Chapter 1: The Day I Lost Everything

"Nathan, you're really coming with us? That's wonderful! We leave in two days."

On the other end of the line, the HR representative from the foreign tech giant sounded thrilled.

They had waited seven years for me. They had even built a domestic branch specifically to make it easier to recruit me.

"Yes."

The morgue was so quiet I could hear the echo of my own voice.

I took one last look at my ten-year-old sister, Anna Harper. Her face was pale and tinged blue. I signed the death certificate and sought out the doctor.

The doctor said cremation required a two-thousand-dollar advance payment.

After Anna's condition turned critical, my savings from years of work were nearly gone.

I had spent all these years revolving around my girlfriend, Gina Whitmore. I had no friends. After she removed me from my VP position, my coworkers distanced themselves from me too.

Now, I could not find a single person willing to lend me money.

Instinctively, I glanced at the watch on my right wrist.

It was a token of love Gina had given me years ago. It cost her three months of salary. She had held my hand and told me I was worth a fortune to her.

Today, I had considered listing it on a resale site, but it appraised at only three thousand dollars, nowhere near enough for the thirty-thousand-dollar surgery.

What I had was merely a drop in the bucket. After hesitating repeatedly, I had not sold it.

Perhaps fate wanted me to sell it now.

I listed it at the low price of two thousand dollars. Soon, a local buyer contacted me.

As I hurried out to complete the transaction, a bodyguard in black coming from the opposite direction knocked me to the ground. My phone hit the floor and cracked.

When I looked up, Gina was rushing into the hospital, pushing Lincoln Morris in a wheelchair. A crowd of medical staff and bodyguards followed closely behind.

She looked anxious, fine beads of sweat dotting her forehead. Our eyes met briefly by accident, but her gaze quickly moved away.

A nurse helped me up and could not help but sigh.

"The world's not fair, is it? This female CEO's husband just sprained his ankle, and she's got the entire hospital's medical staff attending to him at once. Meanwhile, some poor girl suffers from heart disease and can't even afford the surgery."

I shook my head to indicate I was fine. The next second, Gina strode back with a serious expression.

She grabbed me and pulled me down to the underground parking garage. Once we were in the car, she frowned.

"Why are you coming here to ask for money?"

Realizing her tone was too harsh, her expression softened.

"Lincoln sprained his ankle going down the stairs. He's being such a baby about it and absolutely refuses to get examined unless I'm with him."

"I know you're still angry about him not approving your salary advance. I'll give you the money. Just go and don't let Lincoln see you. He'll misunderstand."

I stared at her, struggling to reconcile the woman sitting beside me with the woman I had loved for seven years.

Anna was lying in the hospital, waiting for an operation that could save her life. Every passing minute brought her closer to death, and Gina was worried that Lincoln might misunderstand why I was there.

I wanted to ask her whether she remembered the little girl who used to call her future sister-in-law. Anna had adored Gina. She used to save her favorite candies and draw pictures of the wedding she thought we would have one day.

But I swallowed the question.

There was no point asking someone to remember a person they had already chosen to forget.

Gina reached for her phone, apparently preparing to transfer the money she had promised me. I watched her fingers move across the screen, and for one foolish moment, hope stirred in my chest.

Thirty thousand dollars. That was all I had needed to save Anna.

I had worked day and night for this company. I had sacrificed my career opportunity abroad, my friendships, and nearly every hour of my life to help Gina build her business. I had never asked her to repay those sacrifices.

I had only asked her to help save my sister.

Yet even now, I was sitting in a parking garage, hidden away like a shameful secret, waiting for my own girlfriend to decide whether my sister's life was worth the trouble.

Gina finally looked up from her phone.

"Nathan, you understand why I have to be careful, right? This is all part of the plan. Once Lincoln has everything, he'll have much more to lose."

I lowered my eyes to the watch on my wrist.

Seven years ago, when Gina gave it to me, she had promised that no matter how difficult life became, we would always face it together.

I had believed that promise longer than I should have.

Now, as I sat beside her with Anna's life slipping away, I finally understood something I had refused to admit.

A plan that demanded I lose everything while Gina protected another man was no longer a plan worth believing in.

I looked at the woman I had once dreamed of marrying and wondered how much longer I could keep calling this love.