"Ms. Nelson, these fertility injections will accelerate the spread of your cancer cells. At this rate, your body may not hold out for more than six months. Are you absolutely certain you want to proceed?" the doctor asked, his brow furrowed with concern. Nina thought of her child overseas, the one whose life depended on the stem cells she could provide. She nodded without hesitation. "I'm sure, Doctor. Let's do it." He sighed softly before administering the injection. As she gathered her things to leave, he made one final attempt. "If you focused on treatment instead of pregnancy, recovery would still be possible." She appreciated his concern, truly. But time was a luxury she no longer had. 'Just hold on,' she silently pleaded with her own body. 'Long enough to conceive. Long enough to carry this baby to term.' From the hospital, she went straight to the hotel where Xavier always stayed. Inside the room, her pulse thundered in her ears as she watched him. His mind was clouded now by the sedative she had slipped into his drink. Five years had carved him into someone else. The warmth she remembered had hardened into something cold and unyielding. Her trembling fingers reached for his belt, but before she could touch the buckle, his hand clamped around her wrist like a steel trap. She looked up and met his eyes. There was nothing foggy or confused in that gaze. Xavier's voice cut through the silence like a blade. "Nina. Are you trying to get yourself killed? Slipping me a mickey takes a special kind of audacity." After five years of silence, these were the first words he had spoken to her. Shame burned in her chest, but she forced it down. Her fingers dug into his shoulders as she leaned in, desperate to kiss him. He shoved her back so hard she nearly fell off the bed. Before she could recover, he sat up, his face flushed with barely restrained fury. His hand closed around her throat, and his eyes blazed with contempt. "What is this? Couldn't handle the loneliness after your poor husband died? Nina, you're pathetic." The crude words stung her eyes with tears she refused to shed. Those beautiful eyes of his, the ones that had once looked at her with nothing but adoration, now held only frost and disgust. Memories crashed over her like waves, stealing the air from her lungs. Just as the edges of her vision began to darken, he released her throat and flung her back onto the mattress. Fabric ripped, the sound obscenely loud in the quiet room. Tears soaked into her hair as he took her with a brutality that felt like punishment. Their bodies still remembered every curve, every familiar scent. But the love that had once lived between them was long dead. Even through the fog of the sedative, his revulsion was unmistakable. It radiated from every harsh touch, every clipped breath. At the peak, his breath scalding her ear, he growled three words. "Nina, you disgust me." Once, in moments like this, he would have whispered breathless promises, his voice rough with wanting. Now there was only poison. The words wrapped around her heart like a noose and pulled tight. And then the past came for her, merciless and complete.