The Day Our Promise Breaks

Chapter 566

It was already one in the morning.

Evelyn had turned off the lights and gone to bed at eleven, but for two long hours, sleep had eluded her. She hadn't suffered from insomnia in ages, but tonight, she lay awake in the darkness, eyes open.

She sat up, pulled open her nightstand drawer, and found the half-finished bottle of melatonin she'd been using.

Just as she was about to take some, her phone-resting on the nightstand-lit up with an incoming call.

She hadn't saved Aiden's number, so she didn't know who it was. But somehow, as if she knew, Evelyn reached for her phone and answered. "Hello?"

"Ms. Evelyn, it's Aiden."

Aiden stood outside the hospital room, watching through the glass as Charles suffered on the bed, wracked with a fever that wouldn't break. His voice was hoarse. "Mr. Jenkins is in a bad way. He was barely conscious on the drive back to the hospital, and his fever hasn't gone down despite everything the doctors have tried."

"Ms. Evelyn, could you come see Mr. Jenkins...?"

"I'm not a doctor. I can't help him."

Evelyn's grip tightened around her phone, but her voice remained icy.

"Ms. Evelyn, I know you resent Mr. Jenkins. I know it's hard to forgive what he did

to you and Miss Josephine," Aiden pleaded, his voice cracking. "But he's in real danger. If his fever doesn't break tonight, he could lose his leg..."

"Mr. Jenkins is such a proud man-if he loses his left leg..."

Aiden couldn't finish, his throat tight with emotion.

for years, loyal to a fault.

until he'd saved the company. He'd sacrificed everything, even drinking himself into ulcers and hospital visits, just to keep Jenkins

Charles's drive was all about

believed that, too—until the night he drove Charles to the hospital after yet another episode of stomach bleeding. Charles, pale and weak in the hospital bed, had held a small silver locket in his hand, gazing at it with a tenderness Aiden had never seen. "You can only protect the people you love if

fate had played a

tried to protect the

hurt the most. When Charles learned the truth, how much pain must he have

Charles had done to Evelyn and Josephine could never be

stand by and do nothing

you and Ms. Josephine-can you come see him, just this once?" "Since he fell unconscious, all he's done is call your name... He just wants you by his

grip on her phone tightened,

then, Josephine's voice came

unable to mask the turmoil in her eyes. Josephine

the room, gently taking the phone from Evelyn's hand. To Aiden, whose voice was on the verge of collapse,

Evelyn stared in disbelief. She hadn't expected Josephine to agree

her mother felt about Charles how she'd always hoped Evelyn could move on, hoped she'd choose Brooks,

Josephine only said,

of us.

now-going to

right thing to

ve

Afterwards, whatever happens, you'll

have no regrets."

spoke, Josephine pulled out clothes

knows her daughter's