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Chapter 7
Tessa’s screams faded into the distance, swallowed by the guards‘ shouts, and then the
garden went quiet.
She’d lived inside the story those comments spun for her, trying to claw her way up by
stepping on others, scheming and calculating.
men.
And in the end, she got exactly what she deserved.
The mining camp was brutal. No sunlight, coal dust everywhere, work so hard it broke grown
Tessa had been soft, pampered, delicate. She couldn’t handle it.
Word was, after she got there, no one put up with her fake fragility. If she dug too slow, they beat her. She ate pig slop and wild greens.
She slept in a shack full of holes. It didn’t take long before her pretty face was black with coal
dust, her hands covered in blisters and thick calluses.
All that old elegance was gone. She’d become everything she once looked down on.
Every day in that camp, suffering. No way out. That was the price of her cruelty.
[Good. The fake innocent got what she deserved.]
[This male lead is full–on “hurt my girl and I’ll destroy you” mode. Love to see it.]
[How’s that taste, comments? You kept saying he’d pick Tessa. Yeah, no. He sent her to a coal mine instead. Honestly? Obsessed.]
Reid looked down at me, gently wiping the mud and tears off my face. His fingers were so soft. When he touched my cold, fever–flushed cheek, he even blew a warm breath on it, trying to heat me up.
“Still hurting?”
His voice was soft, full of worry.
“Alright, let’s get you back to your room. Change into something dry. I’ll make you some ginger tea with honey, warm you right up. Okay?”
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I nodded, leaning into his warmth. All my anxiety melted away.
The comments were still flying across my vision, some shocked, some gushing, some arguing
with the plot.
I watched the words scroll by and suddenly wanted to tell Reid everything.
He carried me inside, walking slow and steady so he wouldn’t jostle me.
I clutched his shirt, hesitated, then whispered, Reid, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“Go ahead.” He looked down at me, his eyes soft.
“I can see words. Like floating pop–up comments. Right in front of my eyes.”
I bit my lip, watching him nervously, scared he’d think I was crazy.
“They said you’re the son of a billionaire. That my dad would go broke and die in a basement. That you’d get revenge on me. End up with Tessa. That I’m the the villainess. The one who gets
thrown in the river.”
Reid stopped walking. He looked down at me, surprise flickering across his face, then something deeper pain.
He reached up and tousled my hair. “So that’s why you suddenly got nice to me. Why you were scared. Why you pushed me away.”
I nodded, tears welling up again. “I thought it was fate. I was so scared of losing my dad. Scared you’d really get revenge. I even thought… the way you were with Tessa… that it was real.”
[He knows about the comments now. What’s he going to do?]
[Oh no. The comments are about to get roasted.]
Reid bent his head and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. Then he lifted his chin and looked at the empty air in front of me, like he was talking directly to those floating words.
“Don’t listen to that garbage. What do they know? They’re just random noise. They don’t get to talk about you. They don’t get to decide my
life.”
His gaze dropped back to me, full of honesty and depth. He wiped my tears away with his thumb and said, one word at a time,
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”
“Blair, just trust me. Trust how I feel. Trust that ‘d never hurt you. Trust that I’ll always protect you and your dad. Those comments, that whole plot, none of it means anything. Your life, my life, we’re the ones writing it. Nobody else gets a say.”
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