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Chapter 429
Chapter 429:
Cole lowered himself slowly. His movements were jerky and mechanical, the muscles across his back screaming in protest as his shaking fingers gathered the scattered pages from the Persian rug.
His eyes locked onto the letterhead.
New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
A name he knew intimately. The hospital that handled the Compton family’s most private medical crises.
His gaze dropped to the patient information line.
June Erickson.
A cold, heavy stone dropped into the pit of his stomach. A violent sense of dread closed around his throat, cutting off his air.
F𝗼l𝘭𝘰𝗐 us oո ѕ.𝗰om
He turned to the final page. His eyes went immediately to the bold text in the diagnostic conclusion box. The language was clinical, completely stripped of emotion.
Secondary Infertility.
Premature Ovarian Failure.
Cole’s pupils contracted to pinpoints. The world around him went utterly silent.
He stared at the words. They looked like a foreign language. They made no sense at all.
His eyes moved upward, scanning the medical history summary above the diagnosis.
Complications arising from ectopic pregnancy rupture and subsequent fallopian tube removal.
A memory buried deep beneath layers of arrogance and willful denial clawed its way violently to the surface.
A torrential night of rain. The grand ballroom of the Sotheby’s charity gala. Alycia standing beside him, smiling perfectly for the cameras.
His phone had vibrated in his pocket. He had pulled it out. June’s name on the screen.
He remembered the flicker of annoyance in his chest. He remembered pressing the red button.
“Just an irrelevant call,” he had told the investors beside him.
That dismissed phone call and this piece of paper collided in his mind with the force of a freight train, forming a perfect, lethal circle of cause and effect.
Cole’s entire reality shattered into jagged pieces.
He hadn’t merely caused the loss of a pregnancy through indifference. He had directly, personally destroyed June’s future as a mother.
A wave of guilt so massive and corrosive it felt like swallowing battery acid burned through his chest, hollowing him from the inside out.
He sucked in a ragged breath and snapped his head up. His bloodshot eyes locked onto Eleanor.
“She told you?” Cole rasped. His voice sounded like it was being dragged across broken glass.
His mind could not bear the weight of his own guilt. It sought escape. It sought an enemy.
In his twisted, desperate logic, June must have orchestrated this. She must have torn open her deepest wound and laid it bare in front of his grandmother to secure a better divorce settlement — playing the victim to finish him.
Eleanor looked down at him. The last trace of familial warmth vanished entirely from her eyes.
She did not say a word. She simply looked at him the way one looks at something rotting on the pavement.
Cole took the silence as confirmation.
He stumbled to his feet, clutching the medical report in his fist.
“I am going to ask her exactly why she did this,” Cole growled. He sounded like a wounded animal backed into a corner.