especial

Therese Hontiveros Navarro

I spent years building something out of nothing.

I was sixteen when I made my first real investment. It wasn’t much, just a few thousand pesos scraped together from tutoring, selling notes, and running errands for neighbors. But it was mine.

I researched everything I could about stocks, business, and how money worked. I memorized market trends, studied successful entrepreneurs, and made my first trade with shaking hands.

And then I did it again. And again. And again.

By the time I was eighteen, I had turned a small sum into something tangible. I wasn’t rich, not yet, but I was on my way.

College wasn’t just about studying—it was about networking, finding the right people, making connections. I barely slept, always moving, always planning, always looking for the next step. I built my first company from the ground up before I even graduated.

A tech startup, small but promising. People doubted me, of course. I was young, inexperienced, a woman in a male-dominated industry.

But I thrived under pressure. Every doubt, every sneer, every dismissive remark only fueled me to push harder, prove them wrong.

And I did.

The company took off. Investors came in, partnerships were made, and suddenly, I wasn’t just a struggling entrepreneur—I was a rising star. My name started appearing in business magazines. “Youngest CEO to Watch.” “The Future of Innovation.” “Navarro Industries: From a School Project to a Multi-Million Empire.”

Success should have felt like everything I had dreamed of.

But it didn’t.

At first, I ignored it—the exhaustion creeping into my bones, the constant meetings, the pressure that never eased.

I ignored the way I never had time for anything outside of work, how every relationship in my life suffered, how I lost people before I even realized they were slipping away.

I told myself I didn’t have time to stop, to breathe, to rest. I convinced myself that this was what I wanted, that I was happy, that I was winning.

Until I wasn’t.

It happened slowly. My company, my empire, the thing I had given everything to—it started to crack. I made mistakes. Not big ones, not at first.

A missed deadline here, a poor decision there. But mistakes pile up, and the weight of them becomes unbearable. Investors lost confidence.

Employees whispered about the CEO who was slipping, who wasn’t the genius they thought she was. The pressure grew heavier, suffocating.

I was tired. Tired of the meetings, the constant battle to stay on top, the way my life revolved around something that felt less and less like mine.

So I left.

I walked away from everything. From the empire I built, from the life I had fought so hard for. I handed over the company to Loren, someone I trusted to keep it afloat.

Without a word, without an explanation, I packed my bags, changed my name, and enrolled in a university as a student teacher.

Some people might call it running away.

Maybe it was.

But for the first time in years, I could breathe. No boardrooms, no investors, no headlines analyzing my every move. Just books, students, and a quiet life where no one knew who I was.

I thought I was free.

And then, one day, I met her—a tenth-grade student with sharp eyes and a curious mind. She didn’t know who I was. She didn’t care about my past. To her, I was just a

nother teacher, another face in the crowd.

And maybe, just maybe, that was exactly what I needed to be.

But even that wasn’t meant to last.

Alice was different. Too different. And I let myself get too close. I saw something in her that I wasn’t supposed to see—something that made me hesitate, made me want to stay.

And that was dangerous. I couldn’t ruin her future, couldn’t drag her into the mess of who I used to be.

So I left again.

I went back. Back to the company, back to the chaos I once swore I would never return to. Because if I stayed, I would only end up hurting her. And I couldn’t do that. Not to Alice.

And yet, fate had other plans.

One morning, I lifted my head and saw her standing there.

Alice. Applying for a job at my company.

Leni, my friend, my confidante—she had been the one to bring her in. I don’t know what she was thinking, why she thought this was a good idea. Maybe she didn’t know the history between us. Maybe she did.

But there she was. Alice, standing in front of me, as if all the years in between had never happened.

And when Loren almost caught us making out in my office? That wasn’t part of my plan. I thought I could keep my distance, that I could pretend I was over her. That I could act like she was just another part of my past.

But no.

The second she touched me, the second I felt her lips on mine again, every wall I built over the years crumbled. I gave in.

And the bet? I didn’t even know about it until the office told me. By then, it was too late. People in the office were already talking, already whispering about us. About how we must be together. About how obvious it was.

And then came the beach camping. The perfect setup. The perfect moment. The perfect time for her to tell me to stop running. To settle down.

For years, I built a life out of nothing. Success, power, control—things I thought would keep me safe.

But Alice Guo was never part of the plan.

And yet, standing there, staring at the one person who had ever made me feel like I could have something more, I realized something terrifying.

I didn’t want everything.

I just wanted her.

But now that she was here, in my world, I wasn’t sure if she would stay.

Because the thing about Alice Guo? She wasn’t just my student anymore.

She was my biggest risk.