His Secret Wife is Leaving Him for a Better Life

"Mrs. Roberts, once we file these divorce papers, the decree will be officially issued in about thirty days," the lawyer said gravely as he carefully flipped through the divorce agreement. "If you decide to withdraw your application at any point before then, you must..."

"I will not," I, Sharon Roberts, with my maiden name Sharon Anderson, interrupted softly, my eyes fixed on the notification that had just popped up on my phone, showing that my application to be a doctor working for an organization providing emergency care in places that had survived disaster and were in wars had been approved. "Please file it as soon as possible."

Just as I finished speaking, a call came through from the ER of the hospital I was working at. The voice on the other end was frantic. "Dr. Anderson, we just got an emergency case. Mr. Julio Roberts' wife is suspected of having a ruptured corpus luteum. Mr. Roberts insists that all doctors immediately go to her room for consultation. You need to come back right away."

A sharp pain pierced my heart, and I froze in place.

In our two years of marriage, Julio had never publicly acknowledged me as his wife. The only woman who could make him this anxious was Lillian Singh, his old flame who had just returned to the country from abroad.

Though I felt bitterness surge through me, I could only murmur to agree and rush back to the hospital.

Inside the examination room, the director and chief physicians of the hospital had already arrived and were gathered around Lillian, inquiring about her condition.

When she saw me, Lillian shyly burrowed a little deeper into Julio's arms and whispered, "It is really not that bad. Julio just worries too much about me; that is why he called everyone over. I hope you're not upset, Sharon, are you?"

Julio frowned sharply when he heard her speak in a cautious tone. "Why are you even explaining yourself to her? She is a doctor. It is her duty to treat patients."

I clenched my fists but said nothing. Instead, I calmly pulled out my stethoscope and began my examination.

In the end, we found that it was merely abdominal pain caused by overexertion.

Though we confirmed that Lilian was fine, Julio still couldn't let his guard down and insisted Lillian be admitted for observation and treatment.

Only after we left the room did he condescendingly and reluctantly glance up at me. "I know you are on night shift today, so I brought you some dinner when Lillian and I finished eating."

Honestly, I was surprised. Even though I had already resolved to let him go, a secret flicker of hope still rose inside me.

I circled my night-shift dates in a month on the calendar by our bedside, but Julio had never looked at it.

Yet when I opened the takeout box, I found only a few dry pieces of steak and some wilted vegetables of salad.

The steak was mostly just scraps. Clearly someone else had already eaten most of it.

"We ordered a couple's meal and did not finish it," Julio said flatly. "I thought I could pack the rest up for you. No sense wasting food."

At that moment, I felt my heart ache faintly. "Julio, am I someone only worthy of your leftovers in your eyes?"

"You have got dinner brought to you, and you are still complaining?" he snapped, a bit irritated. "You are so damn unreasonable. Lillian is much more magnanimous than you are. Forget it. Eat it or not. I don't care."

With that, he impatiently grabbed Lillian's hand and strode out of the room.

Watching their retreating figures, I gave a bitter smile and quietly tossed the container into the trash bin.

As I passed the nurses' station, their hushed whispers drifted into my ears.

"Ms. Singh is not Mr. Roberts' wife, is she? Then why can she be so close to Mr. Roberts when he is already married? Does that not make her the other woman?"

"You know nothing. Ms. Singh is Mr. Roberts' old flame. But Mr. Roberts' wife is actually the one who came between Mr. Roberts and Ms. Singh. If it were not for her using underhanded tactics to force Mr. Roberts into marriage, he and Ms. Singh would still have been together."

"Exactly. So what if Mr. Roberts' current wife gets married to him having replaced Ms. Singh anyway? Mr. Roberts will not even acknowledge her publicly. I believe he will dump her soon enough and marry Ms. Singh."

I instinctively tightened my grip on the patient chart in my hand. Their guesses were not entirely wrong.

Julio and Lillian really had been together once, even engaged.

But they did not break up because of me. Lillian had met a wealthy foreign man and, chasing true love, chose to call off the wedding and leave the country.

With the wedding date approaching, the Roberts family, desperate to guard their reputation, turned to me and revived the old engagement arranged by our parents when they were still alive.

At the time, I relied on the Roberts family's financial support. Out of gratitude, and because of my own secret feelings for him, I agreed to marry Julio, replacing Lillian.

Even though I knew from the start this marriage was not built on love, I still held onto hope. I believed that if I gave enough and stayed long enough beside him, Julio would eventually see me.

But after two years of marriage, despite all my sacrifices, I was nothing more than a free housekeeper in his eyes.

His heart still belonged solely to Lillian.

So the day Julio told me Lillian was coming back, I knew it was time for me to leave.

One of the nurses spotted me preparing medication nearby and shifted the conversation to me. "Dr. Anderson, didn't you say today was your wedding anniversary? Your husband doesn't get mad at you when you have to work a shift on such a special day?"

A wave of bitterness washed over me. "He doesn't."

He had never remembered our anniversary, not once.

The nurse teased in an envious tone, "Then your husband is pretty understanding. My boyfriend always throws a fit when I am on call and cannot spend time with him."

I forced a thin smile. "It's nothing. We are getting divorced."

The moment those words left my lips, the entire nurses' station fell silent.

Pretending not to notice their curious stares and unspoken questions, I finished preparing the medication and turned to leave.

But as I turned, I saw Julio standing just a few steps away.