Their Secret Child, My Sterile Husband Chapter 09
Chapter 9 “Let’s End This Clean”
“Go,” I told him quietly. “Don’t appear in my life again. Let’s end this cleanly and walk our own paths.”
The moment the words left my mouth, something heavy seemed to fall away from my chest. It felt like a shackle snapping loose after years of dragging it behind me. For the first time in a long while, I could breathe without forcing it.
I stepped around Jayden without looking back. Every step I took felt deliberate, like closing a door one fina time. And Jayden just stood there, rooted to the spot, staring at my back for a long, motionless moment. Behind me, he didn’t move.
I didn’t turn around, but I knew he was standing there, frozen.
Instead, I made my way to another ward.
Caleb Morgan was still unconscious when I reached his bedside.
After the avalanche, it had been just the two of us trapped inside that cave, sealed away from the world. For seven nights, we survived together in the dark, rationing food and trading stories to keep fear from swallowing us whole. In that frozen silence, we clung to each other’s voices like lifelines.
We had heard the rescue team at last-faint, distant, like something imagined. But now he lay here unmoving, eyes closed, his body too still against the white hospital sheets.
“Caleb,” I whispered, gripping the rail of his bed. “Wake up.”
“You promised me,” I continued softly. “You said once we got out, we’d watch the sunrise together. You said we’d try every kind of food in the world. You can’t break that promise.”
Back in the cave, whenever hope thinned, he pushed the last of the food into my hands. He would smile and insist he wasn’t hungry, even though I could hear his stomach growl in the dark. He always left the hope to
I didn’t know how long I stood there before his fingers twitched.
I stared at him, my nerves strung tight, a fragile spark of hope flickering to life inside my chest.
I leaned forward, my heart pounding violently. “Caleb… can you hear me?”
His eyelids lifted slowly, like dawn creeping over the horizon. It took a few seconds for his gaze to focus, but when it did, it settled on me.
“I hear you,” he said faintly. “What I promised you… how could I forget?”
Tears blurred my vision as I grabbed his hand. The crushing weight I had been carrying since the avalanche finally began to ease. For the first time, hope didn’t feel fragile.
A few days later, I wheeled him downstairs for fresh air.
He was still weak, his legs not fully steady, but he insisted on trying. Under a large, leafy tree in the hospital courtyard, he tapped my hand gently and asked me to stop.
I crouched in front of him immediately, worry written all over my face.
He reached out and took my hand. His palm was still cool, but the warmth that spread through me felt unmistakably real.
“Rebecca,” he said softly, “have you heard this one? If you’re missing someone, clap your hands under a tree If a leaf falls, it means they’re thinking of you too.”
I stared at him, something rippling quietly in my chest.
Together, we lifted our hands and clapped.
A breeze drifted through the branches overhead. A single leaf loosened and floated down, landing gently in my open palm.
Something tender stirred inside me.
“Rebecca,” he said, his voice steady now. “I like you. Will you be my girlfriend?”
My heart stumbled at his words.
I couldn’t meet his eyes, but I nodded, just slightly.
After that, Caleb and I stepped into something new-carefully at first, then all at once. It wasn’t dramatic or overwhelming. It was warm, steady, and real.
The next time I heard Jayden’s name, it was in a news headline.
“Heir Jayden Richardson Suspected to Have Taken His Own Life Amid Depression”
The words hollowed out my chest for a moment. A complicated tide of emotion rose and fell before I could stop it. I didn’t know what I felt-grief, shock, or simply the weight of a chapter truly ending.
The report also mentioned that a skeleton had been discovered in the basement of his villa. Forensic testing confirmed it belonged to Ariella.
Caleb felt my body stiffen and tightened his grip around my hand.
“Rebecca,” he asked gently, “are you okay? Don’t let it pull you back. It’s over.”
I took a slow breath.
“I was just thinking,” I said quietly, “life is so short. Years pass in a blink. Things I thought would scar me forever… don’t feel as heavy anymore.”
Caleb pulled me into his arms, holding me close.
“The past is buried,” he murmured. “Let old debts end with it. You have me now. We’ll be okay.”
I leaned into him, letting my heartbeat settle.
Yes.
What was gone was gone.
All the resentment, the pain, the betrayal-they dissolved like dust in the wind.
“Goodbye, Jayden,” I whispered in my heart.
And this time, it didn’t hurt.
