Chapter 1

"Elisa, what tricks are you playing now?"

Wade Grant stepped forward and pulled Rose Barrymore firmly behind him, shielding her.

"Tricks?" I set down my wine glass. "Isn't this exactly what you wanted?"

Wade let out a cold laugh.

"You know full well that Rose has depression, yet you choose today, of all days, to put on this show of generosity. Are you trying to make everyone think she's the one who drove you away?"

I looked at his face. Familiar, and yet a stranger's.

It had been the same in my last life. One tear from Rose, and every accusation landed on me.

"Wade, don't talk to Elisa like that..." Rose tugged at his sleeve, her eyes reddening. "It's my fault. I shouldn't have come. I'll go now."

"You're not going anywhere." Wade caught her wrist and held it fast.

Levi Grant slammed his palm on the table and pointed at his son.

"You insolent brat. Do you even know what you're saying?"

"Dad, I'm perfectly clear-headed." Wade didn't back down an inch. "If it weren't for Elisa, Mom wouldn't have died in that kidnapping three years ago! She owes our family a life!"

The hall went silent.

The scene of the kidnapping, three years ago. By the time Wade arrived, all he found was his mother's body and the phone clutched in my hand, the one she'd used to call for help before she died.

From that day on, anything I said was written off as a lie.

"Why was the phone in your hand?

"Why did the kidnappers let you go and no one else?

"Why was my mother's last call for help placed from right next to you?"

He'd asked me these three questions more times than I could count. I'd answered them just as many times. But he never listened.

Wade stepped closer. "Give up your headline spot at the art exhibition. Let Rose have it."

My fingers curled. I'd pulled countless all-nighters to earn that spot.

Five years earlier, a falling pane of glass had sliced open my right hand, and the nerves had nearly died. Wade had knelt outside an old herbalist's door for three days and three nights, just to beg the man to save it. Back then, he'd held my bandaged hand with his eyes rimmed red.

"Elisa's hand is meant for painting. It's going to stand on the highest podium in the world."

Now, he was the one dragging me down from it with his own hands, clearing the way for the woman he loved.

"That spot is mine." I looked at him.

Wade took another step forward. "You owe her this. You owe me this." He lowered his voice, biting off every word.

"Three years ago, if you hadn't been such a coward, my mother would still be alive. Elisa, you're alive today because my mother isn't. And giving up one exhibition spot to make up for it is too much to ask?"

Something invisible closed around my heart and squeezed.

Wade pulled a plane ticket from his pocket. "Since the engagement is off, there's no reason for us to keep tangled up with each other. Leave Morrisey City, and that plot of land in Braaten City is yours. We'll treat it as the Grants' compensation to the Rodneys."

I stared at the ticket for a flight abroad to a country called Topheria. A tightness spread through my chest.

In my last life, I'd torn up my acceptance letter to Topheria University right in front of him, thinking that giving up my own future might be enough to make him look back at me, just once.

He hadn't even lifted his eyes. He'd only said two words. "Suit yourself."

Now, the very sacrifice I'd made had become his bargaining chip to drive me away.

"No need." I walked past him. "My family and I will earn that land in Braaten City on our own merit. And going abroad is my own business. No need for you to trouble yourself over it."

I walked out without looking back.

Wade Grant. Not this time. I don't want you anymore.