A False Heiress's Guide to Love and Power

“You! I’m a man, aren’t I? What man hasn’t made mistakes? I’ve apologized–what more do you want from me? And you–acting like some saint when you’re no better! If this were the old days, you’d be thrown in the river for shaming the family!”

The man jumped to his feet, knocking over a beer bottle. It crashed to the floor, shattering into pieces while the remaining beer seeped across the cracked linoleum.

“Hamlin! Ever since you lost your job, have you even noticed how I’ve treated you? Or are you just blind and heartless? I put up with your macho crap, I tried to understand your bad moods–but how can you say these things to me? How could you try to sell Vera off for money? Do you remember when she was born? You were the one who couldn’t stop holding her, who said she deserved the best of everything. How–how could you say something like this now?”

Carla pressed a trembling hand to her chest, looking as if she might collapse at any second. Vera scrambled from her seat to catch her mother, panic in her eyes as she called out desperately.

The neighbors, long accustomed to the shouting, still couldn’t resist the lure of fresh gossip. They gathered in little clusters by the fence, eavesdropping with wide eyes, but not one of them stepped in to help.

“Mom, please, stop,” Vera sobbed, her voice hoarse with pleading. To her, the man in front of her wasn’t her father anymore. The dad who used to bring her caramel apples after work just to make her laugh was gone, replaced by a stranger she barely recognized.

“Dad, I won’t do it. I’ll repay the ten thousand dollars, I swear, but I won’t marry him.”

Cary’s son was nothing but a thug, the kind of guy Vera went out of her way to avoid after school, crossing the street rather than risk bumping into him. More than once, he’d cornered her, leering and making crude remarks. The thought of marrying someone like that made her skin

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Chapter 388

crawl.

she could escape this suffocating town and take her mother with her, somewhere they could finally

never let herself be trapped here

have to sell everything we own, you’ll go to

look so cold and full of loathing that

marriage certificate, if

school if all it teaches you is to scream at your father? Shouting at your own dad–your education’s worthless! You’re nothing

his belt

she could. The two of them took the blows together. No matter how Vera

from next door finally had enough and

borrowed money from his family and sent Vera to a boarding

school and started working odd jobs during