Boyfriend Grabbed Wrong Hand Eighteenth Time, I Loved His Enemy

1: 1

I was born with a cold constitution and trouble conceiving. The only cure was soaking in the Northshore hot springs eighteen times.

At the entrance to the lodge came the heart-matching game, and only couples who matched each other could enter the hot-spring suite to heal their bodies.

But every time Oswald was blindfolded, he pressed the heart on his palm precisely onto the hand of his childhood sweetheart, Paige Dickerson.

We played a full seventeen rounds, and not one heart on my hand was his.

Every time, I gave up the chance to share a room with the man I'd matched, and every time I was locked in the ice-water cell to soak in freezing water all night.

While he spent every night alone with Paige in the hot-spring room.

Coming out of the ice water yet again, I couldn't take it anymore.

"Oswald, didn't you say you'd never take the wrong hand?!"

But on the eighteenth round, he pressed the heart onto his childhood sweetheart's hand again.

"Bear it one more night. Next time it'll be your turn, I promise."

"Oswald, there's no next time. You go into that suite with her again, and we're done!"

Oswald raised an eyebrow, unbothered, so I grabbed my bag and walked out.

I was about to turn back for my coat when I heard them say,

"Oswald, you press the heart on Paige's hand on purpose every time, and Lottie Henson's dumb enough to think you actually took the wrong hand, ha Haha! "

"What if she really breaks up with you this time?"

Oswald gave a faint smile.

"She was born with a cold constitution, and she'd rather soak in ice water for days than share a room with another man. How could she ever leave me?"

"Paige has the weaker constitution. The hot springs have to go to her first."

The words had barely left his mouth when I kicked the door open and, in front of everyone, held out my palm.

"Whose heart is this? Tonight I'm rooming with him."

...

The line landed, and every person in the room froze for a second.

Then the whole place burst out laughing.

"Lottie, if you want to go soak in the ice water yourself, you don't have to come all the way back just to tell us a cold joke!"

"Everyone knows you're crazy in love with Oswald."

"Last time you were burning up with a fever, matched with some other guy, and you still went and soaked in the cold water happily."

"Give it a rest!"

I let out a cold laugh.

"His girlfriend's running a fever that won't break, and he, my boyfriend, sleeps easy with that little snake instead."

"Tell me, wouldn't just about anybody be better than that rotten cucumber?"

At that, the color visibly drained from Oswald's face.

"Lottie, I was only keeping Paige company in the springs to cure her cold constitution. Do you have to talk this ugly?"

"Besides, last time the doctor said the only way to bring your fever down was physical cooling. I did it for your own good."

He stood, casually picking my coat up off the chair.

"We've been together so long. How could I not ache for you?"

"Be good. Spend one more night in the ice-water cell."

"Once Paige finishes her eighteen soaks and is healed, next time it'll be your turn, I promise."

I'd heard this exact speech seventeen times.

I couldn't stand another second of it, and I flung his hand off hard.

"Oswald! You know perfectly well my body runs cold. I can't even drink a cup of ice water on a normal day."

"And you keep sending me into that ice-water cell..."

"Is Paige's life a life and mine isn't?!"

I'll never forget it. After I came out of the cell the first time, I burned with fever for a full half month.

The fever left me barely conscious. I nearly died.

Back then Oswald sat by my bed, eyes full of guilt, changing the warm towels and wiping the cold sweat off me, night after night.

Kissing my forehead, aching for me, swearing it would never happen again.

And the second round, he took Paige's hand anyway.

I clenched my fists tight.

"My body is my decision. That hot spring tonight, I'm soaking in it."

I held out my palm again.

"Whoever marked this, step forward."

Everyone in the room traded glances. No one dared answer.

Then Paige's eyes suddenly went red.

She tugged at Oswald's sleeve, the picture of pity.

"Oswald, maybe we should just let it go. Tonight I'll soak in the ice-water cell, and let Lottie go to the hot-spring room with you..."

"One cold night is nothing to me. I really can't bear to watch Lottie walk off with another man for my sake..."

Before Paige even finished, Oswald's face went dark.

He pulled her behind him with one hand.

"Everyone, show your palms. Let her look!"

He stared me down.

"Lottie, think this through."

"If you really dare walk off with some stranger today, I, Oswald Stephens, will never take you back!"

I didn't spare him a glance. I walked straight up to the line of male guests and started comparing, one by one.

Paige was frantic.

"Oswald, please don't fight with Lottie and break up over me!"

"If it really comes to it, I'll switch with her..."

Before Oswald could speak, I cut in cleanly.

"I already broke up with him for good just now. No need for you to put on that pathetic little act."

Careful and deliberate, I compared each man's hand in turn.

But the Oswald who'd been so righteous a moment ago wasn't calm anymore.

He fixed his eyes on every hand I lifted.

His stare was more anxious than mine, his heart tightening tighter and tighter.

Terrified that the next second I'd actually find that man and leave him for good.

As the number left shrank, Oswald couldn't hold back and spoke first.

"Lottie, if you really want to soak in the springs, fine, this once I'll"

He hadn't finished when I'd already checked the last man's hand.

My brow knotted hard.

There wasn't a single heart that matched the one on my hand?!

2: 2

How was this possible?!

I looked up before I could stop myself and started counting.

One, two, three...

Sure enough, one man was missing.

My heart dropped hard.

The next second, the whole room burst into even louder laughter.

"Ha, I get it now! The guy she matched with found out it was her and bolted straight into the ice-water cell to hide!"

"I'm dying. A minute ago she was so smug, ready to walk off with someone, and turns out nobody wanted her at all!"

"Talk about asking for it. She's got the fate of an ice-water cell her whole life, doesn't deserve one bit of warmth!"

The mockery came at me from every direction.

I was cold all over, humiliated past the limit.

And every trace of panic and anxiety in Oswald's eyes drained away in an instant.

In its place was complete, relaxed indifference, with a thread of contempt, like he was watching a joke play out.

He spoke lightly, his tone loose.

"You went and checked everyone. No one matched you. Satisfied now?"

I clenched my fists, my eyes red, staring at this man I'd loved for years.

"Oswald, are you just going to stand there and enjoy the show? You want to watch me freeze to death in that cell?"

The ice water in that cell had already ruined my body from the inside.

The doctor had warned me over and over. I could not touch that ice water again.

The eighteenth time was the limit.

One more soak, and my damaged constitution would be beyond saving, even by the miracle springs of Northshore.

The price was permanent infertility, with no cure.

But Oswald didn't have the patience to even hear me out. He stood and gently took Paige's hand.

"It's almost midnight. One night, and it'll be over before you know it."

"Worst case, I'll bring you back alone in half a month. Just you and me, all right?"

With that, he turned to lead Paige into the warm hot-spring suite.

Eighteen rounds of swallowed grievance and despair broke loose all at once.

I grabbed his sleeve and yanked hard.

"The players at the game table aren't all here. This round doesn't count!"

"Oswald, if I don't get to soak, neither do you and her!"

Without another word, I called the referee over.

He checked the rules and ruled quickly.

"A player is missing from this round. The round is void. All players suspend the game and move to the ice room to wait for tomorrow's rematch."

The moment those words landed, Oswald's face turned black.

"Lottie Henson, how can you be this selfish?!"

"Just because you're throwing a fit, you're going to drag everyone into a penalty?!"

I gave a cold laugh.

"When I took seventeen rounds of ice-water torture for you, half-dead each time, why didn't you call yourself selfish?"

"The ice room isn't even half as cold as the cell. If we're freezing, everyone freezes together!"

Get through this one night, and everything between me and Oswald from these past few years would be settled, done, nothing left between us.

The guests around us erupted.

"Why should we indulge her? We matched fair and square. Why should we sit and freeze for her!"

"Poor Oswald, stuck dating a girl this dramatic and this selfish. Who could stand it!"

Paige's eyes went red.

"Oswald, the doctor really did tell me I can't get cold... I'm finally almost healed, I can't be frozen..."

The next second, Oswald's cold gaze pinned itself on me.

"Tonight nobody's going to the ice room... except you!"

"Lottie Henson, get in that ice room and think hard about what you've done!"

I froze where I stood, the pain in my chest unbearable.

"On what grounds?! The rule is everyone gets penalized. On what grounds is it only me?!"

But before Oswald could answer, the staff dragged me straight into the ice room.

The bone-deep cold hit me at once.

There was nowhere to hide. I could only curl up in the corner, shaking.

Not long after, Paige posted on social media.

"Just like the childhood sweetheart I grew up with. He always puts me first ~"

The photo was of her and Oswald in the hot spring, soaking together, close.

3: 3

The comments were a wall of praise, all of it about how the two of them were childhood sweethearts, a match made in heaven.

And Oswald, from start to finish, never offered a single word of explanation.

I was frozen numb all over, but my mind had never been clearer.

I turned on the guard outside the door:

"The game's void, everyone's supposed to be locked in the ice room. So why do they get to soak in the hot spring? Doesn't your lodge follow its own rules?"

The guard's face twisted with scorn as he looked down at me.

"Rules? Miss Henson, Mr. Stephens is one of the shareholders of Northshore Lodge. His word is the rule."

A shudder ran through me, and the blood in my veins seemed to freeze on the spot.

"What did you say?"

"Mr. Stephens holds the highest access at the lodge. He can come and go from the hot-spring suite whenever he pleases. He never needed to play the heart-matching game at all."

"He sank a fortune into his stake in the first place just to heal Miss Dickerson's body."

"Playing the game was only a way to pass the time with her."

"And you actually thought you mattered."

I stumbled back a step, cold all through, unable to speak.

When Oswald and I first got together.

Full of nerves, I'd told him I was born with a cold constitution and trouble carrying a child.

That my only hope was the Northshore hot springs.

Back then he'd looked at me, gentle and grave, and said:

"No matter how hard it is, I'll get us the right to enter that lodge."

But he tried for a whole year, and all he ever found was the entrance.

I'd been so grateful at the time, sure I'd met the man I'd spend my life with.

So from the very beginning, all of it was a con he'd carefully stitched together.

The ice room grew colder and colder, my teeth chattering, my mind going hazy.

That was when Oswald's call came through.

"Admit you were wrong, and I'll let you out."

Before I could say anything, Paige's voice came sweet and soft from the other end.

"Oswald, where did my underwear go? Did you hide them again?"

A violent wave of nausea rose in my stomach. I hung up without another word, without a shred of longing left.

I pulled up the group photo from the start of tonight's game and searched frantically for the one man who'd gone missing.

The moment I found him, I froze for a beat.

Even behind the mask, I knew him. Dale Morton.

Oswald's archenemy.

Seventeen rounds of the heart-matching game, and the one who'd matched me perfectly every single time was him.

I hesitated, then hesitated again, and finally pulled up his contact.

I gritted my teeth and sent a message:

"Tomorrow night's game. Could you not leave?"

Dale went still for a moment, then answered.

"After all these times, you're finally agreeing?"

"I'll definitely stay."

By then I was too frozen even to reply.

In the instant my thoughts scattered, I suddenly remembered.

The Oswald of before, whose eyes had once held only me, who had once held me in his palm like something precious.

He knew I had a cold constitution, knew a child would be hard, knew the illness wasn't easy to treat.

When he couldn't find Northshore Lodge, he'd searched the world for doctors as if his life depended on it.

In the heat of summer there was always a jacket over his arm; before winter even came he'd bundle me up like a nesting doll and hold me tight against him.

But none of it could measure up to one Paige Dickerson.

A second before the dark took me completely, a rush of frantic, stumbling footsteps came pounding closer.

"Lottie Henson! Do you have a death wish?"

Oswald threw himself into the ice room, stripped off his coat and wrapped it tight around my frozen body.

Then he swept me up and ran for the infirmary.

His voice carried a panic and dread I'd never heard from him.

"Why are you so stubborn, why do you have to fight me on everything?"

"Would it kill you to just admit you were wrong?"

His words were harsh, but his grip on my hand was fierce, and he couldn't stop it.

"Lottie Henson, you can't let anything happen to you..."

The infirmary was warm, and I came back to myself quickly.

The moment I opened my eyes and saw him, I instinctively pulled away.

"Mr. Stephens, we've already broken up. Please have some decency."

Oswald's brows knotted hard.

"What are you making a scene about now? If I hadn't come, you'd be dead!"

4: 4

I tilted my lips into a smile.:

If it weren't for you, I'd never have been locked in there in the first place.

I lifted my head and looked straight into Oswald's eyes.:

Shareholder Stephens, shouldn't you be off helping your little childhood sweetheart find her underwear? What are you doing here, playing the devoted man?

His body stiffened, a flicker of panic in his eyes, and his voice softened at once.:

So you already know?

His gaze slid away, unable to meet mine.:

I didn't hide it from you on purpose. The lodge has its rules. The heart-matching game applies to everyone.

Lottie

He reached out to touch my hair, but I turned my head aside and let his hand fall short.

He was silent for a few seconds.:

I promise you. Tomorrow night's game, I'll choose you. No question.

Don't go to the ice room. Just stay here and rest.

With that, he dropped a hot-water bottle beside me, turned, and left.

I glanced at it and laughed.

Probably a freebie from the hot-spring suite.

The warmth he gave me was nothing but the leftovers he and Paige Dickerson didn't want.

The lodge had a rule in writing: every guest could use the hot spring only once every two weeks.

By that rule, everyone who had soaked last night should have lost their eligibility to compete today.

Yet Paige sat down at the game with no hesitation at all.

Her face was flushed and glowing, and she looked at me with open smugness.:

Lottie, thank you so much for suffering in my place yesterday.

But the doctor says I have to soak one more time to lock in the effect, or it won't fully heal and the illness could come back.

Right, Oswald?

I raised my eyes and looked coldly at Oswald beside me.

He said nothing, and his silence granted her every bit of favor.

A new round of the heart-matching game began.

Blindfold on. Feel for the hand. Mark the heart.

The eighteenth time, the heart mark on his palm landed without a single mistake in Paige's hand again.

He pulled off the blindfold, a trace of guilt he couldn't quite hide in his eyes.:

Last time. Once Paige is fully healed, I promise I'll only ever bring you here.

I've already told them. The water in the cell won't be too cold tonight.

With that, he didn't hesitate. He took Paige and turned toward the hot-spring suite.

After everyone there had gone.

I stood, and reached out first to take Dale Morton's hand.:

Come on. Let's go to the hot spring.

Oswald, there's no future for us.

Our future was put out for good, one bucket of ice water after another, by you.

Back in the hot-spring room, the unease in Oswald grew and grew, an anxiety he couldn't name.

He murmured under his breath, a thread of self-doubt in it.:

Am Ihave I really been too cruel to Lottie?

Paige took off her makeup, unbothered.:

You're overthinking it. Lottie's so tough, she got through seventeen rounds of ice water. One more won't make a difference.

If I don't lock it in this once, all eighteen of those hot-spring soaks are wasted. You really want to throw away all that effort for nothing?

She talked him around, and he forced the discomfort back down.

While Paige showered, he had no heart left for the red wine.

Instead, for once, he pulled up his chat history with me.

Lately our messages had grown fewer and fewer.

From hundreds a day before, to now barely once in a week or two.

While he and Paige were glued together all day long.

Guilt rose in his chest, and he couldn't bear to look any longer.

Just as he was about to close the screen, he noticed a medical record.

Eighteen cumulative immersions in ice water: the cold in her body becomes fully irreversible, with no possibility of ever bearing a child.

The eighteenth time.

Tonight was exactly the eighteenth time!

Oswald's mind went blank in an instant.

He tore out of the suite like a madman and ran for the ice-water cell.

Lottie Henson!

Let Lottie Henson out! Now!

The staff member looked at him, baffled.:

Miss Henson didn't go into the cell tonight.

His pupils shrank, panic pushed to its limit.:

Then where is she?!

Miss Henson went into the hot-spring suite with one of the male guests.