While my husband, Caleb, chose to be with his lover, his parents were dying in an avalanche.

I let him go. I faced the hospital's payment demands alone.

In my past life, I had made him choose his parents over his lover.

His parents survived, but his lover died, her car plunging off a cliff during a blizzard as she drove to find him.

At first, my husband showed no remorse.

A year later, at the celebration for my solo art exhibition, he pushed me off the deck of a private yacht, leaving me to drown in the icy water as revenge.

"Skylar died because of you! It's all your fault!"

I sank into the icy depths, my future and all my art buried with me.

This time, he could choose. His dying parents, or his lover.

When he finally saw his silenced phone and the flood of urgent notifications from the hospital, he broke down.

He looked as if he'd aged ten years overnight.

————————

1

When the emergency call came, my husband's lover, Skylar Vance, was nestled in the VIP section of a charity gala, basking in the spotlight.

"Mrs. Monroe, your parents-in-law were in a severe avalanche while skiing," a frantic voice said from a top private hospital in Colorado. "Their injuries are critical. They need an emergency transfer to a specialized medical center for an experimental brain surgery. The cost is five million dollars."

This was a conversation I had already lived through once. Without hesitation, I put the call on speakerphone, ensuring my husband, Caleb Hawthorne, heard every single word.

I turned to him. Disbelief twisted his handsome features.

"Ava, are you that desperate for attention?" he scoffed. "Using my parents to cause a scene at a charity gala? Is this your new strategy?"

I didn't scream or plead. I simply stated the facts, my voice flat and stripped of all emotion.

"This isn't an act. They're in trouble. We need five million dollars to save them, which means we have to access the family trust immediately."

His icy gaze cut right through me. "This pathetic little stunt isn't winning you any points," he sneered. "And now you're after my money?"

We had known each other for ten years. I had once saved his art investments with a single painting, and this marriage of convenience was my reward.

Caleb came from a top Wall Street financial family, while I was just a gallery owner from a modest background. He never saw me as an equal, and his obsession with the Instagram influencer Skylar Vance was an open secret.

When we got married, I told him he could see Skylar whenever he wanted. I had no interest in being shackled to his good looks or his fortune.

He slammed me against the wall and kissed me roughly, growling, "Shut up, Ava. Just be Mrs. Hawthorne. That's all you need to do."

After the wedding, his coldness only intensified.

But when Skylar returned to New York, I saw the fire in his eyes as he gazed at her. It was then I finally accepted that no part of his heart had ever been mine, not even the smallest corner.

My own gaze turned cold, all warmth extinguished by disappointment. "I'm not lying, and I'm not acting."

I looked him straight in the eye.

"Believe it or not, your parents are critically injured. If you have a shred of humanity, you'll help me raise the money. If not, get out of my way so I can save them myself."

He froze, stunned by a forcefulness he'd never seen in me before.

I turned to leave. As I moved to push past Skylar, who was blocking my path, she let out an exaggerated shriek and tumbled down the steps, her limbs flailing as if her strings had been cut.

"Oh, it hurts so much!" she moaned from the floor, tears instantly welling in her eyes, the picture of wounded innocence.

"Caleb, don't blame Ava," she sobbed. "I'm sure she didn't mean to."

Fury clouded Caleb's features. He rushed to her side, carefully scooping her up.

Skylar flinched in pain, clutching her throat. Only then did I notice a red rash blooming on her neck.

"You'd better pray she's okay," Caleb roared at me, his voice echoing under the flash of cameras. "Because if anything happens to Skylar, you'll live to regret it."

He swept Skylar up in his arms and stormed out the door.

I stood alone in the opulent ballroom, swallowed by the glare of flashing cameras, a block of ice forming in my chest.

I wasn't going to let him stop me. I called my lawyer and raced to the bank.

Before I even arrived, my phone rang. It was Caleb's cousin, District Attorney (DA) Dylan Sharpe.

"What's this new drama I'm hearing about, Ava?" Dylan's voice dripped with mockery. "Another play for Caleb's attention?"

Caleb's family had never given me the respect I deserved.

Only his parents, Eleanor and Arthur, had been genuinely kind to me. I had to save them.

I bit back my rage. "Dylan, did Caleb tell you I was acting?"

The silence on the other end of the line said it all.

A bitter smile twisted my lips.

"Dylan, you're the District Attorney. Is ridicule your only response to a state of emergency? If you have no intention of helping, consider this my official notice: I'm filing a complaint against you for professional misconduct with the Commission on Judicial Conduct."

Dylan's flippant tone evaporated, replaced by raw anger. "You think marrying into this family makes you a Hawthorne?" he snarled. "Let me tell you, you'll always be just a gold digger from the suburbs! If Skylar hadn't been away back then, Caleb would have never given you a second glance."

I hung up without a word and immediately sent the email to the commission.

When I got to the bank, I tried to access our joint accounts.

"I'm very sorry, Mrs. Monroe," the bank manager said apologetically, "but your credit cards have been canceled, and the joint trust has been frozen by Mr. Hawthorne."

Then, my lawyer called. The family trust fund had been temporarily frozen by the court over an alleged internal dispute.

I took a deep breath and called my gallery manager.

"Mortgage my entire private collection and liquidate all my investment portfolios. I need three million dollars in cash, within the hour."

"On it, Ava."

That still left me two million short. I called Caleb's uncle, Marcus Hawthorne.

"Uncle Marcus, Caleb's parents were in an avalanche in Colorado. They need an emergency transfer, and I'm still two million dollars short. Could you lend it to me? I'll pay you back as soon as the trust is unfrozen."

Marcus sounded genuinely shocked. "My sister and brother-in-law? Does Caleb know?"

I sighed. "I told him, but he doesn't believe me. He's with Skylar right now. You're my only hope."

"Stay put. I'll transfer it from the company's emergency reserve fund immediately!"

Just as Marcus hung up, the hospital called back. The lead surgeon from Switzerland informed me curtly, "Mrs. Monroe, you have two hours. If the funds don't arrive, we'll have to terminate the surgery and, per protocol, remove them from life support."

The bank's mortgage approval process was agonizingly slow.

I turned and saw Dylan standing a few feet away, his face pale. He had clearly overheard my call with the hospital.

"Ava, his parents… are they really hurt? Caleb said this was all just some scheme to get his attention…"

I didn't have the energy for this. He could call Caleb himself.

I glanced at my watch, my anxiety mounting. A two-million-dollar transfer shouldn't take this long for someone like Marcus. I called him again.

"Uncle Marcus?"

"Ava, give it up," he said, his voice heavy with exhaustion. "Look, his parents might have liked you, but the rest of the Hawthornes never accepted you."

"I sympathize with you, and I wanted to help. But you're just playing the victim. Who are you trying to fool? If you weren't always so dramatic, maybe Caleb wouldn't despise you so much."

My heart sank into a cold abyss. I knew the final two million dollars would never come.

"Uncle Marcus, did Caleb tell you to say that?" My voice trembled. "You don't have to believe me, but the hospital records can prove everything—"

Marcus cut me off. "Don't bother forging medical records to fool me. Even if you tricked me today, what about tomorrow?"

"Ava, I know you're obsessed with Caleb. The looks, the money—I get it. But his heart belongs to someone else, and she's back. If you're this miserable, why not just get a divorce?"

His vile words snapped my last nerve. I hung up, my expression turning to ice.

Caleb's parents were dying, and his family was using it as an opportunity to humiliate me.

Across the room, Dylan finally got through to Caleb.

"Caleb, listen to me! Your parents are really in trouble! They're in the hospital—"

He was cut off by Skylar's sickly sweet voice. "Oh, Dylan, don't tell me you're playing along with Ava's pathetic little act, too. How much did she pay you? Whatever it is, I'll double it."

Dylan's voice was frantic. "I'm not lying!"

Skylar handed the phone back to Caleb, bored. "Darling, it seems your cousin has been bought off by her, too."

Then came Caleb's cold voice. "Dylan, that's enough."

Dylan sounded on the verge of tears. "Caleb, your parents are in real danger! Transfer two million dollars to Ava's account now!"

Caleb sneered. "So it is about money after all. Tell Ava to stop the act. She's gone crazy. What did Skylar ever do to deserve being targeted like this?"

The line went dead.

With no other choice, I gave my lawyer a grim, bitter smile. "Let's go. Even without the full amount, we have to fly to Colorado and talk to the hospital."

"That's too risky," my lawyer protested.

I lowered my eyes. "I'm immediate family. They have to see me."

I raced to the hospital. The moment I stepped onto the ICU floor, the thick smell of antiseptic and despair hit me like a physical blow.

My heart hammered against my ribs.

I burst into the ICU room to the piercing shriek of the monitors. Two glaring flatlines stretched across the screens, stark as tombstones.

Caleb's parents—Arthur and Eleanor Hawthorne—were brain-dead, having missed the optimal window for surgery.

I rushed to their beds, wanting to shake them awake, but Eleanor's hand was already ice-cold. I broke down sobbing, trembling as I pulled out my phone to let Caleb see them one last time, but every call went straight to voicemail.

Caleb had blocked me.