Prologue

★★Seven Years Ago★★

"I can't believe Gray actually pulled it off."

Shayla's hand froze on the door handle of Room 3E.

Ivan's voice. Laughing. Coming from inside their study room...hers and Grayson's.

"Three months. That's gotta be a record."

Her heart stuttered. Something cold slithered down her spine.

"Told you he could do it." Jake now, smug and satisfied. "Shayla Hale. The ice queen who turned him down in front of everyone. He swore he'd make her fall, and he did."

The hallway tilted beneath her feet.

No.

They weren't talking about—

"Think he'll actually take the cruise ship?" Ivan asked.

"Hell yeah. A bet's a bet. We offered it, he earned it."

Bet.

The word punched through her chest like a fist.

"Made the impossible girl fall for Grayson Cross in under six months. Got her to sleep with him. Broke the ice queen completely. He hit every milestone." Jake's laughter echoed through the door. "That's legendary."

Her lungs stopped working.

Last night. His hands on her skin. His mouth whispering her name. The way he'd held her after, stroking her hair, telling her she was beautiful.

Her first time.

The most intimate moment of her life.

A milestone in a bet.

"Best bet we ever made," Jake continued, and she could hear the grin in his voice. "Watching him work was entertaining as hell. The coffee every morning. The study dates. Playing the perfect boyfriend. The man deserves an Oscar."

Performance.

Everything was a performance.

"You think any of it was real?" Ivan asked. "He's been acting weird lately. Gets defensive when we ask for details."

"Who cares? Real or not, he won. Grayson Cross doesn't lose bets. Especially not to girls who embarrass him publicly."

Revenge.

This was revenge.

For turning him down at that party three months ago. For saying no when everyone else said yes. For bruising his ego in front of his friends.

He'd made her pay for it by making her fall in love with him.

Shayla's back hit the wall opposite the door. Her legs wouldn't hold her anymore.

Three months of believing she was special. Three months of trusting him with pieces of herself she'd never given anyone. Three months of falling so completely that she'd planned to tell him she loved him today.

All fake.

All calculated.

All for a fucking cruise ship.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket.

She pulled it out with shaking hands, barely able to see the screen through the tears blurring her vision.

A notification. I*******m.

**@ThorncrestConfessions tagged you in a post**

Something in her chest cracked wide open.

No. Please no.

But she opened it anyway because some part of her already knew, already understood what she was about to see.

The video loaded immediately.

Her. Him. Last night.

In his bed. Naked. The camera angle showed everything—her face, her body, sounds she'd made, moments that were supposed to be private now displayed like pornography for thousands to see.

The caption underneath made bile rise in her throat:

**"BET COMPLETED Ice Queen: MELTED & DESTROYED. Grayson Cross NEVER loses. #UsedAndDumped #AnotherWin #RevengeServedCold"**

The comments were flooding in. Hundreds. Maybe thousands.

*"YOOOO HE GOT IT ON VIDEO"*

*"She really thought he loved her "*

*"That's what happens when you embarrass Grayson Cross"*

*"Ice queen officially BROKEN"*

*"The way she looks at him... she's in LOVE lmaooo"*

*"That's literally the POINT. Make her fall then destroy her. Perfect revenge."*

*"I feel bad for her but also... don't turn down Grayson Cross publicly "*

*"She's gonna be DEVASTATED when she finds out"*

*"WHEN??? Bro she probably already knows. This is viral."*

Viral.

The entire campus—no, the entire internet—was watching the most vulnerable moment of her life.

A moment she hadn't consented to recording.

A moment that was supposed to mean something.

A moment that had been nothing but the final play in a game she didn't know she was playing.

The phone slipped from her fingers, hitting the library floor with a crack that sounded like her heart shattering.

She couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't process—

Her phone rang.

The sound was jarring, too loud, wrong in the library silence.

She stared at it vibrating on the floor, saw the name on the screen.

**City General Hospital**

Something inside her went completely numb.

She picked it up. Answered. Heard herself say "Hello?" in a voice that didn't sound like hers.

"Ms. Hale?" A woman's voice. Professional. Gentle in that terrible way that means bad news is coming. "This is Dr. Patel from City General Hospital. I'm calling about your mother, Sarah Hale."

No.

Not now.

Please, God, not now.

"There's been a complication with her condition. The cancer progressed faster than anticipated. She went into cardiac arrest approximately thirty minutes ago." A pause. Heavy. Suffocating. "We performed emergency resuscitation, but her organs were failing. She passed away at 10:52 AM. I'm very sorry for your loss."

Passed away.

Gone.

Dead.

Her mother was dead.

Had died alone in a hospital bed while Shayla was standing in a library hallway discovering her boyfriend was a lie and her sex tape was going viral and everything good in her life was poisoned.

"Ms. Hale? Are you there? Do you have someone who can bring you to the hospital?"

"I—" Her voice broke. "Yes. I'm coming. I'll—I'll be there."

The call ended.

Shayla stood in that hallway, and watched her entire world collapse in on itself.

Ten minutes.

In ten minutes, she'd lost everything.

Her trust. Her dignity. Her mother. Her faith that people could be good.

The boy she'd given her virginity to last night had recorded it for a bet.

The entire campus had seen her most intimate moment.

Her mother had died alone.

And she—

She was still standing here like an idiot, holding a cracked phone, wearing the blue sweater Grayson said he loved, with his cologne still on her skin from last night.

A sound ripped out of her throat. Not quite a sob. Not quite a scream. Something animal and broken that she didn't recognize as coming from herself.

Her legs gave out completely.

She slid down the wall, hitting the floor hard, and felt reality fracture into something unrecognizable.

This morning she'd woken up planning to say I love you.

Now her mother was dead, her trust was shattered, her humiliation was public, and the boy she'd loved had never been real at all.

"Shayla?"

She looked up through tears to find Ruby standing at the end of the hallway, her face pale, phone in hand showing that horrible video.

"Oh my God, Shay—" Ruby was running now, dropping to her knees beside her. "I just saw—everyone's seen—I'm going to kill him, I'm going to actually kill him—"

"My mother's dead." The words came out flat. Empty.

Ruby froze. "What?"

"The hospital just called. She's dead, Ruby. She died alone while I was—while everyone was watching that video and I was finding out about the bet and she died alone—"

Her voice cracked completely, sobs tearing through her chest so violently she couldn't breathe.

Ruby's arms came around her, holding her together while she shattered.

"I need to leave," Shayla choked out between sobs. "I can't be here. I can't—if I see him—"

"Then we're leaving. Tonight." Ruby's voice was fierce through her own tears. "Pack your shit. We're getting out of here."

---

★★Three Weeks Later★★

The funeral was held on a Wednesday.

Gray skies. Cold rain. The kind of weather that matched grief perfectly.

Shayla stood in a black dress borrowed from Ruby, watching as they lowered her mother's casket into the ground. Her father stood fifteen feet away with his other wife and her twin daughters—Laura and Laurette in matching black dresses, whispering behind their hands, their eyes sliding over Shayla with barely concealed triumph.

He hadn't paid for the funeral. Hadn't even offered. The state covered it....a pauper's burial for a woman who deserved so much more.

Nobody spoke at the service. There was nothing to say.

The priest read generic condolences that meant nothing. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

Shayla threw dirt on the casket and felt nothing. She'd cried everything out three weeks ago. Now she was just empty.

They were walking back to Ruby's car when the nausea hit.

Violent. Suddenly. Unavoidable.

Shayla barely made it behind a tree before she was vomiting, her body heaving, rejecting everything.

"Shay?" Ruby was there immediately, pulling her hair back. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Just stress. Everything—"

But it wasn't stress.

The missed period she'd been ignoring for two weeks. The exhaustion that felt bone-deep. The way certain smells made her stomach turn.

No.

No, it couldn't be—

"Ruby." Her voice came out strangled. "I think I'm pregnant."

The words hung in the air between them.

Ruby's face went pale. "Are you sure?"

"No. But I—" Shayla pressed a hand to her stomach. "I think so. God, Ruby, I think I'm pregnant."

They bought three tests on the way home.

All positive.

Shayla sat on the bathroom floor of their tiny apartment, staring at three plastic sticks that confirmed her worst fear.

Pregnant.

With his child.

With the baby of the man who'd destroyed her for a bet, who'd filmed her without consent, who'd humiliated her in front of thousands.

The universe had a sick sense of humor.

"What do you want to do?" Ruby asked quietly from the doorway.

Shayla looked up, her hand still pressed protectively against her stomach even though she didn't consciously choose to put it there.

What did she want?

She wanted her mother back. She wanted to rewind time. She wanted to never have met Grayson Cross.

But wanting didn't change reality.

This baby, this tiny cluster of cells was real.

And despite everything, despite the horror of how it was conceived, despite the father being a monster—

This was hers.

Not his. Hers.

"I'm keeping it," Shayla said finally. "The baby. I'm keeping it."

Ruby nodded slowly. "Then we're doing this together. You, me, and this kid. Family."

Family.

The word felt foreign after losing her mother, after her father choosing his replacement family over her.

But Ruby meant it. And that was something.

"Thank you," Shayla whispered.

"Don't thank me. Just promise me one thing."

"What?"

"He never finds out." Ruby's voice was steel. "That monster doesn't get to know about this baby. He doesn't get to be a father after what he did to you. Promise me, Shay."

Shayla looked down at her still-flat stomach and made a decision that would shape the next seven years.

"I promise. He'll never know."