The Boyfriend Who Faked a Business Trip Lives Next Door with the Fake Heiress Chapter 06

The Boyfriend Who Faked a Business Trip Lives Next Door with the Fake Heiress Chapter 06

I woke up in a hospital bed. Donovan was passed out in a chair beside me, his head on the mattress.

My head throbbed. The last thing I remembered was the match slipping. The sheets catching. I hadn’t had the energy to care. I just closed my eyes and enjoyed the warmth.

While I was out, I thought I felt someone carrying me. Saying my name over and over.

Lala. Lala.

Only Donovan called me that.

He’d saved me.

I looked at him. Pale. Bruised. Bandages wrapped around his back.

Sad. Pathetic. The man who’d turned my love into a joke-and then risked his life for me.

He stirred. Woke up.

When he saw me watching him, he looked like a little kid caught stealing. His mouth opened and

closed.

Finally: “Lala…”

“Don’t call me that anymore.”

He pushed ahead anyway. “The thirty grand. I didn’t give it to Violet. I moved it to another account. I already sent it back to you.”

“The house. I bought you a villa. You can live in it if you want. Call it… compensation.”

“The fire. The internet saw everything. They know you didn’t mean to start it. I paid off the landlord and the neighbors. You don’t have to feel guilty.”

I cut him off again. “Donovan.”

His eyes went red. “There’s no chance for us anymore. Is there.”

It wasn’t a question. I didn’t answer.

Donovan stood up. He looked at me like he was trying to memorize my face.

“I’m going now. Take care of yourself.”

Familiar words. He’d said the same thing when he pretended to leave for his “job out of state.”

Only this time, I didn’t promise to be okay.

I just turned my head and looked out the window.

At the door, he stopped.

“Clara. The ring… when I bought it… it was real.”

The door closed. His footsteps faded.

I let my eyes fall shut. A tear slid down my cheek.

Real?

What was his real worth?

Could it buy back the five years he stole from me?

Three days later.

A nurse pushed open my door. There was pity in her eyes.

“Ms. Gray? Someone’s here to see you.”

“Who?”

“Your… parents.”

I froze.

The people who’d thrown me out of their house. My biological parents.

“No.”

The nurse nodded and left. Not five minutes later, the door burst

open.

Mrs. Gray rushed in, my father behind her. The nurse trailed after them, apologetic.

“Clara!” Mrs. Gray’s eyes were red. She threw herself at my bedside. “Mommy’s here! Why didn’t you tell us you were hurt?”

I looked at her face. It felt like a stranger’s.

This woman had thrown my bags onto the front lawn on my eighteenth birthday and said, “The

Gray family doesn’t have a daughter like you.”

Now she was calling herself my mother.

“I don’t have a mother,” I said.

Her face crumpled.

Mr. Gray stepped forward, all stern and serious. “Clara. We made a mistake. Violet fooled us. But we know the truth now. You’re still a Gray. We’ve cut ties with her. Come home.”

A mistake. Fooled us.

Such tidy little words.

“I got down on my knees and begged you to run a DNA test.” I stared at the ceiling. “You said no. Said I was just some con artist.”

Mrs. Gray sobbed. “Clara, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—’

“Violet dumped ink on me. You said it was an accident.”

“She shredded every piece of clothing I owned. You said she was just jealous.”

“She told everyone I was the fake. You stood there and told me to get out.”

I said it all flatly, one sentence after another. The room went dead quiet.

Mr. Gray’s face cycled through about five expressions. Finally, he sighed. “We’re still your parents. Blood is blood.”

Blood.

I laughed.

“Eighteen years of nothing. That’s blood?”

“Kicking me out and leaving me with nothing. That’s blood?”

“Now Violet’s in jail, and suddenly you remember you have a daughter?”

Mrs. Gray cried harder. “That’s not true, Clara, we never stopped thinking about you-

“Thinking about me?” I sat up and looked her in the eye. “Did you even know where I lived for the

last five years?”

Her mouth opened. Nothing came out.

“Ten square meters. No bathroom. No shower. Washing my hair in freezing water.”

“Three jobs a day. Discount pasta. Pinching pennies on gas so I could breathe.”

“You lived in your big house while your precious fake heiress wore bags that cost more than I made in three years. And you want to talk about thinking of me?”

Mr. Gray’s face went hard. “Clara, watch your tone. We came here to make peace, not to be

lectured.”

I nodded.

“Okay. Then go. We’re at peace. Bye.”

Mrs. Gray gaped.

“I don’t need parents like you. I don’t want parents like you.” I turned my back to them. “Get out.”

The door closed. The crying faded.

I stared out the window. Didn’t shed a single tear.

They didn’t come back because they loved me.

They came back because Violet was gone and they needed someone to fill the gap. Someone to keep

up appearances.

Too bad. I wasn’t interested in being anyone’s placeholder.