MIDNIGHT Bride The CEO's TEMPTATION

Robert went to his wife when he saw her coming back and held the umbrella above her head.

Madison didn't expect him to wait for her in the rain with an umbrella as if they were an affectionate couple.

For a moment, she didn't know how to react.

"What's wrong? Is Cecelia okay?" He asked anxiously.

"She's fine," Madison sneered at herself, "I just didn't expect you'd come to pick me up."

"After all, we've been married for decades." Robert dropped his eyelids, looking a little embarrassed—that did not match his status and age.

Madison forced a smile.

"Madison, I know," he sighed, "There's a lot I've done wrong. We've been fighting and bickering since we were young, but after all these years, I'm tired... Whatever you may think, you're my wife, and we're going to spend the rest of our life together."

Madison's eyes turned red. If only her husband had said that to her earlier.

Unfortunately, they had been rebellious and never understood each other when they were too young. They thought this political marriage was not what they wanted, so they never tried to accept each other.

Half a lifetime passed.

They didn't realize they had become an inseparable part of each other.

There was nothing better than to hear her husband reveal his mind and ask for peace.

But what if her husband knew that she had betrayed him and that Cecelia was not his daughter?

Her back shivered at the thought.

No. Robert must not know the secret, otherwise, the harmony of their relationship would be broken again.

Robert didn't know what Madison was thinking, but he felt her trembling slightly. He moved the umbrella a little closer to her. "Let's go in."

Recovering herself, she looked up to see her husband's gentle face. She kept her mind calm and was led into the house by Robert, arm in arm, as if they had always been so affectionate.

* * *

Robert was too busy with his business to visit his daughter in the sanatorium.

So, Madison went to accompany Cecelia every day.

Cecelia had been very quiet, as if she had forgotten what she had said that day.

Madison tried to start the unfinished topic again a few times, but Cecelia didn't respond.

Then she knew her daughter would just keep it secret.

Cecelia knew the severity of the matter, and she knew the consequences were unimaginable once the outsiders knew.

Madison was not relieved but more worried because the secret hidden in her daughter's heart made her daughter pine away day by day.

She knew that for the sake of the integrity of the family, even if she had to lose Kevin, she would hold on to this secret tightly and never utter a word. However, because of this, she looked weaker and soulless day by day.

At first, it was just a common fever, and then it turned to pneumonia.

A few days later, Cecelia didn't recover but began to cough blood.

Madison watched the nurse inject her daughter anxiously, her face no better than Cecelia's. When the nurse went out, tears started to Madison's eyes, and she rushed to the bedside.

"Cecelia, how are you feeling?"

"Don't worry, I'll be fine." Cecelia forced a weak smile, raising her hand to wipe tears from her mother's face.

How could she be fine?

Since she came back from the earthen-stricken town, she had been losing weight day by day.

"Don't think about that guy, okay? I beg you, Cecelia," Madison looked at her gaunt daughter with red eyes.

Cecelia sighed.

"Mom, if someone told you not to think about dad, could you do it?"

Her remark pulled Madison up short.

"You and dad had fought and bickered for so many years, but I know you're still the most important one for each other in your hearts. You quarrel because you care too much. Right?" Cecelia said weakly.

Madison looked at her daughter and felt for the first time that her daughter had really grown up. Maybe she became mature overnight because of that man.

But such a sensible daughter made her more pain.

She grasped Cecelia by her hand, whispering in a trembling voice, "Cecelia, if you really like him, tell him... Tell him the truth, tell him that you are not Robert's daughter, that you are not related to him by blood. Let him know that you are not his sister and that he will be with you."

Cecelia looked a little startled, a great longing flashing in her eyes.

No. She calmed down.

It was a shocking secret. She couldn't be so selfish.

Dad might not forgive mom, and their marriage would be over.

She could not destroy her family, her mother's happiness, for the sake of her own.

At last, she held her mother's hand gently but firmly.

"It's all right, Mom, I'll be fine. You can rest assured. That secret will never be known."

"But you --" Madison couldn't see her daughter so depressed.

"I'll try to forget him. He should also be trying to forget me now." Cecelia gave her a weak smile.

Madison's heart ached, tears streaming down her face.

When Cecelia fell asleep, she tucked her daughter in, dried her eyes, and left the room.

Back home, Madison was tossing and turning for a sleepless night.

Robert noticed his wife's anxiety, but he didn't know how to ask about it.

***

The phone was ringing gratingly after midnight.

The housekeeper, with a frightened face, rushed upstairs and knocked on the door of the couple's bedroom.

"Sir, Madam, wake up! The sanatorium called and said Miss Smith's condition is critical! She's in the emergency room now!"

"What?" Robert and Madison's face blanched.

They put on their clothes and hurried downstairs. Accompanied by guards, they headed for the sanatorium.

When the couple rushed to the emergency room, just in time to see the nurse come out from the room.

Madison, regardless of her usual dignified bearing, ran to the nurse and asked quickly, "How's my daughter? Why? Isn't it pneumonia? Why is she in a critical condition now?"

"Miss Smith suddenly had difficulty breathing tonight and went into shock. It seems that her pleural fluid suddenly increased, and her pneumonia worsened..."