Chapter 1

On the cold operating table, I was about to sever the last tie between James Carter and me.

Then a news alert popped up on my phone. He was down on one knee, slipping a diamond ring onto another woman's finger, his smile gentle, full of affection. He once said I was beneath him, unworthy to bear his child.

But just as the scalpel was about to cut, my real brother burst in and saved me. Turned out, I was the long-lost heiress the Sterling family of Riverside City had been searching for all these years.

When I came back with all that glory, James groveled in front of me, holding an infertility diagnosis, his eyes red. "Serena, I was wrong. That baby... our baby... where is it?"

I linked arms with my new man. I threw the roses James had carefully prepared into the trash and gave a light smile. "Sorry, Mr. Carter. My baby takes my last name, Sterling."

James didn't know that the child he had almost killed was his one and only flesh and blood in his life.

*****

The hospital corridor reeked of disinfectant. The smell seeped into every corner, like a cold hand gripping my throat, cutting off my breath.

I huddled in the corner of a white plastic bench, every ounce of strength drained from my body. My fingertips were cold as I gripped the payment slip for the abortion procedure.

The flimsy paper was soaked with cold sweat from my palms, and the words on it seemed to sneer at me, fierce and twisted.

In one hour, the tiny life quietly growing inside me, barely two months old, would be reduced to nothing but a pool of blood, brutally ripped away from my body.

The last shred of connection between me and James would be cut, once and for all.

My heart felt like a stone soaked in ice water, cold, hard, and heavy, sinking deeper with every passing second.

My phone buzzed suddenly in my palm. The screen lit up. A news alert popped up.

It read: [Rising business star James Carter proposes in a grand gesture. His mysterious girlfriend turned out to be the Sterling Holdings heiress.]

My breath caught in my throat at that moment.

I couldn't stop my fingers from clicking on it. A high-definition photo popped up. It was like the sharpest knife, stabbing right through my eyes.

The background was a sparkling amusement park, right in front of the very carousel where we'd had countless dates. James was in a custom-tailored suit, his handsome features softened with a tenderness I'd never seen in him before.

He was down on one knee, gazing up at the woman before him, holding out a massive diamond ring.

That woman was Olivia Grant. She was wearing a white princess dress, her smile blooming like a flower. Shyly, she held out her hand.

The caption under the photo was written by James himself. It said: [Let's spend the rest of our lives together, my princess.] And he tagged her.

The post was just ten minutes old.

Then something exploded in my head. The last thread of sanity finally snapped. The world spun. Everything was shaking.

I stared at the photo, every carousel in the background a witness to our promises. James had once held me close and whispered, "Serena, when my company goes public, we'll come here for our wedding photos."

Now, he was down on his knees there, but the woman he was proposing to wasn't me.

It turned out, he wasn't unromantic. He just saved all his romance for someone else.

It turned out, it wasn't that he didn't want to get married. He just didn't want to marry me.

My stomach churned violently. I covered my mouth and barely held back the urge to throw up. Tears fell like beads from a broken necklace.

I couldn't hold them back. They hit the cold floor and shattered into little pieces of despair. I didn't believe it. I couldn't believe this was real.

My hands were shaking. I dialed the number that was burned into my memory.

The phone rang for a long time. Then someone picked up. The background was noisy with cheers and music.

"Serena?" James' voice came through. He sounded annoyed and cold, like I had interrupted him. "Wasn't the breakup money I gave you enough? What else do you want?"

Breakup money? The 150,000 dollars that showed up in my account marked "compensation" was breakup money?

I laughed. It sounded worse than crying. "James, tell me. What does that photo mean? "

"Exactly what it looks like." There was no guilt in his voice at all. "I'm with Olivia now. We're getting married."

"Then what about me? What do I even mean to you?" I screamed with every bit of strength I had. "What about our three years together? What about this baby inside me?"

There was silence on the other end for a few seconds. Then his voice came back, even colder and crueler. It was like an ice pick dipped in poison. Every word stabbed into my heart.

He said, "Serena, don't be dramatic. We were never from the same world. That baby... was never supposed to exist.

"Your background doesn't match mine. That baby would only be a stain on my life."

A stain. My background.

I was an orphan. That was my original sin. I never got to choose it. But back when he chased me, he said he didn't care. He said he loved me for who I was. It was all a lie.

Right when my heart felt like it was being torn apart, a soft, fragile voice came through the line. It was Olivia.

She said, "Serena, don't blame James. He's trying to do what's best for you. A girl needs to know how to respect herself. Don't worry. We'll pay for the procedure."

With a sharp click, I hung up, as if dropping a scalding piece of iron.

Respect myself?

One by one, I deleted every single way to reach James until nothing was left. Watching that familiar profile picture disappear completely, my heart felt hollowed out right along with it.

"Number 39, Serena Sterling. You're up." The nurse's cold voice echoed through the corridor.

I held onto the wall and stood up. I felt numb. Step by step, I walked toward the door to the operating room, as if walking straight into hell.

Fine. It was over. Everything was over.