His Unwanted Wife: The Genius Surgeon

ika Hayes sat in the back seat, her canvas bag clutched against her chest, the laptop inside still warm from the confrontation

e came through the partition speaker

il from Whitmore & Associates, the divorce attorney she'd contacted from that Central Pa

sula. Fift

, ma

cceleration and braking, felt like being rocked in something mechanical and impersonal. Safe. She hadn't felt safe in

gain. A text from

to the Park Avenue residence has been revoked effective immediately. Your personal belonging

arp sound that surprised even herself. The driver g

k a single wo

on. Instead, there was only a spreading numbness in her chest, like Novocaine taking hold. She rubbed her left hand, the bare skin where her ring h

his time, a notification

spended per account holder request. For quest

, his lawyers, his mother probably. Meredith would be thrilled. The prodigal son finally cutting ties wit

an her thumb over the embossed name. Annika Hayes Clark. She'd kept her maiden name professionally

ining it in the passing streetlights. Then, without ceremony, she leaned over and pressed the card's edge against the sharp metal corner of the seat's integrated console, putting the full weight

ces into the door p

debit card-the one Ethan didn't know existed, the one connected to an account she'd never touched in three years. The clerk's professional smile never wavered, though his ey

e desk and opened her laptop. The screen woke to the divorce petition, still open from the plane. She read through it once more,

heavy with images of white-coated excellence, breakthrough research, surgical innovation. She scrolled to the faculty dire

cy match, from the operating table, from the identity she'd spent twenty-six years building. She had been someone else then. A surgical reside

ble, and she'd wanted so badly to be that woman. The one who wore silk instead of blood, who attended boa

een so

k rang, startling he

ith Whitmore and Associates is scheduled for nine a.m. tomorrow. They've also been in

lock. Ten-fifteen. "Tha

calls from an unknown number, probably Ethan realizing she'd checked into a hotel. She blocked it without liste

val. The only person who'd called her a fool t

before she could s

Do you still have that

ame in thir

time. When can

and felt something crack open in her chest. Not

gan to