Chapter 1

The moment I told Jake Reynolds we were over, he didn't believe me.

It started with something small, something that shouldn' t have mattered. His ex-girlfriend, Brittany Davis, was at his penthouse. Jake called me and asked me to come over and cook for them. I said no. I was with my mom at the hospital.

That was my mistake.

Three days later, I got a call from the hospital. My mother' s health insurance had been canceled. The policy was under Jake's company plan, a generous gift he had given us when my mom was first diagnosed with terminal cancer. Without it, she couldn' t get the expensive medication that was keeping her pain manageable.

I begged him. I called him over and over, my voice cracking as I left desperate voicemails. I told him he could have anything he wanted, I would do anything, just please, please turn it back on.

He never answered. He didn't even read my texts. My calls went straight to voicemail after the tenth try. He had blocked my number.

My mother died two weeks later. She spent her last days in agony, the pain so intense she could barely speak. The hospital did what they could, but without the proper insurance, the best treatments were out of reach. I held her hand as she took her last breath, her body frail and broken.

The day after the funeral, I saw a picture of him on social media. He and Brittany were on a yacht in the Caribbean, his arm wrapped around her, both of them smiling into the sun. The caption read, "An escape with my one and only."

I waited until he got back. I went to his penthouse, the place I had called home for five years. He was surprised to see me, a faint smile on his lips as if he expected me to apologize.

"We're done, Jake," I said, my voice flat and empty.

He laughed, a short, arrogant sound. "Chloe, don't be dramatic. I was just teaching you a lesson. You can't just say no to me."

"You killed my mother," I said. It wasn't an accusation. It was a fact. There was no emotion in my voice. I had cried all my tears.

He knew. He knew exactly what he was doing when he cut her off. He knew she was terminal, that the insurance was the only thing keeping her alive and comfortable.

He did it because I wouldn' t cook a meal for his ex-girlfriend.

A life for a dinner. In his world, that was a fair trade.