His Forgotten Savior: The Ex-Wife's Escape

The Seraphina Hotel. In the luxurious hallway, Beryl held a brown paper DoorDash delivery bag in her hands.

Her phone screen glowed with the order details: Penthouse 8012.

She walked along the thick Persian rug, her worn sneakers making no sound. She just needed to drop this off, take a photo, and get to the next delivery. After all, the money to take care of her mother will not fall from the sky by herself, so she has to race against time.

She found the suite and pressed the doorbell.

The heavy door swung inward.

When Beryl saw the man who came to open the door clearly,her breath hitched in her throat,her heart hammered against her ribs.

It was Aidan Beaumont. Her husband. He was in a coma for three years because of a car accident. He just woke up three months ago.

He should have been in a rehabilitation institution for rehabilitation training, and now he is in a hotel.

He stood there, tall and imposing, his body blocking the view into the suite.

But a wave of expensive perfume, Chanel No. 5, drifted out from the room. Beryl's gaze dropped. On the floor, just inside the doorway, lay a pair of strappy red stilettos, kicked off with careless abandon.

Next to them, coiled like a dead snake, was a deep blue silk tie.

The tie she had bought him last week. The one she'd paid for with two full nights of deliveries, thinking it might make him look less like a patient and more like the man he used to be.

The paper bag crinkled under the sudden, crushing pressure of her fingers. Her stomach twisted into a knot so tight it stole her breath.

The confusion on his face lasted only a second, replaced by a mask of cold, hard annoyance.

"What are you doing here?" Aidan's voice was a low growl, stripped of any warmth.

He didn't look at her windbreaker with its reflective stripes, or the delivery bag in her hand.

He looked at her as if she were a piece of filth that had washed up on his doorstep. "Are you following me?"

The accusation was so absurd, so cruel, it almost made her laugh. Instead, a raw, acidic burn rose in her chest. She forced herself to lift the bag, the logo a pathetic shield.

"I'm... I'm delivering an order." Her voice was a thin, trembling thread.

His eyes narrowed, a flicker of disgust in their dark depths. "You're delivering food? Isn't the money you got from the Beaumont family enough for you? Are you trying to publicly humiliate the Beaumont name, Beryl?"

She couldn't form a reply. The words were stuck behind the lump of grief in her throat.

Before she could even try to ask what he was doing here, in a hotel, a woman's voice, husky and laced with sleep, drifted from inside.

"Darling,has our delivery arrived?"

A woman emerged from the shadows of the suite, wrapping her arms around Aidan's waist from behind.

She was beautiful, draped in a whisper of black silk and lace that did little to hide her perfect figure. She rested her chin on his bare shoulder, her gaze landing on Beryl with lazy curiosity.

Beryl recognized her instantly from the society pages. Katlin Johns. Aidan's high school sweetheart. The girl who was with Aidan before the car accident three years ago, which left him in a coma.

The one his family whispered he'd never gotten over.

Aidan stiffened slightly at Katlin's touch but didn't pull away. He looked back at Beryl, his expression unreadable. "Beryl, this is Katlin. Katlin, my... wife, Beryl."

The word "wife" sounded like a curse on his tongue.

Katlin's eyes widened in mock surprise, a slow, malicious smile spreading across her face. "Oh. So you're the one. The little nurse who grabbed him while he was in a coma."

The insult landed like a physical blow. For three years, Beryl had sat by his bed, read to him, moved his limbs to prevent atrophy, and prayed for him to wake up.

His grandfather, Theodore Beaumont Sr., had insisted on the marriage, in order to repay her kindness in taking care of Aidan, and to save her family from financial collapse after learning that her seriously ill mother did not have enough money for surgery. She had been grateful. She had even allowed herself to hope.

Now, seeing them together, hope felt like the cruelest kind of poison.

The pain in her chest was a physical thing, a crushing weight that made it hard to breathe. All she wanted was to leave. To run.

"Your takeout," Beryl said, her voice flat. She thrust the bag forward.

Katlin reached for it, her long, red nails brushing against Beryl's hand. But just as Beryl let go, Katlin's fingers seemed to slip.

From a side pocket of the bag, a small, square box skittered across the floor, coming to a stop directly at Beryl's feet.

A box of ultra-thin condoms.

The words on the packaging seemed to burn into her retinas, a final, mocking testament to her foolishness.

Beryl bent down mechanically to pick it up, her fingers trembling. Aidan snatched it from her before she could, his jaw tight with an emotion she couldn't decipher.

Embarrassment? Annoyance?

Just then, Beryl took out her phone and quickly took a photo. She was about to leave when...

"A picture?" Katlin's voice suddenly rose to a hysterical shriek.

She threw herself into Aidan's arms, burying her face in his chest. "Aidan, she's going to send it to the press! She wants to ruin me! Everyone will say I'm a homewrecker! But we're the real lovers!"

"I'm not-" Beryl started, but her voice was drowned out by Katlin's theatrical sobs.

"Delete it," Aidan commanded, his eyes like chips of ice.

"I just want to take a photo of the delivery and send it to the merchant, " Beryl said, her voice shaking with a rage that was finally starting to burn through the shock.

She held up her phone, showing him the camera screen. "To let them know that I've delivered it."

She turned to leave, to escape the suffocating scent of lies and perfume.

But then she heard it.

A small, tinkling laugh from the bedroom. "Daddy! Look at me! I'm a princess!"

Beryl froze, her hand on the doorknob.

Katlin stepped back from Aidan, a triumphant, sorrowful look on her face. She walked to the bedroom doorway, and a moment later, a little girl with blonde curls and Aidan's dark eyes toddled out, holding up a crayon drawing. She couldn't have been more than three years old.

Aidan's face, which had been a mask of cold fury, softened into a look of such profound tenderness that it made Beryl's stomach clench.

He knelt, his voice gentle. "That's beautiful, Chloe. You're the prettiest princess."

The world tilted on its axis. A wave of dizziness washed over Beryl, so intense she had to brace herself against the wall. Her elbow knocked into a tall porcelain vase on a console table, making it wobble with a sickening clatter

Their child?

Katlin looked at Aidan, her eyes brimming with tears. "I know what you and your family must think of me, having Chloe. I never wanted this."

Aidan stood up, pulling Katlin and the little girl into his arms. Gently comfort the mother and daughter. "It doesn't matter what anyone thinks. All that matters is how I feel about you."

This is a kind of love that Beryl has never received, and her heart is about to break.

It was then that Beryl remembered something. She didn't know much about the relationship between Aidan and Katlin. She only knew that on the night of the car accident, something terrible had happened to Katlin.

She gave birth to a girl, but the child wasn't Aidan's. This was also why Katlin hadn't appeared in three years.

But now, she's back, and Aidan doesn't seem to care at all about the child's identity.

That could mean only one thing: he truly loves her. After all, not every man would be willing to accept someone else's child as his own.

Chloe peeked out from behind Aidan's leg. She pointed a small, chubby finger at Beryl.

"Daddy, who is that?" she asked, her voice deceptively innocent. "Why is she staring? Her coat is dirty."

The child's words were the final, sharpest shard of glass in her heart.

Aidan's patience snapped. "You heard her. You're not needed here. Get out."

Something inside Beryl broke. The pain, the humiliation, the grief-it all coalesced into a single point of cold, clear resolve.

She looked directly into Aidan's merciless eyes.

"Since you've made your choice," she said, her voice steady and clear, each word a perfectly formed icicle, "I assume you don't want your mistress and her illegitimate daughter to remain a dirty little secret forever."

She saw a flicker of shock in his eyes. He wasn't used to her fighting back.

"Let's get a divorce. As soon as possible."

Aidan's jaw clenched, a muscle twitching in his cheek. He hadn't expected this. Divorce was his plan, on his timeline. Not hers. But after a tense silence, he gave a curt, sharp nod.

"Fine. My lawyer will contact you tomorrow."

Beryl didn't say another word. She didn't look at Katlin's smug smile or the child hiding behind Aidan's legs. She simply turned, walked out the door, and pulled it shut behind her, leaving the perfect picture of their new family safely inside.

She walked toward the elevator, her back straight, not allowing herself to crumble until the polished steel doors had closed, sealing her inside her own cold, silent world.