Chapter 2
"Miss Brooks, the opposing counsel is ready. We just need your signature to finalize the $300 million acquisition."
I held the Montblanc pen over the contract. My career-defining moment was inches away.
Then, my phone vibrated. A single, frantic text from Dean Morrison, Lucas’s tutor, flashed on the screen: Get to the school now. Lucas destroyed a senior's graduation sculpture. The parents called the police. We are drafting his expulsion.
The pen stopped.
"Postpone the signing," I said, standing up abruptly.
"Stella, are you insane?" My senior partner slammed his hands on the table. "If you walk out now, the deal falls apart! You'll lose your partnership!"
"I said, postpone it."
I grabbed my coat and rushed into the pouring Manhattan rain.
When I pushed open the doors to the sculpture studio, the scene was a disaster. Shattered marble and jagged plaster covered the floor.
A senior student was bleeding from his forehead, and his mother was screaming hysterically at the police officers.
Lucas sat carelessly on a stool in the corner. His knuckles were raw and bleeding, but his face was an mask of utter indifference.
"You rich, entitled trash!" The mother lunged forward as I approached, pointing a trembling finger directly at my nose. "My son worked on that piece for a year! I want him in jail! I want him expelled!"
"Ma'am, please..." I started.
"Shut up! You're just a greedy lawyer!" she spat, throwing a handful of ruined sketches right into my face.
The sharp edge of the paper sliced my cheek. A thin drop of blood rolled down my jaw.
In the corner, Lucas’s head snapped up. His gray eyes widened, locking onto the blood on my face. He suddenly kicked the stool away, his fists clenching tight as he took a furious step forward.
Before he could do something even stupider, I stepped directly in front of him, blocking him from the crowd.
I didn't wipe the blood. I, Stella Brooks—the woman who made Wall Street executives sweat in the courtroom—bent at the waist and delivered a deep, perfect ninety-degree bow.
"I am profoundly sorry," I said, my voice steady but loud enough for everyone to hear. "I will take full responsibility for all damages."
For the next two hours, my pride was utterly dismantled in the Dean's cramped office.
I smiled apologetically while being cursed at. I nodded while being belittled.
I wrote a personal check for $150,000 in immediate compensation to the family. I signed a draconian legal guarantee binding myself to Lucas's future behavior. Finally, I promised a $500,000 "donation" for a new 3D printing lab to stop the Dean from signing the expulsion order.
By the time I walked out of the administration building, my legs felt like lead.
Lucas was leaning against the brick wall outside, a cigarette dangling from his lips.
I walked up to him and handed him the readmission slip. "Go to the infirmary and get your hand bandaged. Don't miss your afternoon class."
He didn't take the slip. He took a slow drag of his cigarette and blew the smoke directly into my face.
"Enjoy the show, Stella?" he sneered, his voice dripping with venom. "Did it make you feel like a saint? Nodding and bowing like a dog just to buy my way out?"
I wiped the cold sweat from my forehead. "Lucas, enough."
"No, it's not enough!" He suddenly stepped forword. "You love this, don't you? You love playing the savior with our money! You just want to show everyone how pathetic I am, so you have the perfect excuse to keep a tight grip on my family's power!"
"You're just a controlling, power-hungry old woman," he spat out, his voice razor-sharp.
"Just go to class, Lucas," I said softly. Without giving him another glance, I turned my back and walked straight into the cold, damp mist.
Lucas POV
Lucas stood frozen, watching her slender figure disappear.
The second her car pulled away, the toxic bravado completely drained from his body, replaced by a suffocating wave of self-loathing.
Damn it.
He stared at his own trembling hands. He had seen the paper cut bleeding on her pale cheek. He had watched the untouchable woman bend her spine and grovel to a room full of nobodies just to keep him out of jail.
Why do I always do this? he thought, violently kicking the brick wall until his raw knuckles throbbed.
I just wanted to wipe that blood off her face. I wanted to say thank you. But the moment she looked at me with that perfect, emotionless mask, I had to tear it down. I had to see if I could still make her feel something... anything.
"Stella..." he cursed under his breath, punching the wall in frustration.
Everyone in New York thinks I am addicted to the Scott family's wealth.
They don't know that five years ago, on a rainy day just like this, my entire world collapsed.
It was the day after Elias’s funeral. I was sitting in my dark apartment, numb to the bone, when my doctor called.
“Miss Brooks, since your fiancé passed away, we need to update the emergency contact for your kidney transplant records.”
My breath stopped. “What transplant records?”
“The... the kidney you received three years ago, during your junior year. Elias Scott was the anonymous donor. He explicitly ordered us to keep it a secret from you.”
I didn't remember how I got to the Scott family mansion that day.
When I arrived, the grand estate was a war zone. Elias was dead. Mr. Scott had suffered a complete mental breakdown.
The greedy uncles and cousins had descended like vultures, tearing the company apart, demanding to liquidate the assets.
And standing out in the freezing rain, barred from entering his own home, was sixteen-year-old Lucas.
He was soaking wet, shivering violently. In his arms, he tightly cradled a half-carved clay bust—a sculpture of Elias. The uncles' bodyguards had literally thrown him out the front door.
He looked up at me. The rain plastered his dark hair to his forehead.
At that moment, my heart stopped beating.
Those striking gray eyes. That stubborn jaw. It was the exact same face as Elias.
I walked through the mud, opened my umbrella, and held it over his head.
“Come with me,” I had told him, my voice trembling but fierce. “I will help you protect your brother's things.”
