His Regretted Wife

"Ms. Andrews, your test results indicate acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and it's advanced. A bone marrow match... we likely won't have enough time."

Angela Andrews stood there holding the report, her fingertips trembling.

She remained in the hospital corridor until her legs went numb, then made her way home in a daze.

She didn't turn on the lights. Barefoot, she walked across the cold marble floor, each step slow and uncertain, until she reached the couch and folded herself into the corner of it, letting the darkness close around her like something she could finally breathe inside.

Her phone screen flared to life without warning, bright enough to make her squint.

A news alert had pushed through. Below the headline was a photograph.

The backdrop was the blazing downtown skyline, and the city's most iconic skyscraper had been lit up with enormous, luminous letters that stretched across its face: Lucas Cora Tower.

[Breaking: The Conway Group today officially completed its acquisition and renaming of the downtown Financial Center. Sources confirm that the city's tallest building will now bear the names of Conway Group CEO Lucas Conway and his key partner Cora Hayworth in a joint tribute, widely hailed as a romantic gesture uniting an industry legend with a rising tech star.]

Angela's eyes burned. Something inside her chest felt scooped out, hollow and perfectly still.

With shaking fingers, she tapped the article open. A second photo loaded beneath the text.

Lucas stood in a perfectly tailored black suit, his posture immaculate, Cora luminous at his side.

He had tilted his head slightly toward her, listening to something she was saying, and even the sharp lines of his profile seemed to soften in that moment.

Cora was gazing up at the tower, her eyes bright with surprise and something that looked unmistakably like wonder.

The comments beneath the article had already spiraled into the thousands.

[He literally bought a skyscraper and renamed it after her. Someone tell me this isn't a Wattpad plot because I cannot.]

[Cora must have saved the entire universe in a past life. Her career is elite, her man is more elite, and he just carved both their names into the city skyline. I'm not okay.]

[This is what an equal-partnership love story looks like. The way Mr. Conway looks at Ms. Hayworth, the admiration, the warmth, I can't. Ship of the century.]

[I've run out of ways to say I'm jealous. Cora deserves every bit of this. Wishing them forever.]

Each comment landed like a small, precise needle pressing into her skin.

Cora and Lucas were a perfect match by every measure. So what did that make her?

She was his wife. Legally, the only one. And yet here she sat, watching her husband light up the entire city for someone else.

Angela pressed her fingers to the corner of her eye. The skin there was dry. Apparently, when the pain reached a certain depth, the tears simply stopped coming.

Late that night, the electronic lock beeped in the silence of the living room.

Lucas stepped inside and hit the lights. He was in the middle of loosening his tie when his hands paused, he hadn't expected to find her there, sitting in the corner of the couch in the dark.

He frowned. "Why are you still up? Sitting here with the lights off."

Angela didn't move. Her gaze rested somewhere on the floor, unfocused, and it was a long moment before she spoke. "You promised you'd come with me to the hospital today."

Something flickered across his expression. He draped his jacket over the arm of the couch with casual ease, his tone already edged with impatience. "Something urgent came up at the company. I couldn't leave."

"I saw the news," Angela said. She finally looked up at him, her face pale and unreadable, the overhead light reflecting cold in her eyes. "'Lucas Cora Tower.' That was quite a statement."

His frown deepened. "Cora's team achieved a breakthrough. It's strategically critical for the company's future. The renaming was a business move, a publicity play. Don't read into it."

Angela's mouth curved into something that barely qualified as a smile, the kind that held no warmth, only the faint, tired shape of self-mockery.

She let that go. Instead, she looked directly at him. "You haven't asked me about my results."

Lucas seemed to remember, almost as an afterthought. "What did the doctor say?"

"Nothing serious." She lowered her eyes, her lashes casting a thin shadow across her cheek, hiding everything underneath. "Just some anemia."

He stepped closer and drew her into his arms, his voice gentling slightly. "Tell Anna to make you something for it, then. There's fish maw and honey in the kitchen, so don't hold back on using them."

His arms were warm and broad. Angela felt none of it.

A faint scent reached her, jasmine, delicate and distinctive, and her gaze drifted down to the shoulder of his dress shirt.

A single strand of hair clung to the fabric. Chestnut-colored, loosely curled.

Cora had hair exactly like that. A full, beautiful head of chestnut waves.

It was as if that one strand had wound itself around her heart and pulled tight. The breath left her in a slow, involuntary stutter.

"Lucas." Her voice came out barely above a whisper, fragile enough to break at a touch. "Right now, while you're holding me, who are you thinking about?"

The arms around her went rigid for just a fraction of a second.

Then he let go. He looked down at her pale face, and irritation moved across his own. "Angela. What is going on with you tonight?"

"What's going on with me?" She laughed, a soft, desolate sound. "Lucas. Ask yourself honestly. Who is it that you're really holding onto? Am I actually imagining things?"

She didn't raise her voice. There was no hysteria in it, no breaking point, just each word arriving quietly and clearly, the way a dull blade works, not with speed but with pressure.

Lucas's expression hardened. He pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose, the irritation sharpening into something colder. "Angela. Enough. If you're this insecure, then we'll have a child. My grandmother has been pushing for it anyway. Once there's a baby, maybe you'll finally settle down."

Angela stared at him. Then she started to laugh, and kept laughing, even as her eyes went red at the rims.

She would never have a child. Not in the time she had left. Not ever, now.

She shoved him back with both hands, and when she looked at him, there was something in her eyes that had never been there before, a finality so complete it looked almost like peace.

"Lucas, I'm done." She stood, her slight frame swaying faintly under the light, but her voice didn't waver. "I can't keep doing this. I want a divorce."

The word landed in the silent room like something dropped from a great height.

Every trace of warmth drained from Lucas's face. His eyes went dark and unreadable, and when he spoke, each word was pulled tight against his teeth, "Angela. What are you pulling right now? When we got married, I made myself clear, no public announcement, no interference in each other's lives."

"What do you mean by acting like this?"