Chapter 6
My parents’ faces lit up the second I walked through the door.
It did not last. One look at my face, and their smiles disappeared.
“What did Harrison do?”
I tried to smile, but I couldn’t quite force it. “Harrison? Please. He wouldn’t dare.”
He had simply figured out, somewhere along the way, that I was not worth the trouble.
And by now, he had been living with that realization for years.
“Is he making things difficult for you? I knew it. I never should have let you marry him.” My dad was already reaching for his phone.
I grabbed his arm before he could dial. “Don’t. Both of you, promise me you won’t call
him.”
Then I shut myself in my old room and told them I needed to be alone.
No visitors. No check-ins. Just me and the ceiling.
I collapsed onto the bed and stared at nothing.
My parents never wanted me to be with Harrison. Not at first.
We had money back then. Not billionaire money, but enough for people to call me an heiress without batting an eye. Harrison had nothing. No money, no name, no future
anyone else could see.
But the real problem? I was the one who confessed first. During my senior year of high
school, I told him how I felt.
He turned me down.
I lost it. Completely.
I refused to see him. Canceled every tutoring session. Spent my days in bed, miserable,
not talking to anyone.
Chapter 6
C
60.00%
That was when my parents realized something was seriously wrong.
If they already knew, what was the point of hiding it? So I went nuclear.
“Go ahead and judge me. I don’t care. I like him so much I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t
think about anything else. And if you don’t let me date him, I’ll actually stop eating.”
I launched my hunger strike that very night. For the record, I turned down ten separate
offers of food and held out for six brutal hours.
I expected a lecture. Maybe a screaming match.
Instead, Harrison showed up at my door.
He was out of breath and looked like he had run the whole way. And for the first time, I
saw something almost like panic in his eyes.
“I’ll be your boyfriend.”
I stared at him. My brain short-circuited.
But my mouth said yes before my brain could catch up.
I found out later that my parents had gone to him first. They had shown up at his door
and demanded he stay away from me.
Instead, Harrison was the one who made them promises. He would give me a good life. I would never struggle. He would get my grades up and get me into a good college.
That part had never made sense to me. If he had feelings for me, and he clearly did, or why else would he have shown up like that? Then why turn me down the first time?
But he kept every promise. My grades went up. I got into a great school. And he treated
me like I was the center of his universe.
We made it official during my freshman year of college.
He was building his company from nothing back then, working around the clock. But he still showed up at my dorm every day with food. If I wanted something, it appeared
before I could even finish asking.
And I would go sit with him at the office, trying to be useful when really, I just wanted to
be near him.
But that was as far as it went. My parents would not let him propose, and anything physical was strictly off-limits.
That lasted until his company went public and Harrison finally had the kind of success no one could argue with.
My parents finally gave us their blessing.
After we got married, nothing changed. He loved me the same way he always had.
I thought I had proved everyone wrong. I had picked the right man.
But now? My judgment was not the problem.
The man I had chosen had never been mine to keep. He belonged in someone else’s
story.
My phone buzzed in the dark.
Harrison had sent the divorce papers.
I opened the file and braced myself. All I wanted was for him to remember what we had
been to each other and not leave me with nothing.
What I saw made me sit straight up.
Since when did I own this much? Half these properties… I did not even know they
existed.
I called him before I could finish reading.
