The Billionaire’s Secret Quartet (Thalassa and Elowen)

"Oh man, Lydia might have gotten the wrong idea. This could be a huge misunderstanding," Ethan muttered to himself, feeling the weight of the situation.

He quickly called out to the room, "Alaric, man, you're sick, and I was just trying to help by getting a doctor. And now you're giving me grief?"

It was his roundabout way of clearing the air, stressing that Alaric's illness wasn't his doing.

"Ethan, come on, dude. I bust my butt every day for you, and you hit me with this cold talk. Have you got no heart for me anymore? Cough, cough..." Alaric, delirious from the fever, starving and miserable, had been lying in bed waiting for Ethan to come back for what felt like forever.

His feelings of neglect were mounting.

After years of being tight as brothers, Ethan wouldn't just leave him in the lurch, would he?

Thinking about their long-standing friendship only made him feel worse.

Alaric's heart was a wasteland of disappointment.

His words couldn't help but get a bit dramatic.

Ethan felt a wave of embarrassment. Alaric's accusations were getting more outrageous by the minute.

he stepped

passed him, she shot him a look filled with amusement and

anything, just walked straight

Great, first branded a troublemaker, and now caught in a misunderstanding. This

bedside, asking, "What's making you feel

shocked.

actually wrong with you?" Lydia wasn't

over, anxious, feverish, my stomach's growling but I can't eat..." After a

the doctor, he felt like he had seen a lifeline and was

thermometer out of her medical bag and handed it to him, "Check

Ethan walked in. He said to Lydia, "He's just been fighting with

needing heart

heart problem, right?"

make sure Lydia understood Alaric's sickness stemmed from a quarrel with a girl, not from anything Ethan had done. He

"I'm talking to the patient,

mouth shut, not uttering another