"Fern Fox, I swear—I'm going to become the best doctor I can be. I'll keep you safe and healthy for the rest of your life."
What a joke.
The man who'd chosen medicine to protect me—
And now, for the sake of another woman, he was going to carve out my kidney with his own hands.
I looked at Benedict, my voice calm.
"Could I meet this kind stranger? She's saving my life, after all. I'd like to thank her properly."
Benedict had a reputation in our circles—the devoted husband, the one-woman man.
Young, successful, handsome. Women threw themselves at him constantly. Even the hospital director's daughter had made her interest painfully clear, publicly declaring that if Benedict wanted her, the entire hospital could bear his name.
But he never wavered. He'd nearly gotten himself blacklisted from the medical community for turning her down.
And through it all, he'd held my hands and said: "I could lose everything else in this world. But never you."
So what kind of woman could make a man like that—a man who treated loyalty like religion—change?
Benedict hesitated for just a moment before smiling.