He Got Engaged to His First Love On the Day I Died-Chapter 1: Is She Dead?

"Scream."

Theodore Grant gripped Natalie Morgan’s waist, his strength savage.

The woman struggled, trying to push him away, but he held her down firmly.

Her delicate, boneless-seeming hands gripped the exquisitely made silk sheets in a silent protest.

In the moonlight, the sharp lines of the man’s profile were exquisite. His gaze was fixed on her, his desire tinged with a cold indifference.

"Not enjoying yourself?" He bit the soft flesh behind her ear, his breath hot. "If this isn’t enough to get you off, then let me tell you something else. I’ve already sent your brother to Unity Hospital."

The color instantly drained from Natalie Morgan’s face.

Unity Hospital was Riverden’s psychiatric hospital—a shady institution that, under the guise of mental healthcare, was involved in illicit activities like harvesting hearts and kidneys. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Ignoring her own disheveled state, she grabbed the man’s arm with trembling fingertips. "Why would you do that?"

"Just wanted to make sure you’d remember this day in the future." He pulled away from her, his long, clean fingers grabbing his shirt.

Last year, her father was thrown in jail, and her mother suffered a stroke after a car accident, leaving her in a coma to this day.

A few days later, her father committed suicide in his cell.

It rained heavily that day.

She had called Theodore Grant countless times, but he never answered.

She took her father to the crematorium alone and then brought his ashes to the cemetery for burial.

Even though all the evidence pointed to Theodore Grant as the one responsible for her father’s death, she still chose not to believe it.

And now, he had chosen this particular day—the anniversary—to rush back from abroad just to do this to her, to humiliate her. She had endured it.

’Why did he also have to send my disabled brother to a place like that?’

"Theodore Grant, you’re a bastard! Do you really have to drive my family to extinction?"

The woman’s eyes trembled, and her fingertips suddenly turned cold.

Her heart, which had still been beating a moment ago, began to slow, so slow she could barely feel it.

The man’s hands paused as he buttoned his shirt. Then he continued, "Thomas Morgan isn’t doing well. He needs proper treatment."

"It’s his legs that are bad, not his mind," Natalie Morgan said, her voice filled with sorrow.

He chuckled, turning back to hook an arm around her neck. "I’m doing this for his own good."

As he spoke, his mocking lips descended toward her forehead, but she turned her face away to avoid them.

For two years of marriage, she had endured, coaxed, and served, all in an attempt to win a single kind look from Theodore Grant.

She wanted to secure the safety of the Morgan Family.

All in vain.

’He hated me. He hated that after I gave up my identity as the heiress of the Lynch Family, I refused to give up our marriage as well.

’In his eyes, I was nothing more than a despicable creature, clinging to his thigh to avoid being pushed out of high society.

’I was vain and materialistic, greedy for fame and fortune.

’I had stolen eighteen years of his "white moonlight" Wanda Lynch’s life. Worse, I had stolen her legs and her marriage.

’I deserved to die. My whole family deserved to die.’

Her heart turning to dead ashes, Natalie Morgan pushed the man away, bent down to open the nightstand drawer, and took out a bottle of morning-after pills, twisting it open.

The man’s brow tightened.

Seeing Natalie Morgan take a pill and put it in her mouth, he slapped it out of her hand. "So now you’ve learned to take the pills on your own?"

In their two years of marriage, Natalie Morgan had tried countless times to get pregnant, even resorting to childish tricks like poking holes in condoms.

But all she got in return was Theodore Grant’s fury and the suspension of her mother’s medical treatment.

After that, she learned her lesson. When he threw the pills at her, she would obediently take them.

Theodore Grant didn’t want a child with her. It wasn’t that he disliked children; he simply never saw her as a wife with whom he could raise a family.

Natalie Morgan’s lips twisted into a self-mocking smile.

"Isn’t this what you wanted, Mr. Grant?"

A muscle in the man’s jaw twitched. He snatched the bottle from her hand and seized her chin. "You like taking pills, do you? Fine. Then take them all."

White pills were forced from the bottle into the woman’s mouth. She struggled, trying to pull away, but she couldn’t escape.

"If you want to take them so badly, then take your fill." He grabbed a glass of water from the nightstand and forced it down Natalie Morgan’s throat.

The woman choked and began to cough violently.

Of the one hundred pills in the bottle, she had swallowed half.

"BLEGH..."

"Natalie Morgan, let me tell you something. You’d better pray you can never have children."

Theodore Grant shoved Natalie Morgan away forcefully.

He grabbed his jacket and slammed the bedroom door shut.

Natalie Morgan stumbled into the bathroom to make herself vomit.

In the end, she was taken to the hospital to have her stomach pumped.

Although she received medical attention promptly, some of the medication had already entered her bloodstream, causing varying degrees of damage to her heart, liver, and kidneys.

The massive dose of progestin stimulated her ovaries, leading to premature ovarian failure.

The doctor told her she would likely never be able to get pregnant in the future.

After she had cried, Natalie Morgan felt a strange sense of relief.

In a drowsy stupor, she heard the family’s housekeeper calling Theodore Grant.

"The Madam’s condition isn’t good. Would you like to come to the hospital to see her?"

"Is she dead?" The voice from the receiver was loud, the man’s cold, indifferent tone amplified clearly.

"Not yet, but..."

"I’m busy..." A woman’s voice came through the receiver. "...Theodore, hurry and help me with this zipper."

Then, the man’s impatient voice came through the phone. "Don’t bother me if it’s not important."

The line went dead. Amidst the dial tone, the housekeeper glanced pitifully at the pale woman on the hospital bed.

She knew the couple’s relationship was poor, but she never imagined he would be so utterly unconcerned about whether his wife lived or died.

As the housekeeper let out a heavy sigh, Natalie Morgan opened her bloodshot eyes.

’That woman’s voice... it was Wanda Lynch.’

On the rare nights Theodore Grant came home, he would inevitably be called away by that same sweet, enchanting voice.

And all her nightmares were filled with that voice.

In Theodore Grant’s heart, Wanda Lynch was thousands, even tens of thousands of times more important than she was.

She closed her eyes.

’I’m so tired. I need to get some proper sleep.’

When she woke up again, Natalie Morgan received a call from a nurse at her mother’s hospital.

The message was simple: they needed her to come to the hospital to verify a bill.

"Nurse, my mom’s bills... weren’t they allowed to be left unpaid?"

The nurse on the other end sounded troubled. "Miss Morgan, the hospital is currently settling its accounts. Your mother’s bills haven’t been paid for a full year. We’ll have to trouble you to come to the hospital and settle the balance. Otherwise, it might affect her future treatment."

Before, she had always been able to receive treatment with the bills in arrears.

All because that hospital was a subsidiary of the Grant Group.

It was Theodore Grant’s property.

’It seems he’s no longer willing.’

Natalie Morgan’s eyelashes lowered in disappointment. She replied, "Okay, I’ll be right there."

Her birth mother, Yulia White, had been in a coma ever since the car accident.

They called it a stroke, but in reality, she was no different from a living corpse.

If Natalie Morgan were to give up on the treatment, it was unlikely anyone would blame her.

But she didn’t want to, and she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Staring at the final number on the long bill, Natalie Morgan frowned. "Is that... over two hundred thousand?"

"Yes, Miss Morgan. After reimbursement, the total is two hundred thirty-five thousand, eight hundred and sixteen yuan."

Two hundred and thirty thousand. It didn’t sound like a completely unattainable sum.

But it was money she didn’t have.