The Enticing CEO’s Chosen Bride
Chapter 1910

Chapter 1910

Serana's head felt like it had exploded after the barrage of words from Yasmine. Despite everything she had done, pushing everything to the extreme, Yasmine still maintained such a resolute attitude.

"Just giving up like that? What does Boyd even mean to you?" Serana struggled to keep her voice steady, her whole body tense with emotion.

"My man. But am I not allowed to choose to cut ties with a man who's been nothing but entangled with another woman all his life besides me?"

"You... how can you be like this."

"This is how I am. Is this news to you?" Yasmine didn't want to hear another word. "I don’t know how much you think you know me, but you really got on my last nerve. You say you love him, you scheme to stay by his side, and you expect me to just accept you. Do you seriously think I’d want to stay with him after that? Go grab any woman off the street and ask her if she'd stick around for this mess. You win. I can’t play this game with you."

"I’m not like that!"d2

Yasmine shot Serana a cold glance, her face set, and turned to leave without another word. She opened the door of the hospital room, and her assistant immediately approached. "Ms. Yasmine."

"Where's Boyd?"

It was rare for her to ask Mr. Boyd’s whereabouts, though she looked upset. After a few seconds of shock, the assistant quickly said, "Mr. Boyd is at the office. He'll probably come over once he's done there."

Yasmine let out a scoff. With his precious Serana suffering in the hospital, how could he not come to take care of her personally?

"Ms. Yasmine, why don’t you wait here for him."

"No need, I'll find him." She had no patience to stay with Serana any longer.

As she looked ready to leave with a particularly sour expression, the assistant, fearing a direct confrontation at the office, quickly caught up. "Ms. Yasmine, Mr. Boyd has arranged for so many people to be here with Ms. Serana because the criminal who kidnapped her years ago was recently released from prison. He's worried the guy might still hold a grudge and come after her."

Yasmine stopped in front of the elevator, and the assistant hurriedly pressed the button for her. "Don't bother with that. Boyd always has a pile of justifiable reasons for whatever he does."

As the elevator doors slid open, Yasmine stepped in without hesitation, and the assistant hesitated for a few seconds before joining her just as the doors were about to close.

Yasmine frowned, but she didn’t say a word.

"Ms. Yasmine..."

"If you followed me to sing praises of your Mr. Boyd’s chivalry and deep affection, save it. I don't want to hear it. Even if you paint him as a saint, it’s pointless."

The assistant's face twitched with embarrassment. Ms. Yasmine might have been beautiful, but her personality and temper was offputting. What was Mr. Boyd thinking, insisting on having such a firecracker by his side?

The assistant didn’t know what to say and stood awkwardly next to Yasmine.

"But..." Suddenly, Yasmine spoke, and the assistant quickly focused on her. "I suppose that man probably hates me even more."

The assistant blinked, "Uh?"

Yasmine didn’t respond and walked out of the elevator as the doors opened.

The assistant followed. "Ms. Yasmine, shall I arrange for someone..."

"No need."

The assistant slowed to a stop, watching her disappear around the corner to the underground parking garage, shaking his head helplessly before stepping back into the elevator. As the elevator doors closed, he heard the sound of a car unlocking from the garage.

Then his phone rang. Serana had passed out in her room.

When he arrived at the room, doctors were bustling around. After a quick examination, they concluded that Serana's heart condition had flared up. Fortunately, it wasn't serious, and after emergency treatment, she regained consciousness quickly.

The assistant sighed in relief. After confirming her condition with the doctors, he remembered to call Boyd.

Serana had rarely suffered such episodes, and now with a pregnancy, Boyd put work aside and came straight to the hospital.

The assistant waited for Boyd at the hospital entrance, following him as he arrived with quick strides. "The situation has stabilized, but the doctors are advising against continuing the pregnancy. The baby is fine this time, but there’s no guarantee she'll be lucky again if another episode occurs. And we can't predict if her condition will worsen during childbirth seven months from now."

Boyd’s expression darkened, "Why did she have an episode all of a sudden?"

"Uh..." The assistant paused.

The elevator doors opened, and Boyd glanced at him sideways.

"Ms. Yasmine came by just now." The assistant said with caution.

Boyd's brow furrowed. "She came? Why?"

"Ms. Serana asked her to come."

"Serana asked and she just showed up?" Boyd was puzzled. "When has she ever been so accommodating?"

The assistant shook his head awkwardly. Boyd clearly knew what kind of person Yasmine was but still insisted on clinging to her?

--

Serana was awake, her complexion pale and spirit weary. She smiled weakly at Boyd as he entered. "I'm sorry for making you worry."

Boyd approached her bed with a stern face, scanning her body before finally speaking. "We cannot keep the child you're carrying. I've confirmed a time with the doctors."

Serana's already pale face drained of whatever color was left as she shook her head, her lips trembling, unable to speak. "No. I don't want to!"

Boyd's eyes narrowed with an unmistakable warning. "Serana, this child isn't worth risking your life over."

"But you are!" Serana said through tears, looking up at him boldly as she laid all her cards on the table. "Boyd, I've done so much to stay by your side, I would even give up my life..."

"Serana," Boyd's voice came down like a cold, hard hammer, "Yasmine gave me no end of grief over you. I've been nothing but open and honest with you, and you know it. So, for a while, I thought she was just making a fuss over nothing. But now, you're really making me feel like I should be keeping my distance."

Gradually, Serana calmed down. "I could die for you, Boyd. Yasmine wouldn't even entertain the thought. With the way she is, even if you two stayed together, you'd always have to tiptoe around her, afraid to make her the slightest bit unhappy. Don't you find that exhausting?"

"Why should she be willing to die for me?"

Boyd's words struck Serana silent.

"I want her with me, not ready to die for me. If she ever thought like that, I'd be better off letting her go sooner rather than later. As for her temper, she was my choice. If that means I'm signing up for a life of exhaustion, that's my business, not yours."

In that moment, Serana forgot how to blink. So, this was his reasoning.

Was being willing to die for someone no longer considered a grand gesture of undying love?

Yasmine wanted to live, and Boyd wanted Yasmine to live as well. What a rare kind of understanding.

A bitter smile crossed her face, and tears began to fall once more. "So, offering you my life doesn't even earn me a second glance."

Seeing her distraught, Boyd felt a wave of fatigue wash over him. "Your life is more important than anything. You have to take responsibility for your own life. I can't be there to look after you forever."

Was this him drawing a final line between them?

Serana bit her lip hard, silent for a long moment before she finally said, "Can we... can we pretend I never said those things? I was impulsive."

Boyd gave her a flat look. "We can pretend, sure. But remember what I said."

"Boyd, just talk with me a little, will you? It's been so long since we've had a real conversation."

Serana cut him off, and seeing Boyd's frown, she quickly added, "I told Yasmine a lot just now. Aren't you curious what we talked about? I don't think she's going to tell you much."

Boyd stared at her for a few moments, then, with a resigned sigh, he unbuttoned his suit jacket and sat down on the couch.

Serana smiled faintly. "I told her about my heart condition, which is why you've been so protective of me all these years. She keeps thinking this child is yours, and even when I tell her it's not, she doesn't seem to believe me. She also said that if she believes it, she has to bear the potential consequences, and if she doesn't believe it, she won't have to take any risks. So, she doesn't intend to stay with you."

Boyd's expression turned even colder. His assistant had told him about her visit to the office, and now he knew why she came.

"I was too hasty. If she hadn't seemed so determined just now, I wouldn't have said those things."

--

Yasmine wondered if she had seriously crossed Serana in a past life, because it seemed like the universe had sent her to settle the debt in this one.

Just as she opened her car door, a knife suddenly pressed against her waist, and a hand covered her mouth.

When the shaky voice behind her demanded to know if she was Serana, Yasmine felt an overwhelming urge to tear Serana apart. Serana had just shared her "woe is me" life story, and Boyd's assistant had explained the heavy security surrounding her. It didn't take much to guess that the jittery man behind her was the recently paroled Johnson.

The thought that the same thug who used to be just a story was now holding a knife to her side made her want to curse the absurdity of the world.

"I'm not the person you’re looking for."

"Liar!" The knife pressed harder against her waist, and a sharp pain shot through Yasmine's body.

Perhaps realizing the location wasn't safe, Johnson quickly bound Yasmine's hands and shoved her into the car. He then jumped into Yasmine’s vehicle, started it up, and drove away in a panic.

Sitting in the back seat, Yasmine suppressed her fear and observed Johnson as he drove. "I'm telling you, you've got the wrong person."

"And if you're not her, who are you? The man who came out with you was constantly hovering outside her hospital room."

Yasmine clenched her teeth. "What kind of logic is that? Can't a man know other women? I was visiting a patient, that's all."

Johnson seemed to waver, his entire demeanor growing more frantic. "Shut up! I won't believe you. You look familiar, there's no way you can't be Serana."

Yasmine's expression shifted slightly, and she fell silent. Serana indirectly caused the death of his son, but she was the one who got him into prison. If he discovered she was the one who had deceived him back then, he’d probably stab her without hesitation.

The car headed west towards the outskirts and finally stopped at the foot of West Valley Cemetery. A long flight of stairs loomed beside them, leading up to the graveyard where people came and went.

Johnson didn’t seem eager to get out of the car immediately, his gaze fixed on the sparse crowd ascending and descending the stairs. Yasmine guessed his son must've been moved here.

It looked like he'd never let go of avenging his son. Was he planning to bring Serana here to pay with her life?

A chill ran down her spine. Madmen seemed to be everywhere. She couldn’t afford any trouble now.

"Is your son up there?" she suddenly asked.

Johnson jerked as if struck, turning to glare at her with venom in his eyes. "Still claiming you're not her?"

"I didn’t say I don’t know her. I've heard her stories."

"She has the gall to talk about it?" Johnson's voice was a mix of rage and guilt, shaking uncontrollably with endless hatred.

Yasmine's eyes trembled slightly. With him like this, she wasn't sure what he might do in his agitation.

"If it wasn't for her, my son would be alive. He was my only child. My wife worked herself to death trying to get money for his treatment. She begged me to save him, and died without peace." Johnson's outburst filled the car, a raw and thunderous confession of pain and hatred.

Yasmine's heart pounded. She had to handle this carefully – her life depended on it.

"Absolutely despicable," Yasmine said, her voice barely betraying a tremor, "But after all the trouble to get here, don't you want to see your son?"

Johnson wiped the tears from his face, slowly regaining his composure.

Yasmine went on, "There's money in there. Take it and buy some stuff. Your kid probably doesn't get treats very often, right? Load up on some candy bars for him, and maybe pick up some flowers for your wife."

Johnson paused, opened the storage compartment, and sure enough, found several large bills inside. He turned to her with suspicion in his eyes. "What's your game?"

Yasmine gave a half-smile, "Just grab me a bottle of water, will you? I'm tied up, thanks to you. What kind of tricks do you think I could pull off?"

After a moment's thought, Johnson finally exited the car, naturally making sure to take the keys with him.

Yasmine furrowed her brow, and once she was sure he was gone, she quickly slipped off her shoes and used her feet to hook her bag, which Johnson had tossed aside. She unzipped it and found her cell phone.

The contact list on her phone was short, with Serana at the top, followed by Boyd. At this point, she had no illusions about Serana coming to her rescue, so she tapped on Boyd's number.

The phone rang for a moment, and in those few seconds, a thin sheen of sweat formed on Yasmine's forehead. Her gaze was fixed on the convenience store down the hill.

Thankfully, the call was finally answered. "Boyd, you—"

"Hello, Yasmine, Boyd had to step out for something. He left his phone here in my room."

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