The Secret I Heard in the Operating Room Changed Everything

I'd had a hopeless crush on Rhett Beaumont since I was practically a kid.

He was my dad's business partner – older, suave, the kind of Southern gentleman who could charm anyone.

For years, I'd built up these elaborate daydreams about him.

Then, at the annual Historical Society Gala, he finally seemed to see me.

His smile, just for me, made my heart do that stupid little flip.

He leaned in, promising a private chat later, and my head was spinning. This was it.

But "it" turned into a horrifying trap.

A week later, after a staged mugging where he played the hero, we ended up in a passionate encounter.

That single night led to his childhood sweetheart, Caroline, crashing her car.

Then came our cold, guilt-driven marriage, years of painful, invasive IVF treatments, and him controlling every aspect of my life.

The final blow? Hearing him coldly tell the doctors, "Just let her go if it comes to that," as I bled out on an operating table.

He never loved me. Not for a second.

I was just a pawn, a convenient distraction in his twisted games.

He blamed me for Caroline's accident, resented my very existence.

My body became a failed experiment, my spirit crushed under his icy indifference.

All those years of adoration, wasted on a man who saw me as less than nothing.

The injustice of it all was a physical ache.

How could I have been so stupidly blind to his manipulation?

He'd used my innocent crush to utterly destroy me.

The man I'd put on a pedestal despised me enough to watch me die.

Then, blackness. My last thought: what a complete fool I'd been.

But in the next instant, I gasped, my eyes snapping open.

The scent of lilies and champagne filled the air.

I was standing by that same floral arrangement at the Gala, the night it all began.

Rhett Beaumont was walking towards me, that familiar, predatory smile on his face.

I was dead. I knew I was.

Yet, here I was.

A second chance? This time, things would be different.

1

My heart always did a stupid little flip whenever Rhett Beaumont was near.

It had been like that since I was a teenager, all flushed cheeks and silly daydreams.

Rhett was my father's business partner, a big deal in Savannah real estate, older, smoother, with that kind of Southern charm that could melt ice in winter.

Tonight, at the annual Historical Society Gala, he was a gravitational force, pulling everyone into his orbit.

And then, his eyes met mine across the glittering ballroom.

A slow smile spread across his face, just for me. Or so I let myself believe.

Later, he found me by the ridiculously tall floral arrangement.

"Scarlett," he said, his voice like warm honey. "You look stunning."

I probably looked like a tomato. "Thank you, Rhett. You clean up pretty well yourself."

He chuckled, a rich, easy sound. "I have to confess, Scarlett, I've been noticing you more and more lately."

My breath hitched. This was it. The moment I'd replayed in my head a thousand times.

He leaned in a little. "There's something I need to discuss with you. Privately. Maybe after this?"

My head was spinning. "Okay."

A week later, Rhett called me, his voice strained, panicked.

"Scarlett, thank God. I... I think I'm in trouble. Some guys, they followed me from the bank."

"Rhett, what? Where are you?" My blood ran cold.

He gave me a side-street address near one of his downtown properties. "I managed to duck into an alley, but I think they saw me. I'm not sure what to do. My phone's about to die."

"Stay there, Rhett! I'm coming!" I didn't think. I just grabbed my keys.

I found him slumped against a grimy brick wall, his usually perfect suit jacket torn, a cut bleeding above his eye. Two rough-looking men were a few feet away, looking like they were about to close in.

"Hey!" I yelled, surprising myself with the force in my voice. I fumbled for my phone, making a show of dialing 911. "I'm calling the cops!"

The men exchanged a look, then bolted, disappearing around the corner.

I rushed to Rhett. "Are you okay?"

He looked up, his eyes full of something I couldn't quite name – relief, maybe something else. "Scarlett. You saved me."

He pulled me down, and his mouth was on mine, desperate and hot.

My mind, which had been screaming caution, went blank. This was Rhett. Kissing me.

The world tilted. I kissed him back, all that pent-up longing flooding out.

He led me inside the empty building he'd ducked into, an old warehouse he was renovating.

Passion took over, raw and overwhelming. It wasn't gentle, or romantic like my dreams. It was urgent, almost savage. And I, fool that I was, let it happen.

The harsh morning light streamed through a broken window pane.

I lay tangled in my dress on a dusty tarpaulin, Rhett already dressed, staring out the window, his back to me.

A sharp gasp from the doorway.

Caroline Dubois stood there, her face a mask of shock, then fury.

Rhett's childhood sweetheart, the perfect Southern belle lawyer, her blond hair immaculate even now.

"Rhett? What is... How could you?" Her voice was a choked whisper.

Rhett turned slowly, his expression unreadable. He didn't say a word.

Caroline's eyes, glinting with tears and something much harder, flicked to me, then back to Rhett.

She spun on her heel and fled.

We heard the roar of an engine, then the sickening screech of tires, followed by a deafening crash.

Rhett didn't move. He just closed his eyes.

I scrambled up, my body aching, my mind reeling. "Caroline!"

He finally looked at me, his face pale. "She'll be fine." But his voice lacked conviction.

A few days later, with Caroline in the hospital, critical but alive, Rhett asked me to marry him.

His proposal was flat, devoid of emotion. "It's the right thing to do, Scarlett. After everything. For Caroline's... peace of mind. And mine."

Guilt. Obligation. Not love. I knew it.

But I said yes. I was a fool, tangled in a web I didn't understand.

Our marriage was a cold, sterile thing.

Rhett moved me into his massive, silent house on the Isle of Hope, a place that felt more like a museum than a home.

He was polite, distant. He controlled my life with a velvet glove.

My friends, especially Bree, my outspoken bartender best friend, were subtly pushed away.

My father, Daniel, well-meaning but easily impressed by Rhett's money and influence, thought I was living a fairytale.

Then came the pressure for a child.

"A family needs an heir, Scarlett," Rhett would say, his eyes like chips of ice.

IVF. One round after another. Each one a painful, invasive failure.

My body became a science experiment, my spirit shrinking with every negative test.

He never touched me outside those clinical procedures. There was no comfort, no tenderness.

I was a vessel, and a faulty one at that. My self-esteem withered.

During the third round of IVF, something went terribly wrong.

A sharp, agonizing pain ripped through me during the egg retrieval. I started bleeding, heavily.

I remember the frantic shouts of the doctors, the beeping machines, Rhett's pale face in the doorway.

Then, as a fog of anesthesia started to pull me under, I heard Rhett's voice, cold and clear, speaking to the lead doctor.

"Just let her go if it comes to that. It's not worth losing Caroline over this."

The words sliced through the haze. Losing Caroline? Caroline was recovering, slowly, but she was alive. What did he mean?

Then darkness.

I realize it now. He never loved me. Not for a second.

I was a pawn. A distraction. A warm body to fill a space Caroline had temporarily vacated in his twisted game.

He blamed me for Caroline's accident, for the disruption. He resented my very existence.

His proposal wasn't about guilt for what he did to me, but guilt over what happened to Caroline because of us.

And I was the constant, unwelcome reminder.

The pain was immense, tearing through me. Not just physical.

This was a deeper ache, a soul-deep wound.

He hated me. Rhett Beaumont, the man I'd adored, hated me.

And I, Scarlett Hayes, had walked into his trap with my eyes wide open, blinded by a childish crush.

The regret was a bitter poison, choking me.

I'd wasted my love, my youth, my body, my very life, on a man who saw me as less than nothing.

A burden to be discarded if complications arose.

The beeping of the machines faded. The voices grew distant.

The darkness was cool, inviting.

My last thought was a whisper of despair: What a fool I've been.

Then, nothing.

A blinding flash. A sickening lurch.

I gasped, not for air, but from shock.

My eyes snapped open.

Noise. Music. The scent of lilies and champagne.

I was standing by the ridiculously tall floral arrangement at the Historical Society Gala.

My heart hammered against my ribs, not from infatuation, but from sheer, unadulterated terror.

Rhett Beaumont was walking towards me, that same slow, predatory smile on his face.

"Scarlett," he was about to say.

No. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening.

I was dead. I knew I was dead.

Yet, here I was. Reliving the night it all began.

A second chance?