I called Clive with shaking hands.

"Why would you put out a statement like that?"

He didn't even pause. "Someone posted the whole thing online, and now everyone's asking me about it. What was I supposed to do? If you hadn't made a scene, none of this would be happening!"

"Someone recognized Jade at the hospital. She's just a young woman. Getting dragged into something like this is bad for her."

"And it isn't bad for me?" My voice broke.

He gave a short laugh. "You got drugged and walked around the next day like nothing happened. A little name-calling, and you're falling apart?"

"Stop blowing this out of proportion. I'm going to ride the momentum from the statement and do a livestream to give Jade the proposal I owe her. Bring me the ring. You can apologize to her on camera, in front of everyone. That clears her name, and maybe the public lets you off too."

"That ring is one I designed myself." I couldn't hold it in. "And you want me to hand it to another woman?"

His tone turned heavy with meaning. "It's just a ring, Millicent. The storm has to die down first. Only after that—after a long time apart—can I come back to your side."

"I know I'm all you have. If there were any other way, I wouldn't leave you either."

He'd said something like that when he proposed too.

"I know I'm all you have. If there were any other way..."

"I want to be the one you lean on."

After my mother died and the shock left my father paralyzed by a stroke, Clive became the only thing I had to lean on.

And now he was using exactly that. He thought I couldn't live without him, so he could humiliate me however he pleased.

Whatever was left of my heart went cold.

The moment I hung up, someone shouted, "The police are here! Quick! We've caught the murderer, Millicent Maddox!"

So while I'd been on the phone, someone had used the chance to call them.

They took me to the station.

But what waited for me wasn't an interrogation. It was footage.

An officer pointed to the timestamp in the bottom left corner. "Does this date mean anything to you?"

"Yes."

It was the most painful day of my life. And the happiest.

Three months ago, at the Sanchez company gala, Clive was supposed to give the opening speech, and he never showed.

When I couldn't reach him no matter what I tried, the news broke that a pileup had happened on the only road he could have taken.

I rushed to the hospital and heard the blood bank was running dangerously low, while a patient named Sanchez urgently needed a transfusion.

I grabbed the first doctor who passed. "Take my blood! I'm his girlfriend! Take as much as you need!"

The bag slowly filled with red while my vision went black, and I kept praying he was safe, even if it cost me my life.

That was when my phone rang.

Clive's voice came through, perfectly fine. "Where did you go? I didn't pick up because I was setting up a surprise for you. Stop sulking and come back already!"

A false alarm. I was wild with joy. I ignored the nurse's protests and dragged my body, weak and cold from blood loss, out of the hospital. All I wanted was to see him.

That night, with no warning at all, Clive proposed.

I was drowning in the joy of getting back what I thought I'd lost, in the happiness of a proposal from the man I loved.

I never noticed that his so-called surprise was a single ring that didn't fit my finger.

On the screen, that night finally came back to me as it had truly happened.

At the roadside, the window of an SUV rolled down and a skimpy maid costume came flying out.

The car rocked, and through the glass I saw them—Clive and Jade twisted together, moving, and the ring catching the light on her hand.

The ring Clive used to propose to me.

So while I was begging the nurses to draw eight hundred milliliters of my blood, ready to trade my life for his safety, he was rolling around with Jade.

And the proposal ring had just been slipped off her finger.

A tearing pain ripped through the heart that had long gone numb, and the tears came before I could stop them.

In silence, the officer opened another clip.

When I saw what was on it, my hand froze in the middle of wiping my tears.

I watched the footage to the end and said nothing for a long time.

Everything I felt finally collapsed into one low, ugly laugh.

Clive Sanchez. While you were spinning every thread to make a fool of me, did it ever once cross your mind that you were a toy in someone else's palm too?

My phone buzzed. A message from him.

【Just come quietly and I'll drop the charges.】

【The internet's already started digging into your family. You don't want your mother to have no peace even in death, do you?】

My eyes went cold as I killed the screen.

Clive, at your own proposal, I'm going to show you exactly who isn't going to get any peace.

By the time I reached the venue, the place was packed, cameras bristling from every angle.

The second I appeared, every gaze swung to me at once—shocked, contemptuous.

"Why is she here? The nerve."

"What nerve does a slut have? She's up to something, mark my words."

"She's not here to wreck the proposal, is she? Somebody stop her."

The crowd shifted, hungry for it. I quickened my steps, and someone shoved me hard.

My injured hand slammed against the floor, and the pain tore up through my wrist. I looked up to find Mrs. Sanchez, always so warm with me before, glaring down with a face like a storm.

"Millicent Maddox, you hurt Jade, and then you poisoned me against her so I'd take it all out on her!"

"And to think I treated you like my own daughter. You ungrateful, heartless thing. To do that to Clive's brother—"

"I did not!" My head snapped up as I shouted it.

At once someone in the crowd bellowed, "This vicious woman wants to hurt Mrs. Sanchez! Stop her!"

They surged in like a tide. A hand seized my hair and dragged me sideways, and my scalp lit up with a raw, burning pain.

"Everyone, please. Calm down."

Clive had watched enough of the show. He came forward at his own slow pace.

The whole farce had gone out live, and the crowd's righteous fury only nailed my villain's role down tighter.

Something satisfied flickered behind his eyes. He raised his voice. "Millicent came here especially to apologize to Jade. She knows she was wrong. I'm asking all of you to give her another chance."

Then he steadied Mrs. Sanchez. "Mom, don't be like this. Maybe there's some misunderstanding about my brother. I don't believe Millicent would do that."

His magnanimous, kind-hearted image firmly in place, Clive pulled me aside. He couldn't keep the smugness out of his voice.

"If you'd been this obedient sooner, you wouldn't be apologizing on a livestream now."

"Here. Your pendant, as promised." He opened his palm. "Close enough to the one you lost, isn't it? It's not like it was worth anything. All that fuss over nothing."

I didn't take it.

His face darkened. "Not good enough either? Fine, I'll find you a more expensive one later. Happy?"

He unfolded a sheet of paper. "Jade was worried you'd get nervous, so she wrote you a script. You'll just read off this in a minute."

The speech had me confessing, in my own words, that I'd wanted Clive so badly I'd put thugs up to assaulting Jade Jennings, then threatened her and spread lies to keep it from coming out.

And then kneeling at her feet to beg her forgiveness.

And she would gently lift me up and pardon my crimes.

Me, ruined. Stripped of everything. The two of them walking off with the applause, the name, the money, all of it.

What a perfect plan.

But I had come for exactly one reason. To make sure it fell apart.

I took the script and the agreement, and under Clive's triumphant gaze, I rolled them into a tight tube and whipped them across his face.

The venue went dead silent.

I strode to the main camera.

The moment I planted myself there, the romantic proposal backdrop vanished from the screen.

In its place ran the security footage I'd copied from the police station.

"Clive Sanchez sent me here to apologize to Jade Jennings."

"But I came to tell all of you exactly who really assaulted Jade Jennings and spread those lies about her."