Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Poorest Rich Girl: Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 8

I'd just hung up with my father when I spotted Donna Gibbs stepping out of a luxury car up ahead.Eric Kramer came out of the club a moment later and pulled her into a smiling embrace. They exchanged a few whispered words before reluctantly letting go of each other.His gaze drifted over without meaning to and caught mine, and he found nothing but bitterness and resentment staring back at him. Thrown off guard, he hurried over to me. "What are you doing here?"Before I could answer, Donna reached up and swept her hair back on purpose, letting the bracelet my mother had left me catch the light on her wrist. Eric saw how much it bothered me, but he kept his expression perfectly steady as he slid an arm around my shoulders. "Donna's always loved this bracelet, and out of respect for me, she paid a small fortune for it. You should be thanking her."Thanking her. That was rich. Eric was the one who'd talked me out of the bracelet in the first place, and she'd gotten it for nothing

"The boss?"Seeing my blank expression, the floor manager looked confused too. "The boss is Mr. Kramer. He's the one who set you up selling drinks in the first place. Still, you came out the other side of it, and he definitely won't shortchange you now."Only then did it finally click. Five years ago, I'd refused the marriage my father had arranged for me and stormed out of the Cameron house on my own, out of spite. That same act of running away was how I'd met Eric Kramer.He thought I was a country girl who'd fled an arranged marriage because her family had worked her to the bone. I thought he was a down-on-his-luck nobody who hadn't caught a single break. We decided to build something together and make it big together.The first time he told me he needed startup capital, he had me quit my nine-to-five job and got me a spot pouring drinks at the club instead. He said the commission was excellent, that if I put in the effort, I'd make two or three times what a normal job paid. I

A deep, urgent male voice rang out, and the hand gripping my hair let go at once.Donna stumbled back two steps, looking almost afraid of the man now standing there. Even Eric's face went slack with alarm. "J-Jett..."I looked at the man. His face struck me as both familiar and strange all at once. I didn't even have to try hard to place him, and a rough outline of memory rose up in my mind: the boy who used to bring me dolls when I was little, who'd once dropped a giant grasshopper on my head just to see me scream, the same person who'd vanished from my life one day without a word."B-Big brother, I..." Donna started, her fear plain in her hands. Still stained with wine, they trembled as she wiped them on her skirt without seeming to notice, as if trying to scrub away the evidence of what she'd done to me.The man strode over, shrugged off his suit jacket, and draped it over my shoulders as he helped me up. I stared at the small, dark mole beside the bridge of his straight nose,

My father, who'd claimed over the phone to still be overseas, was sitting in the living room waiting for me. Five years apart, and my perpetually blunt, awkward father seemed to have aged quite a bit. He'd always been like this, putting on the air of an elder in front of me, acting like everything he did was for my own good.I'd expected him to sit me down and lecture me with all his usual hard-won wisdom. Instead, the first thing out of his mouth was, "So, any regrets?"It came out flat, almost offhand, but it still made my nose sting."Sir, the two of you haven't seen each other in five years. You must have a lot to catch up on. Maybe I should..." Jett clearly wanted to give my father and me a chance to reconcile.He'd always known that after my mother passed, my father had poured every ounce of love he had left into me. My father just wasn't good at showing it. In his heart, though, my mother and I had always come first. He'd never once been able to say the right thing when