Billion Dollar Choice

A blinding barrage of floating text exploded in mid-air, blocking my hand from the doorknob.

[Whatever you do, don't open that door! Your fianc is going to fall in love with the girl outside at first sight, force you to break off the engagement, and drive you out of the country!]

[She's going to drop out of school just to be his breeding machine!]

I froze.

My blood turned to ice.

Through the crack in the door, Nora, the underprivileged student I sponsored, was shivering in the biting wind. She was wearing an ill-fitting, worn-out hoodie and faded, ripped jeans, struggling under the weight of a heavy sack of homegrown organic grains.

Chapter 1

I stared at Nora in her faded jeans. The floating text claimed she was the sweet, innocent female lead of this romance novel world.

And Sebastian, the guy currently popping champagne in my living room? The male lead.

We were childhood sweethearts, engaged to be marriedthe ultimate power couple in everyone's eyes. But that was all about to change the second Nora stepped into the picture.

The comments kept overlapping in a chaotic frenzy:

[The male lead looks down on her at first, but then he gets curious. He gets completely obsessed and even cancels his engagement with the heiress just for her.]

Honestly, I couldn't care less about my engagement to Sebastian. It was a sterile business merger. If Sebastian walked out, there would just be another trust fund baby in a tailored suit waiting to take his place.

[The female lead becomes his submissive little trophy wife. She drops out of college to marry him, pops out two kids in three years but her married life is where her real nightmare begins]

The moment my eyes caught the words "drops out of college," my brain short-circuited. I didn't even read the rest.

I frowned, my voice slicing through the cold air. "Nora, are you throwing away your college degree? Giving up on your Ivy League grad school plans? Are my money and your talent just going down the drain?"

Nora blinked, freezing in place.

The barrage of comments went dead silent for a solid three seconds.

[The heiress's triple-threat interrogation sounds exactly like my mom]

[Different font, same mother.]

I met Nora during a volunteer teaching program. At seventeen, she was so malnourished she looked like a stiff breeze could snap her in half. The first time I saw her, she was hiding by the back door of the classroom in oversized clothes, peeking inside. When I caught her, she timidly asked me to explain the poem I had just taught.

I had more money than I knew what to do with, but I refused to waste a single dime on someone who would give up on themselves.

Nora finally processed my words, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the hem of her sleeves. "I am! I mean, I'm on winter break. I brought you some freshly harvested buckwheat noodles."

"They're organic, all-natural I wanted to give you some." She swallowed hard. "I'm still going to school. Please don't be mad at me."

Remembering the girl who used to read under a flickering kerosene lamp just to learn, the tension in my shoulders dropped.

"Come in."

Nora hoisted the heavy sack of buckwheat back onto her thin shoulders and tentatively stepped inside.

[Oh no, oh no. The male and female leads are about to meet anyway.]

Hearing the commotion, Sebastian sauntered over. He raised a condescending eyebrow, scanning her with a look reserved for actual trash. "Maeve, what dumpster did you drag this hillbilly out of?"

The footsteps behind me stopped dead. Nora stood paralyzed in the entryway, her fingers twisting the hem of her hoodie into a knot.

[Called it. He absolutely despises her at first sight.]

[Oh, he's gonna be eating those words so hard later.]

I didn't even glance at the floating text. I grabbed the Herms throw pillow from the sofa and hurled it squarely into his face.

"Shut your mouth. I protect what's mine, and you don't get to stand here barking like a rabid dog. Nora, come here."

The girl didn't move. She carefully lowered the sack, placing it neatly by the door, and gave me a timid, apologetic smile.

"Maeve, my shoes are dirty. I shouldn't go in. I'll just leave this here and go home to study."

Sebastian let out a mocking snort. "People still give out organic farm scraps as gifts?"

My face hardened. "Get over here. I won't say it again."

Nora had an eight-person family crammed into a single room back home. They couldn't even afford two lightbulbs. Every cent they scraped from farming went straight to her younger brother's tuition.

Whenever she went home for breaks, she was forced to wait on their little 'golden boy' hand and foot. There was zero chance she'd get any studying done in that hellhole.

"Sit down right here. I'm going to watch you study."

Then I turned and pointed a sharp finger at Sebastian's disgusted face. "And you. Get your ass over here and tutor her!"

Chapter 2

I threw a fat stack of cash at Nora's family and immediately filed her transfer paperwork. The education in her rural backwater was an absolute joke, and her parents were literally planning to marry her off the second she finished middle school.

Hell no. A girl sponsored by me wasn't just going to finish high school and collegeshe was going straight to the Ivy League.

Nora's academic foundation was shaky at best. Every time she gathered the courage to ask a question, Sebastian would mercilessly mock her.

The floating text claimed the rich boy despised her at first, but would slowly be moved by her resilience, eventually sneaking around behind my back to tutor her.

I blinked.

Sneaking around? Why?

If he was going to tutor her eventually, why not squeeze the free labor out of him right now? High school was a ticking clock. Nobody had the time to sit around and wait for their slow-burn romance to naturally develop!

Sebastian sat on my velvet sofa, staring blankly at the wall like his brain had just blue-screened. "Who am I? Where am I? And why am I teaching basic math to a hillbilly?"

I flashed him a plastic smile. "You are the brilliant, philanthropic heir to your family's empire, burdened with the noble mission of uplifting the less fortunate."

Sebastian's face contorted as if he'd swallowed a lemon.

I slammed a car key onto the solid marble coffee table with a sharp clink. "My brother just picked up the limited-edition Aston Martin. You get her AP Physics coursework sorted out, and the car is yours for the weekend."

Sebastian's eyes instantly lit up. "Deal!"

I had my butler tie the key to a silk ribbon and hang it right on the massive Christmas tree in the center of the living room. It dangled perfectly in Sebastian's line of sight, a shiny piece of bait every time he looked up.

Nora's voice was as thin as a mosquito's. She was intimidated, but she wasn't stupid. She knew this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Sebastian might be an arrogant prick, but he still pulled a near-perfect 1580 on his SATs last year. Having him as a private tutor was lightyears better than the checked-out teachers back in her hometown.

After a while, Sebastians patience snapped. He drummed his fingers aggressively on the table. "Are you just going to copy notes blindly? Did you actually understand a single word I just said?"

Noras grip on her pen tightened, her knuckles turning white before she forced her hand to relax. "I I'll review it when I get home"

It hit me that she was treating this like a one-time deal. Her pen flew across the paper, frantically scribbling down every single question shed ever had to decode his fast-paced explanations later. Sebastian was flying through the material, and she was too scared to tell him to slow down.

A heavy silence fell over the room. Sebastian shifted awkwardly in his seat, his expression stiffening as if realizing hed pushed too far, though he kept his mouth tightly shut.

He cleared his throat. "Whatever. That's enough for now."

I shifted my gaze from the financial portfolios glowing on my laptop screen. "Nora, I'm enrolling you in the boarding program at your new prep school. From now on, you're coming here every weekend for tutoring."

Free labor was free labor.

The gravitational pull of the plot was no joke. Even though Sebastian constantly complained about playing tutor, his gaze lingered on Nora a fraction of a second longer each time.

But AP classes were brutal, and Sebastian was just a college kid, not a certified educator. After a few weeks of summer sessions, I fired him and hired Nora a team of professional tutors.

For the next few days, every time Sebastian saw me, his jaw would clench. He'd open his mouth, hesitate, and shut it again.

Thanks to the floating text, I finally figured it out. Sebastian actually thought I was jealous. He thought I was deliberately separating them to protect my territory.

I stared blankly at the ceiling.

[The heiress is so pathetic. Her fianc is about to jump ship, and he's leaving her for the charity case she sponsored!]

[Poor Maeve. Over a decade of childhood memories and history, just thrown in the trash. How is she going to survive this?]

I was literally slicing through the ribbons of a mountain of birthday presents when those comments popped up.

My parents had built a billion-dollar empire, which meant I grew up mingling with the heirs of every major conglomerate on the East Coast. Childhood sweethearts? I casually scanned the room. The luxury gift boxes from the tech billionaire's son, the shipping magnate's heir, and the real estate prince were stacked so high they practically touched the ceiling.

Having a childhood sweetheart wasn't a flex. I had a whole roster of them.

Chapter 3

Sebastian's special status came solely from the ironclad engagement we entered into as kids. It wasn't just about us; it was a merger of two billion-dollar dynasties. He usually acted like a careless playboy, but I always assumed he had a baseline of common sense when it came to the family empire. Even if he wanted out of the engagement, there were a hundred PR-friendly ways to handle it cleanly.

I still couldn't fathom what the hell they ended up doing in this timeline to push me to the absolute breaking point.

[Here we go, here we go, here we go! The first major plot twist is here!]

The floating barrage announced the impending drama: beach volleyball. According to the text, this would be the exact moment Sebastian publicly defended Nora for the very first time, completely trashing my reputation in the process.

Our prep school organized a massive bonfire party at a private beach two hours outside the city. Sebastian, our entire social circle, and I were all going. Since the mansion staff had the weekend off, I dragged Nora along with us