Chapter 1

The moment I finished signing, I slid the agreement back across the table to Lucas Tomlinson.

He'd prepared an entire speech to talk me out of it, but the words suddenly caught in his throat. "You actually signed it?"

I glanced at my signature. The ink hadn't even dried yet. "What else was I supposed to do? Wait for an auspicious day?"

Lucas stared at me for several seconds. "Aren't you going to think it over?"

"What's there to think about?" I screwed the cap back onto my pen. "You just fired an employee who earns more per hour than a CEO and has a worse temper than her boss. I should be thanking you, not questioning your decision."

Lucas' expression darkened. "Daphne isn't your employee! She's a living, breathing person, not some toy you can order around just because you have money!"

I nodded. "Oh. And?"

Lucas' eyes reddened instantly. "Dominic Harris, do you seriously think she'll come crawling back to you the moment she runs out of your money?"

"Not really." I considered it for a moment. "She should be able to hold out until dinner, at least."

He crumpled the agreement in his fist, apparently stunned by my heartlessness. "I can survive on 2 dollars a day, too! People might be poor, but that doesn't mean they should sacrifice their dignity for money!"

I looked him up and down. "Daphne spends 200 dollars on a single meal. Your 2 dollars might not even cover the chewing gum she has afterward."

Someone nearby couldn't suppress a snort of laughter.

Tears immediately spilled down Lucas' cheeks. "You're still flaunting your wealth at a time like this? Daphne is beautiful, intelligent, and comes from a once-wealthy family. You're exploiting her misfortune because you enjoy the thrill of forcing a princess to bow her head to you!"

I didn't bother arguing.

Daphne had bowed her head to me plenty of times. Usually, it was to check whether my shoelaces were tied. She charged 25 dollars per inspection, and actually tying them cost another 12.50 dollars.

One of us had the audacity to name those prices, and the other had the audacity to pay them.

Lucas was the only one acting as though she'd sold herself. He snapped a photo of the agreement and posted it on the campus forum with an eye-catching headline.

[She's nobody's toy. Stop using money as an excuse to control your classmates.]

Lucas clearly expected everyone to join him in condemning me.

The first few comments did exactly that.

[So having money means you can treat your classmates like servants?]

[Taking advantage of Daphne when she's down and out? What a shameless jerk.]

But before long, a guy from the basketball team joined the discussion: [Hold on before you start feeling sorry for her. Last time Daphne fanned him, she charged him 125 dollars right in front of our entire team.]

Another student immediately chimed in: [She charged him 40 dollars to copy his notes, too. I saw her collect the money before she even picked up her pen.]

Public opinion shifted almost instantly. Soon, an entirely different comment had risen to the top.

[So is Daphne's position open now?]

The comment section quickly descended into chaos.

[Must be nice being pretty. You get paid to hang around a rich guy, and the whole school still feels sorry for you.]

[Mr. Harris, look at me. My dignity is very flexible.]

[If Daphne doesn't want the job, hire me. I'll copy your notes and even carry you up five flights of stairs.]

[Was the 125 dollars for fanning him real? Because I'll bring my own fan.]

[Please hire me. I know how to keep my mouth shut and follow orders.]

Lucas was so furious that he began replying to the comments one by one.

[This isn't a job. It's humiliation!]

[Don't any of you have self-respect?]

Someone promptly replied: [Of course we do, but we can put it in storage temporarily for anything over 40 dollars.]

Another student asked a far more pointed question: [Has Daphne herself ever said she doesn't want to do it?]

Lucas gripped his phone and stared at the screen for a long time, unable to type a single word.

The truth was, he barely knew Daphne at all. Whenever they passed each other in the hallway, she didn't even acknowledge him.

But Lucas didn't take that as a sign that they were practically strangers. Instead, he'd convinced himself that Daphne was the type to endure everything in silence and bury her suffering deep in her heart.

After reading his analysis, I made a startling discovery. Apparently, my older sister had an incredibly rich inner world that even I knew nothing about.

Nobody at school knew Daphne and I were siblings. She had our father's last name, while I had our mother's.

As for why we'd kept our relationship a secret, the reason was simple. Daphne thought I was an embarrassment.

On the first day of freshman year, she'd warned me, "Don't call me your sister at school."

"Why not?"

"It'll hurt my market value."

I'd promptly stuffed the half-eaten corn dog in my hand into her backpack.

From that day on, we practically stopped acknowledging each other's existence at school. Whenever we crossed paths, we simply rolled our eyes at each other.

Later, Daphne skipped classes to go to a bar, and our father cut off her allowance. After that, she became even more determined to deny we were related. According to her, working for her own brother was humiliating enough. There was no way she could let the entire school find out that he was financially supporting her, too.

In other words, all the hardship and humiliation Lucas imagined her suffering amounted to nothing more than the terms of a job she'd personally begged me to give her.

Unfortunately, Daphne had left with the basketball team the day before for an away tournament at a training camp. All the players had been required to surrender their phones.

She had no idea that Lucas had just heroically restored her dignity. And in the process, he had conveniently destroyed her livelihood.