Chapter 2

Ethan Foster POV

The black Maybach sped through the night, the atmosphere inside suffocating.

Mia sat in the passenger seat, stealing glances at my profile. The way I had defended her in the hospital room must have thrilled her, making her think her place as Mrs. Foster was finally secure. She reached over, trying to lay her hand over mine on the steering wheel.

“Ethan, I’ll stay at the villa with you tonight…”

“Bam!”

I slammed on the brakes, bringing the car to a halt on a deserted stretch of winding mountain road. The sudden stop threw Mia hard against the seat, and she cried out.

Before she could react, I had turned and clamped a hand around her throat.

“Get out.” My voice was flat, but ice-cold.

“Ethan, what did I do wrong?” Mia’s face went white with fear as she clawed desperately at my iron grip.

I shoved her away, reached across her, and pushed open the passenger door. “I said get the hell out! Consider it payment for all that bullshit you said in front of her—and for that baby that never existed. And don’t let me catch you within ten paces of Claire Bennett again, or I’ll chop you up and feed you to the dogs.”

Mia stumbled out of the car in terror. Even when the heel of her shoe snapped, she didn’t dare cry out in pain.

I had never brought her into my life because I liked her. She was nothing more than a knife I used to hurt Claire. Now that the blade had cut too deep, I was going to break it.

The door slammed shut. I drove the Maybach into the darkness, leaving Mia trembling in despair in the cold wind.

Half an hour later, I pulled into the underground parking garage beneath the Foster Group building.

My assistant, Ryan Cole, had been waiting for some time. He watched me get out of the car, seething with hostility, a nearly spent cigarette between my fingers. After a long hesitation, he finally spoke.

“Mr. Foster, you knew Mia Collins deliberately staged that confrontation. You also knew what condition Mrs. Foster was in… Since you ordered the hysterectomy to save her life, why won’t you tell her the truth?”

Ryan had worked for me for five years. No one knew the full story better than he did. When Claire was brought to the hospital three days earlier, she was already hemorrhaging heavily. The doctor had issued a critical condition notice. Years of malnutrition and severe psychological trauma had left her in terrible health. The miscarriage caused by the violent impact had triggered uncontrollable uterine bleeding.

I had stood outside the emergency room, shaking all over. When the doctor asked whether to save her uterus or her life, I had practically roared, “Take out her uterus! I want her alive!”

But once the surgery was successful and Claire was out of danger, I ordered the doctors to keep quiet. I even deliberately brought Mia to her room to provoke her and said those utterly vicious things.

My fingers froze around the cigarette, and ash drifted down onto the expensive carpet.

I stared into nothing through the dim light of the parking garage, silent for a long, long time.

Just when Ryan Cole thought I wasn't going to answer, my hoarse voice finally broke the silence of the cavernous garage. “Let her hate me.”

I turned to him, my eyes bloodshot, like a madman teetering on the edge of a cliff. “She's lost her baby. If she finds out I gave that order to save her, she'll blame herself for everything. You know what she's like. If she thinks she failed to protect her baby, she'll kill herself. Ryan, she will.”

“She has to hate me. She has to put all the blame on me, make me the villain. She has to hate me so much it eats her alive, so much she wants to kill me. That's the only way she'll stay alive.”

In a daze, I remembered that rain-lashed night three years ago.

That day, Claire Bennett and I had been planning a trip for our wedding anniversary when we suddenly received a call from the coast guard. My parents and Claire Bennett's parents had been aboard a yacht in international waters when it encountered a once-in-a-century superstorm. All contact had been lost. They were presumed dead after an unsuccessful search-and-rescue operation.

Ryan Cole had watched me turn into an empty shell the instant the news came, as though my soul had been drained from my body. I locked myself in the room containing my parents' belongings for three days and three nights, without drinking a drop of water.

When Ryan Cole broke down the door, my wrists were covered in bloody cuts. I had tried to follow my parents into death. The doctor diagnosed me with severe depression accompanied by severe post-traumatic stress disorder. But I refused all psychological treatment and medication.

I was like a wild animal dying in a corner with no way out. To keep myself from going insane, I needed something to keep me alive.

So I turned all my pain, despair, and rage into hatred for Claire Bennett.

Because Mr. Bennett had been the one to suggest that trip out to sea.

Ryan Cole once asked me, “Mrs. Foster is a victim too. She lost her parents too. Why do you have to hate her?”

I had been sitting in my wrecked study, looking at a framed photograph of Claire Bennett and me. Tears struck the glass, but my voice was like a poisoned blade. “If I don't hate her, I don't know how to keep living. Ryan, I can't forgive myself for not stopping that trip. All I can do is blame her. Only when I torment her, when I watch her suffer, can I feel that I'm still breathing.”

Three years. For three years, I had fed on Claire Bennett's pain to keep my shattered soul alive. I thought that as long as I kept her trapped beside me, bound her in a web of hatred, we could remain entangled in this hell forever.

“Mr. Foster…” Ryan Cole looked at me, his voice strained. “But you're driving Mrs. Foster to her death. Hatred won't make someone stay.”

I crushed the cigarette out hard against my palm. The searing pain cleared my head a little. Looking at the blister rising on my palm, I spoke with a terrifying, obsessive certainty. “She won't die. I won't let her. Even if I'm going to hell, she's coming with me.”

With that, I turned and headed for the elevator.