When our number was called at the marriage registration office, Phil Gilbert stopped in his tracks.

"The truth is, the person I really love is Clarissa."

"Last month, when you were away on your business trip, I took her to the Maldives. That's when we slept together."

"Last night, she cried and begged for one last time. She promised she'd never come between us again. But I just... I can't stand seeing her hurt."

"Clarissa's too innocent, too fragile. She can't live without me. I can't abandon her."

I stared at Clarissa Sullivan, standing meekly off to the side with that timid look on her face.

Just days ago, she'd thrown her arms around me, sobbing with gratitude for the five years I'd spent funding her education. She'd called me her big sister.

Now she hid behind Phil, eyes rimmed red. "I'm sorry, Serena Blackwell. But love doesn't follow a schedule..."

Phil glanced at the household registration booklet in his hand, his tone almost casual.

"Serena, I don't want to keep lying to you."

"Don't worry. You'll still be Mrs. Gilbert. Clarissa just needs to stay by my side. That's all."

"Whether you want to go in and sign the papers is up to you."

——

Silence.

I fixed my gaze on Phil, then slowly shifted it to Clarissa, cowering behind him.

This was the man I'd loved for seven years.

This was the scholarship student I'd supported for five.

They'd been tangled in each other's sheets in the Maldives behind my back. They'd been at it again the night before we were supposed to register our marriage.

I tore the number slip to pieces.

The shreds drifted down, scattering across the floor of the registration office.

Phil's expression darkened instantly.

"What the hell is wrong with you, Serena?"

"This is a government office. Have some decency."

I didn't spare him a glance. My eyes were locked on Clarissa.

"I supported you for five full years."

"I paid your way through college. I bought your clothes, covered your tuition, even footed the bill for your mother's medical treatments."

"And this is how you repay me? By crawling into your benefactor's fiancé's bed?"

Clarissa flinched. Her fingers twisted into the hem of Phil's jacket, and she stammered out a broken explanation.

"That's not... Serena, you come from a good family. You're talented and capable. You'd be fine even without getting married."

"But Phil is all I have. If you... if you really can't accept this, then I'll just throw myself against that pillar right now and end it all!"

She stumbled backward as she wept, and she actually lunged toward the concrete column beside the entrance.

Phil grabbed her and pulled her into his arms in one swift motion, then whipped around to glare at me.

"Enough, Serena!"

"It's bad enough you walk around acting like you're above everyone."

"Clarissa has severe depression. Did you know that? Are you not going to stop until you've driven her to her death?"

Depression?

A cold laugh escaped my throat.

"She wasn't depressed when she was spending my money on shopping sprees."

"She wasn't depressed in a bikini on a Maldives beach."

"But the second she gets called out as the other woman in public, suddenly it's depression?"

Panic flickered behind Phil's eyes. He recovered quickly, squaring his shoulders and raising his voice.

"I'm the one who took her there!"

"She's been under too much pressure. She needed to decompress."

"Can you stop being so damn aggressive for once in your life?"

I looked at this man I'd been with for seven years and felt like I was staring at a stranger.

I'd given up the chance to study abroad for him. I'd stood beside him when he had nothing, helped him build his company from the ground up until it went public. And he'd taken every ounce of my sacrifice and treated it like something he was owed.

Clarissa nestled deeper into Phil's arms, her voice small and trembling.

"Don't blame Phil, Serena."

"This is all my fault. I couldn't help falling in love with him."

Her shamelessness was so staggering it almost made me laugh. I raised my hand, palm open, ready to slap the words right off her lips.

Phil's hand clamped around my wrist like a vice.

"Are you done making a scene, Serena?"

"I already told you the position of Mrs. Gilbert is still yours. What more do you want?"

"Do you really have to make this so ugly?"

I stared at the two of them, at their shameless, self-righteous faces, and felt nothing but revulsion.

I was about to leave when my phone erupted inside my bag, buzzing frantically.

It was the hospital.

I wrenched my wrist free from Phil's grip and hit answer.

A nurse's panicked voice flooded through the speaker.

"Are you Dorothy Abbott's family?"

"Dorothy just suffered a massive stroke. She's being resuscitated right now!"

"Her condition is extremely critical. Please come to City Central Hospital immediately to authorize treatment and handle payment!"

My mind went blank. A high-pitched ringing filled my skull, and the blood drained from my body in a single, sickening rush.

Grandma had always been healthy. Strong as an ox. How could she have a stroke out of nowhere?

I asked the nurse what happened, my voice shaking so badly I barely recognized it.

The nurse sighed, her tone heavy with helplessness.

"The elderly lady collapsed while looking at her phone."

"The screen was still lit when we found her. It looked like she'd been reading a social media post."

"We didn't look too closely at the content. It seemed like just an ordinary vacation photo..."

A social media post?

While I stood there trembling, Clarissa let out a sharp gasp from behind Phil.

"Grandma's hurt? How could this happen..."

"Phil, this is all my fault... While I was waiting for you two, I posted a set of photos from our trip to the Maldives. A whole grid of them, with a caption..."

"I could've sworn I blocked everyone in Serena's family from seeing it. But maybe... maybe I accidentally missed Grandma."

The moment those words left her mouth, every piece fell into place.

She'd deliberately blocked me from seeing the post but conveniently left it visible to the one person I loved most in this world. My grandmother. The woman who had been counting down the days to our marriage registration. The woman who treasured Phil like her own grandson.

Seeing those photos would have destroyed her.

I locked my gaze on Phil and Clarissa, and every word I spoke came out low and razor-edged.

"If anything happens to my grandmother, I will make you both pay with your lives."

Phil froze. In that split second of stunned silence, I shoved him aside and stormed out of the registration office without looking back.

The moment I collapsed into the back seat of a cab, every wall I'd built crumbled.

I pressed both hands over my face, but the broken, muffled sobs tore out of me anyway, filling the small space of the car with a grief I couldn't swallow down.

Grandma was the only family I had left in this world.

My parents died when I was young. She raised me alone, collecting recyclables to keep us fed and clothed.

Years later, when Phil's startup nearly went under because his funding chain collapsed, it was Grandma who handed over her life savings to pull him through.

And now the man she'd loved like her own grandson had pushed her to the brink of death.

The cab screeched to a halt outside City Central Hospital.

I sprinted toward the emergency building.

The red light above the resuscitation room was still on. I pressed my back against the cold wall and prayed in silence, begging whatever force would listen to let her be okay.

More than ten minutes crawled by before a rush of footsteps echoed down the corridor.

I lifted my head slowly.

Phil and Clarissa were hurrying toward me.

Phil's chest heaved with each breath, his face flushed from running. He looked like he'd sprinted the whole way.

He stopped in front of me and pulled a bank card from his pocket, holding it out.

"Clarissa told me everything. She didn't do it on purpose. She just forgot to set the privacy filter when she posted."

"Grandma's always been in great health. She just got a little worked up, that's all. Stop blowing this out of proportion."

"There's three million dollars on this card. Consider it Clarissa's compensation, plus full repayment with interest for the five years you sponsored her."

"Don't hold your favors over her head anymore. She's sensitive. It'll destroy her self-esteem."

I stared at the bank card in disbelief.

My grandmother was fighting for her life behind those doors, and he'd come out here to buy off my kindness? To protect his mistress's self-esteem?

I knocked his hand away. The bank card flew across the hallway and clattered into a far corner.

Phil's face went ashen.

"Serena, don't push your luck!"

I stared at him, my voice trembling with a fury I could barely contain.

"Self-esteem?"

"She's a parasite who couldn't survive without my charity, and she has the nerve to talk about self-esteem?"

"Where was her self-esteem when she came crawling to me, begging me to pay for her education?"

"Where was her self-esteem when she was rolling around in bed with you in the Maldives?!"

Clarissa flinched as though I'd struck a nerve. Tears spilled down her cheeks again.

"Serena, how can you humiliate me like this?"

"I know I owe you. I'll pay you back, every last cent, I swear!"

Phil pulled her behind him, shielding her. The look he turned on me was pure disgust.

"Serena, you're out of your mind!"

"You think throwing money around gives you the right to own someone's life?"

"You've always been like this—overbearing, never once considering anyone else's feelings. I'm sick of it!"

"If you weren't so suffocating all the time, do you think I would've fallen for Clarissa?"

"Do you think I would've slept with her the night you were hospitalized for vomiting blood?!"

The words hit me like a wall of white noise. My mind went blank. I couldn't even form a sentence.

"What...?"

Last week, to secure the final round of funding before his company's IPO, I'd sat through three full bottles of liquor with the investors. I drank until I was vomiting blood and had to be rushed to the hospital.

I'd been writhing in agony on that hospital bed, calling Phil over and over. His phone was off every single time.

Afterward, he'd held me with guilt written all over his face. Told me he'd been pulling back-to-back all-nighters at the office and had passed out from exhaustion.

I believed him. I even felt sorry for him, working himself to the bone for his startup.

But the truth was—

The truth was that while I lay there in agony, he was in bed with Clarissa.

My tears finally broke free.

"Phil Gilbert, are you even human?"

I lunged at him like something inside me had snapped, wanting to tear apart the stranger wearing the face of the man I'd loved.

Clarissa rushed forward and grabbed my arm.

"Serena, stop! Don't hit him!"

In the struggle, I flung her off.

Clarissa seized the moment and toppled backward, crumpling to the floor. She clutched her ankle, whimpering in pain.

"It hurts..."

Phil shoved me aside without a second thought and rushed to her, scooping her into his arms.

When he looked back at me, his eyes were ice.

"Serena, you're beyond saving. Stay here and think about what you've done."

He turned and carried Clarissa away.

I slid to the floor, staring at the empty hallway where they'd disappeared. I couldn't even muster a bitter laugh.

Then the doors to the emergency room burst open. A doctor emerged, drenched in sweat.

"Who's the family of the patient Dorothy Abbott?"

I scrambled to my feet, half-crawling, half-running, and grabbed the front of his white coat.

"Me! I am!"

"Doctor, how is my grandmother?"

He pulled down his mask and let out a heavy breath.

"She's alive."

"But the situation is far from stable. She could deteriorate at any time."

"We'll move her to a room for observation."

They wheeled my grandmother into a private ward.

She lay there with an oxygen mask over her face. The kind, gentle features I'd known my whole life were utterly still, drained of all life.