On the day of the engagement party, my fiancé Carter Gilbert went to City Hall and married the real heiress.

Carter's voice dripped with contempt.

"You didn't actually think you were the one I was marrying today, did you?"

Nora Henson clung to his arm, her smile razor-sharp with triumph.

"I'm the one who said you deserved a lesson. Carter only played along for a few days, and you really thought you were going to be Mrs. Gilbert?"

My parents didn't care in the slightest.

"So what if Carter was your boyfriend for five years? You stole twenty years of Nora's life. This is exactly what you deserve!"

In that moment, I finally understood.

Carter and Nora had been together long before this.

The engagement party I'd been counting down to was nothing but a setup, orchestrated by every person in this room to humiliate me.

Laughter and mockery swirled around me.

I didn't say another word.

I just met the sneering gazes of Carter and the Hensons with perfect calm.

And smiled.

"After tonight, I hope none of you have any regrets."

——

Carter scoffed, clearly taking it as the bitterness of a sore loser.

"Amanda, don't blame me. Blame yourself for caring more about work than about us. I'm a man. I have needs."

"Nora is better suited to be my wife than you ever were."

"The apartment in Northside is yours. Consider it a parting gift."

He squeezed my hand, pressing a set of keys into my palm. The implication in his eyes was unmistakable.

I stared at the keys. All I felt was disgust.

"Carter, before you start setting up a love nest, maybe you should've asked whether I'd even want a man who's already been used."

He hadn't expected me to throw his filthy little scheme back in his face.

His expression shifted instantly.

Before he could respond, one of his buddies cut in with a sneer.

"Amanda Henson, don't even try to come between Carter and Nora. He only offered you that apartment out of pity because your own family kicked you out."

"Stop flattering yourself. You're embarrassing to look at."

Carter stood there. Silent. Letting every word land.

For a moment, I couldn't move.

The Carter I used to know would have already thrown punches at anyone who spoke to me that way.

He never would have let me suffer even the smallest slight.

He used to drive over ten miles after being awake for more than twenty hours straight, just to buy me a bowl of my favorite shaved ice.

For my birthday, he held his breath underwater for a full five minutes to set up a surprise, then appeared out of nowhere the moment my face fell.

When I was deployed with Doctors Without Borders and a communications failure cut us off for a month, he lost his mind. He pulled every string he had to get a plane ticket, risking his life to reach me.

On that battlefield where no one knew if tomorrow would come before death did, I said yes to his proposal.

I never imagined that the wedding I'd dreamed of would turn out to be nothing more than a cruel joke.

"Sis, I was only teasing Carter. I never thought he'd actually agree to put on a show with you. But once I saw how determined he was, I realized just how much he loves me."

"Sorry you're so upset about it."

As she spoke, Nora held out a glass of wine. When I didn't take it, she grabbed my hand and forced it around the glass.

The next second.

The glass slipped and shattered on the floor. Shards flew toward Nora.

Carter shoved me aside and rushed straight to her.

The moment he saw blood trickling from a cut on Nora's leg, his face darkened.

"Amanda! If you have a problem, take it up with me!"

"So what Nora said wasn't nice. She's just innocent and kind-hearted. Would it kill you to be the bigger person?"

A sharp ache pierced through my chest.

"The bigger person?"

"Carter Gilbert, you are the last person in this room who gets to ask that of me."

From the moment this all began, Carter's friends hadn't said a word.

Not until I finished that sentence.

Their excitement was instant, voices dripping with mockery.

"Amanda, if you hadn't spent every waking minute controlling Carter—telling him what he couldn't eat, refusing to let him go out with us—he never would've fallen for someone as sweet and caring as Nora."

"Bet you're regretting it now that he's dumped you, huh? Why don't you get on your knees and beg him to take you back? Who knows, maybe he'll change his mind!"

Laughter and jeers erupted across the room.

A year ago, when Carter and I returned from Doctors Without Borders, I'd shed my usual reserve and made a real effort to fit into his social circle. I'd even broken the Henson family's rule against living together before marriage and moved into the Gilbert residence.

They all assumed I was deeply in love with Carter. He assumed the same.

That was why they'd conspired to set this trap for me.

Right now, Carter was waiting for me to fall apart. Waiting for me to beg him to come back.

He was wrong.

Under every mocking stare in the room, I slipped the engagement ring off my finger and let it drop to the floor like it weighed nothing.

"Congratulations on your marriage, Carter."

"We're done."

The words hung in the air.

Carter, still holding Nora, went rigid. His expression darkened as he stared at me.

"You're doing this on purpose, Amanda. Trying to get under my skin."

"Just because I humiliated you at the engagement party, now you're pretending you don't care."

I looked at him with a cold smile.

"Whether I care or not—"

"You'll find out soon enough."

With that, I turned and walked out of the banquet hall. I pulled out my phone.

"Stop delivering medication to the Gilbert residence."

"And suspend the new drug research project with the Hensons. I'm cutting ties with them. Permanently."

Since I was leaving the Henson family behind, I intended to resign from Henson Medical Center as well.

Three days later, I finished the handover.

And ran straight into Nora, who was at the hospital for a checkup.

She took one look at the cardboard box in my arms and let out a soft laugh.

"Amanda. Three years ago, when you destroyed my reputation and got me blacklisted from every medical school in the country—did you ever imagine you'd end up like this?"

"So what if I never became a doctor? I still managed to drive you out of this hospital."

Looking at that smug, gloating face, it all came flooding back.

Three years ago, Nora and I were both graduate students under the same advisor. But she'd been desperate for quick results and secretly purchased unauthorized materials, mixing them into the drugs we were developing.

The entire batch was ruined.

She pinned every last bit of blame on me—the person who'd been on duty with her that day.

In the end, the police traced the purchase records back to her and cleared my name. But because she'd destroyed nearly six months of the institute's work, she was blacklisted from the field entirely.

Nora, of course, blamed all of it on me.

She'd been looking for payback ever since.

"I have to say, I didn't expect your man to be so easy to reel in. A few staged run-ins and he convinced himself it was fate."

"He complained about you constantly—how you spent every day locked in your lab, how boring you were. Not like me..."

"I can give him the kind of pleasure you never could."

She tugged the silk scarf from her neck, revealing a trail of bruises scattered across her skin.

Her eyes locked on mine, daring me to react.

"I asked Carter how many children he wanted. Guess what he said?"

"He said the more the better. Because he's going to love our children so, so much."

Nora's brows arched in triumph. She was searching my face for devastation, for the cracks she was so sure would appear.

Instead, I smiled.

A big happy family?

They were in for a disappointment.

A year ago, when Carter and I returned from Doctors Without Borders, we'd both gotten full physicals.

Carter's results showed he would never be able to father children. Not in this lifetime.

Once, in the heat of passion, he'd held me close and begged me to give him a baby.

He'd grown up in an orphanage. All he'd ever wanted was a family of his own.

But fate had played the cruelest joke on him.

I didn't want him to lose hope, so I had the hospital keep it confidential.

For the past year, I'd practically lived in the lab, day and night, developing a treatment for his condition.

One more round of therapy, and he would have been cured.

Too bad he'd never deserve it now.

"Is that so? Then I wish you two all the best. May you pop out babies left and right and stay shackled together forever."

Nora flushed with rage and raised her hand.

I was bracing myself when someone grabbed me hard from behind and yanked me backward.

A palm cracked across my face.

Leila Henson's eyes burned with enough hatred to flay me alive.

"Amanda Henson, you stay away from my daughter! If anything happens to her, this family will make you pay!"

I pressed my hand to my throbbing cheek.

Looked into those eyes, brimming with disgust.

All I felt was the irony.

Six months ago, she'd been diagnosed with liver cancer. Not a single suitable donor could be found in all of Crestfield.

So I gave her part of mine. That transplant was the only reason she was still breathing.

But it nearly killed me. Massive hemorrhaging on the operating table. I'd flatlined before they pulled me back.

When I woke up, she held my hand, called me "sweetheart" over and over, and swore that even after they found Nora, she'd love us both equally.

That hadn't lasted long.

Now all she had left for me was revulsion.

"I've already had your name removed from the Henson family registry. From this moment on, you have nothing to do with us!"

"I will never give you the chance to hurt my daughter or my grandchild!"

Watching me stand there, stunned, Nora cradled her stomach with a slow, deliberate hand. "Don't tell me you didn't know, sis? I'm pregnant. Three months along."

Carter stood in the doorway, his expression unreadable.

So that was why he was marrying her.

"Congratulations, Mr. Gilbert."

Before the words had fully left my mouth, Leila's hand swung at me again.

"Flirting with Carter right in front of us? Do you think we're dead?!"

But this time, I didn't let her land it.

I caught her wrist and held it. Squeezed until she cried out.

Nora scrambled into Carter's arms, trembling like a frightened kitten. "Carter, is it because I took the drug development project from her? Is that why she's lashing out?"

"Please, sis, if that's what this is about, just let Mom go. I'll give you back the spot."

Then her eyes locked onto mine, glinting with challenge.

I almost laughed.

They had no idea.

That drug development project was mine. I'd initiated it. The only reason I'd handed it to Henson Pharmaceuticals was to elevate their standing in Southgate City.

But I didn't feel like giving anymore.

Carter's face went white with fury. He seized my hand in a crushing grip.

"Amanda, are you done making a scene?!"

"One of them is the sister whose life you stole for twenty years."

"The other is the mother who raised you. Do you really have to be this aggressive?"

His grip was iron-tight.

And suddenly I remembered the day he proposed. He'd held my hand just like this, fingers locked around mine.

Breathing hard. Eyes full of conviction.

Promising that if we both made it home alive, he'd give me a lifetime of happiness.

I never once doubted his love. But love shifts like wind.

Everything he'd given me, he could just as easily give to Nora.

Carter's brow furrowed, and his voice dropped to something dangerous.

"Apologize to Nora and her mother."

"Or I'll make sure you never work in Crestfield again."

He used to defend me just like that. Blindly. Fiercely. Without asking questions.

Now the same ruthlessness was aimed squarely at me.

"Even though you know they provoked me first. Even though you can see I'm the one who got hit." My voice was steady, each word precise. "And you still want me to apologize. Is that right, Carter?"