The Billionaire’s Secret Quartet

"Oh man, Lydia might have gotten the wrong idea. This could be a huge misunderstanding," Ethan muttered to himself, feeling the weight of the situation.

He quickly called out to the room, "Alaric, man, you're sick, and I was just trying to help by getting a doctor. And now you're giving me grief?"

It was his roundabout way of clearing the air, stressing that Alaric's illness wasn't his doing.

"Ethan, come on, dude. I bust my butt every day for you, and you hit me with this cold talk. Have you got no heart for me anymore? Cough, cough..." Alaric, delirious from the fever, starving and miserable, had been lying in bed waiting for Ethan to come back for what felt like forever.

His feelings of neglect were mounting.

After years of being tight as brothers, Ethan wouldn't just leave him in the lurch, would he?

Thinking about their long-standing friendship only made him feel worse.

Alaric's heart was a wasteland of disappointment.

His words couldn't help but get a bit dramatic.

Ethan felt a wave of embarrassment. Alaric's accusations were getting more outrageous by the minute.

With no clear explanation in sight, he stepped aside to let Lydia enter the room first.

As Lydia passed him, she shot him a look filled with amusement and laughter.

She didn't say anything, just walked straight into the room.

Ethan, on the other hand, felt utterly downcast. Great, first branded a troublemaker, and now caught in a misunderstanding. This was just his luck. Lydia was already by Alaric's bedside, asking, "What's making you feel so awful?"

The moment Alaric opened his eyes and saw Lydia, he was shocked. "Lydia! Dr. Funke's apprentice! Ethan, you actually got her to come!"

"Cut the chatter, what's actually wrong with you?" Lydia wasn't interested in anything beyond his symptoms.

"I feel terrible all over, anxious, feverish, my stomach's growling but I can't eat..." After a day and a night of fever, Alaric felt close to death. Seeing the doctor, he felt like he had seen a lifeline and was eager to explain his condition.

Lydia took a thermometer out of her medical bag and handed it to him, "Check your temperature first."Content protected by Nôv/el(D)rama.Org.

That's when Ethan walked in. He said to Lydia, "He's just been fighting with Hertha, and then he fell sick. Sounds like lovesickness to me. A case of needing heart medicine for a heart problem, right?"

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Ethan was trying to make sure Lydia understood Alaric's sickness stemmed from a quarrel with a girl, not from anything Ethan had done. He was aiming to clear up the earlier misunderstanding.

Lydia shot him a disdainful glance, "I'm talking to the patient, not you."

Ethan clamped his mouth shut, not uttering another word.

With the thermometer tucked under his arm, Alaric turned to find Ethan looking all bruised up, "Ethan, what happened to you, man? You look like you've been in a brawl."

Ethan replied with a mix of frustration and self-pity, "All thanks to our esteemed doctor here..."

"Oh? You got beef with Lydia now?" Alaric couldn't resist a bit of gossip.

"It's nothing. Just focus on taking your temperature and let me know the result," Lydia interjected before leaving the room.

Alaric gave Ethan a look, signaling him to come closer.

Ethan approached the bedside, and Alaric whispered, "What did you do to get on her bad side?"

Thinking about it just irritated Ethan

even more, and he couldn't help but push Alaric lightly, saying, "It's all because of you! You've got me into a whole heap of trouble!"

"Me? Really?" Alaric was genuinely surprised.