Chapter 17 – Side Story: Serena's Point Of View

• For ten years, I hid my feelings behind a wall of anger and pride. When I was seventeen, my home life was a disaster. My parents used to scream at each other until the glass broke, and I spent my nights locking myself in my room, covering my ears. School was my only escape, but I carried that toxic anger with me. Then I saw Mia Brooks. She wore cheap shoes, her family was struggling, but she was always kind. She smiled when she helped the teachers, and she shared her tiny lunch with anyone who asked. I hated how pure she was because I felt completely ruined inside. So, I bullied her. I threw her books and joined the popular crowd in mocking her. It was the biggest mistake of my life.
• Every single time I saw her cry, a part of my own heart broke. I hated myself so much that I started doing things secretly to protect her. I forced the principal to give her that college scholarship by threatening to cut my family's financial funding. I paid my own security team to follow her home when bad people were hanging around her neighborhood. When we graduated, she disappeared from my life, and I became the cold, ruthless CEO everyone feared. But I never forgot her. I kept a small photograph of her in my desk drawer, looking at it whenever the corporate world felt too dark.
• When my grandmother passed away and left that ridiculous marriage clause in her will, my uncle tried to steal the company immediately. I needed a wife fast. Then, my assistant showed me the applicants for the personal assistant job, and I saw Mia's name. I found out she had lost her job and her home. I felt a mixture of terror and hope. I used the marriage contract as an excuse to save her, to pull her out of poverty, and to keep her near me because I was too cowardly to just confess my love.