Chapter 1

I loved Asher for a decade.

But he was the one who destroyed my life.

I was three weeks pregnant when Asher dragged me onto the operating table.

He was my husband, yet here he was, disregarding my life and our baby's, demanding I undergo a bone marrow transplant to save Willow.

“Mr. Asher, Ms. Scarlett is pregnant. Do you still wish to proceed with the surgery?” I heard the lead surgeon ask repeatedly before the procedure.

The impeccably dressed, strikingly handsome man leaned over me, his gaze devoid of any tenderness. Through my tear-filled eyes, I saw his thin lips part, each word a dagger twisting in my heart.

“Proceed with the surgery!”

In that moment, I heard my heart shatter into a million pieces.

“Hahaha, hahaha…” In the operating room, where the silence was deafening, my laughter was both desperate and desolate.

Someone yanked me from the hospital bed. “If you’re not dead, get up!”

“Mr. Asher, if you have something to say, just say it.”

He scoffed, the disgust in his eyes overflowing. “Don’t put on an act in front of me. It’s sickening.” With that, he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his hands. “You’d better behave until Willow wakes up.”

I clawed at the bedsheets with all my strength. “Get lost!”

He loomed over me, grabbing my throat, pinning me against the wall. “Scarlett, I advise you to face reality. Before, you were the precious jewel I held in my palm, but now…”

“You’re nothing but trash.”

Then, without a shred of pity, he yanked my arm and dragged me out of the hospital room.

All the way, I felt like a puppet, my strings manipulated by an unseen hand, powerless against him.

He forcibly dragged me to a tombstone.

“Kneel!” he commanded coldly.

The biting autumn wind tangled my long hair around my face.

I guessed that in that moment, I must have looked breathtakingly beautiful.

Because he stared at me for several long seconds.

Ever since he became convinced that I had harmed Grandpa, he hadn't truly looked at me.

But he quickly regained his composure, pressing me forcefully to the ground.

I saw a name carved on the tombstone: Alexander Asher.

This was the name we had found together, leafing through dictionaries, for our future son.

My heart ached, and I was about to speak when I heard his voice above me, “This is my child with Willow, Scarlett. If you hadn’t been so vicious and caused her miscarriage, I would be a father by now.”

“What did you say? Your child with Willow?” I stared at him in disbelief, an agonizing pain ripping through my chest.

“Scarlett, don’t push your luck,” he clenched his fists, as if trying to restrain himself. “You owe him an apology!”

I owe no one!

The late autumn wind raged, chilling me to the bone, and hurting me to the core.

Prostrate on the cold concrete ground, it took me a long time to find the strength to speak. “Asher, listen to me. This Scarlett only kneels before heaven, earth, and her parents. No one else is worthy!”

He looked down at me, all the past tenderness replaced by bitter hatred. “Scarlett, don’t make me say uglier things.”

The silence around us was suffocating. After a long moment, his voice, cold as frost, spoke again. “Grandpa’s life was saved by Willow. Because of that, she can never stand on a stage again. For that alone, my devotion to her is absolute, until death.”

I closed my eyes in anguish.

The tears I had held back for so long cascaded down my face the moment I bowed my head.

I didn't cry when my hair was burnt off in the fire, nor when I was pregnant and forced into a cold operating room to have my bone marrow extracted, which led to a miscarriage. But in this moment, tears streamed down my face like a relentless storm.

There truly is a pain that cannot be put into words.