Chapter 1

I was in the middle of saving a heart attack patient's life, so I didn't drop everything to save my foster sister's dog.

The next moment, I got a message from my fiancé, Felix Callier.

Felix: [Because you let it die and did nothing, Tiffany's dog ended up in the animal hospital!]

Felix: [Let's push back the wedding. Consider it your punishment.]

This was the ninth time Felix had postponed our wedding because of one of Tiffany Kamp's tantrums.

This time, I didn't want to play along anymore.

Then the comment feed drifted across my vision.

[Go find him on the rooftop, girl! He's actually in love with you. He already saw through the impostor's whole act.]

[He's postponing the wedding to surprise you. He's secretly planning the wedding of the century for you!]

My heart ached with guilt, and I ran straight for the rooftop to find him.

The moment I reached the door, I heard Tiffany's teasing laugh.

"Do you really think Roxy will come crawling back to beg forgiveness once she sees those words?"

Felix's tone turned playful. "Of course. That's the AR technology my company just developed. Besides, she loves me so much that even a fake message won't make her suspicious.

"This was her fault to begin with. She deserves a lesson."

I froze where I stood.

So even the comments that claimed to love me were just another game he was playing to humiliate me.

I swallowed down the bitterness rising in my throat and turned to leave.

Felix had no idea.

The moment his fake comment feed vanished from my sight, the real one appeared.

Chapter 1

The moment Felix Callier's fake comment feed vanished, the real comment feed began drifting across my vision.

Every single one of them was tearing me apart.

[Why is the real heiress eavesdropping? Disgusting. Everyone knows Felix and Tiffany are the real childhood sweethearts.]

[If she hadn't shown up out of nowhere three years ago and used some old betrothal agreement to force herself on Felix, he and Tiffany would already be married.]

[Exactly. A hick from the middle of nowhere who can't hold a candle to Tiffany, and she still dreams of stealing him away? Keep dreaming.]

[Why won't the real heiress just drop dead already? One look at that sour face and I lose my appetite.]

Each word cut straight into my chest.

So this was how everyone saw me: the villain who deserved nothing but contempt.

Three years ago, I was found and brought back into the Kamp family.

I thought I'd finally found a family of my own. But my parents thought I was crude and ill-mannered, so they poured every ounce of favoritism into Tiffany, the daughter who'd been raised in my place.

Felix was the only person who ever showed me any real affection.

Years earlier, Grandpa Garrett had insisted on honoring the old childhood betrothal.

My mother didn't dare accept the marriage because she was terrified of doing wrong by Tiffany.

Not wanting to embarrass everyone, I went to Felix myself to call off the engagement.

But that day, Felix gently wiped away the tears at the corner of my eyes.

He looked into my eyes, his voice gentler than I'd ever heard it. "There's no need to call it off, Roxy. I'm willing to marry you."

That moment, I thought I'd caught hold of the only light in my life. I thought he'd finally seen how sincere my feelings were.

To be worthy of him, I studied etiquette until it hurt, fought my way into a top medical school, and worked myself to the bone in the operating room, all so I could stand beside him as an equal.

But it turned out he'd never loved me at all. Whatever kindness he'd shown me was probably just a game to provoke Tiffany.

Just like today. To vent Tiffany's frustration, he'd used his company's newly developed AR visual technology, all so he could watch me run to him like a fool, drowning in guilt, begging for his forgiveness.

I looked down at the engagement ring on my finger, a size that had never once fit right.

Felix had bought it on a whim. It was too big, so for three years I'd carefully wrapped it in red thread just to keep it from sliding off.

Looking at it now, the whole thing felt like a joke.

I took the ring off without a flicker of hesitation and dropped it straight into the trash can. Then I turned and walked away, and I didn't look back.

Back at the hospital, I'd barely stepped into the department when one of the nurses, Haley Mills, came rushing toward me.

"Dr. Kamp! Another patient just came into the ER; it's critical. The director's asking if you can do one more surgery."

I took a deep breath and swallowed down the sharp pain twisting in my chest.

"Okay. I'll be right there."

I turned to head to the locker room to change into my sterile surgical gown.

But the moment I pushed open the door, the exhaustion of back-to-back surgeries and the emotional blow I'd just taken on the rooftop caught up with me all at once.

Everything went black, and the world spun out from under me.

"Dr. Kamp! Dr. Kamp, what's wrong?!"

Somewhere in Haley's screaming, I collapsed straight to the floor and lost consciousness completely.

Chapter 2

The sharp smell of antiseptic flooded my nose.

I lay on the hospital bed, my mind still drifting somewhere between sleep and waking.

Nearby, I heard the timid voice of the nurse on duty. She seemed to be answering my phone.

On the other end, Felix's voice was thick with irritation.

"Roxy, what game are you playing now, going dark on me again? Didn't you see the texts I sent you?

"Tiffany's dog pulled through, but it's so shaken it won't even eat. Get over here right now and apologize to her!"

The nurse flinched, startled, and stammered out an explanation.

"Mr… Mr. Callier, Dr. Kamp can't come to the phone right now. She pushed through several major surgeries back-to-back and collapsed from exhaustion. She's still on an IV..."

There was a stunned pause on the other end of the line.

A flicker of hesitation crept into Felix's voice. "Collapsed?"

Before he could finish, Tiffany's voice cut in, soft and fragile. "Felix, is Roxy just pretending to faint because she's afraid you'll blame her for not saving my puppy?

"It's fine, Felix. As long as Roxy's okay. I'll calm the puppy down myself, slowly. Don't be angry with her..."

Felix's tone turned cold in an instant.

"Roxy, you really are something else. Now you're even faking a fainting spell to fish for sympathy? I'm telling you, even if you're dying on that hospital bed, you're getting over here today to apologize to Tiffany."

The call ended.

The nurse lowered the phone and turned around, finding my eyes already open. Her mouth opened, caught somewhere between embarrassment and pity.

"Dr. Kamp, just now, Mr. Callier..."

"It's fine. I heard all of it." I cut her off calmly, my voice dry and hoarse.

This was the ninth time Tiffany had thrown one of her tantrums.

The dog had an upset stomach, the dog was depressed, the dog's coat had lost its shine.

Whenever anything, even the smallest thing, seemed off with her dog, she sent for me, a cardiac surgeon, to go treat it.

Tiffany shed a few tears, and Felix punished me by pushing back our wedding, forcing me to bow my head.

That was when the comment feed drifted past my eyes again.

[Serves her right! Tiffany fed the dog chocolate on purpose just to test Felix's loyalty. And look, he trusts her unconditionally. Childhood sweethearts really do hit different.]

[The real heiress really doesn't know her place. She can't even compete with a dog, and she still dreams of fighting Tiffany for his affection?]

[Am I the only one who feels bad for the real heiress? The impostor is just cruel. She knew chocolate was poison to dogs and fed it to the dog anyway.]

[Playing the saint up there? If she hadn't wormed her way in, Tiffany and Felix would already be married. Is it really so wrong to use a few tricks on a homewrecker?

My pupils shrank slightly.

So every single disaster that had ever befallen Tiffany's dog hadn't been an accident at all. She'd engineered every one of them herself.

And Felix had used her little schemes as an excuse to trample all over me, again and again.

"Dr. Kamp, are you all right? You've gone so pale..." The nurse studied me with worry.

I managed a weak smile. "I'm fine."

I didn't care anymore what the truth actually was.

Whether Tiffany was cruel or Felix was simply blind, none of it mattered.

I was just so tired.

Chapter 3

I dragged my exhausted body back to what was supposed to be our marital home.

Except the place was really just a shrine to Tiffany: shelf after shelf of limited-edition handbags and jewelry Felix had bought for her. My own belongings amounted to a single suitcase.

I pulled the suitcase out and started packing my clothes.

Tiffany was on the couch playing with the dog. When she saw I was leaving, she couldn't hide the smugness in her eyes.

She sauntered over and needled me. "Roxy, what exactly do you think you have to compete with me?

"You saw that, didn't you? Felix used cutting-edge tech, that whole comment feed system, just to get even with you on my behalf.

"You're not even worth as much as a dog in this house. If you know what's good for you, you'll get out of the Callier family and give Felix back to me."

I didn't bother sparing her a glance. I grabbed the suitcase and walked straight for the door.

Seeing me ignore her, a flash of cruelty crossed Tiffany's eyes.

She snatched up the glass music box from the table, the one Felix had once given me on a whim.

The next second, she smashed it on the floor, then flung herself down onto the broken glass. A shard sliced straight into her palm.

"Ow, that hurts!"

Just then, the front door swung open.

Felix walked in at that exact moment. The sight in front of him made his eyes go wide with fury.

Tiffany immediately burst into tears, delicate as a flower in the rain. "Roxy, I only wanted to talk you out of being angry with Felix. Why did you push me?"

Felix's face went ashen. He stormed over and slapped me across the face.

The blow snapped my head to the side, and blood welled at the corner of my mouth.

Felix pulled Tiffany carefully into his arms and looked up at me with cold eyes.

"Roxy, letting Tiffany's dog nearly die wasn't enough for you. Now you're hurting her too? How can you have such a rotten heart?"

I pressed a hand to my swollen, stinging cheek and pointed at the security camera.

"I never pushed her. She did that to herself. If you don't believe me, check the footage."

Felix only sneered.

"Tiffany's never hurt so much as an ant since she was a child. You think she'd hurt herself just to frame you? Roxy, if you're going to lie, at least come up with something better."

Right on cue, Tiffany let out a pained cry and pretended to faint.

Felix panicked and rushed to call the family doctor.

After the examination, the doctor said Tiffany had a mild clotting disorder and needed a blood transfusion.

Felix spun toward me, his eyes wild. "Take hers! She and Tiffany share the same blood type!"

I stumbled back a step, stunned. "I just fainted from blood loss. If you drain my blood now, it could kill me."

"That fainting spell was fake too, wasn't it? So what's the harm in taking a little blood?"

Several bodyguards stepped forward and pinned me down on the couch.

The needle slid into my vein, and my blood drained slowly into the bag.

I watched Felix hold Tiffany's hand, his eyes brimming with tenderness, and felt like my heart was being carved out with a knife.

Three years earlier, Felix had been in a terrible car accident and nearly bled to death.

It was me who, against the doctors' warnings, had insisted on donating eight hundred cc of blood and pulled him back from the edge of death.

But when Felix woke up, Tiffany had claimed all the credit for herself.

And now, over nothing more than a scratch on Tiffany's palm, he was willing to drain me dry.

As the blood drained out of me, my body grew colder and my vision blurred.

Halfway through, I finally couldn't hold on any longer and blacked out completely.

When I woke again, I was lying in the guest room.

Nobody had bothered to check whether I lived or died.

I picked up my phone and saw the photo Felix had posted to Instagram ten minutes earlier.

It showed Tiffany leaning against his chest, sipping a bowl of soup, their fingers laced together.

The caption read: [My only bottom line is you.]

I stared at that glaring photo and found I couldn't even cry anymore.

I pulled the IV needle out of the back of my hand, the wound already closed over, and set the annulment papers I'd signed long ago on the table.

Then I dialed the number for the International Frontier Medical Corps.

"Professor, it's me. I'll join the peacekeeping medical team headed for the war zone. I can leave today."

Chapter 4

The next morning, Felix walked out of the master bedroom and found the guest room door standing wide open, the room empty.

He frowned and walked to the desk, where the annulment statement caught his eye immediately.

Tiffany stood nearby, feigning guilt, her eyes rimmed red. "Felix, is Roxy really angry with me? Maybe I should go find her..."

Felix only scoffed. "Don't bother. She's just playing hard to get. She loves me too much to survive without me. She won't last three days before she comes crawling back."

Felix was certain I was just throwing a tantrum.

But a full week passed, and there was no word from me at all.

No calls, no texts. Even the hospital said I'd already resigned.

Felix's certainty slowly curdled into irritation.

Then one day, walking down the hallway, something made him glance at a trash can that hadn't been emptied yet.

A ring, caked in grime, sat quietly inside it.

It was the engagement ring he'd had his assistant buy on a whim, just to placate his grandfather. Red thread was still wound around the band, since my fingers had always been too thin for it to stay on without the wrapping.

Felix's heart lurched.

"She threw away the ring..."

Just then, his assistant hurried over, carrying a cardboard box.

"Mr. Callier, these are Ms. Kamp's belongings, left behind at the hospital. They asked us to bring them back."

Before he could finish, the assistant's foot caught on something, and the box tumbled to the floor.

A rusted metal tin rolled out, its lid popping open. A yellowed diary and a single sheet of paper spilled out.

Felix frowned and walked over, picking up the sheet of paper.

The moment he read it, his blood ran cold.

It was a critical-condition blood donation notice from three years earlier.

And the name signed as the donor read: Roxy Kamp.

The comment feed appeared again.

[Wait, what? Why does that donation slip say Roxy Kamp?!]

[Was the real heiress the one who actually saved Felix back then? Did Tiffany steal the credit?]

Felix's hands began to shake. His eyes fell on the diary, and it took him a long moment before he dared to open it.

Inside was my neat, delicate handwriting.

[Gave blood for Felix today. The doctor said I might die. But even unconscious, he kept holding my hand and calling me Tiffany. It's fine. As long as he lives.]

Felix's mind went blank.

A memory flashed through his head: a few days ago, forcing me to donate blood for Tiffany, my face drained white and my eyes hollow with despair.

"How could... how could it have been her..."

Felix's voice shook until it barely came out at all, his eyes flooding red.

He pulled out his phone and dialed my number.

"Pick up... Roxy, please pick up!"

After a long stretch of ringing, the call actually connected.

Felix's voice trembled. "Roxy! Where are you right now? Who actually saved me back then? Say something!"

But the voice that came through wasn't mine at all.

It was the sound of an explosion, sirens, and a foreign man's urgent voice.

"Are you Dr. Kamp's family? Her medical convoy was just hit by an armed attack at the border. The entire vehicle was destroyed.

"We haven't been able to locate her body. Please, prepare yourselves."