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From the time I was a child in the orphanage, I'd grown up wild and free. Then Elaine Harrington came and chose me, and everyone said I was lucky — the Harrington family were among the wealthiest in New York, and Elaine treated me like a daughter.
Only I knew how suffocating it really was.
Elaine's standards were merciless. Piano lessons. Equestrian training. Tutors stacked on tutors. If I fell short of her expectations, the punishment was swift.
Locked in the basement. On my knees on the cold stone floor.
The welts from the cane would stay on my skin for days, layered purple and green.
Once, Julian found the bruises on my arms. He asked what happened.
"I was punished," I said quietly.
He gave a cold scoff. "Ivy, you're getting better at lying. What punishment? Mom's wanted a daughter her whole life. She treats you like a princess. Maybe if you tried a little harder instead of just coasting—"
Julian didn't know about the punishments. He didn't know that Elaine had given me a different kind of instruction: make Julian fall in love with you.
When she found out that Serena Calloway — a scholarship student — had kissed Julian first, Elaine slapped me across the face without blinking.
"Useless. You can't even outmaneuver a charity case. I didn't take you in for nothing, Ivy. Julian will marry you. That's not a request."
I stared at her. I never understood it — not until the day I died.
Why was I the only one punished?
Why did it have to be me who married Julian?
Julian was extraordinary. Even if it wasn't Serena, there were dozens of families who would have lined up for the match. Why did it have to be me — an orphan, ordinary in every way?
But I had no choice. I went to break up Julian and Serena.
I found Serena in the school library and offered her two hundred thousand dollars — everything I had access to.
I slid the card across the table. "Take it and go study abroad. The Harrington family will never approve of you and Julian."
Serena took the card. The look she gave me was triumphant, contemptuous.
"So you like your own foster brother, Ivy? God, that's disgusting."
The words stung.
She wasn't wrong. If I were Julian, I'd be disgusted by me too.
Serena walked straight to Julian with the card in hand and cried the most perfect tears:
"Julian, your sister tried to bribe me to leave you. My mother is sick at home — I could never be as cold as Ivy, willing to do anything for money, not even bothering to find her own birth parents. Please... stay away from me. She scares me."
That evening, convinced I'd handled things, I called Elaine — who was traveling — from my room.
"Can I not marry Julian?"
A brief silence. Then Elaine's voice came through, flat and indifferent:
"You can. But you'll have to give him a child first."
I couldn't keep myself from asking: "Why?"
"Did you think I brought you home to be his childhood sweetheart? You don't want to? Then what — crawl back to that rundown orphanage?"
I went quiet.
The Harrington estate was rich, but it was never my home. I had always been out of place there.
Elaine gave a cold laugh. "If you want to leave, you may. After the child is born. That's the deal. Consider it paying back what you owe this family."
It was a condition. A debt.
I held my phone for a long time, turning it over in my hands, thinking.
Then Julian burst through the door and smashed it out of my grip.
"Stay away from Serena, Ivy."