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"Has your husband not arrived yet?"
A young resident doctor stood there with several surgical consent forms in hand, waiting for a family member to sign for Allison Fulton.
On the hospital bed, Allison curled into herself. Her face had turned pale, and she held her phone in a weak grip while the pain in her abdomen kept surging through her body.
She had been diagnosed with acute appendicitis and needed surgery right away. Yet no matter how many times she called, her husband never answered.
Everything in the operating room was ready, but she was still waiting for her husband's signature.
"He is very busy," Allison replied.
Nolan Reid was her husband. As the current President, his schedule ran from morning until night. His time had never belonged to her alone.
"Too busy to care about your well-being?" The doctor let out a frustrated breath. "No matter how packed his schedule is, can he really be busier than the President? Even the President made time to accompany his fiancée to a prenatal checkup today."
Those words struck Allison without warning.
"W-what did you say?" Her voice trembled. "Who's accompanying..."
The mention of the President accompanying his fiancée to a prenatal checkup pressed down on her chest and left her struggling to breathe.
At that moment, noise suddenly rose from outside the hospital room.
The doctor pointed toward the hallway. "Take a look. That's the President himself, one of the busiest men alive."
Even with the sharp pain twisting through her abdomen, Allison lifted her head and looked. A tall man in a neat suit walked past the room. Lines of bodyguards followed close behind him.
Her heart felt as if something had tightened around it.
Nolan was the man she had loved for eight years, the husband she had quietly supported for three. Right now, he was wheeling a delicate woman to a prenatal checkup.
The woman was Hollie Pearson, a member of the wealthiest family in the country and the same person who had bullied her during their school years.
Allison watched what was happening outside, and it felt as if something were slowly squeezing her heart. Pain filled her chest while her husband's gentle voice reached her ears. "Don't worry, Hollie. I'm right here with you."
Allison blinked, stunned.
What about her?
Anger surged through her. She pushed the blanket aside and tried to get up, determined to walk out and demand an explanation.
Whose child was Hollie carrying that required the President himself to accompany her to a prenatal checkup while hiding it from his own wife?
But the sharp pain in Allison's abdomen struck again before she could stand. Her body collapsed back onto the bed, leaving her too weak to rise again.
The doctor stepped forward and quickly stopped her. "Don't move. Why don't you try calling your husband's office?"
Her husband's office?
Had anyone from the presidential residence ever treated her as the First Lady?
Earlier that day, when she collapsed, it was a stranger who called the ambulance.
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