Chapter 4

Jocelyn Reed’s POV

When I woke again, I was already lying in a hospital.

The mild pulmonary edema from deep diving and the high fever caused by near-drowning had drained almost all my strength.

I struggled to open my eyes, only to discover, unexpectedly, that the man sitting beside the bed and reading documents was Theodore.

Hearing the movement, Theodore closed the tablet in his hands. His deep, cold eyes locked onto me.

The pressure in the hospital room was extremely low, as if the air itself had congealed.

Theodore did not ask how I was feeling. He simply spoke in a gloomy voice.

“Who is Ethan Cole?”

My body stiffened violently, and my heart missed a beat.

The background information the system had forged for me in this world was flawless. Ethan Cole’s name should never have appeared.

“Your fever reached thirty-nine point five degrees Celsius. You were unconscious for a full day and night.” Theodore stood up and approached me, carrying an intense sense of pressure. “During that entire day and night, you didn’t say anything except cry and keep calling Ethan Cole’s name, telling him not to leave.”

Theodore’s long fingers suddenly gripped my chin, forcing me to lift my head and meet his gaze.

“Jocelyn Reed, Theodore Shaw’s fiancee, crying her heart out in her dreams for another man. Don’t you plan to explain?”

There was no pity in his eyes for his seriously ill fiancee. Instead, there was a jealousy he himself had not even noticed.

I knew what he was thinking. He believed that for the past four years, my entire heart and world had been filled with him.

How could I, how dare I, think of another man’s name when I was at my weakest?

Inside, my heart was in turmoil.

But on the surface, my eyes remained completely calm.

“He’s no one important.”

My voice was hoarse as I lied without a ripple. “When I was in college, I used to take private translation jobs in my spare time. I translated a foreign tragedy novel once. The supporting male character was named Ethan Cole. He drowned in a flood saving the female lead. I was only dreaming.”

“A dead supporting character in a novel?” Theodore narrowed his eyes dangerously, clearly only half believing this answer.

“Yes.”

I looked at him coldly, and there was even a self-mocking curve at the corner of my mouth. “Or did Mr. Shaw think that a woman like me, who will do anything to climb into the Shaw family, could still have some unforgettable one who got away in her heart?”

That sentence greatly pleased Theodore.

The hand gripping my chin let go.

Theodore wiped his hand with a disinfectant wet wipe in disgust. “Whether that Ethan Cole is someone from a novel or something else, since you want to be Mrs. Shaw, there can only be one person in your mind. Me.”

“I don’t allow my things to be tainted with the slightest trace of anyone else.”

Just then, the door to the hospital room was pushed open, and Lily Vance walked in.

She glanced at me lying weakly in the hospital bed.

A trace of unconcealed smugness flashed through her eyes. Then she sweetly hooked her arm through Theodore’s.

“Theodore, why are you still here? Didn’t you promise to go with me to choose the bridesmaid dress for the wedding?” Lily pouted and acted spoiled. “Since Ms. Reed is awake, she probably won’t die. Let’s go.”

I had been hospitalized with a high fever because of him, yet he was going to accompany his first love to pick out a bridesmaid dress.

“Fine. Let’s go.” Theodore did not hesitate in the slightest and clasped Lily’s hand in return.

When he reached the doorway, his footsteps paused. Without turning back, he left me with one cold, hard sentence.

“Lily is holding a welcome-home banquet next week. As my fiancee, you’ll be in charge of organizing it.”

The door closed.

I looked at the empty hospital room and listened to the sound pulsing from the system panel.

[Countdown: 27 days.]

I slowly closed my eyes. At last, one warm tear slid from the corner of my eye.

It was the first tear I had shed in the four years since I came to this world.

“Ethan Cole…” I silently called to him in my heart. “Wait for me another twenty-seven days. After twenty-seven days, I will bring you home.”