Chapter 2

• Over the next few days, the parents watched Stephanie helplessly as she cried and ranted in anger over what Stevie had done to her. They did not know what to do to help her out of her pain. They only wished they could make Stevie feel a fraction of the pain their daughter was going through but Stephanie refused to allow them do a single harm to Stevie especially when he had girlfriend that was heavily pregnant. So for the sake of the unborn child, they were not going to do anything to Stevie.
• That didn't sit well with Dr Harvey stones who was used to taking care of anyone who dared hurt Stephanie.
• He had been doing it since she was a young girl that had started dating. He had taken care of John Philip and Liam Smith, hadn't he?
• John Philip had asked Stephanie out when they were teenagers. She herself had been crushing on the football quarterback player since she was in middle school but didn't tell him even though her parents had urged her to when she told them she had a crush on someone in school.
• It was a surprise to him and her mother when John had asked Stephanje out in a dramatic moment in school. Yes, Stephanie was bloody rich but she had never experienced great friendship from anyone else. He, as her father having observed this was at a loss as to why that was so. He had once even secretly paid some girls to try and become friends with his only child because he did not like for real the status of her social life.
• But that had backfired on him. Stephanie had discovered what he had done and had ranted about it angrily for days. She had withdrawn into her shell totally.
• So when she had come back home then with excitement in her green eyes that looked so much like her mother and told them how one of the most popular boys in school had declared love for her and had asked her to be his girlfriend, he and his wife had feel so relieved and happy for her.
• They had dated for one full year. It was her mother that told him when she finally have had sex for the first time in her life and It was John that was prized that Gift.
• It was a surprise coming back from work one evening and seeing a shattered Stephanie on the floor with her mother standing beside her, consoling her.
• It was the anger in Patricia's eyes that had made him had a hint as to what was going on.
• John telling Stephanie that he liked her...taking her through this whirlpool of emotions and sleeping with her was all because of a bet. Stephanie had found out from a jealous observer. Shocked, she had quickly gone to John to confirm it. But since John had already gotten what he wanted and had no need for her further, he had sneered at her and left her without saying anything. So it was in his actions that Stephanie confirmed the horrible truth: that some mean boys had during a conversation made a bet to see if John who had proclaimed himself as the premium women target could win the heart of Stephanie who they had nicknamed the Icy Princess. They had bet two thousand dollars if he could do that and as well sleep with her. John had proven up to the task. They would have gotten away with it nice and clean if one of the boys had not gone too drunk one party night and had revealed to his girlfriend what had really happened concerning the fact that Stephanie and John we're dating. The girlfriend had of course gossipped the news to her girls squad. It was one of the girls in the squad who had turned out to be the jealous observer. She who had been eyeing John for months had with spiteful glee watched Stephanie shatter after telling her the real fact behind her relationship with John.
• The fury that Dr Harvey had felt when he heard everything was indescribable. He was furious and at the same felt pity for his child who's heart had been broken so terribly at such a young age. He was angry that those idiotic boys had dared to bet on the heart and pride of his only child, playing with her feelings and body as if she was nothing but a cheap toy. They dared to make mockery of his only child and for that they were going to pay.
• They all did. The boys families lost their means of livelihood one after the other in very ridiculous manner in the next six months. And John Philips? It was made sure that none of the universities he had applied to be given football scholarship to study had granted him admission. Frustrated, John had turned to meagre jobs to sustain himself and his family who had grown poor.
• Still, Dr Harvey felt that he was not even suffering enough for all he had made his daughter to go through in High School.
• The second guy Stephanie had dated was as worse. In fact even though Liam Smity was a well skilled certified doctor, he was nothing but a thief. Stephanie and Liam Smith had met each other when Liam had come to the house on a work visit when a particular intense medical project was on going. Being a charmer, he had it easy making Stephanie like him and found more excuses to be frequently visiting the house until they started to officially date. Dr Harvey and his wife had been so pleased that they were going to have someone in the family who was going to continue from where he stopped in the achievements he had made in the medical world. He was well pleased with Liam Smith as a doctor and also as a man who was making his only child so happy. It was no wonder therefore that Liam did not come into suspicion when thousand of dollars began to miss from the bursary of the pharmaceutical company that Dr Harvey owned. In fact, he seemed like the innocent one not until Dr Harvey had acquired the services of a discreet private investigator who had found out that the thief was actually the person they trust most.
• It had pained Dr Harvey more than it had angered him but it was nothing compared to the way it had shattered Stephanie. It had hurt him to watch his daughter heart being broken again this way by idiots.
• He could not arrest him because that would have drag his daughter name into the tabloid. That was not something Dr Harvey could risk so he had waited for the perfect time to pay Liam Smith for what he had done to him and his family especially his daughter.
• It was until six months later that Liam Smith was implicated in a error in the theatre room. That caused his medical licence to be withdrawn. For a doctor to no longer be able to practise medicine was the worst torture ever. It was like cutting the hands of a construction worker. It was the perfect revenge.
• And now it was Stevie, the next bastard to have hurt his only child. It pained him to his bones that he was unable to take care of him the way he had done the others. It pained him that his hands were tied here as demanded by Stephanie. It would have been so easy to bring down the fool. Stevie with his sly smiles and charming attitude would have a lot of skeleton in his cupboard.
• He would have had his revenge on Stevie despite his daughter instructions but his fear was that if Stephanie found out, it would drive further the wedge that was beginning to build between them. The tension which come once in a while between them was a result of Stephanie need to not use his own riches to make road smoother for her. That was a need that Dr Harvey would never understand no matter how he tried to.
• He never had these opportunities when he was kid. He envied those who did. So it would always be a puzzle to him when the person he sweat all this for insists on never making use of the opportunities.
• As he exited the entrance double doors of the company and walked into the parking lot where his limousine and his chaffeur was waiting for him, he thought how ironic it was that even the rich who seemed to have it all still feel like the poor, sometimes even much more.
• He had grown up in abject poverty and was denied of luxury. He had sworn to give that luxury to the family he would create in the future and not to allow them feel the pain he had felt as a boy whose family had lived from hand to mouth but now it seems that he would not be able to shield them from the pain that mattered most — the pain of the heart.