Joanna Cross's fiance, who had supposedly died seven years ago, suddenly came back.

When I went to find her, the two of them were discussing their wedding.

Adrian Shaw pointed at me, standing at the very back of the crowd, and asked, "Jo, who is he?"

Joanna answered without hesitation.

"Our wedding officiant."

I clutched my chest, faintly feeling my heart condition beginning to flare.

Before I could question her, the bodyguards escorted me out of the living room.

Inside, laughter filled the room. Outside, my hands and feet went cold, and the pain nearly tore me apart.

Two hours later, Joanna came out with a smile still on her face.

When she saw the state I was in, she panicked and immediately wrapped me tightly in her coat.

But the words she spoke were colder than ice.

"Adrian has forgotten everything except that I was his fiancee.

"The doctors said any stimulation could make him try to kill himself. The wedding is fake. It is only to make him happy. The person I love has always been you."

I could not hold on anymore and collapsed.

Joanna hurriedly helped me into the car, her voice shaking.

"Mason, don't be scared. The matching heart was prepared long ago. I won't let anything happen to you.

"I will take you to the best hospital right now."

But just as she helped me into the passenger seat, she ran into Adrian, whose eyes were full of tears.

"Jo, are you abandoning me?"

In a single second, Joanna made her choice.

She peeled my fingers away from her one by one, then shut the car door.

After that, Joanna never appeared again. Instead, she sent me a message.

[Your surgery was successful. That's wonderful!]

[Adrian cannot handle any stimulation. Can you disappear for three months? After that, we will spend the rest of our lives together.]

Her promises were so vivid.

But Joanna did not know the surgery had never succeeded.

Three months was too long.

I could not make it that far.

During those days, Joanna Cross, who almost never posted on social media, suddenly began flooding everyone's feed.

In the photos, she and Adrian Shaw appeared in pretty cafes, atmospheric streets, dessert shops, and craft studios.

The woman who was usually quiet and bad at expressing herself wrote captions so emotional they seemed to bleed.

[One hundred things couples must do. We did them before, but baby forgot, so I will do them all with him again. Getting him back is too precious. As long as it is his wish, even if I have to die, I will make it happen for him.]

Those were things I had always wanted to do with Joanna.

But every time I brought them up, she said I was childish. She mocked me for being a grown man who liked such girly nonsense. She said she was busy. Without exception, she turned me down.

So it had never been the activities she hated.

It had been me.

I laughed bitterly at myself as pain tore through my chest.

With trembling hands, I called Joanna. I wanted to ask her a question. It was a cliche question, but I needed to hear the answer from her own mouth.

Before I could dial, Joanna called me first.

She explained calmly, almost objectively.

"The captions and photos were all Adrian's idea. I am only pretending to cooperate for the sake of his condition. Adrian refused to let me block anyone, so I had no choice but to let you see them. I knew it would hurt you. Don't be angry, Mason. I love you. I always have."

She said it was fake.

But the joy in her eyes and the tenderness with which she looked at Adrian were completely real. They could not fool anyone.

The words she kept repeating, that she loved me, sounded cheap instead.

I gasped for air. The machines attached to my body beeped rapidly. Betrayal, fear, and pain tangled around me until I was close to breaking.

Sweat gathered on my forehead and slid down, mixing with the tears at the corners of my eyes.

My voice shook as I said, "Joanna, my heart hurts. It hurts so much."

I thought she would feel sorry for me.

But suspicion arrived before concern.

"How could that be? Didn't you already get the transplant?" Then, as if she had suddenly thought of something, she said firmly, "Mason, stop pretending. This is not the time to be jealous."

For a moment, my breathing stopped.

I tried to defend myself.

"I am not jealous. It really hurts. I am not pretending. Can you come over, please?"

But the only response I heard was Adrian's voice.

"Honey, come here. I can't reach my back in the shower. Help me."

Joanna's footsteps sounded, and the sound of running water gradually became clearer.

I nearly broke down. I pressed a hand over my heart just to keep from dying from the pain.

"Are you really going to help him shower? Is that something a normal man and woman can do? What do you take me for, Joanna?"

Joanna's calm voice carried a hint of irritation.

"It is all just for show. Adrian and I grew up together. We were kids running around naked before we even knew better. I can promise you that even if I help scrub his back, I will feel nothing. Stop being jealous. Be good. Three months has already become eighty-nine days. When it is over, everything will be fine. Just wait for me."

She hung up.

No matter how many times I called, I could not get through again.

Then came a new post.

Adrian's soaked shirt clung to his abs. Joanna's slender hand, nails painted red, had slipped inside his shirt and rested firmly against his chest.

The caption read:

[Good boy. He really feels nice.]

My breath caught in my throat. I coughed and could not stop. Half a minute later, my throat filled with the taste of blood, and I sprayed a mouthful onto the white sheets, staining them red.

With trembling hands, I tried to touch the stain, but everything before my eyes blurred more and more.

In the end, I passed out.

I did not know how long it had been when I woke up.

My attending physician, Dr. Tara Wells, looked at me gravely and warned me, "Do not let yourself get worked up again. Your surgery was very successful, but after surgery, the most important thing is to stay calm. Emotional swings that intense can cause you to cough blood and pass out like today. In severe cases, they can be life-threatening."

I stared at the ceiling and forced myself to control my emotions.

Joanna's message notifications kept sounding beside me.

I did not even have the strength to read them.

So I asked the housekeeper to read them for me.

The housekeeper cleared her throat awkwardly and spoke with care.

"Adrian is doing a little better today. The doctor said I am his medicine. As long as I stay with him, he will recover quickly. You have no idea how happy I am watching him get better."

"Adrian loves pear blossoms. It's been snowing these days, and all the white reminds him of them, so he's been overjoyed."

Then, as if afraid I would get angry, the housekeeper tried to defend Joanna.

"Sir, I think those are just polite words from Ms. Cross. This next sentence is probably what she really wanted to say. I will read it to you now."

"Mason, the strawberry cake from the west side bakery is very good. I will buy you one later."

"See? Ma'am still loves you the most. Even when she is beside that man, she is thinking about you."

...

After that, I could no longer hear what the housekeeper was saying.

I closed my eyes and let the tears slide down.

I was allergic to strawberries.

For someone with a heart condition, a serious allergic reaction could even be fatal.

I never touched strawberries.

The person who liked them had never been me.

It was Adrian.

My brows drew together. I bit my lower lip against the ache in my chest.

Dr. Wells added new medicine to my IV.

"Since you are in this much pain, I will increase the pain relief. Remember, do not get emotional."

When the medicine took effect, my mind cleared again. I nodded along with Dr. Wells.

"Don't worry. I won't."

I messaged my lawyer.

Draft a divorce agreement for me. I want to divorce Joanna Cross.

She was tainted.

I did not want her anymore.

Naturally, I would no longer let my emotions fall apart because of her.

For ten whole days, I ignored Joanna. Once I stopped paying attention to her, my body recovered quickly. The doctor said I could be discharged.

I moved into the studio where I used to run my counseling practice.

Then I sent Joanna the divorce agreement.

Her calls came in like madness.

I hung up again and again.

Half an hour later, Joanna knocked on the studio door.

The housekeeper had been following me and taking care of me the whole time, so I was not surprised Joanna arrived so quickly.

I opened the door.

This was the first time Joanna and I had seen each other since the surgery.

She froze in the doorway. The urgency on her face stiffened into pain.

"You... why have you lost so much weight? Did the housekeeper not take care of you?"

"I did not want to eat. I had no appetite." I mocked her. "Why are you here? What if Adrian gets upset and tries to kill himself?"

Joanna opened her mouth, but not a single word came out.

I turned and sat back down on the sofa. Just opening the door and saying a few words felt as if it had drained all the blood and energy from my body.

I could barely stand.

Joanna reached out to touch my face, but I avoided her.

"I will not divorce you."

Her tone left no room for discussion.

I lay down and replied weakly, "Suit yourself. Once we have been separated long enough, I can sue for divorce."

Joanna half-kneeled in front of me and took my hand.

"Mason, Adrian and I grew up together. I admit I once loved him, but now I only see him as a younger brother. I was sickly as a child. A fortune teller said I would not live past twenty-five. The only way to change my fate was to save lives all over the world and build good karma. Adrian went to Africa as a volunteer doctor to save my life. We had agreed that when his two-year term was over, he would come back and marry me, but then he disappeared. I searched for him for three years. I often think that if I had kept searching, maybe he would have come home sooner. Maybe those foreign monsters would not have tortured him until he lost his mind..."

Joanna paused.

Her voice choked. "I owe him. It is only guilt. I cannot watch him become this broken, confused person and do nothing. I have to save him. I am his medicine, do you understand? Mason."

My heart, which had not hurt for so long, was thrown into chaos by her words. I nearly fainted.

I struggled to speak.

"Nonsense."

But Joanna did not care what I said.

She held me tightly and said, word by word, "I will not divorce you."

Her tight embrace made it harder and harder to breathe. In the end, I could not even sit upright. I curled into myself.

Joanna panicked.

"Mason, what is wrong?"

I reached for the medicine Dr. Wells had prescribed and placed it under my tongue, but this time, it did not work.

The pain was unbearable.

My hands and feet went ice-cold, and it felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room.

I did not even have the strength to answer.

Joanna lifted me into her arms.

"Wasn't he already better? Why is it this serious?"

Then she called Dr. Wells.

She asked anxiously, "Why is Mason in pain?"

I only heard Dr. Wells say, "His condition has stabilized. He should not be hurting anymore unless he is pretending."

Joanna fell silent.

After she hung up, her phone rang. I saw it clearly. It was a message from Adrian.

Joanna glanced at it and stood up without hesitation.

"I have to go."

I called her name.

"Joanna."

Thousands of words were trapped in my chest.

I wanted to ask her why she believed a doctor but not me.

Why she turned a blind eye to my pain.

Why she chose Adrian again and again.

But I had no strength to ask any of it.

Joanna left only one sentence behind.

"You heard what Dr. Wells said. There is no point in acting anymore."

Then she walked away without looking back.

I fell heavily from the sofa, laughing and crying as I rolled on the floor in unbearable pain.

The housekeeper called 911 in a panic.

I was sent to the nearest hospital.

In a daze, I saw Joanna's figure. Adrian stood beside her.

Everything went quiet, and only Adrian's voice remained.

"Honey, you are really pregnant. I am going to be a father. Just thinking about it makes me feel like I am getting better. Are you happy?"

"I am happy."

Those two words from Joanna were too heavy for me to bear.

I closed my eyes, and my heartbeat stopped.

I never expected to wake up again.

The machines beeped around me.

I looked around. Joanna was nowhere to be seen.

Only the housekeeper and the doctor stood beside the bed.

Adrian's words about becoming a father echoed in my head, unreal and distant.

I asked the housekeeper.

"Did Adrian say Joanna is pregnant? Did you hear it? Do not lie to me."

The housekeeper nodded with difficulty.

I could not control my trembling. I felt so cold I was almost losing body temperature.

A younger brother?

All lies.

The doctor looked at me with frustrated concern.

"Stop crying. Someone else's pregnancy has nothing to do with you. You should care more about yourself. Your condition is very bad."

My brain roared.

"What do you mean?"

"What do you mean, very bad?"

"Wasn't my heart surgery successful?"

The doctor shook his head.

"Do not get agitated. Let us speak calmly, or your condition will worsen."

He showed me the reports and scans.

"You do have an incision on your chest, but it appears you never received a heart transplant. Also, you have recently been using large doses of cardiac pain medication. Your heart is already overburdened and at the end of its strength. Our recommendation is that for this month, you take only basic medication and go see the people you want to see."

I tried to process the doctor's words.

In the end, I felt helpless, as if I were drowning.

"I was lied to. Tara Wells was hired by Joanna. She has been lying to me. Joanna lied to me. She said the surgery succeeded, but she pushed me onto a dead end. She gave me hope, then let me fall into despair. Why? Why would Joanna do this to me?"

The blows came one after another. I could not accept them.

I spat out a mouthful of blood.

The housekeeper was terrified and hurried to support me.

"No, no. How could Ms. Cross not want you to live? She searched everywhere for a heart for you. She even had herself tested. If she had matched, she would have given her life to save yours without hesitation. How could she let something happen to you? There must be something else behind this."

I doubled over in pain.

Maybe Joanna truly had wanted me to live before.

But Adrian had come back.

Everything had changed.

The doctor held me down.

"Do not get emotional. You really will die."

Then he injected me with medication.

I grabbed my phone and called Joanna.

Even if I died, I wanted to die knowing the truth.