Chapter 2

Eugene did not contact me for the next three days, and I thought he had finally thought things through. However, my phone buzzed with a notification on the afternoon of the third day. It was Eugene's girlfriend, Windi Lint, sending me a friend request.

I rejected her several times, but she refused to give up, resending the request. In the end, I relented and accepted her request. I was about to DM her a question mark when her messages came flooding in.

[Nadia, is it? You should help Eugene to the very end since you chose to sponsor him. What's the problem with giving us several hundred to pay our rent when you earn so much a month?

[Eugene has gotten so depressed because you refused to give him money that he hardly eats. He's the only one in his village to get into university. Can you bear the consequence of starving him until it affects his studies?

[I've compromised by being with him, and as an elder who has been helping him, shouldn't you show courtesy by giving me a welcome gift?]

What a ridiculous way of riding her high horse.

I did not reply right away, but checked out Wyndi's social media posts first.

The pictures she posted had been carefully planned.

Yesterday, she posted a picture of a tomahawk steak from a Michelin-starred restaurant that cost 250 dollars per person. The day before that, she posted a picture of herself wearing a Van Cleef & Arpels necklace with the caption: [My new decadent French nails].

I continued scrolling and even saw a picture of Wyndi posing sexily in the mirror while wearing a limited-edition dress that cost more than 800 dollars.

If she was able to splurge like that, why would she come crying to me, saying that she and Eugene were so poor that they could hardly afford their meals?

When I did not reply, Wyndi lost patience, and what started as a pity show morphed into frustrated verbal abuse.

[Are you ignoring me? Do you think I'm not aware of the true colors of a so-called 'kind-hearted' person like you?!

[How did you become rich in a big city at a young age? Which sugar daddy paid for you? How much did you sell yourself for?

[It's all dirty money that you're making. Are you trying to 'cleanse' yourself by sponsoring a university student to lighten your guilt?

[Give me 3,000 dollars right now, or I'll expose your fake charity and hypocritical face to the internet, and ruin your reputation!]

I was not angered by the horrible messages she sent me. In fact, they sounded ridiculous and foolish. I put down my cup and replied to her calmly.

[Ms. Lint, you're a university student. Don't you know the law? Defamation is a serious crime that might cost you a year in jail or billions in punitive damages. My lawyer will be in contact soon.]

After that, I took screenshots of all of Wyndi's horrible messages to me and put them together in the folder that I had prepared for Eugene.

Wyndi did not give up and sent me a 60-second voice note, but I did not listen to it and proceeded to block her.

After I was done with this, I started to feel puzzled about why a gold digger like Wyndi would fall for a broke boy who came from a mountain village. None of it made sense to me.

I used the intercom. "Lucy, come to my office."

It took less than a minute for my assistant, Lucy Smulder, to enter my office. "What do you need from me, Ms. Jones?"

"Help me look into Wyndi Lint. She's a finance student at Arcadia University. The sooner, the better."

Lucy nodded. "I'll get to it right away, Ms. Jones."

…

I was sitting in my living room, watching the television at 8:00 pm, when my doorbell rang. I opened the door to see Eugene and Wyndi standing outside.

Eugene was carrying a box of chocolates while Wyndi was in a little dress, holding his arm. "Sorry to disturb you so late at night, Nadia."

I said nothing as I stood at the door, staring coldly at them.