Avery blinked rapidly, trying to convince herself that she was seeing things because of her anxiety. But each time her eyes opened, it was always the same person lying on the bed and that person was not Brian.
She could have retraced her steps and concluded that she entered the wrong room, but her gut instints told her otherwise. What further compounded her suspicions was the fact that the man on the bed bore a striking resemblance to Brian. As he was a little bit thinner and paler, she could tell he was not her fiance.
Something was terribly wrong somewhere and the fact that she entered this room seemed to be leading her to the truth. She walked back out to check the name sign on the door and there it was…
The sign read, 'Brandon Walker' instead of 'Brian Walker'.
"What the hell is going on?" she murmured. Brandon…the name seemed familiar and at the same time, unfamiliar to her. She ran her hand through her hair as she made an attempt to call up memories of when she encountered that name; and when it finally dawned on her, Avery's heartbeat spiked.
The man inside the ward was Brian's twin brother who had been in a coma for more than two years now. But why was he here instead of Brian? She could only think of one reason for that, and it was distraction. The aim of whoever it was that made her call off the wedding to wait outside the operating theatre for hours when Brian wasn't the one in there, was to distract her. To throw her off guard for hours before she would eventually realize that she had been tricked.
Who could the person be and what would he gain by distracting her?, she wondered.
And if Brandon Walker was the one in the room, where was her own fiance then? Only a nurse or doctor in this hospital would be able to answer that so she found her way back to the nurse's station where she was lucky to find the one who attended to her a few minutes ago.
"You directed me to wrong room, Nurse," she pointed out as soon as she got to the desk, impatience evident in her tone. "I paid for Brian Walker and not Brandon Walker. You must have gotten them mixed up."
"Brian Walker? There's no one with that name in our hospital," the nurse replied. "And I especially don't think you should be looking for anyone with that surname in our hospital."
Avery raised her brows at the downright impolite tone of the nurse. She had talked to the woman earlier and this was not how she had been addressed.
"Nurse," she called gently, attempting to mask her impatience. "I get you might be having a bad day but could you keep that aside for a moment and attend to me? I need to know which ward my fiance, Brian Walker was assigned to! He was in an accident!"
The nurse scoffed, "Seeing as you are in a wedding dress, I guess you really must be delusional, Miss. If Brian Walker was in an accident, wouldn't the news of that be airing on all TV stations instead of that one showing now?"
Avery wanted to argue but she managed to keep herself calm. The nurse was right. The news about her postponed wedding due to Brian's accident should have been making waves by now and reporters, the reporters should be crowding the hospital entrance now.
She turned to throw a casual glance at the TV screen but seeing the news being displayed, her eyes refused to move away from it.
[BREAKING NEWS: HEIR TO THE WALKER'S FOUNDATION, BRIAN WALKER, CALLS OFF WEDDING TO AVERY McCALUM THE ALLEGED FAKE HEIRESS OF THE MCCALLUM GROUP OF COMPANIES]
Immediately after the text display was a short footage of Brian in a black suit and standing in front of the hall their wedding was supposed to hold.
"I had not the least bit idea about it all. This makes me believe the saying that beautiful people harbor the evilest thoughts in their mind," he said. Taking a short pause, Avery noticed the faked remorse which flashed in his eyes as he continued, "I can only pray that Chairman McCallum continues to rest in peace even though he was murdered in such a gruesome manner."
Avery had no idea that she had slowly left the nurse's desk to stand in front of TV where her appearance was slowly drawing people's attention.
"Who is that?"
"Shouldn't your question be why is a woman in such a beautiful wedding dress standing in the hospital?"
"Why? There are many reasons a woman in a wedding dress can stand…"
Avery zoned the voices out of her mind as she continued to watch the news, her jaws slacked in disbelief. She would be lying if she said she understood a single thing out of the numerous things being said on TV.
When did she become a fake heiress of the McCallum family? When had she set her older sister up for a rape and filmed the incident to blackmail her into handing over her shares? When did she contract assassins to kill Arthur and fake it as a car accident because he threatened to throw her out of the family? And finally, when the hell had she paid their family butler to poison her grandfather's morning tea?!
Avery swayed, falling slowly to a squat.
"All those must have been a dream! Jeez, nightmares will never leave me, will they? It's time to wake up, Avery, this dream is scary," she reassured herself in her mind as she raised her hand up to pinch her cheeks.
"Ouch! That was pain—" she hissed, cutting herself off when she realized she had felt the pain. It was impossible to feel pain while dreaming, right?
She rose slowly to her feet and turned, spotting the two men who had been arguing earlier about why she was wearing a dress in a hospital. Forcing a small smile, she took slow and unsteady steps towards them.
"Excuse me, Sir. Could I borrow your phone for a minute?"
The men shared confused looks before one of them brought out his phone to give her.
"Thanks," Avery murmured. She hurriedly logged in to social media to see the most searched topics on there. That would show her if she was just having a silly dream or if this was happening in real life.
"Trending topics hashtag 1," she read out loud. As she was unable to believe what she was seeing, reading them out loud would probably convince her.
{#1. Fake Heiress Avery McCallum wipes out immediately family overnight; greedily aims to do the same in her ex-fiance's family.
#2. Top Model Emma McCallum private videos released; her career destroyed by adopted sister Avery McCallum.}
"This…What did I just read?!" Avery screamed.