All Chapters of The Gold Digger’s Biggest Mistake: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

9 Chapters

Chapter 1

I was on a video call with my girlfriend when a masked man in black forced his way into her apartment.Chloe screamed and struggled, but she never had a chance against him."Who are you?" I shouted at the screen. "What do you want? I'm warning you, let go of her or I'm calling the police!"He didn't even look up. Then, at the last second, he glanced at the camera, gave me a lazy, amused smile, and dragged Chloe into the bathroom.I called emergency services in her country over and over, and every time I got the same recorded voice telling me the number couldn't be reached.Her screaming came through the speaker. Every cry went into me like a blade, and I shook so hard I could barely hold the phone."Don't come near me. Don't! Let go of me!""Ethan, help me! Please, help me!"She was crying too hard to form words. All I could do was sit there and squeeze my fists until my nails opened the skin of my palms."Is anybody out there?" I was screaming at a room eight thousand miles a

Chapter 2

Chloe and I grew up in the same group home. Hope House was a gray place, and she was the one bright thing in it. I was in love with her before I understood the word, and I studied like my life depended on it just to stay near her.It paid off. The year we tested for placement, Hope House sent exactly two kids to Westbridge Academy.Her. And me.She was beautiful, she was at the top of every class, and she carried herself like she'd come from somewhere. Half the boys in our year were quietly in love with her.I understood her pride well enough to never tell a soul that I knew her, and she never said hello to me in the halls. Sometimes she'd smile at me in passing, and I'd live on it for a week.Then, in our last year, somebody dug up where she came from.The people who had admired her turned on her overnight. I was the only one who stayed. I took the punches meant for her and gave the insults back twice as hard, and I made sure she understood that there was one person on earth who

Chapter 3

I gripped the sheet and laughed at myself on the inside.So that was why she'd come. Not because she thought I was dead, not because she'd missed me. She'd come to negotiate on behalf of her new boyfriend.It landed like an open-handed slap, and it burned the same way.I wanted to say something cruel. I wanted to ask her how she could do this. But the words turned somewhere between my chest and my mouth, because I couldn't stand to be the thing that ruined the life she'd built, and there was nothing I could give her anymore."All right," I said. "I'll settle. But I want to meet him first."A week later she took me to a private club in the nightlife district.The place was velvet and brass and dark glass, and it smelled like money. Back home she used to go red walking past a lingerie window, and now she crossed a room like that one without blinking.She caught me looking around and smiled. "Don't tell me you've never been anywhere like this."The private room upstairs was dim an

Chapter 4

I shook my head.Whatever she'd done, I'd decided to let it stay in the past. She wanted me to have forgotten, so I'd forget."She and I are just friends," I said, and my voice didn't move at all. "There's nothing for her to be lying about.""And there was never any money to take." I gave him a tired smile. "I'm broke.""If you think a crime's been committed, talk to the police. I can't help you."He looked at me like I was beyond saving, then turned for the door, and on his way out he said one more thing."If I were you, I'd run while I still could."My head came up so fast the room swam.That cadence. That exact, unhurried delivery. I'd heard it once before, through a phone, from behind a black mask.Cold went straight down my spine and my hands started shaking.It couldn't be a coincidence.I got myself out of bed and followed him down the corridor with one hand on the wall, and he turned twice and stopped in the stairwell. I stayed around the corner and held my breath wh

Chapter 5

"The Ride-to-Real-Estate System?" I raised an eyebrow. "You're telling me I drive people around and somebody hands me buildings?"I didn't expect anything to come of it. Then a translucent screen assembled itself out of the air in front of me, and when I reached out and touched it, it moved.Only the beginner tier was lit. I hesitated, then opened it, and the first line read: complete your first fare and receive outright ownership of one apartment building in the Harborside district.I read it twice.Harborside had been in the news all month. The entire district was scheduled for redevelopment, and the owners there were about to be bought out.People spend their whole lives hoping for a windfall like that. One of the residents had posted his compensation schedule online and the numbers were obscene — three million for a single building, five million, more. My pulse went up so fast I could hear it.I went for my phone before I remembered it was in pieces and I couldn't afford anot

Chapter 6

She had her arm through Blake's and she was glowing. After all those years abroad, she was finally being brought home to meet the family, and she couldn't have hidden how pleased she was if she'd tried.I scanned the crowd for my passenger and started toward her, because this fare paid out a downtown tower worth north of a hundred million dollars, and I wasn't losing it over those two.Let them have a few more good days.Unfortunately, they were standing directly in my way."Well," Blake said. "Look who it is. Driving now?"He put a hand on my shoulder and shoved, and I didn't move. He'd never once been able to take me, and three years hadn't taught him anything.I looked at the pair of them and felt my jaw tighten. Then I stepped around them, because I'm a professional.Chloe caught my sleeve. "Wait, we need a ride into the city —"I pulled free. "Sorry. I've already got a customer."Blake laughed, loud enough for everyone in a twenty-foot radius. "How much are they paying yo

Chapter 7

Angie's real destination was a private medical retreat on a wooded rise above the business district, quiet and expensive and a long way from the noise of the city.Howard West had built West Group out of nothing on nerve and stubbornness, and it had made him one of the ten richest men in the country. Every few months he came here to be looked over."Are you my grandfather?"Angie was holding the old man's hand and her eyes were swimming.Howard West, who had frightened boardrooms for forty years, smoothed her hair back and looked at her like she was made of glass."You've had a hard time of it," he said, and his voice came out low and cracked.His granddaughter had spent her whole life in another country with nobody, and she'd carried more than any child should.Angie smiled and didn't say anything."You look so much like your mother." His eyes shone.She tilted her head, shy about it. "My mother?"That went through him. She'd been taken out of the country before she could wa

Chapter 8

He looked thoroughly hopeful about it."If you tell this room you're the man everybody's been trying to put a name to, those two will be on their knees in front of you before the salad course."I drank my wine."There's no rush. Tonight isn't mine."Tonight was hers.Angie stood in the middle of the ballroom in a white gown, and the hem of it moved like something weightless. Her hair was down and her eyes were bright, and half the room had stopped talking to look at her.She spotted me, and her whole face changed into a smile that was both sweet and enormously pleased with itself.I inclined my head to her.The truth was that I wouldn't have come at all if she hadn't asked me to stay and watch the show.When the hour came, Howard took Angie's hand and led her up onto the stage."First, my thanks to all of you for coming. Let me raise a glass to my friends.""Not long ago, I found the granddaughter my family lost many years ago. Her name is Angie West.""And I am telling you

Chapter 9

I looked at her and had to give her credit. If I didn't already know that she'd staged that break-in and then tried to sell me, that face might have worked on me all over again.Just then a small, wounded sound came down the corridor. Angie was holding her wrist and looking utterly sorry for herself."Ethan, there you are, I've been looking everywhere. I knocked my wrist and it really hurts."Chloe started to say something else. I pulled my arm out of her hand and went down the hallway.I crouched down, took Angie's wrist gently, and turned it over to look at it."What happened? Is it bad?"She leaned her weight against my shoulder and, over it, gave Chloe a slow, delighted blink."Nobody looks after me like Ethan does."Chloe's teeth came together."You told me you'd love me for the rest of your life," she said. "Doesn't that count for anything?""I lost my memory," I said mildly. "I don't understand why you haven't."Then I straightened up."And if we never made it offici

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