Chapter 3

The next few days were a blur of strained silences and forced politeness.

Sarah felt weak, adrift. The apartment, once a sanctuary, now felt like a cage.

She longed for Michael, for the simple, uncomplicated love they had shared.

The scent of antiseptic Ethan despised clung to her scrubs, a constant reminder of her life, her purpose. A purpose he now mocked.

Then, Chloe Carter called her. Directly.

"Sarah? It's Chloe. Chloe Carter." Her voice was laced with fake panic. "You need to come. Now. It's Ethan."

Sarah's blood ran cold. "What's wrong? Is it his heart?"

"I think so! He's having severe chest pains. He can barely breathe. He might be rejecting the transplant!"

Terror seized Sarah. Michael's heart.

"Where are you?" Sarah demanded, already grabbing her keys, her mind racing through emergency protocols.

"He' s at a party... a surprise party I was throwing for him. Oh God, Sarah, please hurry!" Chloe gave an address in the Gold Coast, a lavish mansion.

Sarah didn't question it. She ran from her shift, still in her scrubs, her hair a mess.

She burst into the Gold Coast mansion, her hospital bag banging against her leg.

The scene that greeted her was not one of medical emergency.

Loud music, champagne, a crowd of glittering people. Influencer types, Chloe's friends. Some of Ethan' s colleagues.

And Ethan. Standing in the middle of it all, a drink in his hand, laughing. Perfectly fine.

Chloe glided towards her, a vision in a silk dress.

"Oh, Sarah, you made it!" Chloe' s voice was saccharine. "I must have overreacted. He seems much better now."

The crowd snickered. Sarah, disheveled in her scrubs, felt like a fool, a clown.

Ethan looked at her, his face a mask of embarrassment and annoyance.

"Sarah, what are you doing here dressed like that?" he hissed. "You're making a scene. Go home."

Chloe placed a perfectly manicured hand on Ethan' s arm. "Don't be harsh, darling. She was just worried." Her eyes, however, gleamed with triumph.

Sarah wanted to scream. To rage. But she was frozen by the sheer, calculated cruelty of it.

Chloe leaned in, close enough for only Sarah to hear, her voice a venomous whisper.

"He's mine, you know. He always was. You were just the nurse. Convenient."

Sarah stared at Chloe, then at Ethan. He wouldn't meet her eyes.

He was siding with Chloe. Protecting Chloe.

One of Chloe' s friends, a woman with too much makeup, stage-whispered to another, "Can you believe her? Showing up like that? So desperate."

Sarah felt a cold despair settle in her heart. This wasn't just about an affair. This was a public execution of her dignity.

She turned and walked out, the laughter and music fading behind her.

Ethan didn't follow. He didn't call.

Chloe' s whispered words echoed in her mind. "Convenient."

Was that all she had ever been? A convenience? A placeholder until the "real" love returned?

But Chloe didn't know the truth. She didn't know about Michael's heart.

That secret was Sarah' s alone. A secret that had once felt like a sacred trust, now felt like a lead weight.