Sated from their passionate deed, Jonathan Sheffield rises and gently scoops the worn-out Eloise Carter into his arms. He cleans her in the bathroom, carries her back to bed, and lets her settle in.

Normally, Eloise will have fallen asleep by now. But she won't allow herself to doze off tonight, not before she takes out the birthday present she's carefully prepared for Jonathan.

Jonathan is making a phone call out on the balcony when Eloise quietly takes out the present she has hidden. It's a red velvet box, containing the ring she plans to give him when she proposes.

She inches closer to the balcony and is about to speak when she freezes.

A shocked, male voice rings out from the other end of Jonathan's phone, which he's casually left on the balcony ledge.

"What the hell? You must be out of your mind, Jonathan! You're planning to take Eloise's heart and give it to Sonia?"

Jonathan Sheffield casually leaned against the wall, looking insouciant as a cigarette dangled from his lips. "With the way Sonia's condition is progressing, she's racing against time. As things are, Ellie's heart is the only one that's compatible. I can't just watch Sonia. I can't bear it."

He spoke openly, perhaps confident that Eloise Carter was already asleep.

"You must be out of your mind!" The voice on the other end of the phone was filled with anger. "Jonathan, as your pal, I think you should think this through calmly. Ellie has stuck by you through life and death. Don't do anything rash, or you'll end up regretting it!"

Jonathan snubbed the cigarette and exhaled a mouthful of white smoke. He snapped impatiently, "Do you think I want Ellie to die? I want to spend forever with her, too, but you know as well as I do that her days are numbered due to late-stage liver cancer.

"Since she's dying sooner or later, I may as well donate her heart to Sonia. Sonia will get to live, and what's so bad about me saving a human life?"

There was no breeze out on the balcony, yet Eloise felt like she'd been whipped hard across the face by a gust of wind.

A week ago, Eloise's family had arranged for her to get a pre-marital health check-up, and she'd been diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer. She hadn't told anyone about this.

Fortunately, the hospital later confirmed that there had been a mistake in the report and Eloise was perfectly healthy. However, she had no idea when Jonathan had come across the erroneous report and believed she was on the brink of death.

"Aren't you going to look into this whole cancer thing?" Jonathan's friend was still pleading with him to reconsider. "What if there's still hope for Ellie to get treatment? She can make the odds count and live another day.

"She went through hell for you years ago and protected you with her life when everyone else mocked her for it. Even if her days are numbered, it's too cruel for you to donate her heart to someone else without her consent, don't you think?"

"Shut up!" Jonathan cut his friend off, raising his voice. "I'll make this clear one more time—I will spend the rest of my life loving Eloise and no one else. She's the only one I'll marry. But there's no way I'll let Sonia die without doing anything to stop it!"

Eloise felt like she'd been hit by a truck. For someone who claimed to love her, what Jonathan was doing now proved that he was still in love with Sonia and couldn't stop thinking about her.

So what did that make Eloise? What would become of the sacrifice she'd made for him and their relationship all these years?

Eloise was born as the real heiress of the Jensen family, but she'd been swapped at birth with Sonia. By the time Eloise reunited with the Jensens, Sonia and Jonathan were already engaged.

One day, Sonia and Jonathan got into a fight in the car. The car spun out of control and fell off a cliff.

Jonathan was in a vegetative state after that. Sonia didn't think twice before abandoning him, leaving an exasperated Eloise to step up and take Sonia's place in the engagement.

Nobody expected the scion of the Sheffield family, who had been declared dead several times, to miraculously wake up a month after being under Eloise's tender care. However, his mental capacity had devolved to that of a seven-year-old, and he'd become inexplicably tempestuous, too.

There were times when Eloise wanted to fight back, but her heart softened when she saw the dazed and helpless look on his face after his tantrums. She couldn't bring herself to leave. And just like that, she stuck by him through his gradual recovery and supported him while he regained his former glory.

She'd endured five whole years of hardship for Jonathan's sake.

Jonathan had solemnly vowed that he would do right by her for the rest of their lives. But after learning she had late-stage cancer, misdiagnosis or not, he'd chosen to give her heart to his first love rather than spend more time with her during her final days.

Eloise stored the square, velvet box away and dried her tears. She then quickly wrote a text on her phone to send out, "Grandma, I want to forget about ever having loved Jonathan. Please help me erase my love for him."

It didn't take long for Eloise's grandmother to agree to Eloise's request.

Everyone in Corhaven believed that the then-lost heiress of the Jensen family had lived like an orphan with no one to rely on during the years she was separated from her biological family. But no one knew that Eloise had been raised by her adoptive grandmother, Marie Carter, a top cognitive neuroscientist.

Marie's kind and gentle voice sounded on the other line. "I support whatever decision you make, little one. Love isn't all there is in life, and you don't have to hold on to everything you encounter in this world. If you're unhappy in this relationship, just forget it."

The resentment Eloise had bottled up over recent years burst at the sound of Marie's voice. Her days since reuniting with her biological parents had been nothing short of exhausting.

"I've saved up plenty of money for you. Once we've erased your love for Jonathan and you've moved on from him, we'll travel around the world together," Marie promised.

Marie ran a company that possessed the world's most advanced neurotechnology. The technology worked to erase one's love for another without interfering with one's memories. One only had to provide a picture of the person they wanted to stop loving for the procedure.

The technology was the result of brilliant and noble research. It helped heartbroken women move on from relationships they tried but failed to forget about, and encouraged them to pull themselves together.

Eloise pulled up her phone's photo gallery, and the first picture that popped up was one of her and Jonathan. In the picture, Jonathan was holding her close, and they had their backs to the sea, their smiles dazzling as they faced the sun.

However, upon closer inspection, Eloise was visibly uneasy in the picture.

It was taken on the day she was misdiagnosed with late-stage liver cancer. At the time, she truly believed she was dying, and she'd hidden under the blanket and cried her heart out.

After that, she researched many dating spots and dragged Jonathan along to each one, hoping to make happy memories for him with whatever little time she had left.

But what had Jonathan made of her diagnosis? Had he felt sorry for her that she didn't have much longer to live, or had he been thrilled that his precious Sonia would finally be saved?

Eloise was spacing out when a weight suddenly pinned her shoulder down. She instinctively glanced over, only for someone to peck her firmly on the cheek.

Jonathan swiftly put on his jacket and said, "Something urgent came up at the company. I have to go take care of it. Let the butler know if you need anything, and don't stay up late."

In the dim light of the bedroom, Eloise watched as Jonathan left, her heart growing colder by the second. It was his birthday today, but he didn't even ask her for a present.

Shortly after, Eloise saw Sonia's post on Instagram, captioned, "I'm glad to have you by my side in my darkest days."

The post was accompanied by a picture of Jonathan's side profile. He was crouched on the floor, entirely focused on fixing Sonia's childhood toy. So, this was the "urgent matter" he'd mentioned earlier.

Not wanting to leave any room for backtracking, Eloise forwarded several pictures of Jonathan to Marie, then deleted his pictures from her phone.

She dragged her tired body out of bed and began packing up her stuff. Since Jonathan regained his former success, they'd moved into the villa and lived together. She had plenty of belongings to show for it, too, and sorting them out was a strenuous undertaking.

But she'd made up her mind to end things with Jonathan for good, so she had to purge every trace of their life together. "Pack these up and throw them out!"

Eloise did not want to keep anything from their relationship, but when she saw the square, red, velvet box, her heart tightened uncontrollably. In that box lay the ring she'd painstakingly prepared for her proposal.

The next second, she tossed that box into the fireplace while the household staff watched. The flames surged and licked away at every part of that box, burning the love she had for Jonathan into ashes.

Night had turned into day by the time Eloise sorted out her belongings, but Jonathan had yet to come home. It was clear he had spent the night at Sonia's.

Eloise pulled her suitcase behind her as she made to leave the villa, but she had only just stepped out of the front door when she ran into Sonia.

Sonia stood on the other side of the street, beaming as she waved. She began to cross the street, but a car suddenly zipped down the street at a maniacal speed and hurtled toward her.

Eloise stepped back instinctively but fell when she lost her footing, scratching her palm. Blood streamed from the cut, and the car sped away.

Across the street, Sonia had been knocked unconscious.

Jonathan frantically ran over and scooped Sonia into his arms. "Don't be scared, Sonia. I'm here. I won't let anything happen to you!"

He did not glance at Eloise even once.

Eloise didn't return to her parents' home, though to be accurate, she hadn't had a place to truly call home since leaving Marie. Thankfully, she'd saved up enough money over the years to buy a small apartment. At least she had a roof over her head.

Exhaustion washed over her as she opened the bedroom door. She had a long dream.

In it, the Sheffields gradually grew to shun Jonathan after the cliff incident, and they couldn't care less whether he died or lived. Eloise's biological parents did not want their precious Sonia to marry Jonathan and suffer hardship, so they devised ways to force Eloise into taking Sonia's place.

Eloise had been only 18 then. She'd shown up at her parents' residence with a cake she baked herself, thrilled and eager to please them. But the next second, she was roughly manhandled and shoved through the door of Jonathan's bedroom.

"You came back too late, Eloise. We don't feel an ounce of affection for you. Don't bother returning to the Jensen family after this. We'll just pretend we never had a daughter like you. This will be your home from now on for the rest of your life," Eloise's parents told her.

Fear, resentment, bitterness, and hopelessness filled Eloise. She couldn't understand how her biological parents could be so cruel as to abandon her. Why had they bothered bringing her back into the family, to begin with?

She curled up in the corner of the room and stared at the unmoving young man on the bed. She was panicked and terrified, and her tears wouldn't stop falling. At that point, she and Jonathan were nothing more than pitiful children abandoned by their families.

The dreamscape shifted, and Eloise was suddenly staring at Jonathan, whose mental capacity had devolved to that of a seven-year-old. She was trying her best to cheer him up.

He had become extremely capricious due to his diminished mental capacity. Each time he threw a tantrum, Eloise would rush up to him and hug him around the waist, soothing him in low, comforting tones.

The house they'd lived in was small, but it carried many of their memories, which were both bitter and sweet.

On days when the sun was out, Eloise would play tag with Jonathan, their laughter reverberating through the house. When thunder rumbled across the sky, she'd hold him tightly and cry with him.

The scene changed once more. Jonathan lost control of his emotions and threw a fit, and Eloise ended up knocking her head on the table. Blood seeped from the gash in her forehead.

When Jonathan saw the crimson blood dripping from her forehead, his towering build went still. This time, he did not helplessly break down in tears like usual, and instead gaped at Eloise before carefully pulling her into his arms.

"Silly Ellie, does it hurt? Don't be scared. I'll protect you from now on," he told her.

Eloise woke up with tears streaming down her face. She wiped them off, only to realize she had yet to clean the cut on her palm. Dirt and grime still covered the cut, courtesy of the street she'd scraped her palm on.

"It hurts, Jonathan." But this time, no one was there to blow on the cut for her or promise they'd take care of her for the rest of her life.

She saw that she had multiple missed calls on her phone. At first, she thought the calls were from her company, but they turned out to be from Jonathan. "Ellie, could you come to the hospital? I need to talk to you."

Eloise had set up a biotechnology company that was currently collaborating with the hospital run by the Sheffield family.

Upon hearing Jonathan's words, she thought there'd been a hiccup with their collaboration. She got out of bed and quickly cleaned the cut on her palm with antiseptic, then left the house with her purse.

From a distance, she saw Jonathan's bodyguard standing outside a VIP hospital room. She entered the room to find an ashen-faced Sonia on the bed.

Jonathan had claimed the caretaker's chair by the bedside, looking defensive of Sonia. A bowl with the dregs of what appeared to be chicken noodle soup was set on the table, too.

Eloise's gaze darted to the other side of the room, where her parents were seated on the couch. Everyone was looking at her, their expressions hardened. It was as though they were in a criminal inquiry.

Baffled by the scene, Eloise asked, "What's going on here?"

"I should be asking you that! What are you playing at?" Eloise's mother, Helena Norris, snapped as she stormed up to Eloise like an angry beast. "What kind of a sick psychopath would hire someone to kill her own younger sister?

"Did you want to get rid of her so you could inherit the family fortune? If you thought that would work, dream on!"

Eloise's father, David Jensen, approached her furiously as well. He did not move to strike her, but the hateful look in his eyes was enough to kill her. "How could an upstanding person like me have produced a heartless monster like you? I wish you'd die outside the family instead of disgracing us!"

These were Eloise's so-called parents. Not once did they show they loved her, but they certainly did not hold back in letting her know they hated her.

"So, did you ask me to come here to confess my sins?" Eloise's gaze fell on Jonathan. He had stood up and approached her while her parents admonished her. Now, he was looking down his nose at her.

Alas, he wasn't here to speak up for her. He looked grim, and his gaze was frigid behind his gold-rimmed glasses. "Why did you hire someone to run Sonia over? Had that car gone a little faster, did you know that Sonia might not have just gone into a shock, but worse?"

"How are you so sure that I was behind it?"