2026-09-08 00:51:06
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25. The Game Flips
By the next morning, the entire campus had latched onto nothing else. Everyone wanted to know how it would end. Half the school seemed to be rooting for Rachel to say yes and go with Daniel, while the other half accused him of trying to sabotage her relationship purely out of bitterness and leftover jealousy. By noon, it had completely swallowed every other conversation on campus. Students were commenting under every post, tagging Rachel directly, demanding she finally give Daniel his answer.Daniel found himself almost grateful for the noise. As long as the entire school was fixated on his and Rachel's drama, no one had any room left in their heads to keep dissecting the rumor about him and Lily. For the first time in days, that particular fire had gone quiet on its own.Rachel, meanwhile, couldn't stop running the numbers in her head, not about the dance, but about Daniel himself.Objectively, he was everything a girlfriend could want. Handsome. Gentle, in the way he used to be with
24. Caught on camera
The entire café went dead silent. No one could quite believe Daniel actually had the nerve to ask Rachel out with Charlie sitting right there.Rachel's eyes went wide, a rush of happiness swelling in her chest too loud to smother. She had hoped for jealousy— maybe a few pointed glances, some petty comment thrown Charlie's way. She hadn't dared imagine he would ask her to the dance outright, in front of everyone, without thinking twice about the consequences.A few students looked delighted, practically vibrating with anticipation to see how this would unfold."No way, dude, did he seriously just ask her out?" Marcus said, twisting around in his seat for a better view."Look at Rachel's face," his girlfriend Ava murmured, clearly enjoying the show. "She looks like she just won something.""Damn. Daniel's got guts," Tyler said, impressed despite himself."Yeah, too bad it's about to get his ass kicked," Jordan added. "Charlie's not letting this slide. No way.""There is absolutely no wa
23. Playing with fire
Dance planning started without any problems. Daniel couldn't say for certain whether it was the fight with Michael that had done it, but no one dared give him trouble anymore.Even Charlie seemed like he had started walking on eggshells around him, like one wrong word might land him in the same hospital bed Michael had occupied.The school covered decorations and the core refreshments through its own budget, though students were free to chip in for extras — better wine, additional catering — if they wanted the night to feel less like a school function and more like the kind of party people would actually remember.After that strange almost-conversation with Rachel at his door, something in Daniel had settled into clarity. He knew now, with surprising certainty, where his feelings actually lived. Rachel, meanwhile, remained convinced of the opposite. She had expected him to come crawling back, to fight for her the way he once had — instead, he barely looked her way at all, hadn't spoke
22. Mixed up feelings
"He hurt Lily, Dad," Daniel repeated, quieter now. "I couldn't just stand there and do nothing." His voice dropped further. "I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to cause you trouble." He looked down at his hands, eyes stinging with tears he refused to let fall, his chest still tight with leftover fury."Robert, I think you should reconsider this arrangement." Gabriel's voice cut smoothly through the silence. "The boy clearly isn't ready for a responsibility this heavy. Give him a few more years in the business world first — it'll be easier for everyone once he actually understands what he's stepping into."Robert said nothing for a long moment, weighing it. Then he turned to Lily instead. "What do you think?"Still reeling from what she'd just heard Daniel say in front of his father, she blinked hard, struggling to string her thoughts together. "Sir? I — I think he can learn as he goes," she said, distracted."Robert, the two of us have spent years building this company." Gabriel pressed
21. Breaking point
"Hey, bitch!"Someone grabbed Daniel from behind, hard enough to force him to a stop."You deaf? Didn't you hear me?"He exhaled slowly and turned to face Michael. "What now, freshman?" He wasn't in the mood for this, not with his emotions still raw and unsteady from the call with Lily earlier that afternoon, not when he didn't trust himself not to do something he'd regret."What, you in a bad mood?" Michael's grin was all teeth. "You letting people get to you now? Don't do that." He leaned in, voice dropping into something meaner. "Just because you're somebody's bitch doesn't make you any less of a dog. Honestly, it just proves that's exactly what you are."Something in Daniel's head gave way, clean and total.It wasn't the first time someone had tried to bait him, Charlie had done it a hundred times over. But this hit somewhere different, somewhere raw and unguarded."If you know what's good for you," Daniel said, voice low and dripping venom, "back off." His eyes had gone red-rimme
20. Unraveling
The next morning, Daniel's phone wouldn't stop buzzing with notifications from the school blog. It had been going off since seven a.m. He didn't bother checking because he already knew exactly what it would be about.By noon, sitting in the cafeteria with a plate he hadn't touched, curiosity finally won out over dread. The headline hit him before anything else: “CRESTMONT'S UNCLAIMED DOG SLEEPS HIS WAY TO CAMPUS KING.”Beneath it sat a photo of him and Lily, taken the day she'd picked him up from the police station.The article claimed their relationship had started that very day, that they'd been sleeping together ever since, and the comment section had exploded into a feeding frenzy of speculation. Some insisted it had been going on even longer. Others painted Lily as some kind of predator, someone who trawled prisons and back alleys for younger men to use and discard, paying them off once she was finished.The angrier he got, the harder it was to stop reading. If the school blog ha
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