He Scorned Me, Now I’m a CEO He Can’t Afford Chapter 07

He Scorned Me, Now I’m a CEO He Can’t Afford Chapter 07

The heavy smell of disinfectant and a dull throb in her skull pulled Lena from the darkness.

She opened her eyes to find herself not in a hospital, but in her own bedroom at Red Creek Ranch.

Sunlight filtered through the blinds, striping the floor.

Her memories of the previous night were fractured.

The taste of tequila, Clara’s face at the wheel, the sound of the crash, the fallen bull.

The door opened.

Her father, Caleb, walked in, his face a thundercloud.

“You’re awake,” he said. “Get dressed. You’re coming with me to the sheriff’s office.”

Lena pushed herself up, her head pounding.

“The sheriff’s office?”

“To turn yourself in.” Caleb looked at her as if she were a natural disaster. “You drove drunk last night and killed the Miller family’s champion Angus bull. It was worth a million dollars.”

Lena stared at him, the words failing to connect.

“It wasn’t me,” she said immediately. “Clara was driving.”

Caleb’s face hardened with impatience.

“Stop arguing. Wyatt was in the truck. He was perfectly clear-headed, and he told us what happened.”

The room was silent for a beat.

Then her father delivered the final blow.

“You were the one driving last night.”

In that instant, everything became terrifyingly clear.

The strange feeling after drinking the sweet tea.

Waking up in her own room instead of a hospital.

This was a trap, and it had been from the start.

Caleb went on about compensation, the family’s reputation, and the need to keep this quiet.

But Lena didn’t hear a word of it.

She just looked at her father’s face and felt, for the first time, the full, crushing absurdity of her life.

Not long after he left, Wyatt came in.

He shut the door behind him, his body blocking the light from the hall.

He looked like he hadn’t slept, with dark circles under his eyes and a rough stubble along his jaw.

Lena didn’t get angry. She didn’t cry.

She just looked at him, her voice unnaturally calm.

“Wyatt, why did you lie?”

Wyatt’s body went rigid.

He avoided her eyes and walked to the window, his voice low and hoarse.

“Clara is about to go to Davis for her exchange program. A DUI, killing a bull that expensive… it would ruin her future.”

A fist clenched around Lena’s heart.

But her voice remained level.

“And what about me? What about my future?”

Wyatt turned to face her.

There was no guilt in his eyes, only a cold, hard judgment.

“For Clara, this would be a career-ending scandal,” he said. “For you, it’s just one more black mark on your record.”

Lena almost laughed.

All her years of pretending to be a party girl, all the irresponsibility she had so carefully performed, had paved the road for this exact moment.

Seeing her silence, Wyatt seemed to think she had accepted her fate. His tone softened slightly, but it felt more like charity than compassion.

“You’re going to Austin soon anyway, right?” He pulled a check from his jacket and placed it on the bedside table. “Take this. Go start the life you want. Get away from here.”

Lena glanced at it.

Two hundred thousand dollars.

So that was the price of her reputation, her future, her innocence.

“Is this compensation?” she asked.

“It’s a fresh start.” He said it as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world, as if he were doing her a great favor.

It was ludicrous.

Lena looked at the man she had once loved so much, at the self-satisfied expression on his face, and felt nothing but a bone-deep chill.

She was about to speak when the door was pushed open.

Sharon stood in the doorway, her face frantic.

“Wyatt! You have to come check on Clara. Her head is hurting terribly, and she won’t stop crying—”

Wyatt’s expression shifted, and he immediately turned to leave.

At the door, he paused and looked back at Lena.

“Keep the check. We’ll talk when I get back.”

Then he was gone.

The room fell quiet again.

Lena stood for a long time, then a slow smile spread across her face.

There were no tears.

Only the cold calm that comes after the final betrayal.

Talk?

What was there left to talk about?

She picked up the check, walked to the old fireplace in the corner, and, without a moment’s hesitation, tore it into pieces and threw it into the empty hearth.

Then she took out her phone and dialed the sheriff’s office.

“Hello. I’d like to report an incident. I have evidence regarding last night’s traffic accident near the Miller Ranch boundary.”

After hanging up, she called Hank.

“Hank, is the truck ready?”

“It is, Miss. It’s by the back door with a full tank.”

“Good.”

She dragged a dusty leather suitcase from under her bed and opened it.

There were no gowns inside. No party shoes.

Only a thick stack of documents: proof of assets her mother had left her, land ownership papers, and all the original legal files.

She picked up the suitcase and took one last look at the room she had lived in for twenty years.

Then she walked to the back door.

Hank was waiting, his face full of worry.

Lena took a small SD card from her pocket and handed it to him.

“Hank, give this directly to the first deputy who arrives.”

“Miss, you…”

“I’m going to my own place.”

She hugged the old man who had watched her grow up, then climbed into the old Ford pickup.

The engine rumbled to life.

The truck pulled away, heading into the morning light, leaving Red Creek Ranch behind as it drove toward the vast stretch of land across Red Creek River.

At that same moment, the official website of the Texas Agricultural Gazette published its feature on this year’s Young Agriculturalist Award winner.

Beneath an ID photo Lena had never made public, the headline was stark and clear:

*Anonymous “Phoenix Project” Wins State Award; Red Creek Ranch Heiress Lena Vance Named This Year’s Texas Young Agriculturalist.*