The Billionaire Student's Secret.

16

Jade refreshed her profile on Jobbie for the hundredth time and threw her phone on her bed. Not one agency had showed any interest in her.

“What's wrong with me?” Jade tore at her hair. She was hanging on by a thread. Soon, she'd be evicted from her apartment, and if it wasn't for Harry she'd have died of starvation already.

“I can't go on living like this,” Jade lamented. She knew the economy was harsh, but she'd applied for at least fifty jobs. Someone should have given her chance. Jade wondered what she was doing wrong.

When she was a bit calmer, she trudged to her bed and retrieved her phone. Checking out vacancies on the app's homepage.

“I've applied to all these agencies,” Jade grumbled as she scrolled up impatiently.

She immediately stopped scrolling when she came across a new job offer. It was from some company named Pleasure Palace.

“What's this about?” Jade tapped on the offer for more information, thinking to herself that the name sounded a bit shady.

As she read the job offer, Jade confirmed it.

The job offer went;

Pleasure Palace, a company dedicated to catering to all types of kinks and fetishes, is currently in need of a dominatrix.

Qualifications:

— Must be good-looking and confident, with a great sense of fashion.

—Must have at least a year's experience of being a dominatrix.

— Must be able to conduct herself in a professional manner.

Payment: Hourly, negotiable.

“God, no!” Jade exclaimed as she dropped her phone again. She knew she was desperate for money, but her moral compass was not broken. This Pleasure Palace was probably a glorified brothel, where rich old men paid to have kinky s*x with “dominatrices.”

“Seriously?” Jade asked incredulously, “how did Jobbie let a w***e house advertise on their app?”

Refusing to consider working as a prostitute for even a second, Jade closed the app and pulled out her books to study for an upcoming test.

She'd been studying for about thirty minutes when her phone rang.

Jade didn't bother to check who was calling, she hated being distracted when she was studying. She promised to return the call when she was through with her books.

Her phone rang again and again, annoying Jade. With a huff, she checked the screen and saw that it was an unsaved number.

“Who could this be?” Jade mused as she swiped her screen and answered the call.

“Hello?”

“Good day, is this Jade Pyre?” A female voice asked.

“Yes,” Jade answered hesitantly, “how may I help you?”

“I'm calling from Holy Trinity Hospital. A Mary Pyre was rushed to our hospital, and she listed you as an emergency contact.”

Jade's heart paused for a second and she felt blood fill her ears as her heart seemed to drop.

Not able to process the news, Jade asked stupidly, “What?”

The woman patiently repeated the news, and that was when it finally hit Jade. For some reason, her mother had been rushed to a hospital.

Immediately, Jade rose as if she'd been propelled forward, and ran out of her apartment, taking the stairs two at a time.

* * *

Holy Trinity Hospital was a high-rise white building with a red cross painted on its double doors. It was located near Mary's neighborhood so it took Jade four hours to arrive, and in those four hours, she felt like she'd aged forty years.

As she sprinted into the building, Jade's heart began to beat rapidly and images of her mother dead as a doornail flashed in her mind.

Jade began to mutter prayers as she walked over to the receptionist and asked for her mother.

The receptionist took a pitying look at her, and after making sure she was indeed related to Mary, told Jade which floor her mother's room was located.

Jade hastily thanked the receptionist, and clambered up the stairs, not wanting to wait for a full elevator.

When she reached her mother's room, she was out of breath. Without knocking, she barged into the room, and saw a man in a lab coat hovering over a patient.

The doctor turned to look at her, “Who are you?”

Jade ignored him, and rushed to the bed, yelling in shock when she saw Mary.

Her mother had a bandage around her head, both her eyes were swollen and looked to be forming a black eye, her right hand was in a cast, and her legs had band aids all over them.

Jade was about to touch her mother when a hand stopped her.

It was the doctor, “Who are you?”

Jade was about to tell him off when she came to her senses. She had thundered into the room without identifying herself, of course, the doctor had a right to be concerned.

Trying to calm herself with a deep breath and failing woefully, Jade rushed to say, “I'm Jade, her daughter. What's wrong? Did she get into an accident?”

The doctor, a thin young man who looked exhausted, rubbed his eyes, “I wish. Your mother was beaten.”

Jade felt her head spin, “Beaten? By whom?”

The doctor shrugged, “I don't know. She was found by her neighbors and rushed here.”

“Is she going to be okay?” Jade asked hopefully, Mary looked like she was about to die.

“Of course, she has a concussion, a lot of cuts we had stitch, and fractures in two ribs, alongside her ulna and radius, but she'll live. I gave her some painkillers for the pain.” The doctor proclaimed.

Jade felt herself go lightheaded with relief and sank into the only chair in the sparsely furnished, antiseptic-smelling room, and smiled up at the doctor, “Thank you very much, I appreciate everything you've done.”

The doctor cleared his throat, “We also found traces of methamphetamine in her blood.”

“What?” Jade asked, confused.

“Meth,” the doctor explained, “your mother was doing meth.”

Jade felt her cheeks redden and prayed fervently for the ground to swallow her.

“By law,” the doctor continued, “we're supposed to report such people to the police, but in this case I don't think I will.”

Jade was so grateful to the man for being so kind. If Mary went to jail, Jade didn't know what she'd do.

“Don't worry,” the doctor consoled as if he read her pessimistic thoughts. Patting Jade's shoulder, he gave her a tiny smile and left.

Immediately the door closed behind him, Jade began to cry. She brought her seat closer to her mother's bed and held on to her good hands, remembering all the memories she'd shared with her.

The door opened, and a middle-aged woman entered, backtracking when she saw Jade, “I'll come back later.”

“No,” Jade wiped her tears, thinking that the woman looked a little familiar.

“You might not know me,” the woman started, “I'm Chelsea, your mother's next door neighbor. I was the one who brought her here.”

Jade nodded, “Then, I have you to thank.”

“Oh it's nothing,” Chelsea waved away Jade's thanks uncomfortably, “there was no way I was going to leave her there.”

“Do you know who did this to her?” Jade queried. A thought popped into her head that had her frothing at the mouth in anger, “was it Drew?”

She wasn't going to put it past her mother's d**k of a boyfriend to do such a heinous thing as beat her mother to stupor.

“Uh, not exactly,” Chelsea explained, “some men came to look for Drew, but he wasn't around. So instead, they attacked your mother. Immediately I heard her shouts, I called the cops. Upon hearing the sirens, the men fled.”

Jade gazed at Mary and felt her blood boil once more. Drew might not have raised a hand on her mother, but she'd been beaten to a pulp because of him.

In her books, Drew was still guilty.