Divorcing the Heiress by Mistake

Sophia's POV

I'd gotten used to the cold and unwelcome memories of the hospital. Too used to it. For months, my routine hadn't changed. Every morning before work, and every evening after, I came to sit by my father's side, watching the rhythm of the machines keeping him alive.

He hadn't spoken in months. The once-powerful CEO of Harton Group, feared in boardrooms and admired across industries, now lay still-his breathing slow, his eyes closed as if in a deep dream.

I adjusted the collar of my coat and walked through the familiar hallway of Cedarwood Private Hospital, my heels were echoing against the hospital floor.

Nurses nodded at me. I'd become a fixture here-always quiet, always present and always alone.

As I turned the corner to Room 314, my steps faltered.

The door was ajar, and a nurse stood outside holding a clipboard. She looked startled to see me.

"Oh, Miss Sph," she said quickly. "We were just-uh-"

"Is something wrong with my father?" I asked with a steady voice.

"No, no," she said, shaking her head. "But... there's been a new admission, across the hall. Special case or very private."

That explained the extra security. Two suited men had been stationed outside the room opposite my father's. At first glance, they could've been mistaken for corporate bodyguards, but their postures screamed 'military' or worse-political.

I gave the nurse a polite nod and stepped into my father's room. The soft beeping of the heart monitor was like a metronome for my soul-rhythmic and lifeless. I sat down beside him, brushing a hand over his cold fingers.

"I'm still here, Dad," I whispered. "I haven't given up on you."

His silence was expected. It didn't hurt as much as it used to. The first few weeks had broken me.

I sat with him for an hour, reading from a book he once loved, updating him on stock prices, on the employees who kept calling, on Mother-who had escaped to Switzerland after the scandal broke.

Then something odd happened.

As I stepped out into the hallway, I heard a sound-a soft thud from the room across the hall. The door was slightly ajar. The guards were gone.

I paused.

It wasn't curiosity that drew me in. It was instinct.

I knocked gently, unsure why. No answer.

"Hello?" I asked softly, pushing the door open with just enough force to peek in.

And then I saw him.

A man in a wheelchair. Young-mid-thirties perhaps. His frame looked strong but pale, like someone who had once lived at full speed but had crashed violently.

His hair was dark and messy and his face unshaven. But what stopped me cold were his eyes.

Empty.

His gaze was fixed out the window, but it wasn't really seeing anything.

I recognized him instantly. Everyone in the business world would. Williams Everett. The once-powerful CEO of Everett Global. A man whispered to have been touched by God himself-brilliant and ruthless.

But here he was, alone and broken. Just like my father.

I was about to leave when his voice stopped me.

"Did they send you to pity me too?"

His voice was bitter. There was anger buried in it, but also pain.

"No," I said, slowly stepping back. "I was just visiting my father. He's across the hall."

He turned his head toward me then, fully, for the first time.

His eyes were sharp beneath the grief. He studied me like I was a problem he didn't care to solve.

"You shouldn't be here," he said.

"I'll go," I replied, but something made me pause. "But for what it's worth... I don't pity you."

That caught his attention. A flicker of confusion or maybe something crossed his face.

"Then what do you feel?"

I didn't know what to say to that. I wasn't prepared for this conversation. I hadn't expected anything today beyond the usual weight of watching my father disappear inch by inch.

"I guess I understand a little more than I'd like to admit," I murmured.

He said nothing more. I took that as my cue and walked away and my heart oddly unsettled.

I saw him again the next day.

And the day after that.

At first, it was just in passing. Our schedules seemed to align without intention. I never asked about him. He never asked about me. We exchanged small nods, and then slowly, pieces of conversation.

I learned he hated the hospital food. That he refused therapy. That the world thought he was either dead or mad. He didn't deny the rumors.

"I was favored once," he said one day. "By everyone. And then... I wasn't."

That was all he said. But I saw it-the anger beneath his calm, the hurt that came not from physical injury, but from betrayal.

I didn't ask what had happened. He wouldn't have told me anyway.

Instead, I brought him a coffee the next morning. He didn't thank me, but he drank it.

On day twelve, he asked my name.

"Sophia." I answered.

"Just Sophia?" he asked.

"For now."

He smirked. "Fair enough."

And so it continued. Quiet meetings. Half-spoken words.

I never told him about my father, about who I really was and I didn't want our conversations tainted by expectations or corporate legacy.

I wanted to be invisible, free of Harton's name. And with him, I was.

He was difficult, Sarcastic and even impatient. But never cruel to me. There was a gentleness beneath his armor that he didn't even realize was still there.

He told me about the dreams-the ones where he could still walk. Where he was back at the top of the world.

And the nightmares-where those who once praised him stood over him with knives.

"I trusted them all," he said one night. "And when I fell... they left."

I didn't respond. Instead, I reached across and touched his hand.

He flinched, but didn't pull away.

That was the moment things began to change.

I started spending more time at the hospital. Not just for my father, but for him. The man who was learning how to live again, even if he didn't want to admit it.

One evening, he looked at me and asked, "Why are you really here?"

I hesitated.

"I told you. My father is-"

"No," he interrupted. "Why are you still here? With me."

I met his eyes, steady and calm.

"Because you're not as broken as you think you are."

He stared at me for a long time, like I'd said something he hadn't heard in a very long while. Then he closed his eyes.

"Stay," he whispered.

And I did.