1

"Ms. Sky, you have cancer..."

My face was pale as I asked the doctor, "Om what did you say?"

The doctor pressed his arm over my medical reports and pronounced each word accurately. "Mrs. Sky, your uterus was not fully healed when you had the abortion two years ago. Then, you had an infection and that caused the cells in your uterus to become cancerous..."

I interrupted him with tears in my eyes, "How much time do I have left?"

"The cancer cells are spreading. You have at most about 6 months to live."

I couldn't hear anything else the doctor was saying. My mind buzzed loudly and the words "little time left to live" reverberated in my mind....

That night in Sky Village:

I threw myself on the bed like a corpse, burying my head in the pillow. My heart was filled with sadness.

The person who had sex with me was my husband, Carlos Sky.

For two whole long years, he did whatever he wanted and came out with a cold expression on his face every time he visited.

He never said anything from beginning to end.

Just like today, he had changed his suit when he came out of his shower and was about to leave.

I called his name softly.

He pursed his thin lips and looked at me indifferently.

When I confronted him and looked him straight in the eye, everything I wanted to say got stuck in my throat. In the end, I mumbled, "Go carefully."

I could hear the car being started downstairs. I got out of bed to look at the black car pulling away and called Carlos.

He answered and asked impatiently, "What's the matter?"

Carlos and I had been married for three years. He liked another woman when he married me, but my father-in-law threatened his wife with death and forced him to marry me.

For two years he treated me very coldly and cruelly.

Even when he was with me, he thought of the other. Her name was Suzana Lincon.

I remember that I was only 16 years old when I fell in love with Carlos. It was the early stages of love. When you love someone, you put that person in your heart. At that time he was a teacher.

Even today I still don't know why I fell in love with a man like that, full of reasons, 10 years older than me. Maybe it was because he was handsome and soft-spoken and affectionate, or maybe it was because the first time I heard him, his voice sounded so soft in my ears and awakened me to a world I had no knowledge of at all.

I cannot really say what the real reason was. That year, I followed Carlos for several months until he left his classroom and I couldn't find him anymore.

I couldn't even ask his name.

In the years that followed, I could no longer find that beautiful teacher, so the patriarch of the Sky family came to the Moon company and asked me to be his daughter-in-law.

The Moon family was very rich, they were the most powerful family in Seattle, I was born into the Moon family. Before I met Carlos, my parents died in a boating accident and their bodies were never found.

And suddenly I became the most powerful person in Seattle.

And it was at the most difficult moment of my life that I met the powerful Carlos Sky.

We had met so many times before that he knew I was following him, yet he treated me like any other student and never bothered by my presence, nor did he try to throw me out any of the times. At night he would gently say, "Miss, it's time to go home or your parents will be coming after you soon. It's dangerous to be out there alone."

My heart warmed as I remembered the past.

I felt that Carlos was sweet and caring back then.

I closed my eyes. My biggest regret was that I had accepted to get engaged to Carlos three years ago, after being asked by my father-in-law. I didn't want to because there were many families that wanted to join mine through marriage.

But Mr. Sky showed me a picture. When I saw that familiar face, my heart twisted hard and I began to feel it palpitate.

Because that was the man I thought about every night.

So I made a bold bet.

I bet that Carlos Sky would marry me.

I bet that even if there was no love in our marriage, we would respect each other and treat each other with civility.

I bet that he would take care of me and have concern for me like a normal husband would.

I didn't imagine it would be like this, with him humiliating me all the time.

A year ago, he even ordered someone to get rid of the child, he didn't even care about me, how I felt, he was just rude to me in front of the doctor and that was it: "Natalia Moon you are not ready to be the mother of my son".

Carlos Sky hated me, hated me so much that he got rid of our son!

He had forgotten, but I didn't...

He had forgotten about that little girl who ran after him day and night.

For him, I used the power of my family name to get his father to ask for my hand in marriage, to become his wife and to push away the woman he truly loved.

For Carlos, I was just someone who kept him away from his great love.

I kept thinking about what happened in the past. Perhaps I had been silent too long, Carlos admonished me grimly, "Do not challenge my good will. You know I have no patience with you."

I came back to reality and forced the pain I felt in my heart. I said Carlos Sky in a low voice, let's make a deal.