The air in the boardroom crackled. It was thick with the stench of betrayal and the silent hum of fried servers. Christian’s knuckles were white on the arms of his wheelchair, his jaw a granite slab. The words echoed in the dead quiet room, a verdict delivered by an empress.
*“How long were you planning to play the cripple, Christian?”*
His mind, usually a fortress of cold logic, was a maelstrom. Rosewood. The ghost he’d hunted, the genius he’d offered a blank check to, was the same woman he’d treated like dirt under his shoe. The karma was a physical blow, knocking the air from his lungs.
“How did you know?” he finally ground out, his voice a low growl. He refused to look at his stunned IT team. Their awe was directed at her, not him. The Alpha of Ethan Corp had been dethroned in his own kingdom.
Scarlett’s lips curved into a smile that held no warmth. It was a weapon. “You have a tell. When you lie, your left thumb twitches. It’s been twitching for three years.”
His gaze shot to his hand. She was right. He had never known.
“Impossible!” Chloe shrieked, breaking the spell. Her perfectly manicured mask of concern was cracking. “Christian, she’s a spy! She hacked us and now she’s spouting nonsense to cover her tracks! She’s trying to destroy you!”
Chloe rushed to his side, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Darling, don’t listen to this orphan’s lies. After everything I’ve done for you, after all the specialists I hired to treat your legs…”
Scarlett let out a short, sharp laugh. It was the sound of shattering glass. “Specialists?” Her eyes, once a doe’s, were now chips of ice. They pinned Chloe to the spot. “Tell me, Chloe. What was the name of the ointment they used? The one that smelled of silver vine and winter rose?”
Chloe blanched. “I… I don’t meddle in the medical details. I just paid the bills. The very expensive bills!”
“Of course you did,” Scarlett said, her voice dripping with contempt. She took a step toward the wheelchair, her presence commanding the room. The meek maid was gone, replaced by a queen. “For three years, every single night, a special medicinal paste was applied to his legs. It was designed to repair nerve damage at a cellular level. A formula known only to my family.”
Christian’s blood ran cold. A memory surfaced, hazy and dreamlike. The faint, earthy scent on his blankets. A fleeting sensation of warmth spreading through his useless limbs as he drifted off to sleep. He had dismissed it as a phantom touch, a trick of his damaged nerves.
“You?” he breathed, the word stolen from him. “The maid who brought my water…?”
“The maid who knelt by your bed while you slept,” Scarlett corrected, her voice merciless. “The spy who spent her nights brewing a priceless remedy in a servant’s kitchen. The fool who massaged it into your legs, believing she was repaying a debt to the man who saved her grandfather.”
The pieces slammed together in Christian’s mind with brutal force. The gradual return of feeling. The tingling he never told anyone about. The miraculous recovery that baffled every doctor. It wasn’t a miracle. It was her.
The seduction wasn’t Chloe’s fake devotion. The true care, the real healing, came from the shadows. From the woman he had abused and humiliated daily.
“Lies!” Chloe screamed, her voice shrill with panic. “She’s a pathological liar! Christian, call Dr. Evans! Ask him! He’ll tell you his team was responsible!”
Christian’s hand was already moving. He pulled out his phone, his fingers shaking slightly. He found the number for the world-renowned neurologist Chloe had supposedly hired. He pressed the speakerphone button, the sound echoing ominously in the silent room.
“Dr. Evans,” Christian said, his voice dangerously level.
“Mr. Ethan! To what do I owe the pleasure? Chloe assured me your recovery was progressing as expected under our supervision,” the doctor’s cheerful voice replied.
“Tell me about the ointment, doctor,” Christian demanded. “The one with the unique herbal compound.”
There was a pause on the other end. “Ointment? Mr. Ethan, I’m afraid you’re mistaken. My team’s regimen consisted purely of electro-stimulation and physical therapy. We never applied any topical treatments. Frankly, we were astonished at the speed of your nerve regeneration. It was a medical anomaly.”
Click.
Christian ended the call. The silence that followed was heavier than a tombstone. Every eye in the room darted from the phone, to Chloe’s terrified face, and finally to Christian, whose expression was murderous.
He slowly turned his head to look at Chloe. The billionaire Alpha was back, but his legendary coldness was now a raging inferno of fury directed entirely at her.
“You took the credit,” he said, each word a shard of ice. “You let me believe… while she…” He couldn’t finish. The weight of his own cruelty was suffocating. He had berated his savior. He had threatened his guardian angel. The regret was a poison flooding his veins.
Scarlett watched the scene with detached composure. She had planted the seed; now she would watch the fallout. She had no more tears for this family. Her heart was a fortress now.
“My debt to your grandfather is paid,” she announced, her voice ringing with finality. “Three years of my life. Three years of servitude. For the life he saved. We are even, Christian Ethan.”
She turned her back on him, on the entire mess. She started walking toward the boardroom doors, her posture straight, her steps unhurried. The walk of an empress leaving a conquered city in her wake.
Panic seized Christian. A primal fear of losing something infinitely precious. He couldn’t let her go. Not like this.
With a guttural roar, he surged upward. He pushed off the arms of the wheelchair, his legs—his strong, fully healed legs—powering him to his feet. The wheelchair toppled backward, crashing to the floor with a metallic clang that sounded like a death knell.
“SCARLETT!” he bellowed, his voice raw with desperation and a pain that had nothing to do with his body.
She paused at the door but didn’t turn around.
He took a staggering step forward. “Don’t go. Please.”
She remained silent for a beat, her back a wall he could never scale again. Just as she reached for the handle, the doors swung open from the outside. A man in a tailored black suit stood there, built like a mountain with an earpiece in his ear. He bowed his head respectfully, but not to Christian.
He bowed to her.
“Ms. Avery,” the man said, his voice deep and professional. “The car is ready. The board of Avery Oil is waiting for your announcement.”
Christian froze. Avery? Avery Oil? The most powerful and reclusive energy dynasty on the planet? It couldn’t be.
Scarlett finally turned her head slightly, looking at him over her shoulder. The last vestiges of the submissive girl he knew were gone, burned away to reveal the cold, commanding gaze of a titan of industry. A woman who could buy and sell his entire world ten times over.
“You made a deal with Scarlett the orphan,” she said, her voice dripping ice. “But now, you will have to deal with me.”