"I'm not as shameless as you, Marcus. Doing disgusting things like that fits you and Sophia... not me." I kept my voice calm and steady, which made Marcus even more angry.

"Ava! How dare you!"

His voice cracked through the phone like thunder in the quiet French night.

"Did you sleep with that man? Did you moan and cry out under his body?"

Marcus's dirty words made me furious, but I held back. No matter what, I couldn't let him know about my twin babies. My children shouldn't have a cruel father like I had cruel parents. I suffered my whole life, but I wanted my babies to grow up with warmth and love.

"We're done, Marcus. This conversation is over, so stop bothering me. Whether I choose another man or not has nothing to do with you anymore."

"Just sign those divorce papers then." Marcus laughed, but there was no humor in it. I could hear him grinding his teeth in anger.

"You shameless woman, are you so excited for a divorce because you want my money? Do you think the money you get from me will make you and your lover rich?"

The line went quiet for a moment. I could hear him breathing heavily.

"Let me tell you a secret, Ava. From the very beginning of our marriage, I knew exactly what kind of disgusting, creepy woman you were."

Marcus's words felt like acid burning through my heart. Each word cut deeper than a knife, leaving me speechless.

"So I made sure to prepare for this day when I would kick you out of my life. You probably think you'll live well with my money, but let me tell you something - I'll make your life hell! I'll use every trick I know to make sure you don't get a single penny!"

I refused to let the tears in my eyes fall. I finally understood that Marcus had been using me from the very beginning.

"Do whatever you want, Marcus. I don't care."

With that, I hung up the phone.

The rain started hitting my hotel window as I realized the truth - loving Marcus was my biggest mistake.

A week crawled by like a slow, painful dream. It was my first day at my new office in downtown Toronto Canada. The Hermès scarf around my neck felt like the only piece of luxury I had left as I sat reviewing documents.

"Miss Ava?"

I looked up to see a young woman Ms. Lyla  with nervous eyes standing by my desk.

"Yes? How can I help you?"

"The manager wants to see you in his office. Right now."

My stomach dropped. The cold air from the air conditioning made me shiver as I knocked on the glass door.

"Come in," a gruff voice called.

"Miss Ava, I'm sorry to tell you that the position you were hired for has been given to someone else." The manager didn't even look up from his papers as he spoke.

My breathing got heavy. "But sir, it was the senior management who offered me this job in the first place. Please let me talk to them. I need to know why this is happening."

"Are you questioning my authority now?" The manager's face turned red with anger when I asked for answers.

"I don't understand why I would be fired like this. I haven't even started working yet."

"I'll give you a reason."

Another voice made me turn around. My blood turned to ice when I saw Marcus standing right in front of me with his arm wrapped around Sophia's tiny waist. She wore a pink Chanel suit that probably cost more than most people make in a year.

Marcus's face twisted into a fake smile as he looked at the manager. "Could you give us some privacy, please?"

The manager quickly left, closing the door behind him.

"You were so confident that you could survive without me, weren't you?" Marcus walked closer, his expensive Gucci shoes clicking on the marble floor. "I invested in this company, and now I'm a shareholder. Just like that, I'm back on top and you're still at the bottom, begging. Didn't you say you didn't need me?"

"Marcus, please stop. Don't talk to my sister like this." I felt sick watching Sophia's fake performance as she dabbed her eyes with a silk handkerchief.

"Sister?" Marcus's voice got sharp and cold. "This woman stole me away from you and became my wife by blackmailing my grandfather. Why are you still being nice to her?"

"Marcus, please. Ava is still my sister. She might have made mistakes in the past, but I can't just abandon her." Sophia reached into her Louis Vuitton purse and pulled out a stack of money.

"This might help with your medical treatment, sister. Please take it."

In the past, I would have hung my head and put up with Sophia's fake kindness. But this time, a slow smile spread across my face.

"What is that? A few thousand dollars?" I laughed softly. "If you had actually studied once in your life instead of fooling around with other people's husbands, you'd know that money can't even buy one month of asthma medicine, let alone pay for real treatment."

I stood up slowly, feeling stronger than I had in years.

"Instead of giving me charity, how about you use that money to get an education?"

"You-!" Sophia's mask slipped for a moment, and I saw the real anger in her eyes before she put on her sweet voice again.

"Never mind. I'm not here to fight with you." She turned to Marcus with a sugary smile. "Marcus, why don't you tell Ava why we came here specifically to see her?"

While Sophia argued with me, Marcus stared at my face without blinking, like he was trying to read my thoughts.

The office felt too small, too hot. The city noise from outside seemed far away.

"This can still change, Ava." Marcus's voice got softer, almost gentle. "Just like I promised you before - if you come back to me, I'll make up for everything that happened in the past. We can get over this."

Sophia's confident smile disappeared completely. She stared at Marcus like he had just slapped her.

"What are you saying?" she whispered.

"No." My voice came out stronger than I expected. "I will never come back to you."

Marcus's face went hard. The gentle look he used to trick me with vanished, and he glared at me with pure hatred.

"Fine then! Don't blame me for being cruel!"

He pulled out a stack of papers and threw them at my feet. The documents scattered across the expensive carpet like fallen leaves.

"There. I signed the divorce papers myself."

The papers lay there between us like a bridge that had finally burned down. In the silence that followed, I could hear Sophia's sharp intake of breath and Marcus's heavy breathing.

I looked down at the papers, then back up at his face.

"Good," I said quietly. "This is exactly what I wanted."

Instead of looking upset like Marcus expected, I actually looked relieved to see the divorce papers all signed. There was no panic on my face at all, which made Marcus feel angry and confused about how easily I could leave him.

He pulled Sophia close and smiled down at me with a cruel look.

"Next month, I'm going to marry Sophia as my legal wife. You, as her sister, are invited too." His voice was cold and sharp. "Unlike you, who could never give me a child, Sophia will do everything a Moretti family wife should do. Her children will be my heirs."

Sophia's eyes lit up with excitement. She hadn't expected Marcus to marry her so soon.

"Ava, I know you loved Marcus a lot, but please try to understand, sister. You can't force someone to love you back," she said with fake sweetness in her voice.

I squeezed my hands into tight fists, trying to stay calm even though my heart was breaking into pieces. It would have been okay if he just replaced me - I had no hope left for Marcus anyway. But to say that I could never be a mother? That cut deeper than anything else.

He crushed my heart without any mercy.

The office felt too small, too hot. The smell of Sophia's expensive Dior perfume made me feel sick.

"Goodbye, sister Ava." Sophia's smile was full of mockery. "If you want, I can make you one of my bridesmaids."

"I'd rather die," I whispered under my breath.

I ran out of the office with tears filling my eyes, not caring about anything anymore. I just needed to get away from them. But as I rushed through the glass doors outside the building, I crashed right into someone, and my body fell backward from the impact.

The next moment, gentle arms caught me and held me tight, stopping me from hitting the ground.

Looking up through my blurry, tear-filled eyes, I apologized quickly.

"I-I'm sorry, please forgive me... it was my fault."

"No."

The answer surprised me, and I stopped moving to look up at the person who caught me. It was a man wearing a black mask that covered half his face. Beautiful blue eyes stared back at me with concern.

"If you're really sorry, you better make up for my loss." He pointed to the spilled coffee on the ground, which made me feel even worse.

"Okay." I fumbled with my purse, trying to find some money, but he stopped me.

"Not like that. There's a cake shop near the office. Buy me something there."

The weird request made me stop crying as I pouted like a child.

"Fine. But if you're trying to kidnap me, you should know that I don't have any money, and I have no family to pay ransom for me. Also, I just got fired today." My complaint made him laugh in a warm, rich way.

"Alright, let's postpone the kidnapping for later then-"

"Wait, what? Are you really going to kidnap me?"

"No, darling." He spoke clearly, then muttered something under his breath that sounded like, 'Even if I wanted to kidnap you, Ava, I'm not exactly a kidnapper.'

"What did you say?"

"Nothing. Let's just go."

We walked to the bakery shop, and this shameless man didn't think twice before ordering what looked like a whole buffet - raspberry cheesecake, chocolate chip cookies, a blueberry milkshake, and so many other things.

Strangely, all of the items he ordered were my favorites. We got a table by the window with a beautiful view of the Seine River.

"What, you're not going to eat any of this?" I asked angrily, just thinking about how much money all this food cost. Just because I spilled his coffee, he made me buy him a feast.

"I don't like sweets."

By now, my stress and tears had completely disappeared, and I looked ready to murder this man.

"What?!"

"Since you spent so much money on it, why don't you try how it tastes?" Even though I couldn't see his whole face, I could hear his voice become gentle, and it looked like he was smiling behind that mask.

"I hate that I bumped into you!" I shouted. My pregnancy hormones were making me drool over all the food, so I dove in without caring about this stranger. If I paid for it, I might as well enjoy every bite.

The raspberry cheesecake melted on my tongue like heaven. For the first time in days, I felt a little bit happy.

When I had almost finished eating everything, the man's phone rang, making him sigh deeply.

"It was nice meeting you, stranger. Now I have to go." He stood up and put some dollar on the table.

Suddenly it hit me - this was a complete stranger, and I had been eating with him like we were old friends, completely forgetting about Marcus and Sophia.

"Wait... do we know each other?" I asked him quickly as he got ready to leave.

"Maybe, darling." And with that mysterious answer, he was gone.

The waiter soon came over with a bouquet of beautiful yellow roses, holding them out to me.

"Um, I think you have the wrong person. I just need the bill."

"Madam, there's no mistake at all. The bill is already paid, and these flowers were left by the gentleman who was with you." The waiter smiled kindly. "Also, you now have a lifetime membership to our chain of restaurants, so wherever you go, you'll get the best service."

Shocked, I took the roses. They smelled like sunshine and hope. Just then, I saw a small card tucked between the flowers.

'Welcome to Canada, Ava~ Your friend Dominic Moretti'

"Dominic Moretti." My breath caught in my throat as my eyes went wide with shock.

The roses suddenly felt heavy in my hands. Dominic Moretti - Marcus's older brother who had disappeared years ago after a family fight.

While I was trying to figure out what just happened, Marcus found himself thinking about me obsessively. The very next morning, he ordered his assistant to find out everything about where I was in canada and to have someone secretly watch me.

To get more information about where I might go and who I might talk to, Marcus searched through all my things in our mansion.

When he opened my walk-in closet, he realized that all the expensive jewelry he had bought me as gifts was still there, untouched. Most of the designer dresses still had their tags on them. Only a few regular clothes that I had bought with my own money from working at the gallery and restaurant were missing.

After our fight, Marcus had wanted to burn all my things, but seeing all the untouched expensive items made him freeze.

"Strange. A greedy woman like her... why would she leave all this behind?" Marcus muttered to himself as he went through my belongings.

His hands touched the Cartier necklace he'd given me for our first anniversary - still in its box. The Tiffany earrings from last Christmas - never worn.

Suddenly, a document fell out from between some old books.

[KIDNEY TRANSPLANT]

[DONOR NAME: AVA HARRISON]

Marcus stared at the paper, his hands shaking. The date showed it was from two years ago - right around the time I had been "sick" for weeks and he had accused me of being lazy.

Marcus's hands shook as he held the medical report. The angry look on his face slowly disappeared, and a shaky breath escaped his lips in fear.

"No. This... this can't be right."

He flipped through the pages, trying to read the words, but they were blurry. It felt like his whole world was falling apart.

[Blood transfusion: 26th week

Patient: Marcus Moretti]

Marcus's hand trembled as he called his grandfather on his phone.

"Grandfather, please tell me the truth. That year when I was dying in the hospital... it was Sophia who saved my life, right? She gave me her kidney and let the doctors take her blood so I could get better. After that, she went to another country to get well."

"Who told you that?"

"Ava's older brothers said that Sophia was the one who-"

Marcus's grandfather was a tough man who built his company from nothing. He still controlled everything in the business. When he heard that his grandson had been fooled by the two Harrisson brothers, his face turned red with anger.

Before Marcus could finish talking, his grandfather exploded in fury.

"Those two bastards are going to destroy the Harrisson corporation completely! Did you really listen to kids like them? They can't even take care of their sister Ava, but they're still obsessed with Sophia, who isn't even their real blood sister! They've been lying to you this whole time!"

"W-What do you mean?" Marcus felt like a heavy stone had dropped into his stomach as he feared hearing the truth.

"How can you not know that Ava is brilliant at business, you fool?! Those two brothers have always been jealous that Ava's grandfather would give the Harrisson Corporation to her instead of them."

The old man's voice got louder and angrier. "Even I, an old man in my eighties, can see that it's been their plan all along! They wanted to match you up with that girl Sophia to get access to our company and to kick Ava out. Everything they told you was a lie!"

Marcus stumbled backward, completely shocked.

"No... it... it can't be. Sophia isn't like that-"

"There's a limit to how much you can disappoint me, Marcus. I heard from your secretary that you've been running around with that girl lately. Did you choose her over Ava?"

Marcus felt stunned. His mind was a complete mess.

"I... I promised Sophia that I would marry her." Marcus remembered that three years ago, he had gotten down on one knee in front of Sophia, promising her that he would love her and would never let anyone hurt her.

All these years, he had treated Sophia like she was his hero, only to now realize that she was just a fake all along.

"Are you crazy?!" his grandfather shouted. "I arranged your marriage with Ava when you were young because I thought Sophia was the real child of the Harrisson family. Even after we found out that her parents came from a poor countryside family and the babies were switched in the hospital, I didn't stop your engagement with her."

The old man's voice cracked with emotion. "But when Sophia found out that you were dying, she pretended to be sick herself and ran away to another country. It was Ava who gave you her kidney and let the doctors take her blood, no matter how much it hurt her."

Marcus's expensive Rolex watch felt heavy on his wrist as his grandfather continued.

"That girl risked her life for you, and this is how you repay her! Do you think I'm stupid enough to give her seven percent of our company's shares for no reason?"

A loud thud echoed through the room as the folder slipped from Marcus's fingers and hit the marble floor. His eyes filled with tears as he barely whispered, "Why didn't you tell me this?"

"I didn't say anything because Ava never wanted to burden you. She even gave up a golden opportunity I offered her and married you instead!" His grandfather's voice was full of disappointment. "How can you, who has never handled a single responsibility since childhood, compare to someone as talented as her?"

"What do you mean? Did she... Did she not force you to make me marry her?"

There was silence on the other end of the phone before his grandfather sighed deeply.

"If anything, it was me who forced her to marry into the Moretti family. But you were not her intended husband."

Marcus's heart started beating wildly as he grabbed his chest, feeling intense pain.

"She's gone... Ava has left me." A tear rolled down Marcus's cheek as guilt and sadness took over his entire body.

His grandfather stayed quiet for a long time before whispering, "You can only bring bad luck, Marcus. You ruined everything."

The silence in the room was broken only by the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner.

"I never wanted a good girl like Ava to marry someone as arrogant and cruel as you. Since you were a child, you've only brought shame to this family, just like now when you're openly cheating on Ava."

"But grandfather, I thought-"

"If only she had married the man I originally chose for her instead of you."

"W-Who was her intended husband?" Marcus's voice cracked with fear.

Marcus had only one real rival in the entire world - only one person whom his grandfather saw as the true Moretti heir. Marcus had lost his power to that man and had been beaten by him in every single way. His eyes went wild as he waited for the answer, terrified that he might lose me to that person as well.

"Dominic Moretti. Your older brother."

The moment that name was spoken, Marcus lost his balance. His knees gave out beneath him, and he crashed to the floor.

The phone fell from his hand, and he could hear his grandfather's voice becoming distant.

"Marcus? Marcus, are you there?"

But Marcus couldn't answer. He lay on the cold marble floor of his office, staring at the ceiling, as everything he thought he knew about his life crumbled around him.

In the background, he could hear his grandfather's final words before the line went dead: "You've lost the only woman who ever truly loved you, you fool."

The Hermès tie around Marcus's neck felt like it was choking him as the truth finally sank in. Ava - the woman he had treated like garbage for three years - had been his savior all along. And now she was gone, probably forever.

Outside his office window, the city lights of Miami twinkled like stars, but Marcus felt like he was drowning in complete darkness.