Chapter 17

Williams was gone.

In the car, she ground her teeth in silence. The altercation hadn’t left her indifferent. Before the confrontation, she had been sure of herself—calm, determined, as always. But now, a strange unease gnawed at her. For once, she felt she had truly crossed a line she shouldn’t have.

She had expected that woman to be hostile, manipulative, or greedy. But Evelyn’s passivity, her quiet dignity, had unsettled her. There was something in the way she had pronounced “Williams” that stirred something deep inside, something she couldn’t quite explain.

For the first time, Williams faced a truth she despised: the world did not belong to her. Her confidence and her pride had both taken a hit.

Tapping her heel against the car floor, she muttered under her breath, “Why was that woman looking at me like that?” Then, after a pause, her voice dropped colder. “And who does the other one think she is, lecturing me?” She meant Kannika.

Romaric, seated at the wheel, kept silent, glancing at her from time to time through the rearview mirror. The road seemed endless, even though he was driving fast.

After thirty long minutes, the car finally stopped in front of her golden chalet, her private sanctuary, that sweet temple of rest. Just the sight of it eased her shoulders a little. Here, she could breathe again. She hoped the chaos would stay outside once she crossed the door.

The moment Romaric parked, Williams stepped out.

“Romaric,” she called.

“Yes, madam?”

“I haven’t heard anything about that journalist I asked you to find.”

“You’ll have the report on your desk tomorrow, madam.”

Williams shot him a long, displeased look. Romaric was never late, unless he had done it on purpose. Maybe to protect the journalist. He knew exactly what would happen once she had those details. Her capacities, when challenged, were limitless. And tonight, anger was all she had left.

Without another word, she turned and headed inside. None of the few staff members dared greet her, except with a cautious nod. In her room, she tore off her clothes and tossed them aside. As always, her whiskey waited, and the hot bath steamed quietly.

She needed silence. She needed to forget.

Across the city, in the dim quiet of Evelyn’s apartment, the atmosphere was heavier. Evelyn sat trembling beside Kannika, still in shock. She bent down to gather the shattered pieces of the vase, but Kannika quickly stopped her.

“Evelyn, can you tell me who that woman was?”

Evelyn hesitated. “It’s the one from the hospital, Kannika. Didn’t you recognize her?”

“I recognized her, yes,” Kannika said slowly. “But I want to know who she is to you. Because there’s something between you two.”

Evelyn tried to keep her hands busy, but Kannika gently caught them. “Evelyn, if you don’t open your heart to someone, you’ll drown in sorrow.”

The words broke her. Evelyn’s eyes filled with tears. Kannika placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, then guided her to the sofa. She returned from the kitchen with a glass of water.

“I can listen to anything, you know,” Kannika said softly, smiling.

Evelyn nodded, her voice barely audible. “Yes… We know each other. For a long time. She was a classmate.”

Evelyn remembered.

They were teenagers then. Evelyn had been part of the Girls’ Club—a group of rich, admired students. Her parents had placed enormous pressure on her to excel, to follow the path they had mapped out for her.

That’s how she met Williams.

Williams wasn’t popular. She wasn’t rich either. But she was brilliant, so brilliant that even the teachers treated her with rare respect. Despite their differences, Williams volunteered to help Evelyn with her studies.

At first, it was purely academic. But the hours spent together slowly turned into something else, something unspoken, fragile, and dangerous.

Evelyn remembered those evenings behind the library, after hours, when the school was almost empty. The silence would settle between them like a secret.

“It feels good to be isolated from the world sometimes,” Williams had said, staring into the dark. “A place where no one’s watching you.”

Evelyn smiled. “You’re not alone. You’re with me now.”

Williams laughed softly. “It’s not the same.”

“Oh, really? Why’s that? Do I count for little?”

Williams shook her head, smiling shyly. “No. It’s just that your presence, your eyes, they don’t bother me like the others. They calm me. With you, I feel… safe.”

Evelyn had been too young to name the feeling rising inside her, but she remembered the warmth of that moment. The stillness that followed.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“And how calm does it make you feel?”
“Close your eyes.”

The closeness. Then that first hesitant kiss, sweet and forbidden.

From then on, everything changed. The more they shared those illegal moments, the further they confirmed how good it was to be loved, and Williams had eventually found the perfect definition to it through a written letter she addressed to her Lovelady; it was for her an honest confession of their desires. But that letter never stayed private. Evelyn had shared it, innocently, with a friend in the Girls’ Club. By the next day, the letter had circulated through the school.

And Williams paid the price. A price so expensive that she had to change schools, sacrificing a full year of studies and the large sum her mother had invested in her education.

Kannika finally understood. Evelyn’s silence made sense.

She had just seen her first love again, her forbidden love.

The revelation stunned Kannika.
Evelyn, the woman who now shared her life with Jack, had once loved another woman deeply. And not just any woman. She just pointed out Dr. Niran Williams, the head of the Niran-Kai Medical Center.

Kannika stared at her friend, speechless, as Evelyn wiped away her tears, lost in memories that time had buried but never erased.

And yet, the questions burned on Kannika’s tongue:
Did Evelyn really switch sides?
Or had she been suppressing her true self all these years just to fit a norm she never chose?

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