Playbook
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Chapter 6
Chapter 6
“Dominic?” Regina leaned closer, wrapped in a scarf, her eyes scanning his phone screen. A flash of coldness crossed her eyes before she quickly replaced it with a pitiful expression. “Is Riley… still mad at me?”
She gently bit her lip, her eyes instantly reddening: “It’s all my fault… if it weren’t for my failing health…”
Dominic locked his phone. “Don’t overthink things.”
With the woman interrupting his troubled thoughts, the trip finally began normally.
But he remained distracted the entire way.
At the hotel, Regina immediately pressed herself against him.
“Dominic…” she whispered breathlessly in his ear, “We’re legally married now. What are you still hesitating for?”
Dominic grabbed her wandering hands, his voice tight: “You’re not well yet…”
Regina bit her lip in frustration, melting into his arms: “But I… can handle it!”
Dominic absently patted her back, his gaze fixed on the phone on the nightstand.
The screen lit up then darkened, but the familiar number he was waiting for never appeared.
“I’ll get you some water.”
He rose, using it as an excuse, and lit a cigarette by the floor–to–ceiling window.
In the days that followed, he grew increasingly eager to return home.
And increasingly suspicious of Regina’s behavior.
One day she’d be too weak to walk, the next she’d be running and jumping on the beach collecting seashells.
“Dominic” she returned from the sea wearing a bikini, her skin slightly reddened from the sun. “The doctor said sunbathing helps my condition”
When he went back to the room to grab something, he accidentally knocked over her purse.
Among the scattered bottles and containers, a box of ovulation medication stood out prominently. The expiration date showed it had been opened just last week.
He recognized it because for the past two years, I had taken this medication, hoping to give him a daughter…
Remembering how his wife had been violently ill but still reassured him, “It’s okay, just a little nausea, it’s not that bad, let’s try again,” he suddenly felt a pang of guilt.
But–terminal cancer patients can take this?
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Attempting to Steal My World? Easy! My Rebirth Comes with a Playbook
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Even if they could, why would a dying person need it?
With that, Dominic slammed the suitcase shut and called his assistant: “Check all of Regina Reed’s chemotherapy
records in the country. Now.”
Half an hour later, his assistant called back: “Mr. Thorne, we’ve checked Central Hospital and the Cancer Center. There are no medical records for Miss Reed.” The assistant paused, “But…”
“But what?”
“We found Mrs. Thorne’s abortion record. The date is…” the assistant’s voice tightened, “last Wednesday.”
Last Wednesday.
The day of the family portrait.
Suddenly, Dominic’s ears rang as he recalled my pale face, how I doubled over clutching my stomach, and his own cruel words: “One slap and you’re playing sick? Regina has terminal cancer and doesn’t act as pathetic as you.”
His fingers trembling, he immediately dialed my number, only to hear the cold automated message: “The number you have dialed is no longer in service…”
Dominic couldn’t believe it… his child, the child he and his wife had wanted for two years, had been… destroyed by his own hand.
In panic, he called my mother.
“Mom, did Riley come home? Where is she?”
An impatient voice came through the phone: “That girl… Yes, coming right away!… Who knows where she’s sulking. You just take good care of Ginny. I’ve got to go–my yoga class is starting.”
Frowning deeply, he called my brother.
“Has Riley contacted you?”
“She’s a grown woman. What could happen to her?” He replied impatiently. “Is Ginny having a good time today?”
Dominic suddenly found it absurd how this family treated their daughter, their sister, with such coldness–as if she were a stranger!
He angrily ended the call.
But was this really the first time he’d noticed the Reed family’s favoritism toward Regina and neglect of their wife?
No.
Years ago, when he was engaged to Regina, he had noticed that stubborn, neglected younger daughter of the Reed family.
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Attempting to Steal My World? Easy! My Rebirth Comes with a Playbook
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She was treated terribly, yet her eyes shone with an extraordinary brightness, like a lighthouse in a night sea, making him inexplicably remember her face.
Later, when Regina went abroad, was his proposal to me just out of spite?
No.
He had genuinely wanted to give me a home–a family where someone would cherish me.
And now, he had personally made me a child without a home.
He had foolishly believed he was waiting for someone, waiting for an unfinished love.
But in reality, that person had been right beside him all along, and that love had already taken deep root.
