Enthralled by a Billionaire by Lexi Jordan Page A

told you already. My father's a
farmer. I'm independently wealthy." With the million dollars Dylan
had given her, this statement was true enough. Plus, she didn't
like the way this girl looked at her. Her eyes glimmered with
judgment.
    "Independently wealth, huh? Well, good
to know."
    Mr. Forrester came back to class
wearing a campus T-shirt that looked completely out of place on
him. He gave a speech about how art was about revealing one's soul
and good art was about revealing those parts we’re ashamed of. "For
your first assignment, I want you to paint anything you want, in
any style you want. But what you choose should tell me and everyone
else in the room about who you are."
    Emma stared at the blank canvas in
front of her. She looked around the room and everyone was hard at
work. Most of the paintings were dark, gloomy, troubling. Emma
figured she should paint something dark too. That she should blend
in and hopefully everyone would soon forget she wasn't there
because of her merit and had doused a legend in sugary
coffee.
    But she couldn't bring herself to do
it. She couldn't paint anything light either. All she could think
about was how everyone else in that room had fought and earned
their right to be there and hers was just handed to her. Not
because of who she was, but because of who she was sleeping with.
Time ticked by and Emma just sat in the back of the room staring at
her blank canvas. Two and a half hours had passed and class was
almost over.
    Mr. Forrester walked around and
examined people's paintings. For some paintings he just nodded,
other paintings he offered suggestions, and others he asked
questions. When he reached Goth Girl, he asked, “And what did you
create today Ms. Silvetti.”
    Goth Girl growled. “I asked you to
call me Violet. I’m my own realized person, not the property of my
parents.”
    “Forgive me, Violet.” He took in her
painting of a cloudy, starless night and a little girl with dead
eyes holding a bloody knife and asked, "Is this really the part of
yourself you hide from the world, or the part of yourself you use
to disguise the parts you hide?" Violet opened her mouth to answer,
but he held up a hand and said, "No, just think about
it.”
    When he reached Emma, he cocked his
head to the side, "Did you not understand the assignment, Ms.
Cobb?"
    "No. I understood. The more I thought
about it, the more I realized there was nothing I could paint. I'm
just starting out. I'm not sure who I am yet, a prude or a perv,
brilliant or ordinary, a princess or a peasant. So I can't tell you
what I'm made of because I don't know myself."
    "Very interesting, Ms.
Cobb."
    Violet rolled her eyes. "Oh yeah,
you're so deep. I bet you're a cutter." Violet raised her voice an
octave higher. "I'm so lost and confused." She batted her eyes. "I
don't know who I am. My rich daddy hasn't told me who I'm to marry
yet."
    While most of the class laughed, Mr.
Forrester was not impressed. "Ms. Silvetti, please leave my
classroom, and don't come back until you've learned how to treat
your classmates with respect."
    Violet snatched up her bag and stomped
from the room with a huff, slamming the door behind her. The rest
of the class quieted down and straightened in their seats. Mr.
Forrester assigned some reading and dismissed the class.
    Emma couldn't have imagined her day
coming to a more tragic start. She didn't want to go to the rest of
her classes. All she really wanted to do was curl up next to Dylan
and forget about this whole college thing. Was that who she was?
No. She resolved herself to do better the rest of the day, she
wouldn’t lay her hands on another spillable drink except at lunch
time and she'd do her best to seem competent, not whiney or
spoiled, in the rest of her classes. A task made much easier with
the loss of Violet. There would be no one standing there and
mocking her anymore.
    Dylan had been working a lot lately.
She knew he wouldn't be there when she got home, and all she wanted
was