The Princess Stopped Begging for Love, But They Became Desperate to Give Her Everything Chapter 03

The Princess Stopped Begging for Love, But They Became Desperate to Give Her Everything Chapter 03

Most of my early childhood memories were gone.

I remembered only that a rival’s attempt to strike back at the Caruso family had gone wrong.

At some point, I had been abandoned.

My adoptive parents found me, saved me, and raised me as their own.

Unfortunately, they had both died in a car accident earlier that year.

The crash made the local news, and questions about my identity followed.

A records search and a DNA test later, the Carusos found me.

Sometimes I wished they never had.

I carefully placed the photo album at the bottom of my suitcase.

Then I checked my bank account.

It contained money I had saved from part-time jobs over the past few years, along with the small amount my adoptive parents had left me.

It wasn’t much.

But with my merit scholarship, it was enough to cover me until classes started, and probably well beyond that.

I had no intention of spending a cent of Caruso money.

Dinner that evening was still tense.

Dad sat at the table with a grim expression and barely spoke.

Mom tried to lighten the mood by talking through menus, flowers, and arrangements for Isabella’s birthday party.

Isabella played along, occasionally tossing a question my way as if determined to draw me in.

“Elena, Montana is really dry. You should bring plenty of moisturizer.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t know whether you’re used to the food out there. Your stomach can be sensitive, so be careful.”

“Got it.”

My clipped answers made Mom’s attempts at conversation increasingly awkward.

Eventually, she set down her silverware and looked directly at me.

“Elena, are you angry with your father and me about something?”

I looked up at them.

Dad was watching too, weighing me with that familiar look.

Isabella wore the same practiced concern as always.

The scene was painfully familiar.

In my previous life, the moment I showed even a trace of hurt, the problem somehow became my attitude toward the family.

That I was ungrateful.

“No,” I said, lowering my eyes again. “I’m just grown now. I want to choose my own path.”

“Your own path is running off into the Montana wilderness to suffer?”

Dad’s voice was tight with restrained anger.

“Has this family failed to feed you? Clothe you? Why are you so desperate to get away?”

Yes, I thought. Desperate.

The answer came without hesitation.

My face stayed calm.

“Geology is what I actually want to study. I think the work matters.”

Dad had no easy answer for that.

His jaw tightened instead.

His expression only darkened.

Mom intervened again.

“All right. Having goals is a good thing. Let’s eat before everything gets cold.”

I was the first to put down my fork.

“I’m finished. Enjoy dinner.”

Then I turned and went upstairs.

Behind me, I heard Dad’s angry voice.

“Look at what kind of person those people raised her to be!”

Then Mom’s tired attempt to calm him.

“Enough. She grew up in a small town in Montana. Of course she doesn’t see the world the way Isabella does…”

I went to my room without letting anything show on my face.

So that was how they saw me.

A small-town girl who, in their eyes, would never quite polish up no matter how much money they spent on her.

I locked the door behind me.

Finally, silence.

I opened my laptop and dug through Canyon Ridge’s housing policies, then started comparing apartment listings near campus.

If I was going to leave for good, I didn’t want to live in a dorm.

I needed a space that belonged entirely to me.

I learned that Canyon Ridge allowed qualifying first-year students to apply for a housing exemption, so I gathered the required documents and submitted everything.

When I was finished, I crossed another day off the calendar.

Forty-two days left.