The $50,000 Stand-In: I Faked My Death and Forgot He Existed Chapter 2

When I got home, I took a shower and clumsily bandaged the wound.

Only then did I realize Carter had come back too.

He looked furious.

I figured it out quickly: "Did you and Serena get into a fight?"

"Hazel!"

He snapped coldly, striding over to me. He grabbed my wrists and shoved me hard against the edge of the bed.

I struggled to push him away, but the difference in our strength was absolute.

The chandelier swayed above us, the light stabbing my eyes until I squeezed them shut, but the tears kept leaking out.

He paused for a second, pinching my chin to force me to look at him. "Why are you crying? Feeling wronged?"

"Hazel, didn't you say you liked me? That as long as you could stay by my side, you didn't care what your title was?"

His kiss was bruising, savage.

I quickly tasted the metallic tang of blood in my mouth.

Carter commanded: "Did you forget what I taught you? Close your eyes."

"Your eyes are the one part of you that look nothing like hers."

Under his rough hands, the pain intensified.

When I opened my eyes in a panic, I met his dark, turbulent gaze. He was venting his rage on me.

I suddenly understood.

I had made Serena unhappy, so Carter was punishing me.

A massive wave of humiliation swallowed me, and my mind drifted back to the past.

When we first met, I was a dirt-poor college student.

He was the high-and-mighty CEO.

I worked at a bar. He got drunk, looked at my face, and lashed out:

"Don't wear a face that looks like hers while doing such cheap work here!"

Later, my grandma, my only family, fell deathly ill. I maxed out every credit card and loan app, but I was still $50,000 short for her surgery.

For that $50,000, I sold myself to Carter Sterling.

I threw myself at him.

The price was that he forbade me from continuing my master's degree.

"A stand-in needs to act like a stand-in."

His tone was flat, deciding my entire life in just a few words.

"Didn't you say you liked me? Then for the next three years, you stay right by my side. You go nowhere."

Back then, Serena had left him to study acting in Europe.

Carter wouldn't allow history to repeat itself.

From that day on, my dream of pursuing academic research truly became an unattainable fantasy.

My grandma didn't survive the post-surgery complications. She held on for six months before passing away.

I was in a daze, sitting in the cemetery for an entire night.

At midnight, a freezing rain started to fall.

Suddenly, an umbrella appeared over my head.

It was Carter.

He looked down at me from his towering height, his tone unusually gentle: "How much longer are you going to stay here? I'll wait with you."

We were together for three years.

I took care of his every need perfectly.

In the quiet moments between us, there was occasional, fleeting warmth.

But I knew Carter secretly despised me.

Once, I went to pick him up from a gathering with his rich buddies. They blocked my way, hooting and hollering.

They looked me up and down, laughing: "She really does look a bit like Serena—I heard she's a top student at MIT? Even worked on some patent projects?"

"No way. Hey, top student, how exactly do you do your little science projects? Why don't you perform one for us right here?"

I dug my nails into my palms and looked at them: "Scientific research is a serious matter. It's not a parlor trick for your entertainment."

The ringleader sneered: "Stop acting so high and mighty. You talk about science, but aren't you just trying to slap a higher price tag on yourself?"

A bottle of liquor was shoved in front of me. "Not willing to perform? Then drink. Finish this bottle, and we'll let Carter leave with you."

Through it all, Carter just leaned back on the leather sofa, flipping his silver lighter, watching me.

Probably because he was drunk, the usually stoic man looked at me with a lazy smirk.

"Drink it. Show everyone how well you can hold your liquor."

I stayed silent for two seconds before asking him: "If it were Serena standing here today, would you make her drink it?"

That day, Carter completely lost his temper.

He snatched the glass and shattered it against my chest. "What the hell are you? Do you think you deserve to be compared to her?"

"She's not as cheap as you. She wouldn't sell her body for fifty grand."

I blinked hard, picking up a shot glass that had rolled onto the floor. "Okay. I'll drink it."

A poor person's life is worthless, let alone their dignity.

I did take his $50,000.

I brought this on myself.