Reborn to Dodge the Bad Marriage novel Chapter 102

Chapter 102 Only One Wife

an glanced at his phone, only half there. “Sure.”

Olivia got out her kit and drew his blood. Nothing showed on his face the whole time.

He kept picking up his phone anyway, frowning at the screen, and it made him look restless.

“Did you and Nora have a fight, Jules?” she asked carefully.

Julian thought back over the texts. “I don’t think so.”

Olivia smiled, pleased. “Good. I’d hate for Nora to be upset because I’m at the house treating you. I don’ want to be the reason you two fight.”

Julian gave her a flat look. “Then don’t do things she could read the wrong way. Like reaching for my tie this morning.”

Olivia’s smile froze for a second, and then she explained herself, very serious now. “I’m sorry. It’s a compulsive thing with me. Your tie was crooked this morning and I couldn’t leave it alone.”

Julian’s face stayed cold. “You’re the doctor my grandmother is paying a lot of money to treat me. Past that, we’re two people who happened to grow up around each other. Nothing more.

“If you can’t keep the line between doctor and patient straight, I can stop the treatment. Is that clear?”

The smile on Olivia’s face died completely.

“Do you really care about Nora that much, Jules?” she asked, and it came out awkward.

Julian’s face was serious. “I don’t treat marriage as a joke, and I don’t treat what I feel as one either. I married Nora, so she’s the only woman I want and the only wife I’ll have.”

Olivia hadn’t expected him to be that serious, and it stung. “You’ve known Nora less than a month. You and I grew up together for 20 years. Am I really worth that much less than she is?”

Twenty years side by side, and it counted for less than the two weeks he’d known her.

Olivia was genuinely hurt. No matter how she turned it over, she couldn’t see what was so good about Nora, or what Nora had over her, that would make Julian feel like this.

As for beautiful, she was every bit as beautiful.

And when it came to family, education, or what she could do with a needle, Nora wasn’t even close.

“Yes.”

Julian answered flatly, without softening it, and the color went out of Olivia’s face.

But she pulled her smile back into place fast. “You’re overthinking it, Jules. I’ve always thought of you as a brother. You’ve gone from that to only caring about her, and it’s hard to take.”

I’ve made my peace with it, though. Nora is your wife, and a sister ought to know when to step back.”

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Chapter 102 Only One Wife

She blamed all of it on being spoiled. Everyone had handed her whatever she wanted since she was small, so

course she got possessive, and of course she got jealous.

Julian’s answer stayed flat “Nora is the only wife I’ll have in this life. That doesn’t change, even when I’m

dead.”

He didn’t care how she explained it. All he wanted was every door to anything else shut.

She packed up her kit. “Okay. I’m going. Once the results come back, I’ll go over them with Grandma and/ then come find you.”

That afternoon, Nora had barely come out of a meeting when Olivia texted her. “I’m in the coffee shop downstairs from your office. Do you have time? Coffee’s on me.”

Nora wrote back, “No. I say what I think, then you get upset, and somehow I end up the one bullying you

Olivia was already unhappy by the time she finished reading it.

“It’s about Jules’s treatment,” she sent.

Nora’s reply came back in two words. “Not interested.”

Olivia had nothing to send back.

She sat staring at the screen, completely thrown.

She’d planned to use Julian’s condition to open a real conversation, and Nora hadn’t played along at all. Not interested, and that was that.

Olivia couldn’t help herself and sent a voice message. “Nora, don’t you love Jules at all? Does it really not matter to you whether he lives or dies?”

Nora’s answer was just as short. “Yep.”

Olivia turned her own voice message into text, took a screenshot, opened her thread with Julian, and selected the image.

She stopped with her thumb over send.

“Grandma’s right,” she murmured. “My job is treating Jules. The rest of it isn’t mine to handle.”

Her finger moved, and then she made herself put the phone away without sending it. Going upstairs had lost its appeal too, so Olivia got in her car and drove off.

Nora looked at the thread and tapped her fingers on the desk. “Where’s all that confidence coming from? Does she actually have a course of treatment that pulls the poison out of him?”

She frowned. The Fivefold Method and that detox tonic he’d been drinking couldn’t bring his taste back.

Last night’s needle work, then? Or the meal she sent over this morning?

Nora turned it over for a while, then shook her head. “Forget it. None of it has anything to do with me. All I need is a year to finish Adrian and the Pierces, and to dig up whatever my own grandmother buried.”

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Chapter 102 Only One Wife

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