“This marriage alliance is very important to me.” Stuart’s voice brushed against Michelle’s ear, low and pressing. “You have to understand it. Don’t cause trouble for me at this time. Once I marry her, things between us can still go back to the way they were.”

‘Ha.' Michelle almost laughed aloud. ‘The way we were? Does he mean I should continue being at his beck and call when he needs me, only to be tossed aside once he’s basking in marital bliss?’

Who was truly deluding themselves here? She certainly didn’t recall ever agreeing to be with Stuart in the first place.

“Janet is the Brewsterss’s only daughter. She was raised like a princess, pampered since childhood. Naturally, she’s a little spoiled. Why must you—”

Michelle didn’t let him finish. She stepped out from beneath the umbrella, no longer caring.

Walking aimlessly against the pounding rain, water spread coldly across her face.

Suddenly, a car sped past, splashing up a sheet of dirty water that drenched her completely.

The window rolled down. In the back seat, Janet looked just as smug as ever while Stuart remained indifferent, as if he hadn’t seen a thing.

“Just great,” Janet sneered. “It’s pouring, I’m already pissed, and now some lowlife wants to get hit.”

She gestured to the driver. “Come on, let’s go.”

The tires cut through another puddle, spraying water again. This time, Michelle stepped back quickly, avoiding it.

‘From now on,’ she told herself, ‘I’ll do the same in life—step away, avoid every disgusting entanglement tied to them.’

When she finally returned to her rented apartment, Michelle sat down and began sorting through Stuart’s medical records from the past five years.

As a psychologist, her conscience was clear. Even though her license had been suspended, she wanted to fight for herself. If she could no longer stay with her institution, she could at least open her own clinic.

But she had underestimated Janet’s dirty games.

Just as Michelle finished organizing the files and was about to send them to her, her phone rang first.

“Michelle!” Alfred’s stern voice snapped through the line. “Didn’t you sign a confidentiality agreement with Mr. Stuart? Why has your matter blown up on trending topics?!”

Heart pounding, Michelle hurried to open the link her mentor had sent.

A second later, her phone slipped from her hand and hit the floor.

It was over. Someone had exposed Stuart’s secrets!

And as if that wasn’t enough, the smear campaign painting her as a mistress hadn’t even died down yet. Now, the two scandals had merged, skyrocketing together on the trending list.

The Huggetts and Brewsterss were already magnets for attention, and the online posts were dripping with insinuations.

They endlessly praised Janet and Stuart as a perfect match while painting Michelle as nothing more than a delusional gold-digging mistress. The comments repeatedly emphasized her and Stuart’s doctor–patient relationship, twisting the knife deeper.

The public’s opinion exploded. Insults poured in like a tidal wave.

Within just a few hours, Michelle’s real identity was dug out and plastered online. She was on the verge of complete social ruin!

“Michelle? Dr. Burnell!” her mentor’s anxious voice called again from the other end. Michelle blinked back into focus. “This can’t blow up any further. If it does, the industry association will sanction you! You need to go to Mr. Stuart immediately and have him suppress the trending topic!”

Michelle remained silent for a long time, staring at the neatly organized files in front of her. Suddenly, she let out a bitter laugh.

‘Go to Stuart? From the very beginning, isn’t this entire mess likely orchestrated by him and Janet?’

Michelle had stood by Stuart for five years—she knew him too well. Nothing he didn’t want, nothing he didn’t permit, could ever make it past his watchful eye. Now that the scandal had been trending for hours, how could he possibly be unaware?

But she said none of this. Instead, she softly apologized to her mentor and submitted her resignation on her own.

After hanging up, Michelle ignored the flood of harassing calls and the stream of abusive text messages.

She opened her chat with Stuart and saw the message he had just sent.

[Behave yourself. Wait quietly.]

‘So, he knew. Of course, he knew,’ Michelle sneered inwardly.

Her fingers gripped the phone so tightly they turned pale, her whole body trembling with rage.

‘Five freaking years. This is what I got in return for dedicating myself to treating him for five years?!’

Disappointment crashed over her like a relentless tide, drowning her until nothing was left but numbness.

She powered off her phone and slowly collapsed onto the floor. She didn’t cry. She was simply… too exhausted.

The next day, Stuart and Janet appeared together in front of the media.

When Michelle first came across the interview online, she intended to scroll past it. But the moment she heard the reporter mention her name, her hand froze, and she forced herself to watch until the very end.

As always, Stuart stood before the flood of cameras with his calm, detached composure.

Beside him, Janet lightly hooked her arm through his, her lips curved in a perfectly measured smile.

Soon, the barrage of questions came crashing down.

“Mr. Stuart, is it true what’s trending online—that you’ve been receiving long-term psychological treatment? And regarding the rumors that your doctor, Michelle Burnell, interfered in your relationship with Miss Janet—can you give us a direct response?”

“Miss Janet, were you aware of Mr. Stuart’s condition? With the wedding fast approaching, how do you feel knowing your fiancé supposedly suffers from serious mental health problems and may even be entangled with his doctor? Will this affect the union between your two families?”

The rest of the questions went unsaid.

In the video, Stuart raised his hand ever so slightly, and the noisy crowd of reporters gradually fell silent.

On the other side of the screen, Michelle’s heart tightened, rising and falling with the tension in the room.

“First of all, I want to make one thing clear,” Stuart said at last, his expression cold, his voice steady as he cut through the silence. “I have never received psychological treatment, nor do I suffer from any kind of mental disorder. The only issue I’ve had in the past was a sleep disturbance caused by overwork, which I sought help for to make adjustments.”

At that point, Michelle already knew exactly what would come next, but she still forced herself to keep watching.

And just as she expected, he neatly severed all ties with her in front of the public, painting himself spotless while portraying her as an unethical doctor who had deliberately schemed to get close to him.

In the end, Janet chimed in with a light, smiling voice, playing her role to perfection. “As the victim in all this, I do feel a little helpless. But with someone like her, I suppose it was bound to happen. Still, please rest assured—our wedding will take place as scheduled.”

By now, Michelle no longer needed anyone to explain. The truth was obvious.

The entire scandal had been carefully staged by the two of them—a calculated negative publicity stunt. In this way, Stuart would never again have to worry about her keeping quiet while Janet secured her position as the rightful fiancée, dazzling in the public eye.

They both gained from it.

The only one who paid the price was Michelle—her reputation and her career all sacrificed to their scheme.

For the first time, a dark, consuming hatred surged up in her chest.

She hated her parents for favoring her brother over their daughter.

She hated Stuart for his betrayal.

She hated Janet for her shamelessness.

But most of all, she hated herself—for softening back then, for mistaking scraps of kindness for sincerity, and for tying herself to this cursed entanglement.

‘Perhaps,’ she thought bitterly, ‘everything I’m suffering now is punishment for once having pitied a man like him.’

In the days that followed, she shut herself away at home, refusing to even turn on her phone.

After all, she had become the target of public scorn. Some people even came to her door to pound on it in hatred.

She was acutely aware that something was wrong with her state of mind. Sleepless nights, restless dreams, loss of appetite, ringing in her ears, heart palpitations—classic psychosomatic symptoms.

She was a psychologist herself, yet she couldn’t treat her own fractured psyche.

Then, one afternoon, a knock echoed from the entryway.

At first, she thought she was imagining it. But a second later, she saw a familiar face appear on the video doorbell.

She opened the door. Standing there was none other than Berenice, Stuart’s mother.

“Dr. Burnell, how have you been lately?” the older woman asked, her tone polite yet edged with mockery. Without waiting for an answer, she continued, “Not very well, I assume. I’ve seen plenty of women like you—scheming to climb your way up. But my son is not someone you can reach so easily.”

Looking at the refined, haughty socialite before her, Michelle couldn’t help but recall how the same woman had once begged her desperately for help five years ago.

As the saying went, birds of a feather flock together.

She and her son were cut from the same cloth—burning bridges, repaying kindness with betrayal.

Michelle no longer had the patience to trade words. Instead, she asked directly what had brought her here.

Berenice let out a soft, elegant laugh. “This is a blank check. You can name the amount…”

Before she could finish, Michelle snatched the check straight from her hand and, with deliberate clarity, completed the sentence for her.

“Name the amount, and in exchange, I disappear from your son’s life, isn’t that right? Very well. I’ll fill it in right now.”

When Berenice saw the way Michelle carried herself, she was stunned into silence. After stammering for a long time, she finally squeezed out a line.

“Hey! I’m warning you, the most you’re getting is five million. And after you take the money, you must leave the country and cut all ties with my son.”

Michelle couldn’t help but let out a derisive laugh. Without hesitation, she turned and filled out the check for five million.

This was what Stuart owed her. Why shouldn’t she take it?

Even if Berenice refused to pay, Stuart had been the one to breach the contract first, destroying Michelle’s career in the process. He still owed her this sum.

As for leaving the country and severing ties? That suited her just fine. In fact, staying in the States had only left her reputation in ruins because of Stuart.

After sending Berenice off cleanly and decisively, Michelle finally turned on her phone for the first time in days.

Among the many missed calls and vicious text messages cursing her entire family, she spotted a few calls from Stuart and several scattered messages.

She skipped over them without a second thought, and with deliberate motions, she blocked his number, deleted his messages, and wiped him off her contact list everywhere.

Just as she finished, a message arrived from Leo.

[Dr. Burnell, your contract with Mr. Huggett has now expired. Your resignation has also been signed by him. This is an official notice.]

Michelle stared at that message for a long time—so long that her eyes grew hot and misty.

‘At last. I have endured to the very end.’

Once her emotions had settled, she immediately called her landlord to terminate the lease and booked the earliest flight out that very day.

While packing, she was surprised to find how many of Stuart’s things were still scattered around her place. Bit by bit, she filled several large trash bags with them.

All that remained was a thick stack of treatment logs. After some thought, she decided to deliver them to her mentor.

Even now, she didn’t want Alfred to feel disappointed in her. After all, he was one of the very few people in her first twenty-some years of life who had ever truly treated her well.

Once she made up her mind, Michelle finally stepped outside again.

It should have been such a beautiful day, yet the city was pouring with heavy rain.

Fortunately, this time she had brought an umbrella.

The day went smoothly—she redeemed the check at the bank, and then she dropped the treatment logs off to her mentor.

On the way to the airport, her car happened to pass by the grand venue where Stuart and Janet’s wedding was to be held the next day.

Dusk was falling, and the night was closing in, yet the lights there blazed so bright they were almost blinding.

For the first time, Michelle sincerely offered them her blessing.

‘Stuart, Janet… may you spend your lives together. And may you never again know true love.’

The plane picked up speed along the runway, the world outside rushing past in a blur.

Michelle leaned toward the window, gazing downward as if all the memories of the past were vanishing with the receding lights.

“Our memories drift away like clouds on the horizon. From this parting forward, I hope we’ll never meet again...”