I Chose Me Over My Marriage novel Chapter 5

"She's in the emergency room."

The man replied tersely.

Lyra barely survived her time in the ICU. The moment her eyelids fluttered open, she met Maxwell's dark, freezing stare.

"Why did you ignore my calls during the fire?" Before she could even breathe, he fired off a ruthless accusation. "Did you honestly think I would fall for this pathetic little victim act?"

Any joy of surviving was instantly obliterated by his cruel words.

He stepped closer, his shadow looming over her with suffocating pressure. "There's a limit to these tantrums, Lyra. You deliberately ignored my calls so you could get hurt and guilt-trip me?"

"You really are as deeply manipulative as Aria says you are."

Without a trial, he had already condemned her.

His usual blind faith in his beloved completely shattered her desire to defend herself. Physically and emotionally drained, she stared at him for a long time before finally whispering, "Maxwell... someone tried to kill me."

Everyone had been fleeing for their lives, yet someone had gone out of their way to lock her inside.

Whoever pulled the strings must have gone to great lengths to orchestrate it.

"So you've graduated from acting to full-blown paranoia?" Maxwell scoffed violently.

His voice lowered into a dangerous growl. "First you demand a divorce, then you claim an assassin is after you, and now you smash your own head to stage a near-death emergency. All to make me pity you?"

"Or did you actually believe this stunt would make you more important than Aria?"

He stared down at her for an agonizingly long time before spitting out his final verdict. "In your dreams."

As their eyes locked, Lyra's blood turned to ice.

For years, she had subjected herself to the most humiliating desperation just to win his love. Now, even after surviving by the skin of her teeth, she was nothing more than a 'manipulative schemer' to him.

A bitter smile touched Lyra's heart. She simply nodded. "Okay."

Rather than the hysterical breakdown he expected, her calm response made him frown. For some inexplicable reason, a deep unease settled in his stomach, as if she were slipping right through his fingers.

He shook his head, instantly tossing the absurd thought aside.

The hospital door clicked shut, and his heavy footsteps faded down the hall.

Staring up at the sterile ceiling for a long time, Lyra whispered to herself, "You really go to hell and back for her, don't you, Max?"

Before discovering his twisted affair with Aria, Lyra had spent years agonizing over his coldness. She constantly blamed herself, wondering what she had done wrong to make him change so drastically after the wedding.

Back when they were dating, he remembered every single anniversary. He brought her extravagant gifts, abandoned his multi-million dollar meetings to nurse her when she was sick, and bought out entire jewelry stores just because she pointed at a necklace. Yet, the minute the ink dried on their marriage license, he became a completely different monster.

He began staying out all night, erasing her existence, and allowing his elite friends to publicly humiliate her for begging her way into the Sterling family.