Chapter 2

I just found his words laughable.

Back then, the Mitchells thought Mia's family was just some distant nobodies from the Grant side and couldn't help Andrew's career get ahead.

So they pulled every dirty trick in the book to break Andrew and Mia up, and pushed Andrew into marrying me.

Now Andrew was gone, and suddenly I was the villain in their story.

With everyone in the Mitchell family tearing into me, I just let out a mocking laugh.

I said, "You want me to hand over my spot to Mia, let her be buried with Andrew? Sure.

"But you better cough up every last cent of the 100 million I invested in the Mitchells. Not a penny less.

"And since Mia's the only daughter-in-law you recognize now, every partnership between our family and yours will be cancelled."

Lisa had been living in luxury for so long that she probably forgot how she used to raise hell and threaten to end it all just to keep Andrew from marrying Mia.

It was just because my father was the one and only legitimate heir to the Grant family.

And Mia's father was just the result of a fling between my grandpa and the maid—a bastard the family never really accepted.

My father inherited billions from the Grant family, and my mother brought in even more from her own side.

I was their only daughter—born with a billion-dollar silver spoon in my mouth.

But Mia?

Her father was just the family's bastard, and her mother worked nights slinging drinks at some club.

If I hadn't felt sorry for her and gotten her into the fancy school my family funded, she never would've even had the chance to meet Andrew.

And there was no way she could have hooked up with my fiancé right under my nose.

I hated Mia, that ungrateful ingrate.

But I hated Andrew even more. He bailed his family out with my capital, then had the nerve to pin Mia's death on me.

The rage boiling inside me was so intense that it made my head spin.

I crashed to the floor, furious and refusing to accept it, my eyes squeezed shut as everything went black.

Andrew, if there were a next life, I'd step aside and let you be with Mia.

When I opened my eyes, the place erupted in mocking laughter.

Mia was just sixteen, looking like a fragile flower—helpless and innocent.

She was wrapped in a flimsy school uniform, shivering as a group of spoiled heiresses had her surrounded, throwing cruel taunts her way.

"Riverside Academy must be desperate these days. Looks like they'll let just anyone off the street enroll," one of the rich girls sneered.

"Mia, your dad is just the illegitimate son of the Grant family. How dare you show your face here? Don't you know the real Grant heiress goes to this school?" another girl jeered.

Seeing all this go down, I just sneered to myself.

Back then, this was the scene that made Andrew dead sure I was the mastermind behind those heiresses tormenting Mia.

From that day on, Andrew made Mia his personal cause, shielding her from everything.

I was worried Mia, fresh off a transfer from some regular high school, would be totally out of her depth in the advanced class, so I had the dean stick her in a regular class instead.

But Andrew got it all twisted. He thought I was out to humiliate and suppress Mia, so he used all his connections to shove her straight into the advanced class.

Mia was totally lost in the advanced class. Her grades were a mess, and she just couldn't keep up, no matter how hard she tried. The teachers kept calling her out, and when it came to group projects, nobody wanted her on their team.

Andrew, of course, was dead sure I was scheming behind the scenes, setting Mia up to be bullied by the teachers and classmates.

To stand up for Mia, he used my trust against me and spiked my milk with sleeping pills the night before the SAT, knocking me out cold and making me miss every single test on the first day.

I ended up with a miserable score, which basically ruined my name.

Meanwhile, Mia used my spotlight to step right over me, scoring higher than me and crushing me, the actual Grant heiress.

The ridiculous part? Andrew was the one who slipped sleeping pills into my drink and made me bomb the SAT.

And then he had the nerve to act like some white knight, pretending he was so generous for letting bygones be bygones and proposing to me anyway.

My parents, thinking Andrew was some kind of hero for sticking by me, went ahead and invested 100 million into the Mitchell family early. That cash injection let them snag the biggest money-maker in the West Side redevelopment and pulled the Mitchells back from the brink of collapse.

But what did I end up with?

Andrew ever gave me was the cold shoulder during our ten-year marriage.

He chased after one fling after another just to spite me, but he wouldn't even lay a finger on me.

In my last life, I was like a desperate gambler. No matter how bad the odds, I clung to Andrew all the way to the bitter end.

But in this life, I'd never do that again.