Chapter 2

The next morning, I headed to the office. But the moment I stepped in, Lily rushed toward me. "Emily, you got fired. Go check for yourself."

I was shocked. "What? Why?"

I was the company's star photographer—even the boss relied heavily on me. How could I possibly be fired? And I still needed money for treatment.

Panicking, I hurried into the office. "Boss, why would you fire—"

My words froze the second I saw who was inside. They were Charles and his fiancée. My throat tightened. "You bought this company?"

Sophia snorted, "Charles has always been the richest man in Southport. Buying a company is a piece of cake for him."

Her words hit me like a bomb. I just stared at Charles, totally stunned. "Southport's richest man? Weren't you just another broke student like me?"

I remembered when I first met Charles, he couldn't even afford a bowl of oatmeal. I was the one who helped him get by.

His eyes were icy. He towered over me with a superior attitude. "I just got tired of playing the 'poor boy'. Didn't you go off with some rich guy, too?"

My breath hitched. Shaking, I turned to face him, and the old scar on my back throbbed with pain.

But when I thought of my grandmother, I swallowed the urge to cry and forced myself to beg. "Charles, please—just let me work one more month. I'm sick, really sick. I need the money or I won't make it."

Just one month, and it would be enough to pay my grandmother's nursing home fees.

I hoped that reason alone might soften him, even just a little.

His hand, the one holding the cigarette, shook. Then his smile twisted, dripping with mockery. "That's good to hear. After the way you dumped me for someone else, you should've died anyway. Even if I crushed your bones to ash a thousand times, I'd still think you had it coming."

His words struck me like a boomerang, stabbing straight into my chest.

Charles had treated me so well back then. Whenever someone so much as mocked me, he was the first to stand up for me.

Everyone around us said we were the couple they envied the most. No one expected that I would dump him that night.

The next day, he'd spiked a fever, burning up and delirious, crying as he called me over and over, begging me to come see him.

I rejected every call, cold as ice. I even blocked his number and every way he could reach me.

But Charles still dragged his sick body to my door and sat outside, begging me to take him back. A man who was usually so proud was crying and begging me just to give him one last glance.

I never opened the door. He didn't know I did it for him back then.

After a long silence, Charles finally said, "Fine. But for the next month, you'll be taking my wedding photos with Sophie and shooting pre-wedding vlogs. As long as you make my fiancée happy, you'll get your money."

I snapped my head up to look at him. His face was twisted in a wicked smile, as if he were getting his revenge for everything I had done to him in the past.

Beside him, Sophia's eyes were sparkling like diamonds as she happily kissed Charles' cheek.

"Alright. I'll do it," I said. These words felt as heavy as a millstone dragging their way out of my mouth.

When I turned to leave, I glanced back and gave him a long, hard look. I hoped he wouldn't regret this.