I Gave Him My Heart, He Gave Me Hell

The alcohol stung my eyes, but I forced myself not to blink. "As long as the money's right, you can say whatever you want."

Jase Prescott laughed, but his voice was as cold as ice.

"A hundred thousand." He repeated the amount as if he were savoring something disgusting. "Audrey, five years ago, when I begged you to take me back, it was pouring. You told me to get lost. You said I was dirtying your precious home."

He paused. "So tell me. Which one of us is dirtier now?"

Five years ago, I'd accepted his confession, only to turn around, wrap my arms around another man, and throw Jase out of the mansion.

It really had been pouring that night. He'd knelt in the rain while I stood inside the doorway, my voice so cold I barely recognized it myself.

"You pathetic, dying, sick man. You think you're entitled to talk to me about a future? Get out. Don't dirty my home."

Hate me, Jase.

Hate lasts longer than love. Hate will let you live without a single burden on your conscience.

The doctor had asked me repeatedly to reconsider. "Ms. Bennett, this heart-swap procedure would be a first internationally. Even if the surgery succeeds, you..."

I signed the consent form.

The night before the operation, I curled up in the bathroom, retching. Terror nearly made me give up.

Then I tightened my grip on the photograph in my hand. The young man in it had clear, bright eyes. When he looked at me, it was as though I were his entire world.

I lowered my head into the bathtub, and the water swallowed the world around me.

If fate demanded that one of us sink into the depths, then let it be me.

Thank God it was me.

The edges of the heart-swap agreement in my pocket had grown soft from being handled so many times.

Jase pulled out a stack of bills and sneered. "Fine. For old times' sake, I'll give you this chance."

A bottle of red wine suddenly shattered beside me, its crimson contents spreading across my chest.

"On your knees." He lifted his chin toward the mess scattered across the floor. "Clean it all up, and you can have the money."

The carpet soaked up the wine, trapping the shards deep in its fibers.

I bent my knees and knelt, feeling blindly through the dim light for the sharp, glittering pieces of glass. Shards pierced my palms and cut into my knees. Faint streaks of blood stained the carpet.

The alcohol burned my wounds, each sting echoing the dull ache in my heart.

Jase sat on the couch, his face shrouded in shadow. There was no satisfaction in his expression, no pleasure in revenge. Only anger he could barely contain.

He suddenly surged to his feet, grabbed my chin, and forced me to look up. "Audrey Bennett, are you really that shameless? You'll throw away every last shred of dignity for money?

"I must have been blind to fall for you. You want money? Fine. Here!"

He flung the bills at me. They struck my face and scattered across the floor. "Pick them up! Isn't money what you love most?"

I watched his shoulders tremble with rage, then lowered myself back to the floor.

Under his gaze, I crawled across every inch of the room, gathering the bills one by one and clutching the wine-stained paper in my hands.

'Hate me, Jase. Spend every remaining year of your life hating me. Tear the name Audrey Bennett out of your life for good. Just think of me as a thoroughly rotten woman who cares about nothing but money.'

The last bill landed against the toe of his polished leather shoe.

I reached for it, but he bent down first and picked up a piece of paper that didn't belong among the scattered money.

My hand instinctively went to my pocket.

Empty.

All the blood in my body seemed to freeze.