I had spent years paying for Damian Grant’s infertility in every way a woman could.

Doctors, treatments, private clinics, and humiliation I swallowed in silence.

Then, against every odd, I finally got pregnant.

It was the child the Grant family had been waiting for. The miracle Madam Evelyn Grant had prayed for. The one thing Damian had been told he might never have.

On the night before our wedding, I saw a local post climbing the trending list.

[Another day of being the only girl who gets under my boss’s skin.]

In the video, a young woman smiled sweetly at the camera.

[My boss is terrifying to everyone else. Cold eyes, bad temper, the whole package. But today, during a meeting, I secretly stepped on his shoe under the table. He actually smiled at me. Then he texted me and told me to behave.]

The comments were full of people swooning.

[That has to be love. A man like that only softens for one woman.]

[Look closely. There must be some little detail on him that belongs only to you.]

I scrolled down and saw the influencer’s reply.

It was a photo of a dark silver tie clip pinned right over her chest.

[This is the gift he gave me. He said whenever I see it, I should think of him.]

I stared at that tie clip for a long time.

It was the engagement gift I had spent a month polishing by hand for Damian.

And inside it, there was still a tiny heart made from his fingerprint and mine.

In the mirror, the white wedding dress on me suddenly looked painfully bright.

The tie clip in that photo was the one I had given Damian Grant last month.

I still remembered the way he had taken it from my hand. He had barely glanced at it before tossing it into a drawer.

“Don’t waste your time on things like this again. You’re going to be my wife. Put that energy into learning how to run a household.”

His tone had been cold and flat, as if he were commenting on a bad quarterly report.

I had thought he simply didn’t like the gift.

But now, there it was, pinned neatly to another woman’s collar, turned into something she could parade around as proof that she was special.

Through the screen, it felt as if someone had slapped me across the face. My ears rang.

So the heart I had spent ten years trying to reach had already been handed to someone else.

A dry ache scraped at my throat. Somehow, I started laughing.

I took off the wedding dress and called Damian.

“Where are you?”

“At work.” His voice was as cold as ever, edged with impatience.

My fingers tightened around the phone until my knuckles turned white.

“There’s a reception tonight. Ethan will be there. You remember him, don’t you? When we were kids, my mother saved you and him from that fire...”

He cut me off.

“I’m busy. Go by yourself.”

I still refused to let it go. My voice trembled despite my best effort to steady it.

“He’s in charge of the Cole family now. I think we should at least show up together...”

The line went dead.

As always, he hadn’t let me finish.

Only the empty dial tone remained in my ear.

But right before the call ended, I clearly heard a soft, petulant voice on his side.

“Damian, who was that? She sounded so rude.”

My stomach turned, and nausea rose sharply in my throat.

Clutching my phone, I checked his location.

It led me to an exclusive private club. After paying my way in, I went straight to Damian’s private room.

But I didn’t go inside.

I stood outside the door.

The man who had claimed he was at work was sitting inside, drinking and laughing as if he had no care in the world.

And beside him was the girl from the video, Lily Hart.

“Damian, I have to hand it to your new intern. She actually managed to get a smile out of you.”

One of Damian’s childhood friends lifted his glass and teased him.

“But does the woman waiting at home know? That little housekeeper’s daughter you’ve kept around for ten years won’t get jealous, will she?”

“Jealous of what? She’s just an old obligation Madam Evelyn Grant forced on him. Damian’s already being generous by agreeing to marry her.”

“Exactly. Her mother ran into that fire years ago and saved Evelyn and Damian, sure, but Vivian has hardly suffered for it. She grew up in the Grant family, didn’t she? Good food, good clothes, the whole privileged life. Evelyn is getting sentimental in her old age. A promise made after a fire doesn’t mean Damian has to spend his life paying for it.”

The room burst into laughter.

I went completely still.

I stared at Damian, waiting for him to say something. Anything.

Just once.

But he didn’t.

He only smiled faintly and drank another glass of wine.

Lily hooked both hands around Damian’s arm and shook it playfully.

“That’s true, Damian. You’re so incredible. If you get married this young, a lot of women are going to be heartbroken.”

The moment she said it, another friend laughed.

“Is this little assistant talking about herself?”

Lily immediately pouted.

“Damian, look. They’re all making fun of me.”

She kept tugging at his arm, all sweetness and practiced innocence.

At last, Damian set down his glass and spoke.

“Are you done?”

His gaze swept across the room, his voice cold enough to cut through the laughter.

The private room fell silent at once.

Even I held my breath.

His friend quickly laughed and tried to ease the tension.

“We’re just joking. Don’t take it seriously, Damian. We’re only curious. You treat this girl completely differently from Vivian Shaw.”

“It’s been ten years, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile at Vivian.”

“She’s so stiff and quiet. How could she be as fun as Lily?”

“So the wedding is tomorrow. Are you actually going through with it or not? Give us a straight answer so we know what to prepare for. Or do what Lily said and tell Evelyn the truth. Don’t sacrifice your whole life just for the inheritance.”

At those words, my eyes fixed on Damian.

I only wanted an answer.

It was such a simple thing.

Simple enough that no matter what he said, I already knew what I would do next.

The wine moved slowly in his glass, throwing dark red flashes across his face.

He didn’t look at anyone. He only kept turning the glass in his hand.

Finally, his thin lips parted.

“I’ll marry her.”

His voice was calm, almost careless, but it landed on me with crushing weight.

Inside the room, his friends immediately started whistling.

“See? I told you. Ten years together. You can’t just throw that away.”

“Lily, don’t think too much. Vivian is just the official choice. You know Damian likes you best.”

Damian said nothing more.

But his silence made one thing clear.

When it came to me, there was nothing worth explaining.

In his eyes, I was only an obligation.

A burden.

The consequence of a promise he had never wanted to keep.

For a moment, I saw the fire from ten years ago again.

Flames clawing into the sky. My mother shoving Damian and Ethan out while a burning beam crashed down and trapped her underneath.

That fire had given me a place in the Grant family.

It had also taken my mother’s life.

“Those strawberries look so good.”

Lily’s sweet voice sounded again.

I saw her pick up a strawberry, then set it back down.

Damian’s friends started teasing her.

“If you want one, just eat it.”

But Lily frowned and pushed it away, then looked at Damian with a spoiled little smile.

“No. They’re not clean. I want Damian to wash them for me.”

I had already turned to leave, but that sentence stopped me cold.

Since we were children, Damian had never lifted a finger for anything. I had always been the one to wash and cut the fruit before placing it beside his hand.

I looked at him, hoping to see even the smallest trace of annoyance.

There was none.

“I’ll wash them.”

Damian set down his glass and actually stood up.

Then he turned and pushed open the private room door.

The moment our eyes met, the air froze.

The softness in his expression vanished instantly. Surprise flashed through his eyes first, then impatience, then a disgust so familiar it almost felt like home.

“What are you doing here?”

I didn’t answer.

I only looked at him, my voice oddly calm and faintly mocking.

“Damian, why is the tie clip I gave you on another woman?”

He didn’t hear the edge in my voice. Instead, after my words landed, he looked at me as if I were some hysterical woman causing a scene in public.

“Vivian, don’t embarrass yourself here.”

“Embarrass myself?”

I laughed, but the tears came first.

“We’re supposed to get married tomorrow, and you’re here drinking with another woman. Which one of us is embarrassing?”

At that moment, Lily peeked out from behind him. She slipped her arm through his with easy familiarity and looked at me with open smugness.

“Damian, who is she? She’s scary.”

As she spoke, her fingers brushed the tie clip on her chest, deliberately or not.

Damian’s face darkened completely.

He glanced at my thin clothing, then took off his suit jacket as if completing an obligation and moved to drape it over my shoulders.

“Stop making a scene. Go home. Don’t ruin tomorrow’s wedding.”

His tone was commanding and condescending, more reprimand than concern.

In that instant, ten years of memories rushed through me at once. They passed in a blur, yet each one was painfully clear.

Then all of them collapsed into the single word he had spoken in that room.

Marry.

It wasn’t love.

It was not the heart I had imagined I might one day warm.

It was reluctant charity, wrapped in disgust and duty.

So I didn’t want it anymore.

“Damian, cancel the wedding.”

I gently pushed his jacket away.

His hand froze in midair. Shock flickered in his eyes before hardening into ice.

“What kind of stunt are you pulling now?”

“I’m not pulling a stunt.”

I looked at him and said every word clearly.

“Damian, I just don’t want you anymore.”

The moment I finished speaking, Damian looked as if he had heard the funniest joke in the world. He scoffed.

“Vivian, do you really think you could survive without me?”

After that, he didn’t look at me again.

He turned, wrapped an arm around Lily’s shoulders, and said coldly to the security guard nearby, “Take her somewhere to calm down. Don’t let her come back in and bother us.”

In the next second, a hard grip seized my arm and dragged me backward.

I stumbled, and my back slammed into the cold wall with a painful thud.

The private room door shut in my face.

Leaning against the wall, I slowly slid down to the floor.

Ten years.

This one-sided performance should have ended long ago.

I took out my phone and deleted everything related to Damian.

The next second, the screen lit up.

The caller ID read Ethan Cole.

Half an hour later, Ethan pushed a cup of hot cocoa toward me.

“Are you okay? I remember your mother’s death anniversary is coming up.”

My eyes stung.

I looked at Ethan and realized he might be the only person who still remembered my mother.

I had just opened my mouth when a sharp, sour taste rose in my throat.

“Ugh...”

I clapped a hand over my mouth, turned away, and dry heaved violently.

Ethan’s expression changed at once. He immediately stood and gently patted my back.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing.”

I pulled out a tissue and pressed it to the corner of my mouth, forcing down the bitterness in my throat.

“I’m just pregnant.”

Ethan’s hand froze in midair.

Then he stared at my stomach in disbelief, his voice shaking so badly it barely sounded like him.

“Wait... didn’t Damian find out years ago that he couldn’t have children?”

Seeing the shock in Ethan’s eyes, I instinctively placed a hand over my still-flat stomach.

It was true.

Damian was infertile.

No one knew that better than I did.

Three years ago, when he first received the test results, he destroyed everything in his study.

The doctor had said his sperm motility was extremely low. Natural conception was almost impossible.

So when the pregnancy test showed two lines, I thought it was a miracle.

I had planned to tell him in person at the wedding.

I had also wanted to make Evelyn happy. She was the head of the Grant family, but these past few years, all she had wanted was to see a child born into the family.

But now...

I set down my cup and looked at Ethan.

“Help me leave.”

Ethan’s pupils tightened again.

“But your wedding is tomorrow.”

I lowered my eyes and told him everything, calmly and from the beginning.

The ten years I had spent living under someone else’s roof.

The obedience.

The insults I had swallowed.

The way Damian had turned me, in the end, into nothing more than a promise he resented having to keep.

“I don’t blame anyone,” I said. “I was the one who refused to see the truth.”

After a pause, my voice went hoarse.

“I also know you do business with him. If helping me puts you in a difficult position, pretend I never asked.

“Just... don’t tell him.”

Ethan was silent for a long time.

Then he said, “Tell me what you need. I’ll arrange it.”

I looked up in surprise.

When our eyes met, he smiled faintly.

“I’ll help you. If your mother, Laura Shaw, hadn’t gone back into that fire, I would have died there too.”

After Ethan and I settled the plan, we parted ways, and I went straight back to the Grant Residence.

But the moment I pushed open the front door, I stopped.

In the living room, Lily was clinging to Damian like she could barely stand, her face tipped up toward his as she drunkenly tugged at his tie.

“Damian... I like you... I like you so much...”

Damian didn’t push her away.

He lowered his eyes, one hand steady at her waist, his gaze filled with a tenderness and indulgence I had never once received from him.

Not in ten years.

When he saw me, his gaze moved past Lily’s head and landed on me.

The tenderness disappeared instantly, replaced by the familiar coldness.

“She drank too much. Get the guest room ready.”

His tone was so natural, as if he were giving instructions to a housekeeper.

“I’m not going.”

I pulled my gaze away and headed upstairs.

Damian’s brows snapped together.

After all, for the past ten years, I had done whatever he asked.

I had never once told him no.

His face darkened. His eyes settled on me with a pressure that made the air feel thin.

After carefully setting Lily down on the sofa, he stood and looked down at me.

“Are you still not done?”

Damian tugged at his tie. His tone almost sounded like compromise, but the impatience beneath it was impossible to miss.

“Is this about the tie clip? Or because I didn’t take you inside tonight? Fine. I’ll say it. I’m sorry.

“Vivian, is that enough? Can you act normal now?”

He came toward me step by step, his gaze cold enough to cut.

“The wedding is tomorrow. Evelyn has just recovered from a serious illness, and she flew back from overseas specifically to attend.

“Let me make this clear. You’d better wipe that bitter look off your face. Don’t embarrass the Grant family at the wedding and upset Evelyn.”

I looked at him, my chest rising and falling with anger.

Tears gathered in my eyes, but I forced them back.

“Are you afraid Evelyn will be upset, or are you afraid she’ll take away your inheritance?”

The moment the words left my mouth, Damian’s eyes turned completely cold.

“Vivian.”

He said my name, then delivered a sentence that sent me straight into the cold.

“Don’t forget what your mother gave up to put you here.”

Then he gave a low, mocking laugh.

In that moment, his eyes held nothing but contempt, as if he were merely stating a fact.

“Your place in this family was bought with her life.”

The last thread holding me together snapped.

So that was how he saw it.

In his eyes, my mother’s death had been nothing more than a transaction.

Crash.

Trembling all over, I grabbed the glass beside me and hurled it at him.

Damian’s expression changed. Instinctively, he turned and shielded Lily completely behind him.

The glass struck his shoulder hard, then shattered across the floor.

He let out a muffled groan and slowly turned his head.

The look he gave me was so dark it was almost murderous.

Even then, he still didn’t forget Lily.

After staring at me with hatred in his eyes, he scooped the woman pretending to be drunk into his arms and strode upstairs.

Watching them disappear, I began gasping for air.

Then the tears finally came.

A strong taste of blood rose in my throat. A dull pain stirred low in my abdomen.

Clutching my stomach, I braced myself against the wall and made my way back to my room step by step.

Then I pulled out my suitcase and opened the closet as if my body were moving on its own.

I had to leave.

I did not want to spend one more second in that disgusting place.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the white wedding dress still hanging there, quiet and flawless, like an exquisitely made joke.

I looked away.

But just as I placed my clothes into the suitcase, the bedroom door was kicked open with a bang.

A brutal force seized my wrist and yanked hard.

I lost my balance and was thrown against the cold wall.

My pregnant belly hit the surface, and pain shot through me so sharply that I sucked in a breath.

The next second, Damian rushed over and grabbed me by the throat.

His face was twisted with fury as he glared at me.

“Vivian, how long are you going to keep this up?

“I already lowered myself and apologized to you. Don’t push it.”

The veins at his temple stood out as he snarled through gritted teeth.

“Do you not understand plain English? I said I’m running out of patience. I am running out of patience.”

His eyes swept over the suitcase on the floor, and his mouth curved into a sneer full of contempt.

“Still pretending you’re leaving?

“Vivian, who do you think you are?”

His fingers tightened around my jaw as if he meant to crush the bone.

“Tell me. If you leave me, where would you even go? You don’t know how to survive on your own.”

He was choking me so hard I could barely breathe.

My vision began to blur.

But I still forced the words out, one by one, through broken breaths.

“Damian...

“I’m pregnant.”

At the same time, a deep, tearing pain ripped through my abdomen.

Bright red blood streamed down between my legs.

In an instant, the floor beneath me was soaked in crimson.