She gave up her career to marry him. He cheated, got another woman pregnant, and destroyed her hands. Then he found out she was the only surgeon who could save his child. He begged. She agreed to try—but on her terms. Now a new man is riding into her life. And Erin is finally ready to choose herself.
Eleanor suffers a sudden cerebral hemorrhage. Her daughter-in-law Lily rushes her to the hospital by ambulance—but her husband Kevin's Maybach blocks the way. Misled by his mistress Cindy's rumor that the patient is Lily's ex, Kevin refuses to yield, smashes the life-saving blood bag, and cancels the blood source. When he finally kicks open the ER door, what he sees is—his own mother.
"Luke gave up his photography career for his wife Audrey and worked as a stay-at-home husband for five years. He even got a vasectomy for her. Yet Audrey treated him coldly and carelessly, while bending every rule for her male coworker Ryan. When Luke’s father was critically ill, she refused to perform the surgery, and his father died during transfer to another hospital. But one phone call from Ryan was enough for her to drive three hundred miles to operate on Ryan’s aunt. On their wedding anniversary, Audrey forgot the date and rushed out late at night after receiving a call from Ryan.
Luke’s heart died completely. He placed the divorce papers among other documents for her to sign. Thinking they were paperwork for their new house, Audrey signed them without reading a word.
Luke went in for a vasectomy reversal. Ryan was assigned as the nurse in the operating room. After the surgery, Luke suffered severe bleeding. When Audrey arrived, she still defended Ryan. After leaving the hospital, Luke sold all the watches Audrey had given him. He left three signed documents on the nightstand and left alone. When Audrey came home and found him gone, she realized she had signed the divorce papers herself.
Ryan was exposed for academic misconduct and medical negligence, and Audrey lost her job in the fallout. She tracked Luke down along Silver Peak Highway and begged him to reconcile, but Luke turned her down. Later, Luke met Melanie and picked up his camera again. They married and had a daughter. Five years later, he became an internationally famous photographer. Audrey lived alone, only able to get basic care at a community clinic, and could never hold a surgical scalpel again."
I needed to take over my family, so I handpicked the man who would become my husband from a long list of candidates. He was smart, good-looking, came from a clean family, and knew how to honor a contract. He was the perfect man to father my heir.
Then, at six months pregnant, during a prenatal checkup, I saw him holding his first love, comforting her: "We'll have another baby someday." Ours was never a marriage of love. I couldn't care less which woman he was chasing. I just needed my heir to be born safely.
Then came the family banquet. He openly stole jewelry my grandmother had passed down to me and put it on his first love's wrist. He copied my family crest for her commercial poster. And in front of everyone, he tried to feed me an abortion pill with his own hands. They wanted to take everything I had and leave me with nothing. They should've asked themselves if they had what it took. They didn't.
I was an emergency physician. After finishing a night shift, I had just walked out of the hospital entrance when a colleague from the hospital called me. "Dr. Doherty, hurry back. A critically injured patient was just brought in. The chief wants you to return immediately and help with the resuscitation." I turned around without thinking. But then a stream of floating comments suddenly appeared in front of my eyes. [Do not enter the operating room! Do not take part in this resuscitation!] [The patient is already dead. If you go in, you will be taking the fall for the hospital director's daughter!] [This patient's family is powerful. You will not only be sentenced to death, your parents will also be forced to jump to their deaths as well!] My steps stopped cold. A few seconds later, my heart tightened. I decided to believe the comments. I would gamble on it. My eyes swept quickly across the ground. I immediately locked onto an uncovered deep shaft on the road. I gritted my teeth, shut my eyes, and threw myself straight into the opening.
Serena Valentine escapes a private psychiatric hospital, three ribs broken, weeks to live. Dying of ALS, she has donated her body to an experimental chemical study that will dissolve it completely. Outside waits Adrian Cross—the man she once loved.
Five years ago, Adrian's sister Isabella died in a kidnapping fire; everyone believed Serena abandoned her to save herself. Adrian had his friend Marcus send her abroad; Marcus instead imprisoned and tortured her for five years. Now engaged to Veronica Ashford, Serena's old bully who claims she saved him from the fire, Adrian keeps her as a servant and sexual outlet; sworn to Isabella's secret, she says nothing.
Veronica frames her in a sea accident; enraged, Adrian throws her overboard. A forced bone-marrow donation to Veronica leaves her paralyzed. Told she fled with money, he burns every trace of her. When both are abducted, he saves Veronica—leaving Serena to the flames.
The truth: Serena nursed him on a cruise and carried him from that fire; Marcus imprisoned her; Veronica stole her identity as rescuer. Her phone holds hundreds of unsent love messages—the last: "Please, come and save me."
His search comes too late—Serena is dead, dissolved, with nothing to bury. He sends Veronica and Marcus to the same hospital, then endures the torture himself. After watching the video of her destruction, he tries to die but is saved, cursed: "May you live a long life—and spend every day of it with nothing."
Years later, a crippled beggar wanders the New York waterfront, whispering Serena's name—condemned to live, paying for the woman he destroyed.
Claire is three months pregnant when her husband throws divorce papers at her. He says he doesn't care who the father is. He freezes her accounts, locks her out, and forbids her from the hospital. Everyone believes he's cruel. But Claire knows something doesn't add up. He was crying when he held her last month. He planned their first family trip. And now he won't even look at her. She has one question left—what is he really protecting her from?