I Helped Him Get Into an Elite University—Then He Dumped Me Before Day One Chapter 09

I Helped Him Get Into an Elite University—Then He Dumped Me Before Day One Chapter 09

When Chloe found Adrian, he was slumped in a dim, deafening corner of a bar. 

“Adrian!” 

She rushed over in distress and tried to take the bottle 

from his hand. 

“Stop this. Just look at yourself. Is a woman like Claire really worth this? Seeing you like this… it hurts me.” 

Adrian lifted his head, his eyes blurred with alcohol, and looked at Chloe standing in front of him with her flawless makeup and anxious expression. 

“Hurts you?” 

He repeated the words thickly, his gaze locked on her 

face. 

“Then tell me something, Chloe.” 

He leaned closer, his breath heavy with liquor, and 

asked each word slowly. 

“Do you like me for my money too?” 

The question caught her off guard. Panic flashed across 

her eyes for a split second, but she covered it quickly. 

“Adrian, how could you even think that? Of course not. 

I like you for who you are. It has nothing to do with 

money.” 

She reached for his hand, desperate to prove herself. 

But Adrian jerked away and flung her hand off. 

“Oh really?” 

He let out a cold laugh. 

“Then explain this. Your company lost its chance to work with Lumina, your cash flow is on the verge of collapse, and now you show up here looking for me. Why?” 

He stopped there, but the moment he saw the blood drain from Chloe’s face and the way her eyes shifted away, he understood. 

“Get out.” 

He pointed toward the door. “Get the hell out.” 

Humiliated and furious, Chloe finally stamped her 

foot, snatched up her purse, and stormed out of the bar. 

Adrian collapsed back onto the couch, his head 

splitting with pain. 

In his haze, it felt as if he had been dragged back to that 

blindingly bright high school hallway. 

There she was in her faded school uniform, washed 

nearly white and patched in places, standing 

stubbornly in the way of him and the friends he was about to skip class and go pick a fight with, a workbook clutched tightly in her hands and a careful, tentative 

smile on her face. 

Her voice rang in his ears as clearly as if she were 

standing there again, clumsy with concern. 

“Adrian, don’t fight…” 

How had he answered her back then? 

He had shoved her aside impatiently, snapped at her for being a nuisance, mocked her for being a bookworm, a broke loser, a stiff little lapdog, and then walked off to the sound of his friends laughing. 

The truth was, from the very beginning, from the moment he first entered that school, he had already thought there was something different about her. 

Claire had always been first in the grade, the model student every teacher praised, but because she was poor and wore those patched–up clothes, she had also become a joke to some of the other students. 

And he, Adrian, had been the golden boy, the center of every room, the one everyone gravitated toward. 

He had liked Claire, but he had cared just as much about what other people thought. He had been afraid they would laugh at him for liking that poor, uptight genius girl. 

That hidden feeling, one he had never even fully admitted to himself, had twisted into something ugly. 

In the end, it turned into the same cruelty and 

contempt everyone else showed her, only worse. 

He had even been naive enough to believe that no 

matter how outrageous he was, no matter how badly he trampled on her feelings, all he had to do was crook a 

finger Claire would come running back. 

Adrian laughed, and then he cried. 

He truly had never been worthy of my feelings. 

As for me, Claire Bennett, I had long since left that farce of a family and that ugly stretch of the past behind me. 

Under my direction, Lumina’s North American business expanded at full speed. 

My designs, distinct and alive with their own spirit, quickly won over the high–end market. 

One successful launch after another, one outstanding sales report after another, steadily strengthened my position and my reputation. 

I had learned one thing a long time ago: only when you stand high enough can you possess real freedom. 

I had learned long ago that only when you stand high enough do you get to keep your freedom. 

The Claire I had become was now using talent and hard work to build a world wide enough for my own 

ambitions, my own future, and my own dreams.