Harvey’s expression tensed for just a moment.

Zoey noticed. She leaned in gently and asked, “Are you feeling okay?”

He gave a subtle shake of his head, but before he could answer, the creditor beside him scoffed with disdain.

“It’s gotta be that woman, Sarah,” the man said, voice edged with contempt. “Always feeding Mr. Jameson God-knows-what.”

The creditor snorted, then added with a twisted admiration, “Good thing Mr. Jameson thought ahead. Pretended to be emotionally unstable, smashed a few dishes. Gave him an excuse to avoid her food. Though somehow, he still ended up eating a lot.”

The creditor tsked, shaking his head. “That woman’s up to no good.”

'Up to no good?' Sarah let out a bitter, silent laugh.

When Harvey first got sick, she’d run all over the city looking for hospitals that would take him. She could barely afford to feed herself, but never skipped a day buying his medication.

Later, when they were both living in that drafty, leaking shipping container on the grape vineyard, she survived on scraps of burnt loaves soaked in cold water.

Vegetables were a rare luxury. And whenever Sarah managed to get her hands on a few drops of oil or a scrap of meat, it always went into Harvey’s bowl. Always.

Harvey never knew that she would get on her knees and eat the leftovers straight off the floor whenever he smashed a bowl or plate during one of his outbursts. She was careful not to waste a single drop.

Now, that food was being dismissed as 'God-knows-what.'

A wave of exhaustion hit her so deeply that it felt like it reached her bones.

With that, Sarah didn’t spare the group another glance. She just turned and walked away, returning to the estate alone.

After her grandmother passed, Sarah was taken in by the Stevens family, which, on paper, made Zoey her sister. Her grandmother had said the Stevens were distant relatives and they would look after her.

And in a way, they did.

But there was never warmth. Never affection. Just an obligation.

The Stevens treated her as if she were invisible.

Conversely, Zoey seized every opportunity to torment her. Things only began to change when Sarah’s talent for design started to emerge. Even then, her position in the house hardly improved. At best, she was the one doing Zoey’s work.

Sarah had truly believed Harvey was the only light left in her life after her grandmother died.

He stated that he had fallen for her at first sight, was serious, and that she was the one.

Young love was like this—messy, intense, fast, and burned bright. She’d fallen hard.

And even after he lost everything, Sarah had stayed.

She never thought the truth would be this cruel.

So cruel that now, curled up inside the same rusting shipping container that had once been her safe place, she couldn’t stop the tears from falling.

But sorrow didn’t keep her company for long.

As she wiped her face, her fingers brushed against a folded sheet of paper tucked in the corner of a drawer.

She unfolded it slowly.

Harvey’s handwriting stared back at her.

[Lie to Sarah about the debt.]

[Make Sarah do illegal labor at the vineyard.]

[Pretend to be sick so Sarah has to search for medicine all night and still work the next day.]

[Set up snake traps along Sarah’s path down the vineyard hill.]

Ninety-seven entries in total. Harvey’s full prank list.

She stared at it, forcing herself to read each one like punishment.

Every night, she sat beside him, consumed with worry for his health.

Every day, she forced herself to traverse the city for medicine whenever he coughed.

Yet, all of it was merely part of a game.

Only three pranks remained on the paper for Harvey to keep his promise to Zoey. It was overwhelming her.

Then, Sarah remembered that Harvey had always told her not to touch his things in this tiny container.

Maybe he hadn’t even bothered to hide the list. Maybe he just assumed she’d never dare look.

Her fingers stopped at number eighty-five.

[Pretend to be seriously ill and on the brink of death. Mix the land transfer agreement for her grandmother’s grave into a surgical consent form and trick her into signing it.]

Sarah’s vision tilted.

She remembered that day.

Harvey had been fine. Then suddenly, he collapsed.

At the hospital, the doctor said his condition was critical.

She had panicked. Hands trembling, vision blurry, she’d signed the forms pushed in front of her without reading. She was too scared that even a moment’s hesitation might cost him his life.

She had no idea it was all planned. Staged.

While she ran around, begging for money, terrified he might not make it through surgery, Harvey had been using his own life as leverage to trick her into signing over the land her grandmother was buried on.

Her chest clenched so tightly she could barely breathe. It was like someone had dropped a lead weight on her lungs.

She couldn’t let her grandmother be disturbed. Not even in death.

Her grandmother had been her whole world, and she was the only one who truly loved her. Even when illness had drained her body, she still found the strength to go to the Stevens family and beg them to take Sarah in.

And now, even her resting place had been violated. How could she allow her peace to be disturbed after death?

Sarah sat there, her breath shallow, the paper trembling in her hands.

It was like waking up from the worst dream of her life. Only this wasn’t a dream.

She pulled herself together, changed her clothes, and ran out the door.

It hadn’t been that long since it happened.

Maybe… maybe she still had a chance to plead.

Sarah spotted Harvey in the office at the very top of the vineyard estate. From the day she arrived, she had been repeatedly warned to stay away from that restricted area. She never imagined that Harvey himself had put up those boundaries, deliberately keeping her at a distance.

When they first met, he came across as just another college student—humble, quiet, unassuming. Nothing about him suggested wealth or influence, so she had naturally assumed he came from a modest home.

But now she saw it. He’d been lying from the start, hiding who he was, keeping her at arm’s length the whole time.

She pushed past the guards who scrambled to stop her. Harvey’s gaze darkened the moment he saw her.

Zoey was seated beside him, giving Sarah a lazy, amused once-over. She looked exactly how Zoey liked her: disheveled, broken, pathetic. She had never liked Sarah. Not even from the beginning, especially after learning the real reason Sarah had ended up in her home.

As Sarah looked at Harvey, she gritted her teeth and dropped to her knees.

“Harvey,” she said, her voice tight, “if you want to mess with me, fine. But my grandma was the only family I had left. Can you return the transfer agreement to me? Please don’t move her grave. I’m begging you.”

Even when life had knocked her down, Sarah had never begged anyone.

Only twice.

Once, to a doctor, begging them to save Harvey’s life.

And now this.

Harvey’s brow twitched. For a moment, it looked like he might actually say something.

But before he could, Zoey cut in sweetly. “Harvey, help me pick a ring for the charity gala. That fifty-carat pink diamond you gave me last week? I think it’s perfect.”

Then she leaned in close, her voice barely above a whisper. “Harvey, only three more to go.”

Harvey noticed the signal but never looked back at Sarah. He turned away as if she didn't exist.

Sarah trembled. Her body still hadn’t recovered from the snake trap, and she had just sold blood again. She could barely stay upright.

But the two of them sat there, warm, close, and content, like she was invisible.

Sarah told herself it didn’t matter. She should let it go.

After all, she knew now that none of Harvey's warmth, the smiles, or promises had been real. Every bit of it had been calculated.

Still, knowing that didn’t make it any easier.

She sat there watching Harvey hold Zoey’s hand, watching them pick out rings she wouldn’t have dared to dream of even in her most extravagant fantasies.

She dropped her head, forcing down the sting in her eyes.

He handed out pink diamonds like candy while she worked under the scorching sun, picking grapes and selling her blood to buy Harvey medicine.

“Harvey, what is this?” Zoey’s voice rang across the room. “This cord is so ugly! It’s chafing your wrist. Let’s just burn it.”

She casually slipped off the knotted cord bracelet with the charm and reached for the lighter on the table.

Sarah froze.

That bracelet was her grandmother’s.

Before thinking about it, she lunged forward and yanked it from Zoey’s hand.

Zoey stumbled back in surprise. Her eyes immediately welled with tears.

“Sarah, I know you don’t like me,” she said, her voice trembling. “You always try to take everything from me. Please stop bullying me… I’m scared.”

For a second, Sarah almost believed her.

She had never truly understood why Zoey hated her so much. For years, she thought staying quiet and innocent would be enough to keep the peace.

But now, with Harvey right there, she opened her mouth without thinking.

“I didn’t—”

Suddenly, a sharp crack of shattering porcelain broke the moment as a teacup smashed against the tile beside her, and in the same instant, a searing pain shot through her temple.

Warm blood began to slide down the side of her face. Dazed, she reached up, her fingers coming away sticky, while her clothes, soaked from the grape juice, clung to her skin, cold and damp.

Harvey looked down at her like she was nothing.

“This isn’t the place for your tantrums, Sarah,” he said, flat and cold. “Zoey’s too kind to lay a hand on you, but I’m not.”

Sarah blinked, stunned, as the man before her felt like a complete stranger.

Once, they had shared real moments. Harvey had no hidden identity back then, and she had no idea he came from unimaginable wealth.

In that tiny rented room where they used to talk about the future, he would look at her with eyes so tender she truly believed she could lose herself in them.

The tears she’d tried so hard to hold back finally broke free.

For a second, Harvey’s face shifted. It softened, like he might be hesitating.

Then Zoey let out a soft whine. “Harvey, I’m not feeling great. I wonder if it’s the baby…”

Her voice snapped Harvey out of it. Without a word, he turned away from Sarah and lifted Zoey into his arms.

Before walking out, he turned to Joseph.

“Have her kneel here,” he ordered. “You keep watch.”

“Yes, sir,” Joseph responded instantly.

Sarah didn’t move. She held the charred bracelet tight against her chest. The porcelain edges cut into her skin, but she didn’t even notice.

Only when Harvey’s silhouette finally disappeared did the last of her strength drain away.

The world tipped sideways.

And she collapsed.

Sarah slept longer than she had in years. In her dreams, she was a little girl again, safe in her grandmother’s small, cluttered house. Life back then moved more slowly. The air smelled like simmering soup, and rain gently tapped the tin roof.

But even in dreams, the shadows found her.

She remembered how people used to stare with pity, whispering behind their hands. That was how she learned the truth—her parents had abandoned her, and she had become a burden her grandmother carried alone.

She cried for days. Children don’t know how to hide heartbreak.

It wasn’t until her grandmother placed a knotted charm bracelet around her wrist and promised it would keep her safe that she finally stopped.

“Sarah, my dear,” her grandmother had said softly, “your mom and dad didn’t leave you. They just can’t come back right now. One day, when you're older, you’ll understand.”

But Sarah never got the chance to grow up with her. Illness took her grandmother too soon.

Her dream then shifted.

Now Sarah was in the Stevens' house—cold, spotless, and perpetually too quiet. In that place, she had always felt like an outsider.

It didn’t matter how high her grades were or how careful she was not to step out of line. The smiles of her adoptive parents always disappeared the moment she walked into the room.

And outside the house was even crueler. Her classmates didn’t bother pretending. They cut her clothes, tore her notebooks, and made her backpack vanish just before the bell rang.

One moment stood out more than the rest.

Her backpack had been strung up in a tree. She stood beneath it, pacing and panicked, jumping and failing to reach it. Her hands were scraped and stinging, and tears clung to her lashes, just waiting to fall.

Then a breeze carried the smell of wild grass and warm earth.

She looked up, and he was there.

A tall boy in a school uniform, his collar undone just enough to look effortlessly cool. In his hand was her backpack. In his eyes, there was a calm, unbothered kind of kindness.

Under the bright summer sun, he smiled.

“Hey,” he said. “Nice to meet you. I’m Harvey.”

When Sarah opened her eyes in the hospital, she stared up at the ceiling, dazed.

Back then, she never would have believed that the boy smiling in the sunlight would grow into the man who caused her so much pain.

Suddenly, a gentle beep interrupted her dream. Someone had pressed the call button next to her bed.

For a brief second, something flickered in her chest.

Maybe it was Harvey. Maybe, despite everything, he had come.

Maybe he still cared.

She turned her head.

It wasn’t him.

It was Joseph, the vineyard manager.

Joseph saw the flicker of disappointment in her eyes and scoffed. “Don’t get your hopes up. Sir Harvey is with Miss Zoey. If you’re tired of living like this, maybe stop acting like a victim and apologize. To both of them.”

Sarah let out a bitter laugh and thought inwardly, 'Apologize? Apologize for loving Harvey? For refusing to let Zoey cheat her way through life?'

But she didn’t say a word. Her silence said enough.

Joseph rolled his eyes, yanked open the door, and walked out.

...

A few minutes later, Zoey walked in.

Her belly had just begun to show, a small curve that hit Sarah like a punch to the chest.

Zoey folded her arms across it, her posture casual but her expression smug.

Her voice came out sweet, but every word landed like a slap. "Sarah, I told you not to cross me. Now that you know Harvey only got close to you because of me, how does that feel? Like your whole little world just collapsed?"

She paused, overseeing Sarah, savoring the moment before she added with mock sweetness,

"Oh, and by the way, your grandma’s grave? It's the perfect location. I joked to Harvey about needing a peaceful resting place for Luna, and he just handed it over."

Sarah’s breath caught in her throat. She knew exactly who Luna was.

Zoey’s hamster.

Her heart stopped.

Harvey had given up her grandmother’s grave for a hamster?

The disbelief barely had time to settle before memories slammed into her like a freight train.

She remembered taking Harvey to that hillside when things were still good. She had run ahead, cheeks flushed with excitement, pulling him by the hand. She had looked at him like he was her future.

“Grandma,” she had said, grinning from ear to ear, “this is Harvey. He treats me so well. You don’t have to worry anymore. We’ll come visit all the time.”

But after the so-called debts took over that day, she was never allowed to return.

Harvey had known. He had known exactly what that place meant to her.

And he had still done this.

Something inside her cracked wide open.

She didn’t care that she’d just fainted. She didn’t care about the IV needle in her arm, the hospital gown clinging to her, or the pounding pain behind her eyes.

With strength she didn’t know she had, Sarah shoved Zoey aside and bolted from the room.