The Midnight Show That Ended with My Husband’s Affair Chapter 03

The Midnight Show That Ended with My Husband’s Affair Chapter 03 Media Exposure for Her
I lay on the stretcher, blood soaking through my skirt and staining the fabric beneath. The fluorescent lights of the emergency room stabbed at my eyes. The doctor pressed on my lower abdomen, his brow furrowed. “Where’s your family? You came alone? The gestational sac has descended to the cervical opening. You’re hemorrhaging. We need to perform a D&C immediately. Get a family member to sign the consent form!” “No family,” I heard myself say. My voice drifted like smoke ready to dissolve. “Doctor, I’ll sign it myself.” A nurse, reluctant, handed me the surgical consent form. I held the pen. My fingers trembled from blood loss and the searing pain. Before he left, Spencer had said: Don’t use this cheap fake-illness act to force my hand. He was a law professor who worshipped evidence. But when I begged for help, he couldn’t even be bothered to look at the blood on my skirt. As the anesthesia entered my vein, I suddenly felt an immense sense of relief. When I woke again, it was afternoon. The hospital room was quiet, except for a family member from the next bed watching a video on her phone in low volume. “That radio host is so vicious. Bullying an innocent college girl for ratings? Good for that professor calling her out. Those despicable media people deserve to be shut down…” I turned my head slowly. On the patient’s phone screen, a makeshift press conference was playing. In the center of the frame sat that cold, aloof, distinguished man—my husband, Spencer Whitmore. He had always hated public appearances. Several top legal programs had offered him lucrative contracts to be a regular guest, but he turned them all down, saying, “A scholar should protect his reputation. No excessive media exposure.” But now, he calmly sat before a storm of camera flashes. Behind his glasses, his eyes were sharp as blades. “As counsel for Ms. Summer Vance, I hereby state clearly: Last night, the host of a late-night relationship talk show, one Ms. Foster, maliciously steered the conversation while knowing the caller’s identity, framed my client, and caused her severe online harassment and psychological trauma.” “The law is not a tool for unethical media to gain views. We have submitted a formal complaint to the relevant authorities and will file a defamation lawsuit against the host. Justice will never bow to public opinion.” Every word was crisp, forceful, and devastating. He was not only a perfect husband. He was also a perfect lawyer. Of course. He had found the fastest way to crush the public narrative—by dumping all the filth onto the head of the “unethical host”—me. To hold an umbrella over his greenhouse flower, he had personally shattered the career I had spent ten years building, pushing me into an abyss from which there was no return. The woman in the next bed was still ranting with righteous indignation. A nurse walked in to change my IV. When she recognized my face, she gasped sharply. “You… you’re that Lena?” Her voice dropped to a whisper, dripping with undisguised contempt. I didn’t look away. I looked at her directly and calmly, and the corners of my pale lips even lifted into a faint smile. “Yes, that’s me. Could you please slow down the drip? I’m a little cold.” The nurse rolled her eyes, adjusted the IV with an unnecessarily rough jerk, turned, and slammed the door on her way out. The cold fluid flowed through my veins and into my heart, but it was nothing compared to the chill that had seeped into every bone of my body.