Cold Fire

Isabel's POV

The heavy white folder hit the bedside table with a sharp, echoing slap. "I cannot have a cripple wife," Gerald said, his voice flat and detached. "Sign these. I already sent money to your account."

I stared at the black ink printed across the front page: PETITION FOR DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE.

The accident had taken my legs three weeks ago, leaving me trapped in these stiff hospital sheets, but his words hit harder than the shattered bone. A dry bitter laugh escaped my throat.

"A cripple wife?" I looked up, catching his cold gaze. "Is that what I am to you now, Gerald? Three weeks in a hospital bed and I become a burden you can just pay off?"

Gerald did not blink. He stood at the foot of my bed, hands jammed into his tailor-made trousers. "Be realistic, Isabel. Look at you. You cannot walk. I am a busy man, and I run a top company. I do not have the time or patience to play nurse to a woman who will spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair."

"I am working with the physical therapist every single day," I said, my chest heaving as anger beat down the tears. "The doctors said there is a chance. I just need time!"

"I do not have time," he snapped, stepping closer. "And frankly, I am tired of waiting. First, you failed to give me a child of my own after all these years. Now this? I have given you a comfortable life, Isabel. I shielded you from my family when they called you a low-class leech. I played the loving stepfather. I have done enough."

I swallowed hard, my eyes darting toward the corner of the room. Seven-year-old John sat frozen in a plastic chair, his little fingers clutching a broken race car. His shoulders were hunched, his chin tucked tight against his chest.

"Do not talk about John like he is a chore," I whispered, my voice trembling. "You promised him you would always be his dad. You gave him your name!"

Gerald turned his head slightly, giving John a cold, dismissive glance before looking back at me with utter contempt. "He is not my son, Isabel. You knew what this was when I married you. I took in another man's mistake because I thought you were worth the trouble. But let us not pretend he carries my blood." The word burned like acid. Another man's mistake.

My mind flashed back to the shame of my past. Years ago, my father needed an urgent, expensive surgery that I couldn't afford. My boss, Rose, offered to pay every single cent on one condition: I had to blindfold myself and take her place in a dark hotel room with a man I was never allowed to know. I did it to save my father's life, only to end up pregnant out of wedlock. When Rose's father found out, he fired me on the spot and threw me onto the street.

Years later, while working late night shifts as a poor bartender, I met Gerald. He was completely broken and drinking himself to death because his fiancée who happened to be my former boss, Rose, had dumped him to marry a rich man overseas. I helped clean Gerald up that night, tended to him, and got him a place to rest. From that day on, we got acquainted, fell in love, and married. He knew I had a child with a man I never met, but he swore it didn't matter. Now, looking at the ice in his eyes, the tragic irony crushed me.

"You sat in my bar completely helpless, crying over a woman who treated you like trash, and I picked you up," I said, my voice cutting through the quiet room. "I rebuilt you, Gerald. And now you walk in here and kick me while I cannot even stand on my own two feet?"

"That was years ago, Isabel!" Gerald barked, his eyes flashing with sudden anger. "You washed glasses for a living, and I gave you a status most women would kill for. Do not pretend you saved me. I paid that debt back tenfold by putting a roof over your head and giving your bastard a luxury life! But my pity has run out."

He pulled a heavy silver pen from his coat pocket and slammed it onto the folder.

"Sign the papers," Gerald demanded, his tone dropping back into that icy, heartless quiet. "The money in your account will cover your medical bills and a small place to live. If you fight this, my lawyers will drag you through the mud, and you will end up on the street with nothing. Spare yourself the humiliation."

I looked from the pen to my son, who was quietly wiping a tear from his cheek. I had no money, no working legs, and no strength left to battle a multi-millionaire in court.

My hands shook violently as I picked up the pen. I pressed the tip to the paper and signed my name... Isabel.

Gerald immediately snatched the folder off the table, zipping it into his briefcase with a harsh metal click. He adjusted his tie in the wall mirror, not bothering to check on my condition or offer a final word to the boy who had called him father for years.

Without a single glance back, Gerald turned on his heel, opened the heavy door, and stepped out into the bright hallway, leaving me paralyzed in my bed with my traumatized child.