The sterile scent of the operating theater usually brought Eve comfort, but five years ago, it smelled like destiny and gunpowder. Dante lay on the table, a man of power reduced to a heartbeat fluttering against the void. Eve worked with a surgical precision that bordered on the divine, stitching his life back together while her own health took a silent, devastating blow. The exertion and internal trauma from the struggle to get him to safety left her body scarred, whispering a cruel truth: she would never carry a child. She gave him her future to ensure he had a present, a sacrifice made in the quiet anonymity of the night, long before he woke up to see her face.
Dante woke up to Lilith’s smile, not Eve’s. While Eve was recovering in a different wing, Lilith wove a web of lies so intricate it felt like silk. She claimed she was the one who dragged him from the wreckage, the one who braved the bullets. Dante, blinded by gratitude and the haze of anesthesia, believed her. Eve, humble to a fault and still healing, didn't fight the narrative at first, assuming the truth would surface through the sheer weight of their connection. But Lilith was a master of shadows, ensuring that every time Dante looked at Eve, he saw only a cold, professional doctor, while Lilith played the role of the fragile, heroic savior.
The years that followed were a slow burn of heartbreak for Eve. She stayed by Dante’s side as his primary physician and eventually his fiancée, but Lilith was always there, a ghost in the peripheral of their romance. When Eve and Dante finally set a date for their wedding, Lilith played her final, most desperate card. She announced she had terminal cancer, a lie designed to garner Dante's ultimate devotion. Under the guise of "leaving a legacy" before her supposed death, she manipulated a situation to undergo artificial insemination using Dante’s samples, claiming it was her final wish to see his lineage continue since Eve was "barren."
The night before the grandest wedding the nation had ever seen, the ivory lace of Eve’s gown felt like a shroud. She walked into Dante’s study to find him holding Lilith, who was sobbing about her morning sickness and her "failing" health. The revelation hit Eve like a physical blow: Lilith was pregnant with Dante’s child. When Eve tried to expose the medical impossibility of Lilith’s rapid "cancer" and pregnancy timeline, Dante’s reaction was a dagger to her heart. He looked at Eve with disdain, accusing her of professional jealousy and cold-heartedness. He chose the lie over the woman who had literally bled for him, leaving Eve standing alone in the hall.
Eve didn't scream or beg. She took off the five-carat diamond ring, placed it on the cold marble console, and walked out into the rain. By dawn, she was at the airport, leaving behind the wedding flowers that would soon wither and a man who didn't deserve her silence. She fled to Italy, a place of ancient stones and healing sun. In the heart of Florence, she buried herself in her work, becoming a pioneer in regenerative medicine. Her name became a beacon in the European medical community, far away from the toxic headlines of Dante’s world. She was no longer the "top doctor" of a man’s estate; she was a legend in her own right.
Back home, the facade began to crumble the moment Eve’s presence vanished. Without her quiet management of his health and her unspoken guidance, Dante felt an inexplicable void. The turning point came during a routine audit of the hospital records where he was treated five years prior. A retired nurse, recognizing Dante from a magazine, mentioned "the brave surgeon" who had collapsed from internal bleeding after saving him. The records didn't lie; the blood type, the surgical signatures, and the emergency room intake logs all pointed to one person: Eve. Lilith hadn't even been in the building that night. The realization was a tidal wave that crushed his soul.
Dante’s fury was a cold, calculated storm. He confronted Lilith, whose "cancer" had miraculously vanished as soon as the pregnancy was confirmed. Faced with the hospital logs and a private investigator's report, her lies disintegrated. She hadn't saved him; she had stolen a hero's credit. Dante realized that the woman he called "cold" had sacrificed her fertility and her youth to keep his heart beating, only for him to break hers. He didn't marry Lilith; he exiled her, ensuring she was cared for only for the sake of the child, but he stripped her of the crown she had tried to steal. His only mission now was the woman in Italy.
Florence was bathed in a golden hue when Dante found her. Eve was sitting in a small piazza, a sketchbook in hand, looking more radiant and peaceful than he had ever seen her. When she looked up and saw him, there was no flicker of longing, only a polite, distant recognition that terrified him. He fell to his knees in front of the fountain, begging for a forgiveness he knew he hadn't earned. He told her he knew everything—the surgery, the lies, the sacrifice. He promised her the world, a new wedding, and a lifetime of atonement. He expected her to weep; instead, she simply closed her book.
"The woman you fell in love with died the night you chose her lie over my truth," Eve said, her voice as steady as the Arno river. Dante refused to accept the finality in her tone. He bought the villa next to her apartment, showered her clinic with anonymous donations, and followed her with the persistence of a man possessed. He believed that his passion and his newfound "truth" would be enough to bridge the five-year chasm. He told her he wouldn't take "no" for an answer, leaning into the alpha persona that had always served him in business. But Eve wasn't a business deal to be closed; she was a soul that had moved on.
The "Wedding That Will Never Be" became a haunting metaphor for Dante’s life. He realized that while he could follow her to the ends of the earth, he couldn't force her heart to beat for him again. Eve continued to flourish, her life full of purpose and new friendships, while Dante remained a shadow in her periphery, a reminder of a past she had outgrown. He learned the hardest lesson of all: some wounds are too deep for even the best doctor to heal, and some loves, once betrayed, become ghosts that no amount of begging can bring back to life. He stayed in Italy, a perpetual suitor to a queen who no longer needed a king.
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