The Divorced Wife And Her Billionaire

The sharp, rapid beeping of the heart monitor sliced through the dead silence of the ICU.

Aurora struggled to open her eyes. Her eyelids felt like they were weighed down by lead. A high fever blurred her vision into a smear of harsh white lights and sterile gray walls.

The duty nurse stepped up to the side of the bed. She adjusted the IV drip, her eyes dropping to Aurora's face. There was a thick layer of pity in the nurse's gaze that made Aurora's stomach turn.

"Mrs. Huffman," the nurse said softly, leaning down. "Your organ failure is progressing. Do you want me to call the emergency contact on your file?"

Aurora bit her pale, cracked lip. The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth. Her pride fought against the suffocating weight of her despair. Her fingers twitched against the thin hospital sheets, but she slowly, weakly, shook her head.

The nurse let out a heavy sigh. She turned and walked out of the room, leaving Aurora completely alone.

Aurora turned her head toward the window. The New York sky was a bleak, unforgiving gray. A violent spasm of pain ripped through her lower back and shot up her spine.

She curled her body inward. Cold sweat instantly soaked through her thin hospital gown, making her shiver uncontrollably.

Her blurred vision slowly focused on the nightstand. Her phone screen was lit up.

A calendar notification sat in the center of the screen. Today was her son Leo's fifth birthday.

The physical ache in her chest from missing her son suddenly overpowered her remaining pride. She reached out with her right arm. The IV needles taped to the back of her hand pulled painfully at her skin.

Her fingertips brushed the cold metal edge of the phone. Her muscles gave out, and the phone slipped, falling onto the very edge of the mattress.

Aurora clamped her jaw shut. She dragged her upper body toward the edge of the bed. Blood backed up into the clear IV tubing, but she didn't care. Her shaking fingers finally closed around the device.

She fell back against the pillow, gasping for air. Her lungs burned. Her thumb trembled as she unlocked the screen.

She opened her contacts and pressed Conrad Huffman's private number.

The dial tone rang in her ear. One ring. Two rings. Every empty beep was a needle scraping against her frayed nerves.

She was just about to let her arm drop when the line clicked open.

But it wasn't Conrad's voice. A wave of loud cheering and the distinct pop of a champagne bottle flooded the speaker.

Then, Jessica Camacho's sweet, high-pitched laugh stabbed directly into Aurora's eardrum.

"Conrad, hurry up! Come help Leo cut the cake!" Jessica yelled over the music.

Aurora's heart seized. It felt like an invisible fist had punched straight through her ribs and crushed her lungs. Her breath stopped entirely.

She forced her dry throat open. "Conrad," she whispered. The sound was so weak it barely left her mouth.

The background noise on the other end suddenly muffled. Jessica had noticed the active call.

"Is this Aurora?" Jessica asked. Her voice dripped with a sugary, exaggerated innocence.

Aurora gripped the phone so hard her knuckles turned a dead, waxy white.

Conrad's impatient voice drifted in from a few feet away. "Who is it? Why haven't you hung up?"

Jessica raised her voice, making sure she sounded like the victim. "It's the hospital calling. I think it might be Aurora..."

A heavy, annoyed click of the tongue came through the speaker, followed by Conrad's heavy footsteps.

Conrad snatched the phone. His cold, hard voice was crystal clear. "Today is Leo's birthday. Don't let irrelevant people ruin the mood."

He didn't ask a single question about her condition. He didn't ask why the hospital was calling.

"Hang up," Conrad ordered. "And don't answer it again."

Aurora's hand froze in mid-air. The phone was pressed tight against her ear. She waited for the dead dial tone to cut through the silence.

But the call didn't end. Jessica, clearly wanting to show off her victory, pressed the speakerphone button.

Leo's young, excited voice rang out clearly in the background. "Daddy, do wishes really come true?"

Conrad's voice shifted instantly. The coldness vanished, replaced by a deep, loving warmth. "Of course they do, my little prince."

"Then I wish for Auntie Jessica to be my new mommy!" Leo yelled happily.

The words hit Aurora like a sledgehammer to the chest. The last fragile thread keeping her alive snapped.

Her chest heaved violently. She gagged and coughed up a mouthful of dark, blood-streaked fluid onto her chin.

"As long as Leo likes it," Conrad promised without a second of hesitation. He was laughing. "Daddy will give you anything you want."

Jessica let out a shy, giggling, "Oh, stop it."

Then, the line went dead.

Aurora's world collapsed. Ice-cold tears slid down her temples and into her hairline.

The heart monitor beside her bed suddenly erupted into a piercing, high-pitched red alarm.

Her breathing turned into shallow, rapid gasps. Massive black spots chewed at the edges of her vision.

The absolute despair of being thrown away by her own son drained the last drop of fight from her blood.

She slowly closed her eyes. Her fingers went slack. The phone dropped from her hand and hit the linoleum floor with a hard smack. She let herself fall backward into the dark.

The hospital room door slammed open. An ER doctor rushed in, dragging a crash cart behind him.

The doctor stared at the plummeting blood pressure on the screen. "Charge the paddles!" he yelled at the nurse.

The nurse grabbed a pair of trauma shears and quickly cut open the front of Aurora's gown.

Cold, sticky defibrillator pads were slapped hard onto her bare chest.

Aurora's consciousness was already floating. The chaotic shouting and the physical pain in her body felt miles away.

Just as her hearing was about to fade out completely, a chaotic, heavy set of footsteps pounded down the hallway outside.

Bang!

The heavy isolation doors at the end of the hall were kicked open with brutal force.

A young man's low, guttural roar bled through the thick wood of Aurora's door. It was a sound of pure, violent panic.

"If she dies in here today, I will wipe this entire fucking hospital off the map of New York!"

The sheer, oppressive authority in the man's voice made the ER doctor pause for a fraction of a second, his hand hovering over the shock button.

The sound of something shattering against a wall echoed outside. "Mobilize every resource!" the man screamed. "Contact our partner Swiss medical center in New York! I want their chief surgeon and his entire team in this room in ten minutes!"

A tiny spark of confusion flared in Aurora's dying brain. The voice was heavy with unfamiliar rage, yet there was a distant, buried familiarity to it.

But her oxygen-starved brain couldn't process it.

"Clear!" the doctor shouted.

A massive jolt of electricity slammed through her chest. Her back arched violently off the mattress.

As her body slammed back down onto the bed, the familiar voice outside was cut off. Aurora sank into an endless, heavy blackness.

The heavy blackness slowly gave way to a warm, golden light. A faint scent of fresh freesias drifted into Aurora's nose.

She slowly opened her eyes.

This wasn't the freezing, sterile ICU. She was staring at a vaulted ceiling with soft, recessed lighting. The room looked like a suite at a five-star hotel, draped in rich creams and soft grays.

She instinctively tried to move her legs. The fatal, tearing agony in her lower back was completely gone. In its place was only a dull, tight pulling sensation across her abdomen.

The state-of-the-art medical monitors next to the bed hummed a quiet, rhythmic tune. Her vitals were perfectly stable.

A private nurse in a tailored, high-end uniform pushed the door open. She was carrying a glass of room-temperature lemon water.

Seeing Aurora awake, the nurse flashed a perfectly trained, comforting smile and walked quickly to the bedside.

"Ms. Valdez, you're finally awake," the nurse said softly. "The surgery by the Swiss team was a complete success."

Aurora's throat was raw. She stared at the woman in disbelief. "I... I'm alive? Where am I?"

The nurse placed a straw near Aurora's lips, helping her take a small sip. "You are in a private rehabilitation center on the Upper East Side. You received a flawless kidney transplant."

Aurora's eyes widened. Her mind instantly flashed to the pathetic balance in her joint bank account before she passed out.

She knew exactly how much this level of medical care cost. It was a number normal people couldn't even dream of. "Who... who arranged all this?"

She reached out and grabbed the nurse's wrist. Her grip was weak but desperate.

The nurse, whose nametag read Brenda, didn't flinch. "I'm Brenda, your primary care nurse," she said softly, before she gently but firmly pulled her wrist free. "A gentleman who cares very deeply for your well-being."

The first absurd thought that popped into Aurora's head was Conrad. But the memory of that cold, heartless phone call instantly killed the idea.

"Was it Conrad Huffman?" she asked. Her voice was flat, laced with self-mockery.

Brenda's professional smile didn't waver for a second. Her expression remained perfectly neutral as she shook her head slightly. "I apologize, Ms. Valdez. I have signed an extremely strict Non-Disclosure Agreement."

Aurora frowned. Her mind spun in circles. Aside from her ex-husband, she didn't know a single person with this kind of terrifying wealth and power.

Brenda smoothly changed the subject. She pulled back the edge of the blanket to check the healing incision on Aurora's side.

Aurora stared at the ceiling. She dug into her memory, trying to pull up the angry, violent voice she had heard right before her heart stopped.

"There was a man," Aurora said, looking at Brenda. "He kicked the doors in at the hospital. He threatened the doctors. Do you know who that was?"

Brenda kept her flawless smile in place. Her answer was airtight. "My duties are strictly confined to your post-operative care. I have no information regarding the events prior to your arrival here."

Aurora caught the rehearsed tone in the nurse's voice. She realized she wasn't going to get a single clue out of this woman. She stopped asking.

With Brenda's help, Aurora swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Her bare feet touched the warm hardwood floor. She stood up.

She walked slowly to the massive floor-to-ceiling windows. Below her, the vibrant, sprawling green canopy of Central Park stretched out for miles. A rush of pure, raw life force pumped through her veins.

The old Aurora-the woman who swallowed her pride, who begged for scraps of attention from a husband and a son who didn't want her-had died on that operating table.

She looked at her pale, sharp reflection in the glass. Her eyes were completely cold.

She turned back to Brenda. "I need a pen and some paper," she said evenly.

Aurora sat down on the velvet sofa. She placed the paper on the glass coffee table and began to write a list of things she needed to do the second she was discharged.

Item number one. End the toxic marriage that had drained every ounce of her dignity.

She pressed the tip of the pen hard against the paper. She wrote the word Divorce. She pressed so hard the metal tip tore straight through the thick paper, leaving a permanent scar on the desk beneath.