Chapter 2

Chase, the boy who sat beside me in class, cautiously asked if I wanted to attend the same college as him.

Back then, I lowered my head and answered gloomily, “I’m not going to college. I have to go home and get married.”

While I was locked inside the house awaiting my wedding, Chase showed up drenched in sweat. He handed my father $20,000 and said he wanted to marry me.

My father thought the rich kid must be out of his mind. He figured he could get even more money out of him.

In the end, he only agreed to let me attend college with Chase for four years.

I thought I was destined to be like my mother, a docile live-in maid to the man who had paid for me. My mother had played a meek role. She was always obedient and never fought back.

So, when Chase leaned in to kiss me, I just closed my eyes.

Chase thought I had accepted his feelings.

Later, when we had grown closer, he put an arm around my shoulders and asked why I had agreed to be with him.

Without thinking, I answered, “Because you paid for me.”

Chase went rigid.

“Heather, would you be with anyone as long as they paid you?”

I fell silent.

I did not know the answer myself, only that I needed money.

Chase looked at me with nothing but disappointment.

However, whenever my father beat me black and blue to extort more money, he still paid him to leave me alone.

I thought I owed it to him to keep him happy after all the money he had spent on me.

Just as I had said, Chase became my sugar daddy.

He started dating other girls. One day, he was kissing one of them when he noticed that I had pulled out my homework to pass the time.

He told me to buy a morning-after pill and bring it to his hotel room. I quietly slipped him a bottle of vitamin C too. “Have her take these with it. They might make it a little easier on her body.”

Chase was furious that he could not find the slightest trace of jealousy in me.

He refused to accept that I did not love him. So, he decided to punish me for playing with his feelings.

He made me remove everything his girlfriend did not like from her plate. Just as I was about to throw it away, he said, “Aren’t you poor? Why are you wasting food?”

Without a word, I emptied it all into my bowl. I ate every last bite.

When the university interviewed students for its hardship grant, Chase gave me a couture outfit without telling me how much it cost.

Everyone had looked at me with envy as I was turned down for the eight-thousand-dollar grant.

Chase said a woman who played with his feelings did not deserve anyone’s sympathy. I would have to survive all four years on his handouts.

Before those four years were over, I was sold to someone else for two hundred dollars.

My mother was right. A woman was worth far less once she became used goods.

When I saw the fifty dollars the blond guy held out, I had no idea how to respond.

“This is the deposit.” The blond guy spread the past exam question sets across the bed. “You’ll get the rest when you finish.”

I picked up one of the papers and read the name at the top. “Kate Hutton?”

He pointed at the papers. “My sister.”

Then, he pointed at himself. “Theo Hutton.”

“When you’re done, I’ll give you another two hundred…”

Theo paused. That was the exact amount Chase had just sold me for. He quickly corrected himself. “Make that two hundred and ten.”

So, it was two hundred and sixty dollars to complete someone’s assignment.

I had done such work in high school.

I used to charge five dollars per assignment. One night, I even finished seventeen of them by the light of a flashlight.

Theo said, “My sister is in the hospital with a fever. She’s worried she won’t finish her assignments. Next time, I’ll haggle you down a little.”

There was going to be a next time?

I stared at him in confusion. “Do you know who I am?”

Theo looked at me.

“Heather Greene, Kingswell University’s star student. You study there with a scholarship and win a merit award every year. I’ve got the right person, haven’t I?”

My grip on the papers loosened before it tightened again.

No one had ever described me that way before.

Every student at Kingswell University knew Heather Greene as Chase Ekland’s dog.

They did not even see me as a lovesick fool who followed him around. I was a dog that would wag its tail and beg whenever someone offered it a bone.

Theo raised one eyebrow with amusement.

I heard him ask, “A dog? One this smart must be a border collie.”

My mind suddenly went blank.

High school math problems were easy for me. I kept my head down and worked until the afternoon.

The sudden ring of my phone shattered the silence.

“The food I ordered for Fiona is at the entrance. Pick it up and take it to her dorm.”

Chase gave the order in his usual tone.

He seemed to have completely forgotten that he had sold me to someone else only a few hours earlier.