Chapter 3
Olivia, oblivious, kept talking. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we need to move faster. Claire’s acting weird today. She embarrassed me in front of everyone and keeps sticking close to Ethan Shaw. If Ethan gets in the way, you’ll lose your chance.”
Lucas looked at her slowly. “My chance at what?”
“At Claire, obviously,” Olivia snapped. “You need to date her, get close to her, and later get control of her father’s money. That was the whole plan. Both our families are drowning in debt. If you marry her, all of Bennett Holdings will eventually be yours. Mine too, by extension. We’ll never have to struggle again.”
I stopped breathing.
Even knowing what they had done in my first life, hearing the origin of it out loud while we were still teenagers hit differently. It was uglier. Colder. More deliberate.
I had been seventeen, starry-eyed, stupid in the way only first love can make you. To them, I had been timing. Opportunity. A wealthy girl at the perfect age to manipulate.
Lucas said nothing for a long time.
Then, to my absolute shock, he whispered, almost to himself, “So this is where it started.”
Olivia grabbed his sleeve. “Lucas.”
He looked at her, but his eyes were somewhere else entirely. “Where’s Claire?”
She blinked. “Why are you asking like that?”
“Where is she?”
“Lucas!”
But he was already pulling away.
I backed up too quickly and stepped on an empty bottle near the wall. It rolled with a sharp crunch.
Lucas’s head snapped toward the sound. “Who’s there?”
I turned to run and nearly slammed straight into Ethan.
He caught my wrist and, without a word, pulled me down the back stairwell toward the roof.
We did not stop until we were behind the rooftop access door, both breathing hard.
“Did you hear?” I whispered.
His eyes were fixed on me, unreadable. “Enough.”
That was when the door banged open.
Lucas stormed onto the roof, Olivia right behind him, already fixing her clothes and expression.
He saw Ethan first. Then me.
“Claire.”
The way he said my name nearly made me shiver. Not because I felt anything for him anymore, but because I recognized that voice. It belonged to the man who had once watched me sign away my marriage with a face like carved stone.
Ethan stepped in front of me.
Lucas’s jaw tightened. “What were you doing up here?”
I should have been furious. I should have exploded.
Instead, something reckless and cold moved through me.
I stepped closer to Ethan and looped a hand around his arm. “Borrowing money,” I said sweetly. “What does it look like?”
Olivia went pale.
Lucas stared at where my hand rested on Ethan’s sleeve as if it had physically hurt him.
“School doesn’t allow dating,” he said.
I laughed.
It slipped right out of me. “Wow. That’s a lot of concern from someone skipping class to meet a girl he definitely doesn’t know.”
Neither of them had a comeback for that.
When they left, Ethan did not let go of my wrist right away.
Finally, he asked, “Do you always lie this easily?”
“Only when it’s useful.”
“And was that useful?”
I looked up at him. “Very.”
Over the next week, I started pulling apart the future one thread at a time.
The first thing I did was stop the scholarship money.
In my first life, I had begged Dad to secretly sponsor two underprivileged students—Lucas and Olivia—through a foundation so they could keep their pride. Dad had done it without hesitation, even rigging a special academic grant in their favor because I wanted to help them.
That grant had changed everything. It had helped Olivia leverage a recommendation later. It had allowed both of them to keep playing at innocence while building the ladder they used to climb onto my shoulders.
So at breakfast, I said casually, “Dad, that scholarship I asked you to fund? Don’t do it.”
He looked up from his coffee. “What changed?”
I stared at my plate. “I think the money could save someone who actually needs saving. Maybe medical assistance. Maybe families in crisis.”
Dad went quiet.
My mother had died from illness when I was young. That soft place in him never healed.
He nodded once. “Then that’s where it’ll go.”
I nearly cried right there at the table.
That was my father. He never asked whether my heart was worth trusting. He just trusted it.
By noon, Olivia had already gotten word that the selection process had changed and that she was no longer a finalist. She found me before class with tears in her eyes and panic beneath her skin.
“Claire, I got cut.”
I widened my eyes. “From what?”
“The Bennett Academic Grant.”
There it was. She knew exactly where it came from. She had always known.
I squeezed her shoulder. “I’m sorry. Maybe next time.”
She stared at me, searching my face for something. Guilt, maybe. Weakness. An opening.
I gave her none.
Then I tilted my head and added, “Actually, can you pay me back the three thousand dollars I lent you last month? Dad froze my cards and I’m broke.”
Her whole body stiffened.
In my first life, I gave and gave and gave. I never counted what I spent on her because I thought love was supposed to feel generous.
This time, I counted everything.
“I gave it to my parents,” she stammered.
“That’s okay,” I said brightly. “Whenever you have it.”
After that, she stopped asking me for money altogether.
She went back to Lucas instead.
Which led to the next small crack in the script.
He did not chase me.
Not the way Olivia wanted. Not the way he had the first time.
Instead, he kept his distance, watched me from across classrooms and hallways with that haunted look in his eyes, as if every moment I no longer belonged to him was a new punishment.