SWEET MISTAKES

For seven years, I used my inheritance to sponsor my college crush. I took Keegan Valdez, a brilliant but disgraced student working as a bartender, and turned him into a Silicon Valley billionaire. We lived together, and I was the fool who believed our transactional relationship was love.

Then his childhood sweetheart, Cora, came back.

The humiliation was public and swift. At a charity auction, he outbid me for a two-million-dollar necklace, fastening it around her neck for everyone to see. That same night, he rescued me after I was drugged and nearly assaulted, only to abandon me in a hotel room because Cora called with a fake emergency about a stuck shower door.

But the final nail in the coffin came after a car hit me. As I lay bleeding in the ER, the nurse called him for consent for my emergency surgery. I heard his voice on the phone, cold and irritated.

"I'm comforting my girlfriend," he said. "Whatever happens to her is not my concern."

The line went dead. The man I had built from nothing had just left me to die.

With a trembling hand, I signed the consent form myself. Then I made another call.

"Edwin," I whispered to the man who had proposed to me a year ago. "About that wedding... are you still interested?"

Chapter 1

The call came at 2 AM. A sterile, calm voice on the other end of the line told Haven Parks that her parents were gone. A drunk driver had run a red light. It was instant, the voice said, as if that was a comfort.

That single phone call turned her from a daughter into a tech heiress. The weight of Parks Industries, her father' s life's work, settled onto her shoulders. The grief was a vast, empty room inside her.

Two months later, she was trying to feel normal. Her friends dragged her to a bar downtown, a place with dark wood and sticky floors. And that' s where she saw him.

Keegan Valdez.

He was wiping down the counter, his back to her. But she knew that silhouette. She' d spent four years at MIT memorizing it from the back of lecture halls. He was the brilliant scholarship kid, the one who was going to change the world. The one she' d had a hopeless, silent crush on.

Then, one day, he was just gone. Expelled. Rumors flew, but the most persistent one was that he' d gotten into a brutal fight.

Now he was here, serving drinks, his movements tired.

"Keegan?" she said, her voice barely a whisper.

He turned. Recognition flickered in his eyes, followed by a shadow of something else. Shame.

"Haven Parks," he said, his voice flat.

Later, after the bar emptied out, he told her the story. It was about a girl, of course. His childhood sweetheart, Cora Short. Some guys had cornered her, and he' d stepped in. He didn't regret protecting her, but it had cost him everything. His scholarship, his future, his ticket out of the poverty he' d been born into.

Haven looked at the man who had once burned so brightly, now extinguished by circumstance. The old affection, buried for years, stirred within her. She had the money. He had the genius.

"I have a proposition for you," she said, her voice steady, betraying none of the turmoil inside her. "I' ll pay for you to finish your degree. Any school you want. After that, I' ll fund a startup. Whatever you want to build."

He stared at her, suspicious. "Why?"

"I' m a good investment," she said simply.

He needed a lifeline. She needed a purpose, something to fill the echoing silence her parents had left behind. And maybe, she thought, she just needed him.

He accepted. Their new relationship was a transaction. Her money for his time. Her financial support for his companionship. It quickly bled into something more. An unspoken physical connection that filled the nights but left the days feeling hollow. He never spoke of love, only of a debt he would one day repay.

Seven years flew by.

Keegan Valdez was no longer a bartender. He was a Silicon Valley billionaire, the founder of a tech giant that had, just as he' d promised, changed the world. He had repaid his debt a hundred times over, making Haven wealthier than she' d ever been. They lived together in a sprawling mansion overlooking the bay, a monument to his success.

But he was still repaying a debt. Just not to her.

Cora Short was back.

Suddenly, the tabloids were full of them. Keegan and Cora at exclusive restaurants. Keegan and Cora on a weekend trip to Napa. He lavished his time and money on her, a public spectacle of devotion. For Haven, he had only a cool, respectful distance.

He treated Haven like a business partner. He treated Cora like the sun.

The first real cut was at a charity auction for children's health. A simple diamond necklace was on the block. Haven didn't care about the jewelry, but she knew the cause was important to her late mother. She raised her paddle.

The price climbed. Soon, it was just her against one other bidder.

"One million," Haven said clearly.

A new voice cut through the room. "Two million."

It was Keegan. He was standing near the back, his arm around Cora, who was looking at the necklace with wide, wanting eyes. Haven froze, her paddle in her hand. Everyone turned to look at her, then at Keegan. They all knew who she was. They all knew she lived with him.

The auctioneer, smelling blood, looked at Haven. "Do I hear two and a half?"

Haven felt a hundred pairs of eyes on her. The humiliation was a physical heat rising up her neck. She slowly lowered her paddle.

Keegan won the necklace. He clasped it around Cora' s neck right there, in front of everyone, and kissed her forehead. He didn't even glance at Haven.

That night, Haven went home and called Edwin Rice. Her father's old business partner, a man who was stable, kind, and devoted to her in a quiet, unwavering way. He had proposed to her a year after her parents' death. She had politely declined then, her heart still caught on Keegan.

"Edwin," she said into the phone. "Is your offer still on the table?"

There was a pause, then his warm, steady voice. "For you, Haven? Always."

She hung up and walked into the master bedroom. It was a vast, cold space. She opened Keegan' s closet, the one filled with suits she' d picked out, ties she' d knotted for him. Methodically, she began to pack his things into boxes. His clothes, his books, the photos of them from the early years. It was a cleansing. A severing.

She needed to see him one last time, to tell him. She knew he would be at a tech gala that weekend. Her wedding was in a month. She had to end this now.

She found him on the terrace, Cora tucked under his arm. Cora was laughing, her head thrown back. Keegan was watching her with an expression of such unguarded tenderness it made Haven' s stomach clench.

"What a lovely couple," someone murmured nearby. "He looks at her like she' s the only woman in the world."

Keegan finally noticed her. His smile tightened. "Haven. What are you doing here?" The question was laced with surprise, as if her presence was an inconvenience.

"We need to talk," she said, her voice even.

"I' m a bit busy," he said, nodding towards Cora.