Chapter 3: The Villainess Strikes Back

I rubbed my eyes and stared at the floating comments that seemed to pop up out of thin air, my head spinning.

My vision blurred for a second, the words bleeding together in a neon haze. Was I losing my mind, or had my life just become a reality show where everyone but me got the script?

Piecing it together, I realized the awful truth:

I’m the villainess they’re all talking about.

It hit me like a bucket of ice water dumped down my back. I froze, heart hammering, as the realization sank in. I was the spoiled rich girl—the obstacle in someone else’s love story. I’d seen her in every CW show, and now I was her.

The spoiled heiress who used her money to buy the male lead’s affection.

Hearing it from the outside sounded uglier than I’d ever imagined—like I’d never had a real feeling, just a wallet and a plan.

The Ethan Carter standing before me really had been reborn.

This wasn’t a weird daydream—he was different. Older, sadder, too sure of himself for a kid with nothing but a scholarship and a dream.

In the last life, I fell for him at first sight when I started college. When I found out he couldn’t pay his tuition, I offered my platinum card to cover all his expenses for four years—

I remembered that moment like it was yesterday. The shock on his face, the way his hands shook when he took the card. I thought it was romantic—a grand gesture. But maybe it was always just a transaction.

And asked him to be my boyfriend.

I’d thought it was bold—maybe it was just desperate, or both.

Ethan struggled for a long time, finally took the platinum card, and agreed, feeling deeply ashamed.

He’d looked down, voice barely above a whisper. I thought he was shy. Now I knew it was shame. I’d bought his pride for a semester’s tuition.

He buried the childhood sweetheart he’d secretly loved for years deep in his heart.

I never really knew about Lily. She was just a name in the yearbook, a face in the crowd. But she was the ghost haunting every moment we had together.

He believed I’d ruined his love with Lily Martinez, and despised my spoiled, willful ways.

Every time I dragged him to a gala or bought him something he couldn’t afford, I thought I was showing love. He thought I was showing off.

He was insecure and sensitive.

He’d flinch when I joked about money or when my friends called him a charity case. I thought he’d get used to it. He never did.

He felt inferior in love, with no dignity at all.

It was in every awkward silence, every forced smile. I didn’t want to see it, so I didn’t.

Yet, after getting a taste of the good life, he didn’t want to lose me, his golden ticket.

He played the part, let me parade him around—at charity galas, at my parents’ Hamptons party, even in the VIP box at the Knicks game. Maybe he convinced himself he was happy, for a while.

A year after graduation, when he heard Lily Martinez was getting married, his long-repressed feelings boiled over.

I remembered the night he found out. He barely touched his dinner, just stared at his phone like it was a ticking bomb.

Ethan, desperate, rushed to her wedding, hoping for a dramatic reunion.

He left in the middle of the night—no note, nothing. I only found out later where he’d gone.

But he lost focus on the road and crashed into a semi, dying instantly.

The call from the hospital came at dawn. My father handled the arrangements. No one spoke about it after.

After being reborn, the first thing he did was confess the love he never spoke of in his last life to his childhood sweetheart—

He wasn’t wasting his second chance. Not on me, not on money. Only on her.

To make up for all his past regrets.

He was rewriting the script, and I was just a footnote now.

I frowned, my grip tightening around my phone, knuckles white. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Not for me.

The comments fit my spoiled personality.

They painted me as the villain, the rich girl who never learned to share. Maybe they were right.

But as they said, Ethan took so much of my money, and after graduation I even hooked him up with connections to start a business.

I’d done more for him than anyone else ever would—opened doors, paid bills, made introductions. Was that so wrong?

So what if he was a little subservient to me, the heiress?

Isn’t that how it works? The rich girl calls the shots, the poor boy tags along. It’s the American dream, right?

So what if he did everything I said?

He never complained. At least, not to my face.

Isn’t that how it should be?

I’d been raised to believe it was. Maybe that was the problem.

Does he still want to sponge off me and claim the Whitmore family fortune?

I narrowed my eyes, sizing him up. He looked hungry, desperate. But maybe he’d finally realized not every golden ticket leads to a happy ending.

I sneered and tossed the platinum card to a passing guy.

The card sailed through the air and landed with a satisfying slap in the palm of a guy I barely recognized—tall, cute, with a deer-in-the-headlights look.

"Ethan, who said I wanted to pay your tuition?"

My voice rang out, loud enough for the whole office to hear. If I was going to be the villain, I might as well own it.

"I want to give it to him!"

I flashed the new guy a dazzling smile, the kind that always got me what I wanted.

"Hey, handsome—would you like to be my boyfriend?"

The whole room went dead silent. Somewhere in the back, someone actually choked on their coffee.