Chapter 5

Summer POV

"How long has she been playing dead?"

Through the haze, I heard a cold voice near my ear.

"Mr. Nathan, Summer has been burning with a 104-degree fever for a full day and night. If this continues, someone's going to die..." the servant answered fearfully.

"Die? Disasters live long. She's not that easy to kill." Nathan snorted coldly. I heard his footsteps fade farther away.

I lay on the hard bed in the basement, feeling as if I were in a burning sea of flames. It felt like thousands of drills were frantically grinding in my head. The pain left me without even the strength to make a sound.

It hurts so much... someone save me...

Just when I thought I'd die in endless darkness, the basement door was kicked open.

Hayes burst in with bloodshot eyes. Seeing me unconscious with fever on the bed, he looked both furious and heartbroken. "Summer! Wake up!"

He immediately took off his coat and wrapped it around my cold body, lifted me up, and charged out of the villa like an enraged lion, heading straight for the hospital.

The emergency room's red light stayed on for three full hours.

In the hospital room, I had an IV in my hand. My already thin face was now utterly bloodless. Hayes looked at the just-released brain scan report. His hands were trembling violently.

"Terminal malignant brain tumor... Summer, why didn't you tell me anything!" Hayes's voice carried a desperate sob.

I slowly opened my unfocused eyes and weakly pulled at the corner of my mouth. "Hayes, don't tell Nathan... I don't want him to think I'm using a sympathy ploy to deceive him."

"Even now you're still protecting him!" Hayes closed his eyes in pain.

Bang!

The hospital room door was suddenly kicked open with tremendous force.

Nathan strode in with an icy aura. He stared deadly at Hayes holding my hand by the bedside. The fury in his eyes seemed ready to burn everything down.

"Hayes, you've got some nerve, daring to snatch someone from my villa?" Nathan stepped forward through gritted teeth, grabbed Hayes by the collar, and shoved him aside hard.

Then his gaze turned darkly to me on the bed. "I thought you were really dying, but turns out you just switched locations to have a tryst with your old flame. Summer, you truly have no shame!"

"Nathan, you've gone too far! Do you know she's already..." Hayes angrily tried to shout the truth, but was interrupted by my weak scream.

"Hayes! Don't say it!" I coughed violently, my eyes full of pleading.

In Nathan's eyes, this seemed like ironclad proof that I was desperately protecting Hayes.

"What a touching tragic couple's performance." Nathan laughed in extreme anger. He suddenly reached out and ripped the IV needle from the back of my hand!

The sharp needle was brutally pulled from the vein, bringing up a string of red blood droplets that splattered on the white sheets.

"Nathan, you're insane!" Hayes tried to intervene but was pinned against the wall by bodyguards who'd followed.

"Come back with me." Nathan completely ignored my cry of pain. Like dragging a lifeless rag, he forcibly pulled me from the hospital bed.

My legs had no strength. I fell directly onto the cold tiles. Blood from the back of my hand dripped onto the floor, but I didn't struggle.

I lifted my head. Those once-bright eyes now looked like a pool of stagnant water.

"Nathan." My voice was extremely soft but carried a frightening death-like stillness. "In this life, have you ever loved me?"

Nathan's movement paused. He seemed to feel a stab of pain, but he quickly covered it up and mocked coldly. "Love? You think you're worthy? You're only fit to spend a lifetime atoning at Ryan's grave!"

"I understand now."

I closed my eyes. A final tear slid from the corner of my eye.

In this moment, the shackles that had bound me for three years finally shattered completely.

The Summer who deeply loved Nathan had died in that cold hospital room. What remained was just a shell counting down to death.