They left me there to cry myself unconscious.
I wept for what felt like hours.
And finally understood just how ruthless a man could be once his heart had turned.
Refusing to accept defeat, I threw myself into investigating Madeline Pruitt with the desperate resolve of someone ready to drag everyone down with her.
I wanted to keep fighting.
I wanted the world to see Bartholomew Delgado's true, hideous face.
But the moment I saw Madeline's photograph—
All my hatred, all my resentment, evaporated in an instant.
Because I recognized her immediately.
The pure, untouchable goddess Bartholomew worshipped was a former patient of mine—an HIV carrier I'd once treated.
Bartholomew had a congenital heart condition.
If he contracted the virus, he could die at any moment.
In that instant, I let go.
Heaven would exact its own price from every faithless, heartless man. All I had to do was give fate a gentle push at the right moment.
So I stopped fighting. Stopped making scenes.
I focused on my pregnancy and played the role of the perfect, gracious Mrs. Delgado.
Then I waited, quietly, for the day Bartholomew Delgado would die.
I must have drifted off, because his impatient voice snapped me back.
He assumed I couldn't bear to leave. His knuckles rapped the desk in irritation.
"Sophie, what's the holdup now?"
"Did you think pushing out a baby would make me see you differently?"
"Let me be clear—I don't love you. And I could never love any child you bore me."
"If you won't sign willingly, I'll file for divorce myself. And I'll make sure your child inherits the same miserable life you had!"
Of course. The people who know you best always know exactly where to cut deepest.
When I was eighteen, my parents divorced.
My father forced my mother out with nothing, then publicly announced he was severing all ties with me.
I wasn't allowed to carry his surname. Wasn't entitled to a cent of his inheritance. Wasn't permitted any connection to him whatsoever.
Abandoned by my own father, I became the laughingstock of our social circle.
The girl everyone mocked. The one they whispered about and shut out.
Back then, only Bartholomew stayed by my side.
He walked me to and from school every single day, persistent and unwavering.
He stepped in front of me whenever someone tried to hurt me.
When I was at my lowest, drowning in despair, he told me:
"Sophie, you're the best person I know."
"Even if the whole world abandons you, I'll always be here."
"I love you. And I'll spend my life giving you the happy, whole family you deserve."
For that promise, I changed my entire future.
I abandoned literature for medicine, determined to cure his condition.
I risked my life standing beside him through the brutal war for his inheritance.
I gave up my career and my ambitions to stay home, nurturing my body for pregnancy.
I believed that after surviving all that hardship, sweetness would finally come.
I never imagined that while I was pregnant, Bartholomew—unable to control his urges—would fall into Madeline Pruitt's bed.
When I confronted him, there was no guilt on his face. No shame at his betrayal.
He simply looked at me with that calm, detached expression and said:
"I can't help it, Sophie. I didn't want things to turn out this way."
"But that day, when I saw those stretch marks crawling across your belly... something in me recoiled."
"I can't feel any desire for you anymore. But I'm still a man. I still have needs."
"And Maddie—she gives me a thrill I've never experienced before."
"So it's only right that I give her the status and respect she deserves."
The Delgado family had iron-clad rules about such things, and Bartholomew had always prided himself on his moral discipline.
He looked down on men who kept mistresses, who tangled themselves in sordid affairs.
So he did the "honorable" thing—he asked me for a divorce outright.
At the time, I was barely pregnant.
And to get what I wanted—
