Chapter1
Sold
The smell of burnt pancakes stuck to Tessa Ford’s apron as she cleaned up the counters of the tiny café. Her feet ached from the twenty four -hours shift, her hands red from hot pans, but she didn’t complain. Complaining won’t pay the bills. Complaining will never buy her mother’s medication.
The late-afternoon sun streamed through the window, turning the drifting dust into a golden glow on the motes in the air. For a moment, she let herself dream — of a nurse’s uniform, a hospital’s uniform, saving lives as a nurse, living a life where she wasn’t running on flames and burning herself every single day of her life.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She brought it out, expecting a text from her sister, Emily, asking for dinner money again after asking for lunch. Instead, it was from her stepfather.
“Get home. Right Now.”
Two words. No explanation.
Her stomach sank. Nothing good ever followed a text from Greg Ford. He was a parasite in human form — always drunk, always gambling, always making their lives hell. But he was the man her mother had gotten married to, and when he barked every single day, everyone had to listen.
By the time Tessa ran up to the cracked driveway of their rough looking house, the sun had dipped beneath the horizon. The dazzling porch light buzzed like a dying insect. Inside, voices rose — her mother’s frail, trembling and scary tone, Greg’s echoing snarl.
“Greg, please,” her mother begged, clutching her chest. The chemo had thinned her frame to bones. “There must be another way—”
“There isn’t!” Greg slammed his hands on the table. His breath was so full of whiskey. His eyes were bold, distraught. “You think I want to do this? You think I like selling her off? It’s this, or we’re on the streets by morning!”
Tessa froze in the doorway. “Selling… who?”
Greg turned slowly, his lips curling into something between a smirk and a grimace. “You, sweetheart.”
Her blood turned to ice. “What in God’s name are you talking about?”
He pulled a rumpled contract from his back pocket and flinched it onto the table. The paper slid to a stop at her feet.
“One signature,” he said. “And Blake Carrington West wipes my entire debt clean. Millions, Tessa. You’ll marry him. You’ll live in a mansion. You won’t have to lift a finger again.”
Her breath caught. Everyone in Sydney knew the name Blake West. The ruthless young billionaire, CEO of West Electrics, with eyes as cold as the empire he ruled. The man who cut down competitors like weeds. The man who’d never been linked to a single woman for more than a week.
“Are you insane?” Tessa whispered. “I’m not some… commodity for you to auction off!”
Greg stepped closer, his shadow looming. “You will sign it. Unless you want your mother dying in a gutter because I can’t pay the rent.”
Her mother’s frail voice broke through the tension. “Tessa… maybe it won’t be so bad. He’s rich. You could… help us. Pay for my treatments.”
Tessa’s chest heaved with rage, every nerve in her body screaming to explode. She wanted to howl, to rip everything apart, to curse them both and watch their world burn to ash. But then her mother coughed — a wet, rattling sound — crimson spilling across her lips and pooling on the floor with blood. The fury in her chest splintered, replaced by something heavier, quieter. She swallowed the scream, choking it down with the ache in her throat.
Her hands shaking, her feet trembling as she picked up the pen.
The low rumble of an engine broke the quiet. A black G-Wagon rolled into the driveway, its tinted windows catching the glow of the streetlights. The door opened, and a tall man in a perfectly cut suit stepped out. His face was unreadable and impassive, all sharp lines and cold composure, like he’d been carved from stone.
“Miss Ford?” His voice was like gravel, rough, low, and cutting, every word edged with authority. “Mr. West doesn’t tolerate delays and he’s waiting as we speak. I mean he’s waiting right now. Pack your things — you’re leaving tonight.”
Tessa’s heart thudded so hard it hurt, each beat echoing in her ears as she stared at the car waiting for her. The contract trembled in her grip, the paper damp from her clammy hands. It felt like her whole life — the dream of putting on scrubs, saving lives, saving her mother the right way — was slipping through her fingers, dissolving into something she didn’t recognize. Something colder. Something she couldn’t take back.She never thought this day would ever happen in her life.
Greg’s grin widened. “Congratulations, sweetheart. You’re about to be Mrs. Blake Carrington West.”
Tessa’s fingers went numb, the pen clattering to the floor.
And outside, the car door opened…
