Love at First Sight? Mr. Harrison Has Been Scheming All Along-Chapter 188: The Plans They Once Made, She Has Completed With Another
Rory Linden’s heart clenched.
Five years ago, she was scheduled to perform surgery on Charlotte Rhodes at Elysian Hospital.
That day, Sean Harrison had said, "I’ll be at ease with you performing the surgery."
Today, the scene was almost identical.
And he had said the same thing again.
Rory Linden deliberately pulled her hand out of her white coat and bowed to Sean Harrison. "Thank you for your trust, President Harrison. I will do my absolute best."
Sean Harrison’s gaze unconsciously fell on the woman’s left hand. A plain metal band was particularly eye-catching.
The man’s expression darkened slightly, and he turned to leave.
Their exchange was brief.
A nurse nearby looked surprised. "This morning, it looked like President Harrison was planning to give you a proper grilling. I can’t believe he didn’t ask a single thing."
She looked at Rory Linden. "Dr. Linden, did you and President Harrison know each other before?"
"..." Rory Linden clenched her fists and said in a low voice, "Not really."
They had spent months together, day and night, and had done the most intimate things.
But in the end, the man had never told her a thing about his past.
She didn’t know how he got the scars on his back.
She didn’t know what he had gone through in middle school.
And she certainly didn’t know who the three people were in the video Nadia Willow had sent her back then.
She knew nothing about him.
’I thought I’d have a chance to get to know him properly someday, but I never imagined it would end up like this.’
Rory Linden walked to the nurses’ station, double-checked the man’s signature, and said, "It’s all set. Prep for surgery."
-
Meanwhile, Sean Harrison didn’t go to the waiting room. He just sat in the hallway.
Gregory Linden found him and said, "President Harrison, the surgery has begun. I’ll call you as soon as it’s over."
"Alright."
Sean Harrison had only planned to sign the form and leave.
The moment he saw that the lead surgeon was Rory Linden, all his plans were thrown into disarray.
Even after Gregory Linden left, he remained seated.
Over the past five years, he had often wondered if he would run into Rory Linden somewhere, sometime.
He had always worried that he would lose control and disrupt her life, uninvited.
But he never expected their reunion to be so peaceful, far more so than he’d anticipated.
More likely, it was because everything had happened too fast.
He was stunned that she was the young, foreign expert the hospital management had spoken of, stunned by her rapid growth and excellence.
But soon after, he saw the wedding ring on her finger.
He had once bought a ring for her too, but she had refused it, saying it was inconvenient to have to take it off for surgeries.
Now, she constantly wore a ring given to her by another man.
’In that moment, he knew. She had deliberately shown him her left hand to tell him she was married.’
He understood.
"Can I go observe that surgery?"
"I think so? They said any surgeon can go. It’s always good to learn."
"All the department heads are there. We won’t find a seat, but can’t we just stand in the back?"
"I heard that Dr. Linden is a world-class expert in this field."
A few doctors passed by him, chatting amongst themselves.
Sean Harrison looked toward the voices, hesitated for a moment, then stood up and asked, "Excuse me... is it possible to observe this surgery?"
The doctors turned around. Seeing it was a patient’s family member, they were about to refuse, but then they quickly recognized him as Sean Harrison.
"Well... family members generally aren’t allowed to observe." The doctor paused, then added, "Why don’t you ask the hospital administrators if it’s possible?"
"I understand. Thank you."
Sean Harrison called Gregory Linden.
Gregory Linden was initially inclined to refuse. It wasn’t that he was wary of Sean Harrison, but rather that surgery can be quite graphic, and most people can’t stomach it.
But Sean Harrison was a powerful and influential man, so Gregory couldn’t be too blunt in his refusal. In the end, he had to agree.
Gregory Linden specifically added a warning, "President Harrison, if you feel any discomfort, you can leave at any time."
Sean Harrison had never watched a surgery before.
At first, he didn’t understand why so many people were observing this particular operation live.
Not until Gregory Linden led him into the observation room...
The entire space was a small conference room, with a live broadcast of the surgical procedure on a screen at the front.
He could clearly see that the procedure wasn’t being performed by human hands, but by robotic arms.
On the screen, the robotic arms moved with fluid dexterity.
Sean Harrison stood frozen in place, witnessing Rory Linden’s profession firsthand for the very first time.
He was a layman; he didn’t understand the difficulty of the surgery before him.
He just overheard the doctors next to him whispering.
"A doctor this incredible, why doesn’t our hospital try to recruit her?"
"She probably makes way more money abroad, okay?"
"How old is this doctor, anyway?"
"Thirty? Or thirty-one?"
"Is she married? I wouldn’t mind making a personal sacrifice for the hospital."
"She already has a son. Don’t even think about it."
Hearing this, Sean Harrison turned and left.
He wasn’t surprised that Rory Linden was married, but he hadn’t expected her to have a child as well.
’Then again, it’s not that surprising...’
She was someone who adored children.
Back when they had agreed to get married, she had mentioned having a child, giving them all her love, and raising them to be healthy and happy.
’The plans they once made...’
She had already fulfilled them with another man.
Sean Harrison stood in the hallway, his hands by his sides, tightly clenched into fists...
The thought of her exchanging vows of eternal love with another man, entering the sacred halls of marriage.
The thought of her having fallen in love with another man, of them having a child together...
Sean Harrison could clearly feel a storm of emotions raging within him.
Just then, the phone in his pocket rang.
It was Ethan Dixon.
"President Harrison, you have a meeting with President Grant at ten. Are you leaving now?"
Ethan Dixon was reporting his upcoming schedule.
In truth, when he was arranging the schedule, he had already guessed his boss might change plans last minute, which was why he had chosen an appointment that was easy to cancel.
Just as he’d expected, Sean Harrison said, "Cancel it. I’m waiting for the surgery to be over."
Rory Linden worked at a hospital abroad.
’If I leave now, we might never see each other again in this lifetime.’
Sean Harrison walked over to a bench outside the operating room and sat down.
He was well aware that the choice he made back then was for this very outcome.
What he wanted was...
For her to completely move on from him, marry someone else, and have a healthy child.
This was the result he had wanted.
But now, witnessing it with his own eyes, he felt the tangible sensation of having a piece of his heart gouged out.
Time ticked by, second by second.
The "In Surgery" light above the operating room door in front of him went from on to off.
Rory Linden emerged from the operating room, putting on her white coat.
The first person she saw was Sean Harrison sitting by the door. She composed her expression before walking over and saying politely, "President Harrison, the surgery was a success. We just need to wait for the patient to wake up."
Sean Harrison’s lips parted slightly. "Right. Thank you for your hard work."
Rory Linden smiled faintly. "It’s my job. I flew thousands of miles to Celestria in the hopes that the patient would make a full recovery."
The atmosphere of their conversation seemed relaxed.
Yet it was separated by a faint layer of distance.
