Chapter 1
Harris Ashford let out a soft, mocking huff of laughter. "Your mom was perfectly fine last week. A little headache and suddenly it's a tumor? Wow, you've really got a talent for this, huh? Learned to lie this fast?"
Audrey Bennett chimed in from the side, her voice dripping with sneering contempt. "Gold diggers like Juliana Brooks will make up any excuse to leech money out of people. Harris, you lost the bet this time. Don't forget you owe me that Cayenne."
Harris gave a small, nonchalant nod.
I froze on the spot, ice-cold dread seeping through every vein in my body.
So, I'd been nothing but a stake in their stupid bet this whole time.
But the thought of my mom's surgery that afternoon crashed back into me, sharp and urgent.
I bit the bullet and forced the words out, my voice shaking. "No, I'm not lying. Check the hospital records if you don't believe me—"
Harris waved a hand dismissively, cutting me off mid-sentence. "Cut the crap. You just want money, right?"
He pulled a bank card out of his pocket and tossed it onto the table with a clatter. "There's 200,000 dollars in this card."
Before I could even open my mouth to respond, Audrey slammed her hand down on the card, her face lit up with unhinged, giddy excitement. "House rules. I get to decide how you earn this. Harris told me you once drank so much covering for him that you got a stomach bleed. Is that actually true?"
My mind drifted, pulled back to a distant memory.
It was the third year we'd been together.
Harris was working a part-time shift with me at a restaurant.
Some customers in a private room were giving him a hard time. I'd stepped in and chugged every single drink they ordered for him, got so blackout drunk I ended up in the hospital that same night.
After that, he'd forbidden me from touching alcohol ever again. He'd even made me turn down every single work-related dinner or drinking event that came my way.
The soft pop of a wine cork pulled me roughly out of my thoughts Audrey was twisting open a bottle of red wine.
She held the full bottle out to me, her tone lazy and cruel. "Chug this entire thing in ten seconds, and the money's yours."
I looked at Harris automatically. He turned his head away, pretending he didn't see me.
The whole room erupted into rowdy whoops and hoots, yelling out a countdown in unison.
The thought of my mom's surgery was the only thing holding me together. I didn't care how pathetic I looked. I tilted my head back and chugged the entire bottle until it was empty.
But Audrey wasn't satisfied. She tsked, pointing at the wine that had dripped down my chin and onto my shirt. "I said drink all of it. Half of it spilled out, you didn't finish."
Harris didn't say a single word the whole time.
By the time I'd choked down the third bottle, the alcohol hit me like a freight train. My head spun so bad I could barely stand, and I stumbled a few steps, barely catching myself.
Harris shot to his feet suddenly, yanking my wrist so hard it hurt. "Enough! Why are you pushing yourself so hard if you can't handle it?"
He was such a hypocrite with the most convenient selective memory imaginable.
It was as if he wasn't even the same guy who'd sat there just now, pointedly looking away and pretending not to see a single thing that happened.
I said nothing.
I stumbled a few steps, grabbed the bank card off the table, and turned to walk out of the private room. I couldn't afford to waste a single second.
Fighting back the searing, fire-like burn in my chest, I hailed a cab as fast as I could and rushed straight to the hospital.
But when I burst through her hospital room door, the first thing I saw was my mom, who'd already pulled off her ventilator.
The screen of her shattered phone, lying on the floor, was playing a video of me tilting my head back and chugging alcohol at the bar.
I lunged forward like a woman possessed, slamming my finger down on the nurse call button over and over.
The patient monitor wailed a shrill, ear-splitting alarm.
My mom grabbed my hand, tears streaming down her face nonstop. "No more treatment... we're stopping the treatment. Don't beg those people for my sake."
A nurse came over to tell me the surgery had been moved up.
I broke into a sprint to go pay the fee.
Memories from when I was fifteen came flooding in, unbidden.
That year, my dad had beaten my mom until her face was covered in blood.
I was screaming and wailing like a feral boar, but I still didn't forget to swing a wooden stick straight at my dad's head.
He'd been keeping a mistress on the side, and he still had the nerve to lie to my mom to trick her into staying married to him.
My mom cried day in and day out, until I helped her file for divorce and got them separated for good.
Harris knew every last detail of that trauma. And he'd lied to my face for ten entire years.
I couldn't keep playing along any longer.
