

A hand clamped around my arm and yanked me off the bed.

I stumbled into a hard chest. Expensive cologne. Ice-cold eyes.

Damien.

“Where is it?” His voice was barely controlled. “The broth. Sienna waited three hours.”

My head was spinning. My mouth was too dry to speak.

“Unbelievable.” He let go and I dropped back onto the mattress. “She took a car for me, Ava. And you couldn’t drive one container of soup across town?”

“I didn’t refuse—” I whispered.

“Then what were you doing? Sleeping?” His voice rose. “I’ve put up with a lot. You can’t handle the press. You can’t handle the foundation. You can’t handle the board. But one simple thing—”

He looked at me like I was a disappointment he’d paid too much for.

Then he sighed, like he was the one being hurt.

“Stop playing games. I’ve told you, there’s nothing between me and Sienna. This jealousy is beneath you.”

My ears rang.

Games.

He thought I’d withheld soup from an injured woman out of jealousy.

My stomach was still swollen under the blanket. He didn’t notice.

“You always do this,” he went on. “Play the victim. Act like you’re dying. Sienna’s hurt ten times worse than you and she’s not crying.”

Tears slid down my face before I could stop them.

His jaw flexed. Not concern. Fatigue.

“And now the tears. Every single time.” He shook his head. “Ava, do you even deserve to be my wife?”

“Damien, do you even know what I—”

“I don’t want excuses.” He was already at the door. “Think about what kind of wife you want to be.”

He didn’t look back.

I cried until there was nothing left, then sank into black again.

At two in the morning, the pain woke me screaming.

Not cramping. Tearing.

I curled on my side, drenched in cold sweat. Damien’s side of the bed was empty. Of course it was. He was at Mercy General, beside Sienna.

And I knew why I was dying.

The antibiotics. Dr. Patel had warned me—take them on time, or the retained tissue could turn septic.

I hadn’t taken them.

I reached for my phone with fingers that wouldn’t bend. Called him.

He answered on the fourth ring. “Ava.”

“Damien—” My voice was a thread. “I—”

A short, exhausted sigh.

“Sienna’s fever spiked. I’m with her. Please don’t do this tonight. Handle it yourself, okay?”

Click.

I stared at the ceiling. Tears ran into my hair.

Ava. Stop. Stop hoping.

There was no time to grieve. I rolled off the bed and hit the floor.

And I crawled.

Dark blood smeared the hardwood behind me. Bedroom. Hallway. Stairs. One inch at a time. It took me nearly an hour to reach the front door.

Mr. Alvarez, our night security guard, found me on the porch. He screamed for an ambulance.

They rushed me into Mercy General on a stretcher.

As they wheeled me down the corridor, I turned my head.

Room 412. The door was open.

Damien was sitting on the edge of Sienna’s bed, brushing her hair off her forehead.

He looked up at the sound of the gurney.

His eyes passed right over me.

Right over his own wife, soaked in blood, ten feet away.

He didn’t recognize me. Didn’t even look twice.

That’s when something inside me finally died quietly.

Two days later, I walked out of Mercy General on my own legs.

I went home while he was at the office. Packed one suitcase. Left my wedding ring on the signed divorce papers in the middle of our bed.

At the airport, I snapped my SIM card in half and dropped it in the trash.

I boarded a plane to the only place he’d never thought to ask about.

He wouldn’t notice I was gone for days.

But when he did—

He’d find the blood on the floor first.

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