The Husband I Loved Was My Enemy

"Late-stage stomach cancer, with abdominal lymph node metastasis. It doesn't look good."

Inside Evergreen Hospital's VIP consultation room, Edward removed his gold-rimmed glasses, the hard set of his handsome brows heavy with worry.

He looked at the woman on the sofa across from him, so thin she was almost unrecognizable, and felt his chest tighten.

"Diana, the results are back. It's malignant."

"If we start chemo right away and follow with surgery, the five-year survival rate…"

The icy report crumpled in Diana Russell's fist before she shoved it into her shoulder bag.

She gripped the leather strap so hard her knuckles blanched. Her face was bloodless, yet her expression stayed eerily calm.

"Edward, if I don't treat it… how long do I have?"

Her senior, Edward FitzRoy,  caught his breath.

"Three to six months, depending on the person. But in your case, you need treatment immediately, to stop the cancer from spreading any further."

"No." Diana rose politely and bowed to him, deep and formal.

"I can't make it through that. And I don't have the money."

"Edward, please keep it confidential. I don't want anyone to know."

Edward let out a helpless sigh.

He knew Diana's temperament. Once she made up her mind, nobody could talk her out of it.

"Don't worry. I won't say a word. But you're married—your husband…"

At the mention of that man, the last trace of light in Diana's eyes went out.

"Edward, thank you. I have to go."

She turned and left like she was running, her figure so slight it looked like a gust of wind could knock her over.

Edward watched her go and shook his head, sighing again.

The brightest genius their program had ever produced, brought to this after marriage.

Was it really worth it?

Crystal Haven.

Diana pushed open the heavy, ornate front doors, and what greeted her wasn't warmth or relief, but a chill that sank straight into her bones.

In the vast living room, the chandelier cast a pale, cold light that made every expensive piece of decor look sharp-edged and untouchable.

Nicholas was sitting in the center of it.

He wore a perfectly tailored black suit, one leg crossed over the other, every line of him polished and aristocratic. Between his long fingers was a cigarette burned halfway down, the ember flaring and fading in the dimness.

Diana's heart stuttered with confusion.

This man, she might not even see once a month—why was he home today?

Nicholas Kennedy lifted his eyes to her, his gaze dark and unreadable.

He stood and walked straight toward her.

Diana instinctively stepped back, but he caught her wrist in a vice grip.

That familiar, icy scent of his wrapped around her, and the next second, he swept her up into his arms.

Diana's mind went blank.

He hadn't touched her in more than half a year. Why now?

The moment he tossed her onto the bed in the master suite, a ridiculous, heartbreaking thought sparked in the dead quiet of her chest.

Did he still have even a little feeling for her?

That sliver of hope made Diana stop resisting.

There was no kissing. No foreplay.

He tore at her clothes, rough and unrestrained, less like desire than a one-sided taking—an act of punishment.

Diana shut her eyes in despair and let him have his way. The twisting pain in her stomach and the dull ache in her chest braided together until she nearly blacked out.

She didn't know how long it lasted before everything finally went still.

Diana lay curled in the wrecked sheets, her body marked and sore, her heart worse.

The man beside her had already pulled away, without a trace of reluctance.

Water started running in the bathroom, loud in the hush.

A moment later, Nicholas came out with a towel around his waist and retrieved a document from the closet.

He tossed it onto the bed like it was nothing, and it landed beside Diana's bare thigh.

A divorce agreement.

Black ink on white paper, painfully bright.

"Sign it." His voice held no warmth at all, and in a room that still carried the aftermath of sex, it sounded especially cruel.

"Don't make me say it twice."

The fragile spark of hope that had just lit inside Diana was doused in an instant.

She understood.

What had just happened wasn't an impulse. It wasn't old feelings resurfacing.

It was the last bit of compensation he intended to give her.

A final transaction before he threw her out—her body, in exchange for his clean conscience.

Diana forced herself upright and grabbed the papers.

She thought of the diagnosis in her bag, of Edward's grave face, of the brutal three months.

Was the last stretch of her life really going to end like this—humiliated, discarded with one shove?

"Nicholas." A thread of hope, so pathetic she could almost laugh at herself, clawed up from the cracks in her heart. "Can you give me three more months?"

Three months.

No more, no less. Everything she had left.

Nicholas let out a short, mocking laugh. "Diana, what kind of game are you playing now?"

He rose and stalked closer. Those deep, dark eyes Diana had fallen for years ago held no affection now, only disgust and icy ridicule. "Two years of a contract marriage, and the money from The Kennedy Family still isn't enough for you?"

His chilled fingertips pinched her chin, forcing her to look up.

"Or did you already plan it out—three months is enough time to squeeze something else out of me?"

Every word cut clean, without mercy.

"Lindsey is coming back." Nicholas flung her away, impatience sharpening his tone. "I'm not letting her see your face and feel even a second of discomfort."

Lindsey Johnson, the woman carved into the center of his heart.

Diana's complexion drained until she looked like paper.

So the real one was returning.

And she, the inconvenient substitute squatting in someone else's place, had to get out immediately—leave the spot spotless for Lindsey.

Just then, an abrupt ringtone shattered the suffocating silence.

It wasn't Nicholas's usual business tone, but a soft, cheerful children's lullaby.

Nicholas took out his phone, and the harsh lines of his face miraculously softened the instant he saw the screen.

It was a kind of tenderness Diana had never witnessed—warm, instinctive, real.

Without thinking, she turned her head.

One glance, and her whole world tipped sideways.

On his lock screen was a photo that tore straight through her.

The background was an amusement park under bright sunshine. Nicholas, Lindsey, and a little boy—maybe a year old, with Nicholas's eyes and brows—smiled at the camera, happy beyond question.

A family of three.

Diana's mind buzzed, then blew apart.

Blood rushed to her head, then drained out of her limbs in the next heartbeat.

She remembered a year ago, when the doctor told her she was pregnant, and the joy she'd been too afraid to share with him.

She remembered, too, the way Nicholas had tossed an abortion consent form in front of her, his face blank.

"Diana, you're not worthy of having my child."

She had cried and begged him, dropped to her knees in front of him.

And in return, his people had forced her onto the operating table.

The cold bite of instruments inside her body. The despair of blood soaking the sheets. The nightmare that still woke her in the dark.

So that was it.

He already had a child with another woman.

He had killed their baby with his own hands, just to make room for Lindsey's.

How laughable. How vicious.

Hatred and bone-deep despair swallowed her whole.

Diana looked at him, and the light in her eyes went out inch by inch until there was nothing left but ash.

Everything she'd clung to—her resentment, her longing, her foolish hope—was ground to dust under that smiling photo.

And then she smiled.

Her lips curved higher and higher, until tears spilled out of her eyes with no way to stop them.

"Fine." Just one word, weightless—and it took everything she had left to say it.

"I'll divorce you."

Nicholas visibly froze.

He'd expected her to cry, to cling, to fight dirty and threaten him.

He hadn't expected her to agree so cleanly.

"What did you say?"

Diana didn't look at him again. She walked to the coffee table.

Ignoring the ruthless terms that left her with nothing, she picked up the pen he had prepared.

The nib scratched across the paper, soft and relentless.

She signed her name, stroke by stroke, pressing down as if she had to carve it into the page.

When she finished, she dropped the pen.

"Nicholas." She lifted her head. Her pale face was streaked with tears, and for the first time, she looked calm—steady, final. "Tomorrow at nine a.m. Court."