Chapter 1

The flickering fluorescent light of Sarah Miller' s small studio cast long shadows over the canvases stacked against the wall. Each one was a piece of her, but they were just gathering dust, unsold. A small, formidable stack of white envelopes sat on her cluttered worktable, each one a final notice, a demand for payment she couldn't meet. A dull ache pulsed in her lower back, a constant, heavy reminder of the clock that was ticking down.

She picked up her phone, not to look at the bills, but to escape into the noise of the world for a moment. Her thumb froze on the screen. A news notification flashed at the top: "Tech Mogul Mark Johnson Pledges $50 Million to New Children's Hospital Wing."

There he was.

His picture was crisp and professional, his smile confident, his eyes bright with the kind of success that seemed to light up the world around him. He stood in front of a gleaming new building, a crowd of reporters and admirers surrounding him. He was a titan, a philanthropist, a man who could solve problems with a flick of his pen.

Four years ago, he was a different man, lying in a hospital bed, his skin a pale, sickly yellow. And she was the one holding his hand, promising him everything would be okay.

The ache in her back sharpened. It was a familiar pain, but today it felt different, crueler. She swiped the notification away and pulled up his contact information. Her finger hovered over the call button. It was a number she had sworn she would never dial again, a connection she had severed for his own good.

But desperation was a cold, heavy thing, and it was crushing her pride. She pressed the button.

The phone rang once, twice, then clicked.

"Hello?"

It wasn't his voice. It was a woman, her tone smooth and polished, like expensive glass.

"Hi, is Mark Johnson available?" Sarah asked, her own voice sounding thin and weak to her ears.

"May I ask who's calling?" the woman purred. Jessica. Sarah recognized the voice from the society pages online.

"It's Sarah Miller."

There was a short pause, filled with an unspoken, chilling satisfaction.

"Oh. Sarah," Jessica said, drawing out the name. "Mark is very busy. He's in the middle of a very important celebration, actually. I'm sure you saw the news."

"I did," Sarah said, forcing the words out. "It's just... I really need to speak with him. It's an emergency."

A soft, condescending laugh trickled through the phone.

"An emergency? Let me guess, a financial emergency? You always did have a knack for timing, didn't you, Sarah? Showing up whenever you think there's something to gain."

Sarah' s throat went dry. "That's not-"

"Save it," Jessica cut in. "He's moved on. We've moved on. I don't know what kind of game you're playing, but he's not interested."

The line was about to go dead when Sarah heard a muffled voice in the background. "Who is it, Jess?"

"No one important, honey," Jessica said, her voice dripping with fake sweetness.

"Give me the phone," Mark's voice demanded, closer now.

There was a rustle, and then his voice, cold and hard, filled her ear.

"Sarah?"

"Mark," she breathed, a wave of painful relief washing over her.

"What do you want?"

There was no warmth, no flicker of their shared past. Just ice.

"Mark, I... I need help," she stammered, the humiliation burning her cheeks. "I wouldn't ask if it wasn't... I'm sick."

"Sick?" He let out a harsh, disbelieving laugh. "Sick of being a starving artist? Realized you made a mistake walking out on me when I had nothing?"

"No, it's not like that. I'm really sick. I need a... I need a transplant."

"A transplant," he repeated, his voice flat and mocking. "And you thought, 'Who has money? Oh, I know. The guy I abandoned when he was on his deathbed.' The nerve you have is just unbelievable."

"I didn't abandon you!" The words tore out of her, raw and desperate.

"You took the money my parents offered and you disappeared, Sarah. You left me a note saying you couldn't handle it. So don't you dare try to rewrite history now. How much do you want? Is that what this is about? A shakedown?"

Tears pricked her eyes. She felt the old, faint scar on her side throb, a phantom limb of a sacrifice he would never know. He truly believed it. He believed the lie she had constructed, the lie Jessica had so carefully nurtured. She had left him so he could live, and he thought she had left him for money.

She couldn't speak. The injustice of it all choked her.

"I see," he said into the silence. "You can't even deny it." He sighed, a sound of pure, unadulterated disgust. "I'll send you something. For old times' sake. Then you will delete this number, and you will never, ever contact me again. Do you understand?"

He didn't wait for an answer. The line went dead.

Sarah stood frozen in her studio, the phone still pressed to her ear. The silence was louder than his accusations. She slowly lowered the phone, her hand trembling. She sank onto a rickety stool, her body shaking with a mix of illness and heartbreak.

Her mind flashed back to a different room, a sterile hospital room. She remembered signing the papers, the ones that listed her as an anonymous donor. She remembered the terror and the fierce, protective love that had driven her to do it. To give him a piece of herself so he could have a future. A future that, she now saw, had no room for her in it.

A notification chimed on her phone.

She looked down, her vision blurry. It was a bank transfer notification.

From: Mark Johnson.

Amount: $500.00.

Message: Here. For old times' sake. Don't contact me again.

Five hundred dollars.

It wasn't help. It was an insult. It was the price he put on their entire history. It was a slap in the face, a clear message that she was nothing more than a nuisance from the past, a beggar to be paid off and dismissed.

A wave of nausea rolled through her, and she doubled over, clutching her abdomen. The pain was sharp and visceral, a physical manifestation of her shattered heart. The money, so small and insignificant to him, was a brutal confirmation of how little she meant.

Later that evening, the walls of her studio felt like they were closing in. Her best friend, Emily Chen, had called, her voice tight with worry, but Sarah had brushed it off, unable to voice the depth of her humiliation. She needed air.

She walked to a small, quiet coffee shop a few blocks away, a place they used to go when they were both broke and dreaming of the future. She ordered a tea she couldn't afford and sat in a corner booth, trying to disappear.

And then she saw them.

Mark and Jessica walked in, laughing about something. He pulled out her chair for her, his hand lingering on her back. They sat at a table near the window, the city lights glowing behind them. He reached across the table and took her hand, his thumb stroking her knuckles. He looked at her with an adoration that Sarah remembered all too well, an adoration that had once been hers.

It was a perfect picture of happiness, a life she had sacrificed everything for him to have. And watching it felt like swallowing glass.

She tried to sink lower in her seat, to hide her face behind the menu. But it was too late. Jessica' s eyes scanned the room, a predator' s casual survey, and they locked onto Sarah. A slow, triumphant smile spread across her face. She leaned in and whispered something to Mark, her finger subtly pointing in Sarah's direction.

Mark' s head snapped around. His smile vanished, replaced by a dark, thunderous expression. He stood up, Jessica clinging to his arm with a look of feigned concern, and they walked toward her booth.

Sarah's heart hammered against her ribs. She was trapped.

"Are you following us now?" Mark's voice was low and menacing.

"No," Sarah whispered, her face pale. "I just... this was our place."

The words slipped out before she could stop them, a desperate appeal to a memory he had clearly discarded.

"It was," he corrected her, his voice sharp. "A long time ago. What are you doing here, Sarah? Did the five hundred not cover your coffee?"

"You have no idea," she said, her voice shaking with a fury born of pain. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

He misunderstood completely. His face hardened, twisting into a mask of contempt.

"Oh, I think I do," he snarled. "You're not sick, you're just pathetic. You see my success and you want a piece of it. You think you can show up and play the victim and I'll just write you a check. Well, it's not going to happen. Stay away from me. Stay away from Jessica. Stay away from my life."

Each word was a blow, landing with brutal precision. He saw her not as the woman who had saved his life, but as a parasite trying to latch onto his fortune. And standing beside him, Jessica watched with a look of pure, unadulterated victory.

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