When True Love Costs Everything

My studio was a monument to dust and dreams, haunted by stack of canvases and a growing pile of final notices.

Then I saw it: a news notification celebrating Mark Johnson, the tech mogul, philanthropist, and the man I' d saved four years ago when he was dying in a hospital bed.

When I called for help, his polished fiancée, Jessica, answered, her voice dripping with condescending sweetness as she dismissed my emergency as a financial ploy and him as "moved on."

Mark came to the phone, his voice cold and hard, accusing me of faking my illness and abandoning him for money when he had nothing…