LOGIN“Emily,” Olivia Carter said, covering her bruised cheek with a mocking smile, “but the son of that family… he’s in a vegetative state. Been like that for three years. You really want to marry him?” Emily’s expression didn’t change. She simply smiled faintly. “I’ll marry him,” she said firmly. Her voice was calm, resolute, unshaken. Marrying a normal man might have been intimidating. But a vegetative man? Didn’t that mean she was practically not married at all? What could a man in a coma do to her? “Emily, think carefully. If you agree, I’ll contact the family and arrange a meeting tomorrow,” Victoria said, cautious now. “Fine,” Emily nodded. “Once the marriage certificate is ready, I’ll personally come to collect the money. Emily Carter never imagined that a single marriage contract could change her life overnight. Forced to wed a comatose billionaire to save her mother, she steps into a world of unimaginable wealth, ruthless family politics, and secrets that could destroy her. But when Kellan Scott suddenly wakes from his coma—and asks for a divorce—Emily’s carefully balanced life shatters.
View More“Shut up! How dare you speak to your father like that!”
“Father? Do you even deserve that title?”
Emily Carter lifted her head just as a dark object flew toward her.
She raised her arm to block it, but she was a second too slow.
The crystal ashtray smashed hard against her forehead.
A sharp pain exploded in her skull, turning her vision black.
Warm liquid slowly slid down her face, and thick blood covered her left eye.
“When your mother took you away all those years ago, I told her I wouldn’t give her a single cent!” Richard Carter her dad sneered coldly. “Back then she had the guts to walk out of this house. It’s only been ten years—where did all that pride go? Now that you can’t survive anymore, you come crawling back asking for money?”
Standing before him was his own biological daughter.
Yet there was not a trace of pity in his eyes.
“No… it wasn’t my mother who came to ask for money,” Emily said quietly.
“It was me.”
“I came to beg you.”
“She didn’t send you?” Richard’s voice dripped with disdain. “Does she even have the nerve to show her face in front of me?”
Emily opened her mouth to argue.
But in the end, she swallowed the words.
“Mr. Carter… if my mother doesn’t get surgery immediately, she will die. For Grandpa’s sake… please save her.” Emily’s voice softened.
Her pride and stubbornness disappeared.
She needed money.
Even if it meant kneeling and begging for it.
As long as her mother could live, she didn’t care about anything else.
“You want money?” Richard scoffed. “Forget five hundred thousand dollars. I’d give one million if I felt like it.”
“Tell your mother to come here personally. Let her kneel in front of me and beg.”
Emily clenched her fists secretly, her nails digging into her palms.
“I’m begging you,” she said hoarsely. “The five hundred thousand dollars will be a loan. I’ll repay you with interest.”
Her head lowered again.
Her voice was rough, her lips cracked and dry.
The metallic taste of blood lingered on her tongue.
She had waited outside the Carter family’s Upper East Side mansion all day.
Not a single drop of water had passed her lips.
She never expected this would be the result.
“If she refuses to come,” Richard said coldly, “then when she dies, I’ll send a coffin. Consider it the last courtesy between former spouses.”
He gave Emily a disgusted glance before walking past her and leaving.
The sound of a car engine starting echoed through the driveway.
Emily’s body trembled.
From the second floor, a figure stood at the top of the luxurious spiral staircase.
She had been watching the entire scene unfold.
Olivia Carter her step sister looked at Emily’s miserable state with unconcealed excitement.
Back then, when Olivia had stood nervously outside the Carter family’s mansion in Manhattan, she had been cursed and humiliated.
At that time, Emily had been a proud little princess.
Olivia would never forget the sight.
Emily had worn a beautiful white princess dress, glowing like someone from a fairy tale.
And Olivia?
The illegitimate daughter of a mistress.
Coming to the Carter family door had been the most humiliating moment of her life.
She had felt like a rat crossing the street, hated by everyone.
But now…
The tables had turned.
She had become the elegant jewel of the Carter family.
The daughter of the richest businessman in New York City.
Meanwhile, Emily and her mother had fallen into such misery.
If anyone was to blame, Olivia thought smugly, it was Emily’s mother.
Why insist on divorce back then?
If she had just endured it, things would be different.
In this world, what man doesn’t cheat?
Luckily, Emily’s mother had left.
Otherwise Olivia could never have become Miss Carter openly.
And her mother would never have become Mrs. Carter.
With a smug smile, Olivia walked down the stairs.
“Emily, look what you’ve done,” she mocked. “You made my father furious.”
“How shameless can you be? Back then your mother insisted on leaving the Carter family, cutting all ties with my father. She even made you change your last name to hers.”
“And now you still have the nerve to come back to the Carter mansion asking for money?”
Olivia Carter walked over to Emily and looked at her with naked contempt.
“Aren’t you and your mother supposed to be so proud?” Olivia sneered. “Why are you shamelessly crawling back to beg your father now? Half a million dollars in one breath—do you really think your mother’s worthless life is worth that much?”
Smack!
Emily used all her strength to slap Olivia across the face.
Olivia wasn’t prepared at all. She stumbled backward and crashed into the glass coffee table. A streak of blood instantly appeared at the corner of her mouth.
“Emily! How dare you hit me!”
“You’ve gone insane! Emily, you crazy girl!” Victoria, who had been sitting comfortably on the sofa, rushed forward and helped Olivia up with a distressed look.
When she saw the blood on Olivia’s lips, her expression turned furious.
“How dare you hit someone!”
Emily looked at her coldly.
“Did I hit someone?” she said sharply. “Are you even human?”
Victoria’s face instantly darkened.
Emily secretly clenched her fists, swallowing all the curses she wanted to spit back, and stared coldly at the mother and daughter.
Victoria was wearing a luxury silk nightgown from a famous designer brand. Even the pair of slippers on her feet cost nearly three thousand dollars.
The dress Olivia was wearing was a limited-edition designer piece from this season, worth over ten thousand dollars. Even the jeweled hair clip on her head cost almost fifteen thousand.
Weren’t this mother and daughter the ones who always claimed they didn’t care about wealth or luxury?
Only that scumbag Richard Carter would believe such nonsense.
Was it really true that in this world, good people never lived long while evil people thrived?
Richard had cheated during his marriage, and Victoria had shamelessly brought her child to the door.
Was Emily’s mother wrong for divorcing him?
“Emily,” Victoria suddenly spoke with a faint smile, “I met your father first. But your grandfather insisted that your father marry your mother.”
“So tell me… who exactly stole whose man?”
Her lips curled slightly as she continued in a soft, almost innocent tone.
“I never wanted your father to divorce your mother. I never cared about any status either. Olivia only wanted to see her father. Is that wrong?”
“She never tried to compete with you. Back then, it was your mother who insisted on taking you away from the Carter family.”
Emily’s eyes turned icy.
“You never thought about it?” she asked coldly.
“Dad isn’t here anymore. You can stop pretending with those disgusting hypocritical faces.”
Victoria simply smiled—the calm, confident smile of a winner.
“Emily, your mother was too stubborn. She humiliated your father in front of the entire New York elite. Even now, he still hates her.”
“That’s why he refuses to give you a single cent.”
Emily forced herself to suppress the raging anger inside her.
If she didn’t desperately need that money to save her mother’s life, she would have torn the fake smiles off Victoria and Olivia’s faces long ago.
Why had her mother humiliated Richard?
It was clearly these two shameless women who had forced their way into the family and pressured her mother into divorce.
And now they dared to smear her mother’s name.
Absolutely shameless.
“However…” Victoria suddenly changed her tone.
“Aunt Victoria does have a way to help you get the five hundred thousand dollars.”
Emily immediately looked up.
“What way?”
Victoria slowly spoke.
“Your grandfather once had a very close friend. They were like brothers who had shared life-and-death experiences.”
“Back when they were young, they made a marriage agreement between their families.”
“Your grandfather even mentioned it shortly before he passed away.”
“But that friend disappeared for many years, and we couldn’t find him.”
“Recently, however, he suddenly contacted the Carter family again. He wants us to honor that old marriage agreement.”
Victoria shrugged casually.
“Although their family isn’t particularly wealthy—just an ordinary upper-middle-class family—I think the marriage isn’t bad.”
“After all, every woman has to get married eventually.”
Emily’s heart sank instantly.
“You mean… you want me to marry him?” she asked slowly.
She had already guessed what this mother and daughter were plotting.
And she had a terrible feeling that an even deeper trap was waiting for her.
Mrs. Scott had sent a car.It was waiting at arrivals when Emily and the old man came through the gates — a quiet, well-dressed driver holding a sign that said nothing except a small symbol Emily had already learned to recognize as the Scott family's.The old man walked with the ease of someone returning to a familiar place.Emily walked beside him and tried not to look overwhelmed by the size of the city pressing in around the airport exits.The drive took them through neighborhoods that grew progressively quieter and more spacious, and then through gates, and then up a long approach road, and then Emily saw the house.She had thought the care facility was large. She had thought the riverside villa was large.She had been thinking about the wrong scale.The Scott family's old house was not a building in the conventional sense. It was a compound — walls and gates and then, inside those, a series of structures connected by covered walkways and arranged around a central garden that was
At ten o'clock, he heard movement in the driveway. Kellan wheeled to the window. Roland and the butler were loading bags into the car. Margaret was at the door, checking items off a list. The facility staff who had been rotating through since he woke had arranged themselves to help in the efficient, unobtrusive way of people who had been trained well. He watched Emily come out of the entrance carrying her own bag, which she had not let anyone take from her. She stopped and said something to the butler that made him nod, and then she helped the old man down the steps — one hand on his elbow, her body positioned to catch if needed, the way someone moves when protecting someone matters more than being seen to protect them. Kellan watched this. He was aware, in the specific way that you become aware of things you have been avoiding, that he had been watching her for three weeks while pretending to be unconscious and had learned her quite thoroughly before she had learned anything ab
Breakfast was already on the table by the time the old man finished instructing Margaret about the soup.He sat down, picked up his chopsticks, and looked at Emily. She was eating quietly, her suitcase visible by the stairs. He had accepted her explanation — school, leave of absence, time to go back — but his eyes kept drifting to that bag the way you watch something you're not entirely convinced about.He set down his chopsticks again and stood up."Henry — when you call ahead, have someone prepare Emily's room. A proper setup. Everything a young woman needs."Emily put down her spoon."Grandfather." She stood up. "Please don't go to that trouble. I'll stay in the dormitory. It's easier.""Easier." The old man took her hand and guided her firmly back to her seat, the way you would redirect a small child who had wandered toward something inadvisable. "The house is less than an hour from the school. You'll eat well. You'll sleep in a real bed. The dormitory has nothing a proper home ca
Emily pushed Kellan back to his room.The moment the door closed, he pushed the bouquet out of his arms. The roses landed on the floor in a heap of petals and stems.Emily stared at them. Then she picked them up and looked at him.Very few people looked at Kellan Scott directly when they were angry.Emily was apparently one of them."I did what you asked," she said."You bought a bunch of flowers," he said flatly."The restaurant gave me those. I spent hours buying everything else, exactly like you told me to.""There's not a single consumption alert on my phone."Emily paused.She took the phone he held out and scrolled through. He was right — nothing since that first shopping trip. She turned this over in her mind.The card the old man had used today looked identical to the one from before. She had assumed it was the same.It wasn't."The things will be delivered," she said. "You'll see them."He looked at her in the way that made clear he had already decided what he believed.Emily
The clerk returned with a beautifully packaged parcel that was, Emily discovered when she lifted it, genuinely heavy. seems originally designers was heavier than it looked. This was physics. She knew this. It was still surprising. She tucked it under her arm and took the old man's elbow, and t
Emily woke to the soft chime of a video call.She answered before she was fully conscious, and her mother's face filled the screen — bright-eyed, sitting up in what looked, over the video, like a very nice room indeed."Emily dear! Are you awake?""Mom." Emily pushed herself upright and rubbed her
Mrs. Scott had always wanted a daughter.It was one of those quiet wishes she had never said aloud — not to the old man, not to anyone. She had Kellan, and Kellan was more than enough to love, but there was a particular kind of warmth she had imagined and set aside as something that wasn't going to
"What's the difference?" Kellan said.Emily looked up.He was speaking to her. She was almost certain of it, though his gaze was directed somewhere past her left shoulder with the focused detachment of a man addressing a general vicinity rather than a specific person."Emily," the old man said, wit












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