Little did Channing know, all his calculations had already fallen apart. No matter how Catherine had treated him tonight, he wouldn't dare barge into the hospital and complain to Renata—not when his own life was at stake.
Hearing Catherine say dinner had gone "fine," Renata let out a soft sigh of relief. She gently reminded her, "It's late. Don't come back tonight. Get some rest. Just be here in the morning before I go into surgery."
Catherine murmured an acknowledgment and ended the call.
The moment she opened the door and stepped into her apartment, every last thread of restraint inside her snapped.
She collapsed onto the sofa like a puppet with its strings cut. The reality crashed over her—Channing's cold-blooded betrayal, Renata's life hanging on tomorrow's surgery—and all the emotions she had been forcing down exploded at once. She buried her face in her hands and broke down crying.
Only when she was completely alone did she dare to cry like this—loud, desperate, unrestrained.
In front of Renata, she always forced herself to smile. She never allowed the slightest flicker of fear to show, afraid it would worsen her mother's condition.
She had already stopped expecting anything from Channing years ago. But when he openly told her to marry some old bank president to save his company… it still felt like someone had taken a knife and carved a hole straight through her heart. A hole so deep it bled endlessly in the dark.
What she couldn't understand was this: why was there such a vast difference between how Channing treated her and how he treated Lucca?
They were both his daughters.
Was this what they meant by loving the house and its crow? Because Channing had loved Lucca's mother, Tracy, he loved Lucca as well? And because he despised Renata, he despised Catherine too?
Fine. Hate her. Ignore her. She could accept that.
But how could he be so cruel as to sacrifice her entire future—her happiness, her life—to benefit someone else?
Channing's words tonight didn't just shatter Catherine's faith in him as a father—they shattered whatever dreams she had left about men, about marriage, about family. For the first time, she imagined a horrifying possibility:
If I ever had a child with a man like that… if he ever treated my child the way Channing treats me… I might kill him.
She cried until her voice was hoarse and her body trembled.
Then—knock, knock.
A sudden knock at the door jolted her back to reality.
Her tears stopped instantly. Panic shot through her. Did I disturb the neighbors?
She scrambled for tissues, wiping away her tears as quickly as she could, struggling to calm her breathing. The knocking continued.
Heart pounding, she moved to the door and looked through the peephole.
If it was a neighbor, she could explain she had been crying because her mother was going into surgery. People were usually understanding about that.
But when she saw who it really was—
Her breath hitched.
When Catherine looked through the peephole, she froze.
It wasn't a neighbor—it was him. The man who had driven her back just moments ago.
She opened the door in a daze, brows slightly knit. "Is there… something you need?"
Had it been anyone else, she might have tried to hide the fact that she'd been crying. But he had already seen everything tonight—her humiliation, her father's slap, her near-bride-to-be sold off like property. There was nothing left to conceal.
Bert lowered his eyes and looked at her. Her lashes were still damp, her nose and eyelids tinged red from tears. The right side of her face was swollen, an ugly testament to Channing's cruelty. There was no beauty left in her features—but her eyes, reddened and glistening from crying, were painfully clear. They held a fragile kind of resilience, the kind that stirred something even a ruthless man like him couldn't ignore.
As expected, she had come home to cry.
He tore his gaze away from her face and glanced inside the apartment. His voice was calm, detached, as if he were commenting on the weather.
"May I use your bathroom?"
Catherine blinked for a second before understanding his intent. He was making an excuse to come in.
She stepped aside. "Sure."
Bert walked in. Catherine pointed weakly toward the hallway. "It's over there."
Given everything he had done for her tonight, she couldn't exactly refuse him over something as trivial as that. Besides, it wasn't like she had any strength left to argue.
Only after he disappeared into the bathroom did she recall—he had already used the restroom back at the restaurant. So why come again?
Her hand subconsciously touched the swollen area on her face, and she remembered his last words before she got out of the car—Ice it. Immediately.
She went to the freezer, pulled out a gel ice pack, and pressed it lightly against her cheek. The cold seeped into her skin, numbing the sting. It helped. A little.
The bathroom door opened with a soft click.
He walked out, sleeves slightly rolled, hands freshly washed.
Catherine froze mid-motion, the ice pack half pressed to her cheek. Suddenly, she became acutely aware of how she must look—red-eyed, disheveled, holding an ice pack to her face like some tragic heroine.
Not exactly the image she ever wanted to show a man.
Especially not this man.
He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a handkerchief—plaid in muted shades of light and dark brown. Even the fabric he used, simple and understated, somehow reflected the quiet restraint of the man himself.
While wiping his hands with unhurried elegance, his eyes flicked over to her. He noticed how she had frozen mid-motion, ice pack hovering awkwardly against her cheek. A faint glimmer of amusement slipped into his tone as he spoke.
"Keep pressing it. What's there to be shy about?"
Catherine's face instantly heated, despite the cold against her skin. With the ice pack in hand, she was stuck—continuing looked ridiculous, but stopping would be even worse.
Bert slipped the handkerchief back into his pocket and stood there with both hands casually buried in his trousers, gazing at her through deep, unreadable eyes. His features were sharply defined, his presence as still and imposing as ever.
Catherine found herself looking away again. She didn't understand what was wrong with her. She was twenty-six. She had seen all kinds of men—elegant ones, handsome ones, even the kind who were smooth-tongued and dangerously charming. She was long past the age of blushing over a man's attention.
But none of them had ever made her feel this kind of oppressive urge to retreat.
He wasn't doing anything. Just standing there. Just looking.
And yet, every second of his gaze made her heartbeat jump out of rhythm, as if the room had shrunk around them.
It's not me, she reassured herself. It's his aura. We just…don't get along on a fundamental level.
Yes. That had to be it.