第3章

I lay on the hotel bed and couldn't sleep.

Going back over everything left me restless.

For myself, and even more for my mother.

We had both misjudged him.

First thing the next morning, I went to the office and handed in my resignation.

I had wanted out of that job for a long time.

It was steady, but it didn't pay well.

Even though I was the top performer, the promotions and the raises always went to other people.

I put up with it because my mother needed treatment.

Then I checked my pay records and discovered that only a third of my salary had ever been deposited into my account each month.

The other two thirds had gone to an account I didn't recognize.

I went straight to HR.

"Why is my salary split between two accounts? Who owns the other one?"

The HR manager, Dana Brooks, looked at me in confusion. "It was the boss's order. Elena, you really didn't know?"

I understood less and less.

"The boss? Why would he do that?"

Then Dana told me Victor was the company's real owner. "Mr. Moretti told me to set it up on your first day. He said it was a fund for your future together, and that you were too proud to spend a cent of his money! Elena, be honest with me. Are you quitting because you're going to marry the boss and become the next Donna?" she asked, openly curious.

I just stared at the account that wasn't mine.

There was a full hundred and fifty thousand dollars in it.

Back then, I had been trying to put together a hundred and fifty thousand for my mother's surgery.

I borrowed from everyone I could, and of course I went to Victor.

He turned me down without a second of hesitation.

"I can't accept a girlfriend who's with me for money. Elena, a hundred and fifty thousand isn't much. I believe in you. You can handle it yourself."

I had no choice. In the end I borrowed from a loan shark and picked up side jobs after work.

At the worst of it, I slept less than three hours a day, and I passed out from exhaustion more than once.

Victor watched all of it and never said a word about the money waiting in that account.

His coldness and his selfishness cost my mother her life.

And they cost me my mother and the man I loved.

Before I could go find him, he found me. "I hear you're quitting? Elena, when are you going to stop making a scene? Dragging this out over that little bit of money only makes me more certain. You're a gold digger."

Camilla came in behind him, craning her neck to show off the hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar antique jeweled necklace.

"Elena, really, stop making a scene. If Victor hadn't given you this job, you and your mother would be out on the street by now. Quitting to force him to give in is not what I'd call smart!"

She sneered at me as she looped her arm through Victor's, her eyes daring me to say something.

What she didn't know was that I no longer had anything left to lose.

I started to answer, and Victor cut me off. "Camilla's right. I gave you this job and I can take it away. For the sake of what we had, I'll let it go this time. But if there's a next time, I'll fire you outright. And I'll dock this month's pay as a penalty for disrupting the office."