The doctor led me into a small consultation room and closed the door.

His expression was strange.

Not worried.

Confused.

“Mrs. Grayson,” he began carefully, “we’ve run several examinations, and medically speaking… we cannot explain what is happening.”

I folded my hands in my lap.

“What do you mean?”

“There is no normal physical reason they should be unable to separate.”

I almost smiled.

Almost.

The red jade pendant beneath my dress suddenly warmed against my skin.

The doctor continued.

“We tried medication. We tried repositioning them. Nothing works. And every time Mr. Grayson attempts to move away from Miss Blake…”

He hesitated.

“He experiences severe pain.”

A scream echoed from the hallway.

Ethan.

The doctor looked toward the door.

I didn’t move.

“Is there anything unusual we should know?” he asked.

“No.”

That answer was technically true.

Nothing about Ethan’s behavior was unusual anymore.

When I returned to the emergency ward, Vanessa was crying.

Margaret was shouting at nurses.

Chloe was threatening lawsuits.

And Ethan looked like a man whose entire life had collapsed in less than an hour.

The moment he saw me, he reached out.

“Emily.”

I stopped several feet away.

“Please.”

That word surprised me.

Ethan Grayson rarely said please.

“What do you want?”

His eyes flicked toward the crowd.

“Make everyone leave.”

“I don’t control the hospital.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, Ethan. I really don’t.”

His face twisted with humiliation.

Then Vanessa whispered:

“Emily… this isn’t what you think.”

I looked at her.

She actually said it.

The oldest sentence in the history of betrayal.

“What should I think, Vanessa?”

Her lips trembled.

“We were talking.”

Someone behind me laughed.

Vanessa flushed crimson.

Ethan snapped:

“Enough!”

The pendant burned hotter.

And suddenly I remembered something my grandmother had told me years ago.

An oath made while touching the jade could become binding.

But an oath born from deliberate deception carried another rule.

The person who made it could only escape after admitting the truth completely.

Not part of it.

Not the convenient version.

Everything.

I slowly looked at Ethan.

“You want this to stop?”

“Yes.”

His answer came instantly.

“Then tell the truth.”

Silence.

Ethan stared at me.

“What truth?”

The jade pulsed.

Once.

Vanessa suddenly cried out.

Ethan doubled over beside her.

The monitors began beeping.

Doctors rushed forward.

And I understood.

The pendant was listening.

I stepped closer.

“How long?”

Ethan’s face went white.

“Emily—”

“How long have you been sleeping with her?”

Margaret exploded.

“How dare you interrogate my son while he’s suffering?”

I turned toward her.

“Then perhaps you can answer for him.”

She froze.

Interesting.

Very interesting.

I looked back at Ethan.

“How long?”

He clenched his jaw.

“Three months.”

The pendant remained hot.

Vanessa squeezed her eyes shut.

I knew immediately.

“Lie.”

Ethan’s pupils contracted.

Everyone around us became quiet.

“Six months,” he corrected.

The jade burned hotter.

Another lie.

I laughed softly.

Not because anything was funny.

Because after three years of marriage, my husband still believed he could negotiate with the truth.

“Try again.”

Vanessa suddenly grabbed his arm.

“Ethan, stop lying!”

He turned toward her.

“Shut up.”

“No!” Vanessa screamed. “You said she would never know!”

The hallway erupted in whispers.

I stared at her.

Never know what?

Ethan looked terrified now.

Not embarrassed.

Terrified.

Vanessa was crying uncontrollably.

“It wasn’t six months.”

“Vanessa!”

“It was before the wedding!”

Everything inside me became still.

Before our wedding.

I remembered Ethan standing beneath white roses, holding my hands before two hundred guests.

I remembered him promising there had never been anyone else.

I remembered Vanessa standing three meters behind him as my bridesmaid.

Smiling.

Holding my bouquet.

My fingers slowly touched the jade beneath my dress.

“How long before the wedding?”

Neither answered.

The pendant suddenly flashed so brightly that red light spilled through the ivory fabric.

Chloe saw it.

Her expression changed instantly.

“What is that?”

Margaret saw it too.

And unlike Chloe…

She knew exactly what it was.

Her face lost every trace of color.

She whispered:

“The Carter blood jade.”

I turned toward her.

The entire hallway seemed to disappear.

“You recognize it?”

Margaret stepped backward.

“No.”

“You just named it.”

Ethan stared at his mother.

“Mom?”

Margaret said nothing.

Then Vanessa began shaking her head.

“Mrs. Grayson, you promised me.”

Ethan looked between them.

“Promised you what?”

Vanessa covered her mouth.

Too late.

I felt something cold settle inside my chest.

This was no longer simply an affair.

Margaret had known.

Maybe from the beginning.

I stepped toward her.

“What did you promise Vanessa?”

“Emily,” Margaret warned, “there are family matters you don’t understand.”

“My family?”

She went silent.

Wrong answer.

Because Ethan heard it too.

His expression changed.

“What does Emily’s family have to do with Vanessa?”

Margaret looked trapped.

Then the emergency room doors opened.

An elderly man walked inside with two lawyers behind him.

I recognized him immediately.

Arthur Carter.

My grandfather.

The man I had not seen since the day I chose Ethan over my family.

He looked at the stretcher.

At Vanessa.

At Ethan.

Then finally at Margaret.

“You should have told your son,” Grandfather said quietly.

Margaret’s lips trembled.

“Told him what?”

Grandfather placed a thick folder on the nurses’ desk.

“That the woman he betrayed is the only person keeping the Grayson family from losing everything.”

Ethan stared at me.

“What is he talking about?”

Grandfather turned toward me.

But before he could answer, Vanessa suddenly whispered something that made Margaret lunge toward her in panic.

“Don’t tell her about the baby.”

The entire hallway went silent.

My hand tightened around the burning jade.

And for the first time that night…

Ethan looked even more shocked than I was.