After Rebirth, I Stopped Competing, and the Fake Heiress Lost It Chapter 04

After Rebirth, I Stopped Competing, and the Fake Heiress Lost It Chapter 04

Graham wouldn’t look at me. He turned to Sloane. “Come on. Run your hand under cold water.”

He was letting it go. Sweeping it under the rug.

I leaned against the wall and said nothing.

Sloane had played her hand and missed entirely. She even forgot to keep crying.

The water ran for a while. Then Graham’s voice, low and quiet.

“Sloane, Tessa just got back from school and she still asked if your hand was okay. She doesn’t hate you. So cut the games. No one in this family is going to throw you out.”

He stepped out of the bathroom and came over to me, reaching for my pant leg.

“You didn’t get burned, did you?”

I stepped back before he could touch me.

Graham’s jaw tightened.

That night, I found Dad in his study and told him the school wasn’t the right fit. I wanted to transfer.

Dad already knew what happened that afternoon. He probably assumed I didn’t want to be at the same school as Sloane.

He sighed, pulled a folder from his desk drawer, and slid it toward me.

I opened it. A stock transfer agreement, fifteen percent of a Winslow Holdings subsidiary. Market value: roughly four million dollars.

“You don’t have to sign it now. Take your time. I know, we all know, what you went through. There’s no amount of money that fixes that.”

He kept clicking his pen cap on and off. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter.

“But I promise you, no one is going to hurt you again. Not under this roof.”

I held his gaze for a long beat, then tucked the folder away.

“Thank you, Dad.”

Something in his shoulders loosened. He circled back to the school question.

“Bellhaven International Academy,” I said. “It’s farther from home, but the academics are better.”

Dad picked up the phone and made it happen on the spot.

Over the next few days, I kept my head down. Out the door early, home late. Polite. Helpful. But I never let any of them in.

It must have rattled them, because gifts started showing up in my room, one after another.

I watched the resentment build behind Sloane’s eyes, day by day. Then I closed my door and gave her nothing to work with.