Chapter 45

Evelyn's fingertips trembled.

She stared into Alexander's eyes with unyielding intensity. "You lied to me."

Alexander turned his face away, water droplets sliding from his hair onto his bathrobe. "Stop this."

"Give me your phone!"

She lunged at him, her nails scraping his cheek. Alexander instinctively stepped back, but she seized the chance to shove her hand into his trouser pocket. The greasy sensation made him grimace, yet he didn't dare push her away forcefully.

The bathroom door slammed shut.

Hot water cascaded over his body, but it couldn't wash away the radiant smile etched in his mind. The way Evelyn had leaped from the taxi earlier, clad in her white coat, mirrored their first encounter three years ago.

Back then, she had sprinted just as desperately to save a patient.

Alexander's fist struck the tiled wall.

He had wanted her to move on, to be happy. But now that she truly had, the feeling of being utterly forgotten gnawed at his heart like a venomous serpent.

A month ago, her signature on the surgical consent form had been resolute.

"Mr. Hamilton, please sign."

She hadn't even glanced at him.

In the steam, he saw her again—standing at the operating room doors, pale as paper after her abortion, yet insisting on checking Annabelle's condition.

"I'm a doctor."

With those words, she had dragged her weakened body into the ward.

Alexander would never forget the way she staggered as she turned away. She had saved Annabelle, but in doing so, she had ended their child's life.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The violent knocking shattered his memories.

"Come out!" Annabelle's voice was shrill, piercing. "Now! Immediately!"

Before he could fasten his robe, his phone was thrust into his face. Her crimson nails nearly punctured the screen. "Explain this! Why is your gallery filled with her photos?!"

In the image, Evelyn was making her rounds, sunlight streaming through the window behind her. Last Wednesday, he had followed her all day, driven by some inexplicable compulsion.

"Delete them! All of them!" Annabelle's scream bordered on hysteria. "She doesn't want you anymore! What are you clinging to?!"

Exhaustion crashed over Alexander.

He remembered how Evelyn's hair had caught the wind this afternoon as she jumped from the taxi—vibrant, luminous, as though untouched by pain.

But he knew the wound would never heal.

Just as the scalpel that saved Annabelle hadn't just opened a patient's abdomen—it had severed the last thread between them.

"Say something!" Annabelle hurled the phone against his chest. "Do you even know how well she's doing now? Vivian said she's applied for an exchange program in England!"

Alexander's head snapped up.

On the bathroom mirror, droplets of condensation trembled, then slid silently downward.