Love Me While I'm Dying

Elena

The moment William's weight came down on me, I cried out in pain.

I looked up and caught a flash of mockery in those ice-blue eyes.

"Since when did you get so sensitive?" His voice was cold.

Something squeezed tight in my chest.

I wanted to tell him this wasn't me throwing a fit — I was actually hurting. The test results had come back that morning. The report was sitting in the drawer right now. Breast cancer. Late stage.

"William, I'm dying."

I grabbed his arm and looked hard at that impossibly handsome face, searching for even a trace of concern.

He just curved his lips into a lazy smile.

"What's this about? Because I spent one birthday with Chloe?"

A scene?

Something inside me went cold, piece by piece.

There's a saying that's dead-on — to someone who doesn't love you, even if you hang yourself, he'll think you're just playing on a swing.

I closed my eyes and felt a bitter smile pull at my mouth.

"You skipped your own wife's medical appointment to spend the day with another woman. Tell me I don't have the right to say something."

I said it and I meant every word.

I rarely thought of myself as William's legal wife. I knew what he thought of our marriage — something to be ashamed of.

I used to love him. I put up with it.

But now I was dying.

If I had nothing left to lose, why couldn't I live the way I actually wanted — just once?

The man who'd been all over me a moment ago pulled away instantly. The air around him turned sharp and cold.

"Elena." He tossed the words over his shoulder without turning around. "You crossed a line."

Then he was gone.

I sat up. A wave of nausea hit me hard. I stumbled to the bathroom and threw up until there was nothing left.

I stared at the face in the mirror — hollow, wrecked, barely recognizable — and made myself a promise: Let it go. Let him go. Let yourself go.

---

I called a lawyer that night and had a divorce agreement drafted by morning.

The house, the cars, everything — I didn't want any of it. I just wanted out. Fast.

When I held that thin sheet of paper in my hands, I felt something loosen in my chest.

Somewhere along the way, this marriage — the one I'd once ached for, felt giddy over — had turned into a weight I was carrying.

I took the agreement and went to Holloway Group, but William's assistant Blake stopped me before I could even reach the office door.

"Miss Vance." Blake's tone was flat. "Legal is on a different floor, if I remember right."

William had never told anyone at the company about us. As far as the world was concerned, the CEO of Holloway Group was still single — and his rumored girlfriend was Chloe, the newly returned pharmaceutical PhD who'd just come back from studying abroad.

So Blake had never had much use for me. To him, I was just a junior associate in Legal who didn't know her place.

I was too tired to bother.

I held out the envelope — the one with the divorce agreement inside — and kept my face blank.

"Please give this to William."

I turned and walked away.

I didn't look back to see Blake's reaction. I just heard footsteps behind me, a pause, then a knock on the door.

---

The next day, Blake called me into a conference room.