Keith's daughter had a lifelong strawberry allergy. After eating a cookie with hidden strawberry ingredients, she died from an allergic reaction.Keith,already battling cancer, found out his wife Hollie was the one who gave her the cookie. To spare her the guilt, he took the blame. But Hollie,believing he killed their daughter, resented him deeply and made him suffer. Only as Keith lay dying did she learn the truth—too late to make things right.
At eighteen, Clara Quinn used up all her savings to buy herself a burial plot, ready to leave the world behind. Taken in by the Quinn family as a child, she spent years giving blood to her frail adoptive sister, Tessa—only to be met with cold shoulders from her adoptive parents and betrayal from her fiancé, Elias Payne, whose tenderness was just a cover for using her as a walking blood supply.Crushed by the truth, Clara faked her death and disappeared. She eventually found her real parents and true love in Lucian Vale,beginning a brand-new life filled with hope. But the Quinns and Elias, drowning in guilt and regret, refused to let go.In the end, with the love and protection of her real family,Clara finally stepped out of the darkness. She married Lucian and found lasting happiness, while those who once used and hurt her could only watch from a distance,haunted by what they had lost.