Chapter 2

Zoe stepped closer and gasped.

After James and I broke up, I couldn’t find work anywhere.

Eventually I ended up at this nightclub, hired on as cleaning staff.

One night, some big, bloated guy started harassing me. He had his arm around my waist and backed me into a corner. He was huge, and I couldn’t push him off.

Someone got it on the security feed and uploaded it. The caption read: Nightclub princess kept by a rich daddy.

It hit our high school group chat and blew up.

People kept tagging me, demanding that I explain.

The pressure was suffocating, and I couldn’t breathe.

I left the group chat and deleted all the messages.

“Why didn’t you say something? Why are you such a coward?” Zoe was almost yelling.

I tried to play it off and gave her a small smile.

“Isn’t this perfect, though? Now James can really give up on me.”

She grabbed my arm and I flinched, hissing through my teeth as my brow knotted up.

“They do this to you?”

“Wren, I’m taking you to James. We’re going to tell him right now. The whole thing is a misunderstanding.”

“Do you know how much he’s hated you these past two years?”

I shook my head and took a step back.

I worked the back rooms of a nightclub and was almost cut off from the outside world.

But I wasn’t stupid. From all the chatter that passed through that club, I knew exactly how James was doing.

His career was thriving. He had a beautiful woman on his arm.

We lived in different worlds now, and going back to explain anything didn’t mean a thing anymore.

“Isn’t it better if he hates me?”

I smiled a little. “Let him live the rest of his life hating me. Better than carrying me around forever.”

“I have a blood disorder, a serious one. Treatment costs a lot.”

“I’m not going to last much longer, Zoe.”

“Promise me. Don’t tell anyone.”

Zoe’s face went grim, and her eyes started to fill up.

Then something seemed to click. “Blood disease? Six months ago, James got sick too. Some kind of blood disorder. He only made it because somebody donated bone marrow anonymously, and...”

Her eyes went huge, like the pieces had just landed.

“That was you, wasn’t it. You were the donor.”

I gave her a small, bitter smile.

When I found out James was sick, I drained every cent I had, got typed through the NMDP, registered as an anonymous donor, and flew across the country to the matched hospital to go through with the procedure.

But it was a long way home. I spiked a fever on the way back, and once I got home, the surgical site got infected badly.

I had no health insurance. The bills piled up, and I missed the window for proper treatment.

After that, my immune system malfunctioned, triggering a string of subsequent health issues.

That was also when I saw the news. James had been so moved by Sienna’s devotion through his illness that he’d decided to get engaged to her.

I’d already promised myself I wouldn’t love him anymore, that I wouldn’t step into his life again.

But seeing that photo of him with her on his arm, and the way he was looking at her, something in me dropped right through the floor.

I knew that look.

It was the way he used to look at me.

I felt the ache hit my chest all over again.

Zoe sucked in a sharp breath.

“How can you not have money for treatment? Didn’t James’s mother give you a check when you broke up? Did you not cash it?”

She pulled out her phone. “Okay, fine. I won’t tell James what’s going on with you. But this, I can’t sit on.”

“They all said you only cared about money and had no dignity. They said all sorts of awful things about you.”

“Wren, you’re my best friend. I’m not letting them talk about you like that.”

I panicked and grabbed her hand.

“Don’t.”

I said it quietly.

“I took the money.”