Five Million Dollars To Erase You

The year I turned eight, my parents were killed in a car crash, and seventeen-year-old Channing took me in and raised me with everything he had for ten full years.

But from the moment I confessed my feelings to him at eighteen, the look in his eyes held nothing but undisguised disgust.

To make me give up once and for all, he brought home his socialite bride, Brenda, and handed her my unpublished paintings.

Overnight, I became a shameless plagiarist, condemned by the entire internet.

When I called him through tears, demanding to know why he had stolen my artwork, his voice was ice-cold.

"Brenda needs a weighty centerpiece for her show. She's my wife - you owe her your help."

At last I understood completely: to preserve his own name and standing, he was willing to destroy my future.

On the morning of his wedding, I left a five-million-dollar check on the table and boarded a flight to London.

Channing - from this day on, we owe each other nothing.

Chapter 1

Amelia's POV

On the morning Channing announced his wedding date to the media, I booked a one-way ticket to London.

Ten years of raising me, four years of my desperate confessions - and in the end, what I got was him personally handing my private sketch collection to his fiancée, so she could win the "Artist of the Year" award on the fruits of my labor.

Aunt Caroline's voice came through the receiver, clear even across the Atlantic:

"The guest room is ready for you, Amelia."

"I signed the lease termination for my studio today," I said, looking around my studio at the estate, half of it already in boxes. "The visa came through this morning, too."

"Good," Caroline said softly. "It's time you came back to your real family. But before you board, you should set things straight with Channing. He did take good care of you after your parents died."

"I know," I said. "I'm leaving him five million dollars. Every cent he's spent on me over the years, I'm paying back in full."

Hanging up, I walked over to the mantelpiece.

In the corner sat a picture frame, coated with a thin layer of dust.

In the photo, a little girl of eight sat on a wooden swing, head tipped back, laughing without a care in the world.

Behind her stood an eighteen-year-old boy in a crisp white shirt, steadying the swing ropes, looking down at her with undisguised doting and protectiveness.

That summer, my parents were killed instantly in a head-on collision on Interstate 95.

My father had been Channing's mentor in business - he had funded his first venture and treated him like a younger brother.

The crash left me an orphan. My relatives fought viciously over the enormous life-insurance payout, but not one of them was willing to take in an eight-year-old child suffering severe psychological trauma.

Channing appeared at the custody hearing in a black suit and resolutely signed the guardianship papers, taking me back to his estate.

For ten years, he gave me everything he had.

He never missed a single parent-teacher conference. He learned to braid my hair from online tutorials. Whenever I ran a fever, he would abandon a board meeting halfway through and fly halfway across the country to be at my side.

He gave me the largest bedroom on the second floor, filled the walk-in closet with dresses made to my measurements, and even built me a professional art studio overlooking the garden.

And I watched him transform, step by step, into the most powerful business magnate in the city.

At some point between my sixteenth and eighteenth birthdays, my gratitude curdled into something else - a wild, blazing love that nearly consumed me.

On the night of my eighteenth birthday, Channing threw me a grand coming-of-age dinner.

He drank too much champagne with his business partners and finally lay down alone on the sofa in his private study.

I walked in, knelt beside him, and kissed his lips.

The moment he opened his eyes, I met his deep, dark gaze and told him how I felt.

His response was swift and merciless.

He shoved me away and sprang to his feet, his eyes full of undisguised disgust.

"You are my late mentor's daughter," he said, his voice cold enough to freeze the air. "I raised you with my own hands. This isn't love - it's a sick, repulsive misplacement of feeling."

"There's no blood between us!" I wept openly in front of him, arguing back through tears. "You're only ten years older than me. Channing, I truly love you."

"Don't ever let me hear those words again," he cut me off coldly. "You're just a child. Take one more step over the line and I'll send you to a boarding school on the other side of the country."

But I couldn't control my love.

On Valentine's Day when I was nineteen, I gave him a portrait I had painted myself as a confession. He tossed it straight into the fireplace and let it burn to ash.

At twenty, when I won my first regional art competition and begged him for a chance, he slammed the door and stayed away for three nights straight.

Six months ago, he brought Brenda Rodriguez home.

Brenda came from an old, distinguished family - a socialite of some renown in the scene, and an up-and-coming painter brimming with artistic ambition.

Channing introduced her as his girlfriend, held her hand in front of me, kissed her cheek at the dinner table.

"It's about time Amelia saw what a normal adult relationship looks like," Channing said to the housekeeper that night, knowing full well I was standing around the corner. "She needs to wake up from her childish fantasies."

That very night, something inside me finally broke.

I took out my phone, opened my messaging app, and sent a text to my aunt across the ocean in London:

"Aunt Caroline, can I come live with you?"

Now, looking down at the dust-covered swing photo in my hands, I felt not the slightest stir of emotion - only a hollow, deathly stillness.

I laid the frame face-down on the table, picked up my coat, and walked straight down the grand staircase.