Chapter 296: Heh, Men
That crash completely severed any remaining possibility between the male and female leads.
At first, he planned to feign ignorance and pin all the blame on the driver who caused the accident.
But the female lead was too smart. His attempt to shirk responsibility was identical to the despicable way he’d framed her before. And how could it be such a coincidence? They had just had a fight, and suddenly Dr. Donovan was in an accident?
They had another huge fight over it. Given the male lead’s temper and intelligence, once his anger flared, it was almost inevitable he’d let something slip.
And once he did, their relationship was thrown into the crematorium and burned to ash. There was no coming back from that.
After all, a person’s death now stood between them. Anyone with even a shred of a moral compass could never be with him with a clear conscience.
Not to mention his tendency to hire a hitman in a fit of rage. Who knew if he might just strangle you with his own hands the next time he lost his temper? Could any normal person sleep soundly with someone like that in their bed? At least, Summer Vance couldn’t.
After learning the truth, she despised Julian Spencer, even going so far as to report his crimes to the authorities under her own name.
Unfortunately, Julian Spencer had been careful. The driver he’d paid off was dead, leaving no one to testify against him. In the end, the homicide case was ruled an accident and quietly closed.
Aurora Donovan: "..." ’Don’t any of you try to stop me. If I don’t beat this guy into a bloody pulp, then my surname isn’t Donovan!’
At this point, the situation seemed irreversible. But Julian Spencer just loved to make things harder for himself; the tougher the opposition, the more determined he became.
The female lead was at the point where she wanted to stab him and take him down with her, yet he was still stubbornly insisting on possessing her, determined to bind her to him forever.
Arabella Donovan, watching from the sidelines, was left speechless.
’If you’d put half of this shameless, relentless persistence into pursuing your real Lover, you probably would have won her over long ago.’
Aurora Donovan nodded in vehement agreement. ’For a nice girl to run into a psychopath like that... what rotten luck.’
’Let’s be real, it’s the classic "you always want what you can’t have." The more someone scorns you, the more you grovel at their feet? Hah, men!’
Caspian Rhodes and Aurora Donovan: ’Hah, men!’
The two of them echoed her sentiment before realizing they had inadvertently insulted themselves in the process.
"..."
The female lead was harassed endlessly by Julian Spencer but was utterly powerless to stop him.
Just as she was being pushed to her breaking point, on the verge of descending into darkness, the plot took a sudden, drastic turn.
Julian Spencer’s father—his greatest pillar of support—was suddenly diagnosed with terminal liver cancer and didn’t have long to live. As a result, the Spencer Corporation’s stock plummeted. Vultures began to circle, and the empire was on the verge of collapse.
Caspian Rhodes and Aurora Donovan: "???" ’That came out of nowhere, didn’t it?’
What truly shattered Julian Spencer’s composure was the revelation that it was a hereditary disease. His great-grandfather, his grandfather, and most of his grandfather’s brothers had all died from it.
But in his father’s generation, none of his uncles had the issue, so the Spencer Family assumed the genetic curse had been broken. They never imagined it would come roaring back to strike both him and his father.
Immediately after his diagnosis, Julian Spencer’s father arranged for Julian to be tested as well. The results came back: Julian Spencer was now also on the Grim Reaper’s waiting list.
’The good news: he was only diagnosed with early-stage liver cancer, so there’s still hope. The bad news: even with surgery, he’ll probably only live another five to ten years. That means he’ll die even younger than his dad. In polite terms, he’s fated to die in his prime. To be blunt? He’s just a short-lived wretch!’
It was clear Arabella Donovan had absolutely no love for the outlaw male lead who had killed her third brother. Her tone carried a sharp, biting edge rarely heard from her.
In a typical novel, this is where the plot would have the female lead’s saintly side emerge. She’d realize she had long been in love with the man who abused, beat, humiliated, and abandoned her, and she would forgive him for everything he’d done.
They would confess their feelings, join hands to fight the illness, and after a tireless struggle, ultimately conquer death and live happily ever after. A perfect ending!
But this particular author was a contrarian, determined to subvert tropes until the very end.
After learning about the Spencer family’s predicament, the female lead felt not a shred of sympathy for Julian Spencer. On the contrary, she was thrilled. She even paid him a special visit in the hospital, bringing a basket of discounted, out-of-season fruit.
Then, as he watched her in surprise, she informed him that the only person in the world who could have saved him was none other than Dr. Donovan—the man he had hired a hitman to kill.
Dr. Donovan’s latest research project had been on a miracle drug for cancer, and he had already made significant progress.
If he were still alive, the drug might have already been developed.
In that case, his disease could have been easily cured, and his father might have lived for several more years.
But now, due to Dr. Donovan’s sudden death, the project had been handed over to others, and progress had slowed to a crawl.
Perhaps in a few years, or a few decades, another genius might come along to complete Dr. Donovan’s work.
But unfortunately for them, she said, while others might see that day, Julian Spencer and his father most certainly would not.
The truth completely shattered Julian Spencer. He finally realized that Summer Vance and Dr. Donovan had never been lovers. Her feelings were simply the natural admiration and respect that a capable person has for a true genius.
But even if they *had* been lovers, at this point, he should have been worshiping the man like an ancestor. After all, Dr. Donovan was the one person who could have saved his entire family!
Julian Spencer was consumed by regret, but it was useless. It was far too late for that now.
Not long after, Mr. Spencer died in the hospital from a host of complications arising from his terminal liver cancer.
Soon after, Julian Spencer had surgery that temporarily saved his life, but the various post-op complications made him a regular at the hospital. After struggling for five or six years, he followed in his father’s footsteps and died.
Right up to the day he died, Julian Spencer never saw the miracle drug that could have saved his life.
Reading to this point, Arabella Donovan let out a long sigh of relief, feeling utterly satisfied.
’Now that’s what you call not just killing the body, but crushing the spirit! I felt frustrated through this whole damn book, but this ending is so incredibly satisfying!’
Aurora Donovan’s eyes glinted. The ending had indeed provided him with a sense of vicarious revenge.
But compared to this kind of "karma is a bitch" satisfying ending, he would have much preferred to do the job himself—to personally send that man to the crematorium and burn him until not even ash remained.
At that moment, Julian Spencer had no idea that in the short time since they’d met, all his secrets had been laid bare.
He patiently listened as Derek Kensington recounted information about Aurora Donovan that he himself had already thoroughly investigated, feigning a look of amazement at the appropriate moments.
"Dr. Donovan is truly incredible. He’s younger than us but has already accumulated so many accolades. It’s really humbling. I hope that when we start working together in the lab, I can learn a great deal from you."
Aurora Donovan glanced at the hand extended before him, took it with a faint smile, and said with a double meaning, "Don’t worry. Once we’re in the lab, I will take *very* good care of you."