Chapter 2

Wendy POV

In the end, I withdrew my hand from the door handle and stumbled out of the club.

A wave of nausea hit me. I couldn't help crouching by the roadside and dry heaving as tears spilled from my eyes.

My mind couldn't help replaying that day after four years apart when Lucas found me at any cost.

He held me tightly, begging me over and over to come back with him.

He said, "These four years without you, I've lived a fate worse than death."

He said, "I was forced by my grandfather into that arranged marriage with the Sinclair family. Melody and I were just going through the motions. There were no feelings. Now she and I have nothing to do with each other."

He also said,

"The person I love, from beginning to end, has been you. The Mrs. Sterling I want has only ever been you."

I believed him, so I softened and went back with him.

But it turned out he was coaxing me while getting cozy with Melody on the side?

This was the man who said life without me was worse than death?

This was his love?

Suddenly, my phone vibrated in my pocket.

I pulled it out and saw a message from Lucas.

"Darling, there's an urgent project I need to handle out of town. Be good and wait for me to come back. Remember to miss me."

After the message was a transfer of a hundred thousand dollars.

Looking at it, I couldn't help recalling every word from that private room. A sharp pain shot through my heart, along with icy mockery.

I immediately opened my contacts and dialed a number with no name saved.

"You contacted me before wanting to buy my Sterling Group shares at a premium. Is that offer still good?"

The male voice on the phone said teasingly,

"But didn't you refuse before?"

"I've thought it through now. I want to make this deal with you, but I don't want money."

"Oh? Then what do you want?"

I pressed my lips together.

"I want you to help me contact the best private hospital abroad, secretly transfer my brother out of the country, and help me prepare a completely new identity so Lucas can never find us."

The man on the other end seemed to understand something and asked curiously,

"Didn't I hear Lucas loves you so much he can't live without you? Are you really willing to leave him?"

Latching onto a big tree?

But I never wanted to latch onto Lucas or climb any social ladder.

Back then, Lucas fell for me at first sight and pursued me intensely. I agreed to be with him and dated him for five years without knowing he was the famous Sterling heir.

It wasn't until four years ago when Lucas finally revealed his true identity and his grandfather came to humiliate and threaten me that I realized the chasm between Lucas and me.

If Lucas hadn't been so sincere and earnest when he found me again, making me believe he truly couldn't live without me and loved me deeply, I never would have been moved enough to return to his side.

I gripped my phone.

"That's my business, nothing to do with you. Just tell me, are you making this deal or not?"

"Fine. Deal."

I was straightforward, and so was he.

"But I'm not in the country right now. It'll take time to arrange secretly transferring your brother abroad. Two weeks at most. Wait for my message."

I agreed and ended the call. The shock from earlier left my mind in a haze.

Going down the stairs, I missed a step and fell heavily to the ground.

Blood immediately pooled beneath me.

In the hospital operating room.

The doctor sighed at me.

"Miss Clarke, I'm very sorry. We couldn't save your baby."

I lay on the operating table, touching my now-flat abdomen.

I remembered just yesterday when I first learned I was pregnant, full of joy, eager to share the good news with Lucas.

But now I was lying here.

Tears streamed down my face.

"I understand."

I didn't want a man who wasn't faithful in relationships.

And this child that belonged to them wasn't meant to be born.

After the surgery, I woke from the anesthesia.

Supporting myself against the wall as I walked down the hospital corridor, I suddenly heard a passing nurse say,

"People nowadays really don't know when to stop. Actually ruptured a corpus luteum because sex was too rough and bled..."

"Who?"

"Who else? That Miss Sinclair in the VIP ward who was just brought to the hospital. But the one who came to the hospital with her... seems to be Mr. Sterling?"

Miss Sinclair? Mr. Sterling?

I froze in place, thinking it might just be a coincidence.

However, the moment I turned and looked up, my eyes met Lucas's as he stood at the other end of the corridor talking on his phone.