02

Dirk didn't say a word to me the whole drive back to the villa.

The second the car stopped, he slapped his keys down hard on the entry cabinet.

"Sara. Don't you move."

I bent down to change my shoes.

"Are you going to lecture me again?"

He jabbed a finger at my face.

"Look at how you acted tonight!"

"I'm the chairman of the company, not your personal chauffeur!"

"An employee's in trouble, stuck in the pouring rain with no way home, and I give her a lift. What's wrong with that?"

I dropped my bag on the couch.

"What's wrong is that you have no sense of boundaries."

His face darkened.

"Boundaries?"

"I think all that garbage online has gotten into your head!"

"Everybody at the company knows the kind of man I've been all these years."

I looked at him and didn't spare him a shred of dignity.

"I know."

"You love your reputation, love playing the good guy, especially in front of young, pretty women."

"Last year Diane in procurement complained her husband wouldn't give her money for the house, and you loaned her twenty grand out of your own pocket."

"And how did that turn out? Her husband stormed into the company, pointed at your face, and accused you of keeping another man's wife."

His face flushed red.

"Sara, that was just good intentions gone unrewarded."

"And besides, your dad really doesn't have a bad bone in his body."

I nodded.

I knew he didn't.

In my last life, right up until the millions of people online drove him to jump into the sea, he was still on the phone with me, trying to explain.

"Sara, sweetheart, your dad never touched her."

"I was just afraid she'd catch cold in the rain, so I gave her a ride. That's all."

I believed him.

But the public didn't.

Seeing that I wasn't saying anything, his tone softened.

"Dad's not blaming you."

"Your mom passed early, and I raised you on my own, playing both father and mother."

"I know you look out for me at the company, that you're afraid people will take advantage of me."

"But you can't go through life this cold. Always leave a little room."

"That girl was crying her heart out in the rain. Even if you weren't going to let her in the car, you could've at least said something kind."

I looked at that naive face of his and nodded.

"Fine."

"Then I'll be the cold one."

"My problem is only with her. Whatever happens, next time she cries, the farther you stay from her, the better."

He waved me off impatiently and turned to head upstairs.

"All right, all right. Don't talk about one intern like she's some kind of monster. Get some sleep."

Watching his back, I pulled out my phone at once and called Lawyer Matthews in the legal department.

Boris Matthews was an old friend of our family, and Henson Group's chief legal counsel.

I told him to dig deep into Wanda. After all, there's no love or hate in this world without a reason.

Outside the window, the wind and rain rattled on.

The pain from my last life came rushing back.

The frenzied fans shoved me down a flight of stairs, more than a dozen steps.

Countless feet stamped on my back, on my hands.

It hurt so much I couldn't even scream.

A girl held her phone right up to my bloodied face and filmed.

"Everyone, look. This is the rich man's daughter who covered for a rapist!"

"She's finally getting what she deserves!"

"Stomp her to death!"

I drew a deep breath and clenched my fists.

This time, we'll see who stomps whom.

The next two weeks, the company was strangely quiet.

Wanda went out of her way to avoid me.

In meetings she shrank into the corner, like a startled little bird.

Until one morning after the rain.

I'd just walked into my office, hadn't even had a sip of water.

The work chat suddenly blew up.

【Oh my God! Huge scandal on Mr. Henson!】

【Number one trending topic! Go look right now!】

【Someone's publicly accused the chairman of assaulting a female intern on a rainy night!】

My head buzzed, and I opened the link at once.

The familiar headline stabbed at my eyes.

《Creepy CEO Dragged Me Into His Car on a Rainy Night, and I Almost Never Made It Home》

The article was written to inflame, every word dripping with staged grief.

The photos left even more to the imagination.

Wanda's collarbone was mottled red and purple, two buttons on her blouse torn off, her hair plastered messily against her cheeks.

She wept prettily into the camera, a diagnosis of mild depression clutched in her hand.

"I'm just an intern, fresh out of school."

"I didn't dare fight back."

"He's the boss. One word from him and my whole life is ruined."

"I don't know what I did wrong. Is being pretty a sin?"

The comment section below had already gone completely insane.

【Animal! The old bastard should drop dead!】

【All rich men deserve to die. Drag him out and shoot him!】

【He has a daughter of his own. How could he do this to someone else's daughter! Dig up his daughter's social media too!】

【I heard his daughter was in the car that night. She's definitely an accomplice! A family of perverts!】

My palms went cold. Not from fear, from pure disgust.

I shoved my chair back and pushed open the door to the chairman's office.

03

Dirk Henson sat slumped behind his desk, his face white as paper.

I reached back, locked the door, and crossed to stand in front of him.

"You gave her the ride after all?"

His lips trembled. For a long moment nothing came out.

"Sara, I…"

"Tell me the truth!"

I slammed my hand flat on the desk.

He jolted, and his eyes went red at the rims.

"She was working late last night, standing down there all alone, and it was pouring outside."

"She said after you snapped at her last time, she was too scared to sleep for days, didn't dare bother me again."

"I saw her out there shivering in the cold, and I just felt bad."

"And it was hailing that night. There was no way to get a cab."

I stared him down.

"So behind my back, you let her get in your car?"

His head came up fast, both hands waving.

"I swear I really was only being kind and dropping her partway home!"

"After she got in, out of nowhere she confessed to me on the road, said she liked mature, steady men like me."

"I turned her down right then!"

"I pulled over to the side of the road, got out, and had a cigarette to let her cool off in the car."

"I didn't lay a finger on her!"

I was so furious I laughed, and the laugh made his skin crawl.

"Sara, you don't believe your own father?"

Right then something slammed hard against the office door from outside.

The security captain's voice came through, frantic.

"Mr. Henson! Miss Henson! The lobby downstairs is out of control!"

"Hundreds of livestreamers and reporters poured in out of nowhere and jammed the front doors solid!"

I drew in a slow breath.

Last life's hell had come after all.

Only this time, it was somebody else's turn to write the script.

The whole lobby was packed wall to wall.

Cameras of every size, phones on stands, all of it aimed at us in a dense thicket.

The flashes were so bright I could barely keep my eyes open.

Dead center of the lobby, Wanda Harding sat in a wheelchair, wrapped in a thick blanket.

Two big, thickset men flanked her on either side, playing the part of righteous protectors.

The moment Dirk stepped out, every lens whipped toward him.

"Mr. Henson, do you admit to abusing your position to assault an intern?"

"Ms. Henson, did you know your father had these sick tendencies?"

Dirk stood behind me, his whole body rigid, and whispered in my ear, "Sara, why don't we just bow our heads and pay her off first?"

"Whatever it costs, as long as it makes this go away."

As if she'd heard his whisper, Wanda lifted her head at exactly that moment.

She tugged down her mask, dabbing at her tears with a tissue, sobbing straight into the nearest lens.

"I don't want money."

"I'd rather starve than take a cent of your filthy money!"

"All I ask is that Mr. Henson resign in disgrace and step aside for someone worthy."

"A man with morals this rotten can't be left in charge of all those innocent women who work here."

One of the female livestreamers instantly thrust her mic higher and shouted into her phone.

"You hear that, everyone?"

"This is the ugly face of the rich and powerful!"

"A young girl fresh out of school, full of hope for her future, driven to this point, and they still try to insult her with money!"

A male streamer led the chant.

"Step down!"

"Lock him up!"

The whole room erupted.

Someone had linked one of the lobby's display screens to a livestream, and vicious comments scrolled up the full screen at high speed.

【Dirk Henson should kill himself to atone!】

【May the old bastard rot!】

【Protect Wanda, never back down!】

Dirk shrank back a step.

I heard the faint whimper come up out of his throat.

Last life, this was the exact moment he'd started to break.

Right then, a shrill, wailing cry cut through from the back of the crowd.

"Dirk Henson!"

The crowd split apart.

My stepmother, Rowena Galloway, came stumbling through.

The instant she reached the ring of cameras, she said nothing, just swung her arm back full force.

Crack!

The slap landed hard across Dirk's face.

The whole room went off like a bomb.

He clutched his cheek, frozen where he stood.

"Rowena, you're hitting me?"

She was crying so hard she could barely breathe.

"Hitting you is getting off easy!"

"How could you do something lower than an animal!"

"All these years married to you, I put up with every bit of your carousing out there, for the sake of this family!"

"But how old is she?"

"She's only two years older than Sara!"

"She's just a child. How could you bring yourself to touch her!"

Wanda played her part without a seam, throwing herself down at once to wrap her arms around Rowena's legs, crying even louder.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry."

"I shouldn't have blown this up, shouldn't have let you find out any of it."

"I've torn your family apart. It's my fault!"

Rowena crouched down, gathered Wanda into her arms, and stroked her hair, aching for her.

"Good girl, it isn't your fault."

"All the wrong is on that animal."

04

In my last life, Rowena hadn't shown herself this early.

She had bided her time, holding it all in, and only after my father threw himself into the sea did she step forward as the heartbroken, wronged wife to take over the entire company.

Back then I only thought his betrayal had broken her heart.

Now I could see it clearly.

She hadn't been heartbroken at all.

She had simply been waiting for the perfect moment to pull the net closed.

"Dirk Henson, right here in front of the whole internet, we're getting a divorce!"

"I'm taking custody of Sara!"

Dirk lifted the stack of papers with shaking hands, and when he made out the words on them, his face went slack with disbelief.

"You had all of this ready?"

Rowena wept as she spoke.

"You get yourself into a scandal, and now you're the one questioning my motives?"

"I'm saving the whole Henson family!"

"Your filth has already blown up across the entire internet. The stock hit its limit-down the second the market opened!"

"If you don't sign and cut yourself loose, you'll drag the whole group into the fire single-handedly!"

The livestreamer who'd led the jeering earlier zoomed his camera in at once and shouted his approval.

"Everybody, look at this—this is what real female strength looks like!"

"Mrs. Henson, putting justice over family, tearing that scumbag apart with her bare hands!"

Wanda lifted her head from Rowena's arms, her eyes brimming with tears.

"Ma'am, I'll say it again, I don't want any compensation."

"I only hope no other girl ever has to suffer the way I did."

Rowena forced a signing pen into Dirk's hand.

"Sign it!"

"If you're still any kind of man who stands to take a leak, then own your responsibility. Don't make Sara and me carry your shame and get talked about behind our backs too!"

Dirk looked at me.

There was a plea in that look, and despair, and a deep, deep shame.

"Sara, I can't let thousands of people in this group go down with me."

"Just let this be the last thing your father does for you."

A hundred cameras in the room all fixed on the pen in Dirk's hand.

They were all waiting.

Waiting for Dirk to sign his own name and hand over everything the Hensons had built.

I hauled my foot back and kicked out at the table.

"CRASH."

The table toppled over, and the stack of papers scattered into the air like snowflakes.

The room broke into gasps, and a few people even screamed in fright.

I brushed off my trouser leg and looked at Rowena and Wanda.

"Wonderful."

"Truly Oscar-caliber acting."

"The old saying really is true. The people who wrong you always understand better than anyone just how wronged you are."

Rowena's face changed on the spot, and she jabbed a finger at me, cursing.

"Sara, your father did something lower than an animal, and you're still defending him with no shame at all?"

Wanda instantly shrank back into Rowena's arms, trembling.

"Sara, I know you've always looked down on me."

"But I'm only stating a fact."

"No girl would ever throw away the innocence of her whole life to falsely accuse some old man."

As she said it, she yanked the scarf away from her collar.

From her neck down to her collarbone, Wanda's skin was covered in vicious scratch marks.

On the big livestream screen beside them, the comments flew faster and nastier than before.

【*God, this is too cruel.*】

【*This old creep is just a pervert.*】

【*This woman needs to get off the planet!*】

【*The capitalist's daughter is vicious, not a shred of empathy.*】

【*Don't be scared, Wanda, the whole country's got your back!*】

Right on cue, Wanda cried until she doubled over, her voice going hoarse.

"I haven't slept a full night in half a month."

"The second I close my eyes, I see him coming at me in the car like an animal."

"I'm so scared. I have depression now. I've even thought about dying."

"Please, everyone, help me."

At that, Dirk, who had swallowed all the abuse in silence, finally broke completely.

Tears burst from his eyes as he shouted into the crowd.

"I didn't!"

"I never touched her!"

Rowena cried right along with him, shaking her head hard.

"Dirk, it's come to this, the evidence is right here, and you still want to argue your way out?"

"How are Sara and I ever supposed to face anyone again?"

Listening to the flawless duet the two of them were performing, I suddenly felt that the me of my last life had been a complete fool.

A performance this seamless could never have been improvised on the spot.

I swept my eyes over the room.

"My father can't think straight the moment he sees a pretty young woman, so you decided I was just another idiot you could push around too?"

"What a shame. There's only one real kind of fool in this world."

"The kind who thinks they're clever, and takes everyone else for a fool."

I pulled a silver flash drive from my pocket and tossed it straight to the head of security behind me.

"Half a month ago I decided the company's security measures weren't good enough."

"So I had the legal department buy a batch of the highest-definition surveillance equipment. Hidden in-vehicle cameras included."

I watched Wanda's pupils contract in an instant at the shock, and I spoke slowly, one word at a time.

"How terribly inconvenient."

"My father's Maybach happens to be the very first test car fitted with 360-degree, no-blind-spot, twenty-four-hour surveillance."