Chapter 3

Felicia froze.

Pampered all these years, she wasn't used to anyone speaking to her like that.

So she shoved me, impatient. "Teacher James, I thought you were a smart woman. I thought you understood that being the best matters above everything, and the family's interests come first!"

Then she turned to Barret, frowning, playing for sympathy.

"Dad! I told you this Teacher James isn't one of us at all. She's got a poor person's mindset through and through. How could she possibly teach me and my brother properly?"

Roland gave a cold snort too. "I really didn't expect Teacher James to stick up for a brain-dead idiot!"

Barret rose and slapped Felicia across the face.

"Apologize! One more word against Teacher James and I cut off your allowance!"

Felicia stared at him, disbelieving, unable to make sense of it.

The reason was exactly what she'd said. Interests came first.

The Delgados hadn't chosen me as their tutor only because I was the final protégée of a research titan. It was because I was the technology consultant at the top international firm they were desperate to partner with.

Barret pressed Felicia's and Roland's heads down into a bow toward me. "My daughter just speaks too bluntly!"

"But she's not wrong either. Not everyone can rise up out of an orphanage the way you did, Teacher James."

They had no idea how much I'd suffered, abandoned in that orphanage.

Never enough to eat, never warm enough, shut out and beaten and cursed at because I loved to study.

Collecting bottles to buy practice workbooks, drilling problems all night with my hands and feet cracked from the cold, and still the only thing in my head was: "If I just study hard enough, I'll find my family again!"

I gave a stiff nod and sat back down in my seat.

Once I was back in my room, the first thing I did was tell my mentor. "I don't want my birth parents getting published in the international journal anymore!"

He replied at once. "People like that don't deserve to be your parents. I'll handle the interview side. And I'll tell Hendrix Technologies to screen their partners far more carefully!"

With his word on it, I was certain the Delgados would get the email killing their project before long.

So over the next few days, I taught Felicia and Roland their competition problems while I watched them build the room meant to break me.

Every piece of furniture in it was battered and half-broken, creaking the moment you touched it.

The wardrobe was stocked with cockroaches and mice, and open the nightstand and a snake would shoot out.

They'd even brought in a painter to cover the ceiling with red and black handprints that only showed once the lights went off.

You'd only have to open your eyes in that bed to see them.

Felicia directed it all, clutching her stomach with laughter. "She's so stupid, when she faints from fright she won't even realize we did it on purpose!"

Barret and Penelope didn't stop her. If anything, they indulged Felicia in tormenting their own flesh and blood.

When the afternoon lesson ended, I looked down from upstairs and saw Penelope and the others receiving guests.

I caught the faint sound of the word marriage.

Felicia appeared behind me, stretching lazily, the corner of her mouth curling into a sneer. "Teacher, that young Mr. Abbott downstairs, his grandfather had a stroke last year. He wants a girl over twenty to marry."

"And look at that, the little fool walked right into the trap and sent herself back to us!"

I couldn't believe these were things any parents would do to their own daughter.

"What if she refuses? This would ruin a girl's entire life!"

Roland couldn't have cared less about handing his own sister over as a bargaining chip.

"So what? A moron like her creating any value for this family is already a gift!"

"When she comes home she'll be begging us to care about her. We string her along a little, and to win us over she'll definitely agree to marry the old man!"

He and Felicia traded a look, and something gleeful flickered in both their eyes.

"And we've got a surprise ready for her at the recognition banquet in three days! I really can't wait to see the ugly way she cries that day!"

I didn't argue with them anymore.

Because I was looking forward to it too.

Looking forward to the day of the recognition banquet, to the look on Barret's and Penelope's faces when they realized the daughter they'd longed to claim and the worthless girl in their fantasies were one and the same.