Chapter 2

The next day.

"Leah! Stop right there!"

Eli's harsh voice echoes through the prep school dorm lobby.

I stop walking and turn around.

Eli stands on the steps, panting. He holds Ella tightly in his arms.

Ella deliberately wears an oversized men's dress shirt. The collar hangs wide open, fully exposing a canvas of dark bruises and suggestive scratch marks on her skin.

She cowers against Eli's chest like a wounded animal, tears pooling in her eyes.

The students and instructors gathered in the lobby immediately cast sympathetic looks her way.

"Oh my god, poor Ella."

"What the hell did they do to her at that underground club?"

Everyone whispers among themselves, but the looks they shoot me carry a silent, heavy condemnation. It is as if I personally threw her to the wolves.

"I got the cash and bought her out." Eli lifts his chin, staring at me like some victorious hero.

"Congratulations, you are a real savior." I stare at him coldly. "So why are you blocking my way?"

Eli takes a deep breath and pulls Ella closer.

"Ella and I have been together for a while now. We actually love each other." He stares right into my eyes, completely shameless. "You need to accept that, Leah."

I let out a bitter laugh. True love? The kind of true love that needs to be paraded in front of an ex-fiancée?

"Fine, I accept it. Now what?" I tighten my grip on the paperwork in my hand.

"Since you ruined the party last night, you owe us." Eli takes a step forward, sounding like he is doing me a favor.

"Give Ella your private maritime training cabin. She has been through a lot of trauma and needs the best environment to recover."

I narrow my eyes. The sharp anger in my chest burns hotter by the second.

"Also," Eli keeps barking orders, "I want your spot in the national sailing competition and that private recommendation letter from the professor. I need to secure our future."

He somehow manages to make daylight robbery sound like a noble cause.

I stare dead at his greedy face.

"Your future? Built on my resources?" I take a sudden step toward him. "Just like your mother sending me your family's grocery receipts to pay off every single weekend?"

Eli's face freezes. He clearly does not expect me to air out his dirty laundry in public.

"Or just like your sweet little sister? The one who steals my custom sailing uniforms without asking, and even wore my hand-stitched competition gown to some trashy off-campus strip party?"

The whispers in the lobby die instantly. A few loud gasps break the silence.

"Shut your mouth!" Eli snaps, his face flushed with embarrassment as he reaches out to cover my mouth.

I slap his hand away hard.

"Your entire family of leeches sucked me dry, and now you want my training cabin to fund your precious little girlfriend?" I hold up the paperwork in my hand. "In your dreams. I am heading to the board right now to officially cancel this engagement."

I turn around and march toward the board office.

"Leah!" Eli lunges forward and grabs my wrist. His nails dig so deep into my skin they almost draw blood.

"If you hand in those papers, I will ruin you," he hisses, leaning close to my ear.

"You are pregnant, Leah." His voice is rough, dripping with a sick sense of victory. "I saw your medical charts at the campus clinic."

My blood runs completely cold.

The blinding surgical lights from my past life flash through my mind. I feel the freezing medical tools, my pelvis crushed by the heavy machinery he rammed into me, and the dead silence of a baby that never got to cry.

A violent, phantom pain tears right through my nerves.

"Without me playing the part of the loving fiancé, the board will expel you the second they find out you are pregnant."

Eli tightens his grip on my wrist, a nasty smirk creeping onto his face.

"You will never survive this prep program. Hand over the resources, and I will keep your dirty little secret."

He is actually threatening me. He is using the exact same baby that cost me my life in the past to hold me hostage now. He can go to hell.

The rage inside my chest completely explodes.

I swing my left hand back and slap him across the face as hard as I can.

Smack!

A sharp crack cuts through the lobby, killing all the whispering. The entire hall drops into dead silence.

Eli's head snaps to the side. A bright red handprint instantly swells on his cheek.

He turns his head back, staring at me in pure shock.

"Did you just hit me?!"

"I hit exactly who I meant to hit, you piece of trash!" I yank my arm completely free.

"Go ahead and expose me! Tell the whole damn school!" I point a finger right in his face.

"Let's see if the board expels the sole heir to a shipping empire first, or if they crush a pathetic parasite who lives off a woman's dime!"

Ella lets out a terrified squeak and shrinks back.

"Starting right this second, I am taking back every single dime and piece of equipment I ever lent your family."

I step forward, forcing Eli to back up.

"The dresses your sister wears, the apartment your mother lives in, and that gold luxury watch sitting on your wrist right now!"

I grab his wrist, unbuckle the watch, and smash it hard against the floor tiles.

"I want it all back! If you are short a single penny, my lawyers will throw your entire family in jail!"

Eli stares at the shattered watch on the ground. His face drains of color, and his lips tremble badly.

"You are crazy... you are completely out of your mind. You can never pass this program without me!"

"I will do just fine without dead weight." I let out a cold laugh, my eyes cutting like daggers straight to Ella cowering behind him.

"Since you two are so madly in love, your new girlfriend can cover all your tuition and training fees from now on."

I stare right at Ella's horrified face and enunciate every word carefully. "She can go sell her blood to pay your way through the academy."

Ella turns completely white. She shakes her head wildly, totally unable to squeeze out a single word.

I look away from the sickening couple.

I turn around, push open the doors to the board office, and drop the cancellation papers right on the desk.

I have a class to get to. I don't have time to waste on them.