They all assumed I was deeply in love with Carter. He assumed the same.
That was why they'd conspired to set this trap for me.
Right now, Carter was waiting for me to fall apart. Waiting for me to beg him to come back.
He was wrong.
Under every mocking stare in the room, I slipped the engagement ring off my finger and let it drop to the floor like it weighed nothing.
"Congratulations on your marriage, Carter."
"We're done."
The words hung in the air.
Carter, still holding Nora, went rigid. His expression darkened as he stared at me.
"You're doing this on purpose, Amanda. Trying to get under my skin."
"Just because I humiliated you at the engagement party, now you're pretending you don't care."
I looked at him with a cold smile.
"Whether I care or not—"
"You'll find out soon enough."
With that, I turned and walked out of the banquet hall. I pulled out my phone.
"Stop delivering medication to the Gilbert residence."
"And suspend the new drug research project with the Hensons. I'm cutting ties with them. Permanently."
Since I was leaving the Henson family behind, I intended to resign from Henson Medical Center as well.
Three days later, I finished the handover.
And ran straight into Nora, who was at the hospital for a checkup.
She took one look at the cardboard box in my arms and let out a soft laugh.
"Amanda. Three years ago, when you destroyed my reputation and got me blacklisted from every medical school in the country—did you ever imagine you'd end up like this?"
"So what if I never became a doctor? I still managed to drive you out of this hospital."
Looking at that smug, gloating face, it all came flooding back.
Three years ago, Nora and I were both graduate students under the same advisor. But she'd been desperate for quick results and secretly purchased unauthorized materials, mixing them into the drugs we were developing.
The entire batch was ruined.
She pinned every last bit of blame on me—the person who'd been on duty with her that day.
In the end, the police traced the purchase records back to her and cleared my name. But because she'd destroyed nearly six months of the institute's work, she was blacklisted from the field entirely.
Nora, of course, blamed all of it on me.
She'd been looking for payback ever since.
"I have to say, I didn't expect your man to be so easy to reel in. A few staged run-ins and he convinced himself it was fate."