But Serena suddenly grabbed her belly and cried loudly, "Marco, the baby feels like kicking me. I'm hurting so badly!"
Marco paused for only a brief second before firmly turning back and lifting Serena into his arms, carrying her toward the villa.
With a heavy crash, the door slammed shut, as if it closed off my chance to survive.
I had no idea how long I struggled. Just as my consciousness was nearly fading away, a strong pair of hands finally pulled me out of the water.
When my eyes opened, I saw a familiar yet barely known face.
"Bianca, how did you end up looking this terrible?"
Dante Corsetti shrugged off his coat and covered it over me. His movements were polite, but his look and tone were still teasing and hard to control, like when he used to fight me.
I coughed hard, spitting out several mouthfuls of water, and asked him, "Why did you suddenly show up here?"
"This young guy heard from your old man that you're calling off your sanctioned courtship, so I came back on purpose to see if you got dumped, so I could laugh at you."
He raised his eyebrows and was about to get up when I suddenly grabbed the corner of his coat.
"Since you've already seen everything, then, do you want to go get our marriage certificate with me?"
Dante's expression froze. He went completely still. Not a shift in posture, not a visible breath. The silence between us held nothing but the sound of water dripping off my hair onto the stone.
"If you don't want to, then forget it. I can find someone else just as easily."
Hearing that, Dante quickly caught my wrist. "Who said I don't want to?"
He looked at me, his face serious.
"But Bianca, I need to say this clearly first. If you marry me, then there's no such thing as divorce."
He stepped on the gas, and Dante drove me straight to city hall to get our marriage certificate.
After taking me to a hotel to clean up and change clothes, Dante helped me dry my hair, carefully but a bit awkwardly. His hands, the same hands that had run a rival family's operations since he was twenty-two, moved through my wet hair like they were handling something that might break.
Not long after, a message from Serena suddenly showed up on my phone, followed by a livestream link.
[Bianca, to be honest, when Marco donated sperm last time, we didn't go through the clinic at all. We did it right here on this boat, just like this!]
[And after I got pregnant, he couldn't stay away from me anymore!]
My heart skipped a beat. My hands shook as I tapped the link.
On the screen, on the couple's bed inside the villa, Marco and Serena were wrapped around each other, completely unaware of anything else.
While gasping, Serena asked, "Between Bianca and me, who makes you feel better?"
Marco frowned. "Why mention her at a moment like this?"
He changed positions eagerly. "But honestly, after all these years, I've gotten a little bored with her."
"And you, I never thought that even though you usually act like such a tomboy, you could be this feminine. I'm starting to get hooked."
All kinds of rude poses and dirty words kept coming. I forced myself to keep watching for a long time.
Until my fingers went cold and my mind became unusually calm and clear.
I turned my mother's ring slowly around my finger. The garnet caught the bathroom light. The decision was already made.
After leaving the livestream, I called one of my father's associates and asked for the ten-million-dollar property payment my father had put up for the villa.
"Uncle, that property has nothing to do with me anymore. As for the remaining money, you can go ask the current owner to cover it."
Then I took out the marriage certificate I had just received with Dante, snapped a photo, and sent it to Marco's family group chat.
I also tagged Serena. [If you like garbage, I'll hand it over to you. I've already registered my marriage with someone else. From now on, I won't stand in the way of your two families being close.]
