A Billionaire Heiress Walked Into My Clinic and Gave Me 3 Days to Marry Her… Then I Discovered Why
Chapter 8
The revelation changed the way Ethan looked at Charlotte.
For weeks, he had believed the marriage was a legal arrangement.
A transaction.
A temporary alliance.
Now he understood that two dead fathers had been preparing for this possibility long before either of them knew the other’s name.
Charlotte wasn’t just trying to save a company.
She was trying to survive.
They returned to the mansion.
That evening, Ethan found Charlotte sitting alone in the library.
She was holding an old photograph of her father.
“Do you miss him?”
She nodded.
“Every day.”
“What was he like?”
“Complicated.”
She smiled.
“He could be terrifying in business meetings.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“But at home, he was different.”
“How?”
“He made pancakes every Sunday.”
Ethan smiled.
“My father burned pancakes.”
Charlotte laughed.
“Maybe they weren’t as different as we thought.”
Silence followed.
Then Charlotte said:
“Why did you become a doctor?”
Ethan thought about it.
“Because I couldn’t save my father.”
She looked at him.
“I was ten.”
“I remember the hospital.”
“You were there?”
“Yes.”
Charlotte froze.
“I don’t remember you.”
“You were crying.”
She stared.
“My mother held you.”
Ethan nodded.
“Your father asked me to stay.”
She whispered:
“You met me eighteen years ago.”
“Apparently.”
“And neither of us knew.”
“No.”
Charlotte smiled sadly.
“Maybe our fathers knew us better than we knew ourselves.”
That night, Ethan slept in the guest room.
At three in the morning, he woke to the sound of breaking glass.
He ran downstairs.
Charlotte was standing in the library.
A window had been shattered.
A man was climbing inside.
Ethan tackled him.
They crashed onto the floor.
The intruder fought hard.
Ethan managed to remove his mask.
It was Whitmore’s head of security.
“Why?”
The man refused to speak.
Charlotte found his phone.
There were messages from Richard Vale.
Get the doctor out of the house.
Charlotte must sign by Friday.
Ethan looked at Charlotte.
“What happens Friday?”
She checked the calendar.
Her birthday.
The day the trust activated.
They had less than forty-eight hours.
Then another message arrived.
If they refuse, use the hospital.
Ethan froze.
“The hospital?”
The security chief smiled.
“You’ll find out.”
They turned him over to the police.
But Ethan couldn’t stop thinking about the message.
The next morning, he went to the clinic.
Everything appeared normal.
Until he entered his office.
Every patient file was open.
Someone had searched the clinic.
Then he found a note taped to his desk.
You should have stayed a doctor.
Beneath it was a photograph.
Charlotte leaving the mansion.
On the back:
Tomorrow she dies.
Ethan’s heart stopped.
He called Charlotte.
No answer.
He called again.
Nothing.
He ran outside.
Her SUV was gone.
He called security.
They said she had left thirty minutes earlier.
No one knew where.
Ethan returned to his office.
Then he noticed something.
A patient chart had been moved.
Inside was a handwritten address.
He recognized it.
The old Whitmore hospital.
The same hospital where his father had died.
He grabbed his keys.
