Chapter 23 #2
I sat there for a moment with my phone in my lap and the specific, airless feeling of someone who had just watched a door close from the inside. Would Stefan have come across this article during his business trip?
Suddenly, I was glad he was away. I didn’t know how he’d handle the news. To be honest, I was relieved there was no mention of him in the article. I couldn’t bear the humiliation of being publicly accused of bigamy.
Kai had leaked the news. I was sure of it. He had gone to the press, provided the photographs, approved the copy, and then his assistants handed out money to ease the transition from Amelie Noble to Amelie Cavendish. Had he deliberately timed the publication for after Stefan left the country?
The only way to find out was by asking the source.
Amelie: What the hell were you thinking?
Kai: Whatever do you mean?
Amelie: Don’t play dumb.
Kai: Want to have lunch today?
I wanted to wring his neck.
Amelie: Why would you do this without talking to me?
Kai: How about noon? We can eat outside. It’s a nice day.
Amelie: I don’t want to have lunch with you.
Kai: Then I’ll see you when I pick you up from work.
Amelie: Don’t bother. I can get myself home.
It was pointless to try to have a rational conversation with Kai, so I decided against playing his game. I’d rather confront him face-to-face.
I returned to work at eleven fifty, in time for my meeting with Dr. Kwon. He was waiting for me outside the ER. Kwon had two expressions, apathetic and excited when someone was willing to donate to his hospital, and the latter was the expression he was wearing now.
“Amelie!” he said. “Walk with me.”
I walked with him. We went through the double doors at the end of the corridor and into the administrative wing, which smelled of carpet cleaner.
“I spoke with Mr. Cavendish this morning,” Kwon began.
“Did you?” I asked warily.
“He called personally.” There was a long pause, like he was still processing the significance of a man of Kai’s stature calling him personally. “He wanted to inform me of your name change and to ensure the personnel file reflected the legal update.”
My file. He had called the Chief of Medicine to update my personnel file. This man had nothing better to do with his morning than call my boss about my last name.
“He also wired a donation to the pediatric ward,” Kwon added, in the significantly warmer tone he reserved for conversations about hospital funding. “A substantial one.”
Of course he did.
“The donation will be transformative for the pediatric ward.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
Kwon wore the look of a man about to ask a question he suspected he already knew the answer to.
“Amelie. I was under the impression that you tended to Mr. Cavendish on a cruise ship, and that’s why he came to our hospital and requested you as his nurse.
Why didn’t you tell us about your romantic connection? ”
“Um—”
“Why you felt the need to hide that he’s your husband is beyond me.”
There it was.
Many people at this hospital had met Stefan and knew I was married to him. Kwon did, too. Though we weren’t intimately familiar with each other’s personal lives, I had referenced Stefan in conversations the way married people casually refer to their spouses.
And yet, here was the Chief of Medicine, looking at me with the polite, bewildered expression of a man who had apparently just learned of my marital status, and the previous Stefan-related context had been quietly erased from his memory.
The thousand dollars per person and fat donation hadn’t just been for my name change. It had been for the collective amnesia. Kai had paid the entire hospital to forget Mrs. Noble. It was as if I had never been married to Stefan at all.
“It’s a long story,” I said hesitantly.
“Were you worried about public scrutiny if the word got out?”
“What?” My heart started beating erratically at the thought that my boss knew about my second husband. Oh God. I would just die.
He cleared his throat. “Mr. Cavendish is an important man. He’s practically a celebrity around here. I imagine that comes at the cost of your privacy.”
I sighed in relief. By public scrutiny, he meant because of my marriage to an eccentric tycoon, not because I was married to two people.
“But since Darster Living has already announced your wedding to the entire town, we’ll do everything in our power to practice discretion.”
I nodded inattentively.
“Mr. Cavendish expressed his concerns. He knows how much you love this job and doesn’t want the article to affect you negatively at work.”
Then maybe he shouldn’t have leaked it.
“He informed me there’ll be guards stationed outside the hospital to weed out reporters. They tend to get nosy after news breaks in this town.”
“Uh-huh.” I was not at all surprised that Kai was siccing bodyguards on me. Instead, I was thinking of ways to make him pay.
“All visitors are required to sign in at the front desk, but we’ll employ extra personnel in the coming weeks to protect your privacy at work.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said absentmindedly.
“Mr. Cavendish seems like a devoted husband.”
“Mm.”
“Will you let him know we’re doing everything in our power to provide you with a normal work experience?”
I gave him a stiff, “Yes, sir,” which was all he wanted to hear anyway, and returned to work.
The rest of the shift was filled with more Mrs. Cavendish from nameless hospital staff and sidelong glances from friends.
Those who knew I was married to Stefan didn’t approach me to ask what happened to my loving husband.
Stefan had ceased to exist because Kai paid them enough to make it so.
But Kai couldn’t control their minds with money.
They were all thinking it. That I was a gold digger who left the love of my life for a rich man.
The dreadful day was almost over when I spotted Kai at the nurses’ station, dark shirt, hands in his pockets, listening to Jo with polite patience. Jo spoke with considerably more enthusiasm than she did with anyone else.
The moment I stepped into the corridor, he looked up. He always knew when I was in a room before I announced myself. I had initially found it unsettling, but I’m used to it now. I crossed my arms and walked toward him.
“What are you doing here?” I asked civilly, aware that the nurses’ station had gone very quiet. My freshly paid colleagues watched us with the focused attention of people watching a sporting event they had a personal stake in.
“I told you—I was picking you up from work.”
“And I told you not to bother.”
“I must not have received that text.”
Liar! I wanted to light his pretty hair on fire.
“Since I’m already here, get your things. We have a flight to catch.”
I stared at him. The audacity. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“We’re going out of the country for a few days.”
“Are you insane? I’m in the middle of a shift.”
“Your shift’s about to end.”
“I still have to work tomorrow.”
“Your shifts are covered for the rest of the week.”
“You can’t—” I stopped. Breathed. “You can’t walk into my workplace, rearrange my shifts, and expect me to—” I stopped again, aware of my audience. “That isn’t something you’re allowed to do.”
“The nurses covering your shifts are getting paid well for their time. But if you want to take this away from them, be my guest.” He extended an arm toward the nurses’ station, all of whom were listening intently to our conversation.
It dawned on me there was a self-serving reason for the eavesdropping rather than mere hospital gossip.
No doubt, Kai had offered them some obscene sum of money to cover my shifts for the next few days.
I gritted my teeth. He intentionally put me in impossible positions because I didn’t have the heart to take away life-changing opportunities from other people. “I can’t leave. The kids—”
“Will be in boarding school until Friday. We’ll be back in time to pick them up.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you explain the article that just came out,” I said quietly but with precision.
There was a small movement across his expression. Not guilt—I doubted Kai was capable of guilt in any conventional sense—but it was an acknowledgment. “What about it?” he asked.
“You went to the press.” I kept my voice low. “You gave them photographs from our wedding. You let them publish four pages about your wife. Stefan’s in Dubai. He’ll come back to find out that—”
“Amelie.” Just my name. Quiet. A warning. He reacted poorly whenever I mentioned Stefan and didn’t want to lose his shit at my work. I didn’t want that, either.
I looked at my colleagues, who were doing a remarkable impression of people not listening.
“We will talk about this when we’re alone,” he said tightly.
Perhaps it was for the best that I left with him.
Not because he had won, but because arguing with Kai at the nurses’ station in front of people he had just paid a thousand dollars each was a battle I wasn’t going to win on optics alone.
It had already been a shitty day with everyone staring at me with all sorts of theories swirling in their minds.
I didn’t want to create a scene on top of that.
“Fine. Let’s go.”
I walked past him and heard Jo behind me, brimming with warmth. “Have a wonderful rest of your day, Kai.”
I didn’t turn around.