Chapter 5

At dawn, Alexis sneaks into her house disheveled, reeling from a night with Daniel. She panicked after seeing his driver’s license and realizing he is 28, nearly a decade younger, and fled while he slept, even losing a shoe in farmyard muck on the way out.

Alexis finds her twin brother Derek waiting. He notices hickeys and assumes she reconciled with Neil, but Alexis clarifies it was a brief encounter with someone new. They discuss protection and Neil’s abandoned belongings, highlighting the unresolved tension of Alexis’s breakup.

Derek presents an NDA; once Alexis signs, he reveals he secretly married Nikki, a famous recording artist known as Lola Simone, during his Cambodia stint. He explains the quiet ceremony and Nikki’s need for privacy, sharing photos to prove it.

Derek then announces he is moving to Cambodia to support Nikki’s project and continue volunteer surgery. This devastates Alexis, who realizes his departure leaves her as the sole Montgomery at Royaume Northwestern, the hospital her family has staffed for over a century.

Facing the pressure of preserving the family legacy, Alexis feels unable to leave Royaume despite needing distance from her manipulative ex, Neil, the chief of surgery. She fears Neil’s likely shift from remorse to hostility if she resists reconciliation and laments being trapped by duty.

Derek urges Alexis to break the chain and choose her own life, but she feels too constrained by history and expectation, concluding bleakly that she will never escape.