Chapter 9
I stood behind the door, my fingers still resting on the handle. After a second of hesitation, I opened
- it.
Cold wind and rain hit my face immediately. Nate lay collapsed outside, drenched to the bone.
His face was deathly pale, yet his eyes held a stubborn intensity when they found mine.
Seeing me appear, he slowly struggled to his feet, his eyes lighting up with desperate hope.
But looking at him this way, my heartbeat remained steady. No flood of emotion. No turmoil.
I just felt cold. The wind was too strong.
His fingers dug into my shoulders. “Sienna! I was wrong, so wrong. Please, don’t leave me…”
His grip hurt. I shoved him away, and he stumbled backward.
He tried to stand, but his exhaustion betrayed him. He fell to his knees on the doorstep, the impact making a dull thud against the tile. “Sienna.”
“I once laid my entire heart in front of you, and you called it disgusting. Now that I’ve taken it back, you come crying for it. But with feelings, once you’ve missed your chance, there’s no road back.”
“Let’s end this cleanly. Stop doing this, or you’ll taint every sweet memory we once had.”
He opened his mouth, his lips blue with cold, mumbling over and over: “I’m sorry.”
“Nate.”
I stared directly into his eyes. “We’ve signed the divorce papers. Let’s not see each other again.”
He stared back at me, as if finally comprehending the finality in my words.
Then his eyes slowly closed, and he collapsed into the rain, unconscious.
I didn’t move.
I felt no satisfaction, no pain–just a numb clarity that had crystallized beyond any doubt.
00:53
His Perfect Mistress? A Fraud
Chapter 9
Nearby, someone came running, spotting Nate on the ground. “Nate?! NATE!!”
Meg dropped to her knees beside him, frantically pulling out her phone to call for help.
Her voice trembled. “911? Please help, my brother’s collapsed!”
Soon, an ambulance arrived, its lights painfully bright against the rainy night.
He remained unconscious for an entire night.
The doctor said his body had reached its breaking point–severe psychological and physical collapse. If he’d been found any later, the consequences could have been dire.
I listened to this news with complete detachment.
He had driven himself to this point, step by step.
I sat by the window, watching as the sky gradually lightened. The night and the rain had both passed
I knew it was time for me to go too.
This city held too many memories I no longer wished to recall. Every corner concealed my pain and
humiliation.
Even if he woke up again, even if he wept and begged forgiveness–none of it mattered to me
anymore.
Nate woke to the sharp smell of hospital disinfectant.
As consciousness returned, his thoughts were jumbled, but one phrase kept echoing through his
mind: “Let’s not see each other again.”
His throat felt like sandpaper. He tried to speak but couldn’t find his voice.
Then he noticed who was sitting beside his bed–Paige.
The woman he’d once thought was fragile and innocent, the one he believed needed protection.
Now she looked haggard, her eyes red–rimmed, clutching a court summons in her trembling hands.
Fraud Wie Career? Mine Now
6.19
Chapter 9
“Nate, you’re finally awake.”
Her voice was hoarse, tears brimming in her eyes. “These charges… I can’t handle them. You’re the
only one who can save me now–save me and the baby.”
He sat up slowly, regarding her with ice in his eyes. “You have the fucking nerve to mention the
baby?”
Paige faltered. “I genuinely loved you. I was just terrified of losing you.”
“Terrified of losing me?”
Nate let out a hollow laugh that held no warmth. “So you fabricated evidence, staged a suicide attempt, framed an innocent woman–you even used your own child as a goddamn prop in
your sick
game?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
Tears streamed down Paige’s face. “I just wanted a family. I just wanted you.”
Nate cut her off, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “And you thought you deserved that?”
Each word sliced through the air like a blade of ice. “You thought I’d soften because you played the victim? If I’d never met you, I wouldn’t be trapped in this hell now. You destroyed EVERYTHING.”
Paige went pale, her whole body shaking violently. “Nate, please, help me and the baby.”
“Get. Out.” The two words fell like stones.
She froze.
Nate closed his eyes briefly, his hands trembling with barely contained rage. When he opened them again, his gaze was shattered glass–sharp enough to draw blood. “You and that so–called ‘baby‘ are nothing to me. Nothing. And remember this–what you owe Sienna is a debt you’ll carry to your
grave.”
With that, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, yanked out his IV with such force that blood spattered on the sheets, and painfully struggled into his coat.
“Where are you going?” Paige asked, panic rising in her voice.
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