The day before my engagement to Dean was announced, his childhood sweetheart falsely claimed I had broken her fingers when she was playing the piano.

Dean flew into a rage and made me join the medical relief team in Loasia. Now that I was abandoned with just the clothes on my back, I had no choice but to fend for myself.

Not long after, I was informed that he was getting married.

Everyone bet that I would fly back to steal him away. After all, I had been head over heels in love with him.

However, I never appeared even at the end of the wedding. I didn't even call him.

I had vanished into thin air.

…

Five years later...

A man, heavily injured from a car crash, arrived at the emergency department. His significant other demanded that he be operated on by the hospital director.

I calmly held up my scalpel in the operating theatre, my face hidden behind a surgical mask. "Administer the anesthesia."

Before he could be sedated, the man suddenly grabbed my wrist. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he demanded weakly, "Eve, is that you?"

I pulled his hand away from mine and shot the anesthetist a look. "The patient is aggravated. Increase the dosage."

My Ex-Husband

Dean Blake stared up at me from the operating table.

"Eve, I knew you're not dead… You've finally returned."

I looked down at him with a blank look on my face.

"Mr. Blake, please let go. I'm Evelyn Chance, your surgeon today, and not your Eve."

After a stunned pause, Dean chuckled. "Are you still angry? It has been five years, and your temper is still so short. I only sent you to Loasia to teach you a lesson. It's your fault for hurting Laura's hand, wasn't it?

"You can still be Mrs. Blake as long as you admit to your mistake."

Even now, he thought that title was an honor.

The medical staff around me held their breaths as they exchanged looks.

I picked up the hemostatic forceps and clamped the edges of his bleeding wound.

"Aah!"

He let out a shriek of agony as his body violently jolted.

"Evelyn, you've gone mad!"

He stared at me in disbelief, breaking out in a cold sweat from the pain.

"Mr. Blake, you're bleeding. If you don't want to die from blood loss, you'll shut your mouth. Administer the anesthesia," I instructed coldly.

Dean's vision began to go hazy as the drug coursing in his veins did its work.

Still, he clung to the last shreds of his consciousness, staring straight at me the entire time.

"You can't get away... Eve… Once I wake up... we'll get married..."

The last word faded into silence before he finally passed out.

I blankly looked down at the face I was once enamored with, feeling absolutely nothing on the inside.

Married?

Dean likely had no idea that I'd already married the best man in the world.

Right now, he was just a troublesome patient in my eyes.

"Dr. Chance..." My first assistant glanced at me with worry.

"Let's begin." My voice remained calm as I swapped gloves.

…

"Clean the wound site. Prepare to stitch him up."

The operation lasted six whole hours.

Dean was very lucky. Although he had been in a horrifying car crash, nothing vital was struck.

However, he would be limping for the rest of his life due to a complex fracture in his right leg.

Still, that did not matter to me.

What mattered was the success of the operation as it would allow me to protect my reputation as the hospital director.

When he was pushed out of the operating theatre, it was to a packed hallway.

At the front of the crowd was Laura Tanner, the person responsible for my "exile" five years ago.

She instantly darted over when the bed was wheeled out. "Dean, are you okay? How am I meant to go on if anything happens to you?"

Her sobs were shrill and heart-wrenching, a flawless performance.

I took off my mask, revealing my face.

Laura's sobs abruptly cut off. Her eyes went wide as she pointed at me like she was looking at a ghost.

"Evelyn Chance? Why are you here? Didn't you die in Loasia?"

Laura and Five Years Ago

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Ms. Tanner."

I chucked my mask into a nearby medical waste bin as I calmly spoke.

"Not only am I not dead, but I'm also doing very well."

Laura scanned me up and down with venomous eyes. "Doing well? You're just a doctor in this place. How is that doing well? Evelyn, did you come here to cheat us because you heard Dean was in a car crash?"

She crossed her arms, acting as arrogant as ever.

She had worn that exact same expression when she cried to Dean about how I broke her fingers five years ago.

It did not matter if the security footage showed she reached out and slammed the piano cover over her hands.

After all, Dean did not even bother to glance at the footage before he sentenced me.

"Laura's hands are meant for playing the piano. Can you even afford to compensate her? Go to Loasia. You can only return when you finally learn to behave."

The past flashed through my mind.

A wave of absurdity crashed into me as I looked at Laura, who hadn't changed one bit.

"Ms. Tanner, this is a hospital. Please lower your voice. The patient just came out of an operation and requires rest."

I turned to leave, having no interest in wasting time chatting with her.

However, Laura persistently grabbed my coat.

"Stop! Since you're the lead surgeon, what about Dean's leg? I'll make sure you pay if there's a scar or any lasting effects!"

I stopped and turned to look at her.

"It was a comminuted fracture. He's lucky he still has a leg. As for lasting effects..."

I paused and looked down at her healthy and straight fingers.

"Recovery would have to depend on his rehabilitation after this. It's just like your fingers. No matter how well the treatment is, broken fingers can never play as well as before. Isn't that right?"

Laura's face twisted in anger. "How dare you curse me, Evelyn!"

She raised her hand to slap me.

"Stop."

Just then, a deep and weak voice called out.

Dean woke up sometime during our conversation. He was craning his neck to look at us.

"Dean, you're awake!"

Laura immediately transformed into an upset and sobbing woman, flinging herself to sit by his bed.

"Evelyn was bullying me! She cursed me, saying my hands will be useless. She even said your leg would never heal! She did it on purpose! She's a useless doctor and is here for revenge!"

He ignored her complaints. His dark eyes were fixed on me.

"Eve, come here."

He was ordering me around.

He sounded no different from when he had ordered me to grovel and apologize to Laura five years ago.

I remained exactly where I was, coldly staring back at him. "Mr. Blake, I'm a doctor, not your servant. If you don't feel well, please use the call bell."

His brows became furrowed in visible displeasure at my attitude.

"Are you done with your tantrum?" He sighed, impatience ringing in his voice.

"I know you suffered in Loasia, so you're mad. Still, Laura is innocent. You were in the wrong back then. I've been looking for you for five whole years. As long as you apologize and return to my side, I won't hold today's rude behavior against you."

He looked at me as though he was doing me a huge favor.

"I can even make you the lead medical consultant of the Blake Group. It's much better than being overworked in a ratty hospital like this."

I burst out laughing upon hearing that.

I couldn't help but wonder what gave Dean that confidence to think that I could not survive without him.

"Dean," I began, taking a step closer to his bed. "Did the crash make you crazy? My hourly salary is now 10 times the pay of that consultant role. Also, this is not a mere tantrum. I'm serious. I don't ever want to see you two nauseating lovebirds again."

A Different Woman

Dean's pupils dilated as shock flashed across his face.

He had likely never heard me speak to him in that tone of voice before.

Evelyn of the past was a punching bag who always cowered and groveled behind him, too afraid to even breathe loudly.

"W-What did you just say?" he spat out through a clenched jaw, speaking like every word was forced through sheer force of will.

"I said, you're disgusting," I clearly and loudly repeated my declaration.

Laura was the first to fly off the handle. "Evelyn, you bitch! How dare you speak to Dean like that!"

She charged over to push me.

I leaned to the side and dodged her, seizing the chance to trip her up with a foot as well.

"Aah!" She let out a shriek as she tumbled tail over teakettle, slamming her head against one of the bed's legs. Her head soon swelled with a large bruise.

"Laura!"

Dean tried to sit up in his panic, but ended up gasping in agony as the movement aggravated his wound.

"How dare you attack her, Evelyn!" he roared in his fury.

"Why are you so wicked now? Where did the sweet and kind Eve I knew go?"

"Oh, so you even understand enough to use the past tense then?" I sneered as I watched Laura rolling around in her tantrum on the ground.

"The lions of Loasia taught me that to survive, I had to be even more vicious than rabid wolves. Also, don't call me Eve. You've lost that right."

I then turned to leave.

"Stop right there!" Dean yelled from behind. "If you take a single step out of here, I'll file a complaint to your hospital director. You won't ever be able to work in this industry again!"

I paused and turned to look back at him.

"Mr. Blake, you must be mistaken about something." I pointed to my name tag before continuing grandly, "I am the hospital director. If you wish to file a complaint, go ahead."

That thoroughly stunned him.

He stared at me like he was looking at a stranger.

The woman whose life once revolved around him, who used to serve him on hand and foot, was now standing with her head held high under the spotlight of attention.

However, she was no longer his.

He was unable to accept that disparity.

"No... There's absolutely no way..." he muttered to himself for a while before abruptly looking up as though struck by realization.

"Your benefactor is helping you, isn't he? Evelyn, you actually sold yourself to get the job, didn't you? You disgust me!"

His imagination was so vivid that it left me sighing in awe.

In Dean's mind, a woman was nothing without a man.

I only achieved what I did because I was sleeping with some old man.

"Dean, it seems those with filthy minds always find the world filthy."

I left, completely uninterested in explaining myself to someone so brain-dead.

I could hear something shattering against the ground in the ward behind me while Laura sobbed and embellished what happened.

"Just look at her, Dean! She must be feeling guilty! She has been in Loasia for five years! Who knows how many men she has done it with? A woman like her does not deserve to be Mrs. Blake!"

I closed the door, locking the slanderous insults away.

As I walked to the nurse's station, I took a deep breath to suppress the disgust I felt.

My phone buzzed.

It was a message from Jason Butler, my husband. "I made your favorite ribs for dinner tonight, dear. What time are you clocking off? I'll pick you up."

Attached to the text was a photo of our daughter, Candice.

My slightly furrowed brows relaxed as I looked at my phone.