I was born in shame—my mother was a bar hostess, my father a john who paid for her services. To claw my way into high society, I abandoned the man I'd loved for seven years. And what did I get in return? A husband who sneered that I was nothing but a hen that couldn't lay eggs.
In the end, Colin Farley threw me away like garbage, dumping me at a remote convent in the mountains.
Penniless. Broken. Sick from years of failed treatments.
But I wasn't ready to accept my fate. Not yet.
So I found my first love again. Together, we hatched a plan to seize the Farley family's billion-dollar fortune.
1.
Colin had been obsessed with having an heir. He'd forced me through round after round of IVF, each cycle more brutal than the last.
The retrieval needle would pierce through the skin at my waist, driving deep into my ovaries. Every time, it felt like my body was being hollowed out, piece by piece.
I'd curl up on the bed afterward, trembling, tears streaming down my face. "Colin, please. It hurts so much. Can we stop? Just this once?"
He'd watch the doctors pin me down, his expression carved from ice. "Don't play games with me. I married you for one reason—to continue my bloodline. If you can't handle this much, what use are you?"
As expected, the pregnancy failed again.
The final diagnosis came back: my uterus had developed a severe immunological rejection of Colin's sperm. My body was literally fighting against carrying his child.
That was all he needed to hear.
He shoved divorce papers in front of me, citing my infertility as grounds. He refused to give me a single cent in the settlement, claiming I hadn't earned it. No children, no claim to the Farley fortune—those were his exact words.
Then he drove me five hundred miles from Ashford to the Cedar Ridge Mountains and deposited me at a convent like an unwanted package.
I was cast out with nothing. No money. No belongings. Just a body riddled with complications from the immune reactions, aching in ways I couldn't even name.
When I screamed at the heavens, the heavens didn't answer. When I begged the earth, the earth stayed silent.
I'd given up everything to marry Colin Farley. Including Darren—the man I'd been with for seven years.
I was a left-behind child, raised by my grandmother while my mother chased her own life in the city. When my grandmother died, my mother followed not long after.
I'd pinned all my hopes on marriage. It was supposed to be the light that would guide the rest of my life.
Instead, Colin Farley shoved me into darkness with his own two hands.
On the first morning of the new year, the sky was clear.
Melting snow dripped from icicles on the eaves, landing on the stone steps below.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Footsteps. Familiar ones, growing closer.
I pushed open the wooden door of my room.
There he was—Darren Gilbert, standing beneath a pine tree, wearing a teal puffer jacket.
That jacket. I'd given it to him when we were still in college.
Ten years had passed. The cuffs were frayed now, the color faded almost to white. But stretched across his broad chest and athletic frame, it somehow made him look like a wandering martial hero from an old story.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, bewildered.
"I heard you got divorced." His voice was low, rough. "I drove through the night to get here."
My nose stung. Tears spilled over before I could stop them.
"Can we... can we start over?"
"I got married last month."
The words hung between us, bitter as medicine.
"Then why did you come?"
"If I didn't come—" He paused, something unreadable flickering in his eyes. "—who else would?"
I'd loved him. God, I'd loved him.
But he was a medical student back then, and even after years of working, he was still consistently broke. When my mother needed surgery, he'd worried himself sick—literally turned his hair gray with stress—but couldn't scrape together enough money to help.
So I accepted Colin Farley's proposal instead. The Farleys were the wealthiest family in the state capital. If there was one thing they never ran short of, it was money.
On my wedding day, Darren was still at the hospital, keeping vigil at my mother's bedside.
She died in the ICU shortly after.
After that, Darren left for Crown City to pursue advanced training. We lost touch completely.
I'd grown up in my grandmother's house in the countryside. Only after she passed did my mother finally bring me to the city for middle school.
My mother worked at a bar. She cycled through boyfriends like she was changing clothes, but she never married any of them. She didn't even know who my father was.
I hated living with her. So I stayed in the school dormitory during the week, and on weekends, I haunted the internet cafés instead of going home—sometimes staying out all night, anything to avoid that cramped apartment and the parade of strange men.
