Laura "What? How come? What is he doing here?” I asked the receptionist, completely confused. She had just told me that Jason was there at W.J., asking to see me. “I don’t know, ma’am. I think you'd better go there and talk to him,” replied the receptionist. I sighed, blinking my eyes quickly,
LauraGideon was calling for me a few meters away. There were a lot of people coming and going in the building's entrance hall, so I decided to pretend I wasn't hearing him calling me and just walked around, hoping to reach my car as quickly as possible. What Albert said to me earlier played in my h
I kept thinking about how I was really willing to leave everything behind and go back to a new relationship with Jason, but even though the feeling of love I always had for him was still there, continuing with Jason was pulling me back to the bottom of the well, bringing out the worst in me. The sus
LauraWhen I kissed him, Gideon laughed, somewhat surprised by my sudden action. “God in heaven, I love it when you surprise me like that,” he said with his hand on my face, still filling my lips with kisses. “Do you really like it?” I asked a little slyly, with my hands clasped around his neck. “
Laura“Are you going to just stand there and say nothing, Laura?” Jason demanded to know, still giving Gideon and me a deadly glare. “I hope you're having so much fun that you stop taking care of your daughter for vain adventures,” he accused again. I felt Gideon's hand stiff in mine, and he took a
Laura Suzy and I were finishing making dinner, she was cleaning the dishes and I was finishing preparing the salad while the lasagna was almost ready. In the open kitchen where we were, we could see Jason and Gideon sitting on the sofa while talking quietly while Annie jumped in front of the TV, fo
Laura“Dinner was good; I enjoyed the company of your friend, your daughter, and yours,” Gideon said with a smile. We were in the parking lot of my building, and he was saying goodbye so he could leave. “Why does he keep looking at us?” he asked, pointing behind me with his chin. I looked behind me
“Yes, he may be all that, but you know your heart is weak for guys like Will Herondale, intense guys like me. That's why you fell in love with me and married me,” he reminded me. Jason and I had talked once about the characters in one of the fantasy books I liked, and he ended up saying that I was a
“Why do you keep hanging out with them, Abby?” he asked, and now there was a note of concern that annoyed me even more. “You know Madison’s not good for you. She uses you, and you let her.” “It’s none of your business,” I shot back, my voice sharp. “I do what I want, Caleb. Bye.” I hung up before h
Abby POV It was a lazy Sunday, and I was at the mall’s food court, waiting at the counter to pick up snacks for myself and the “new friends” I’d managed to latch onto. The smell of grease and cheap coffee filled the air, and the hum of conversations mixed with the muffled pop music from the speaker
Caleb, Abby, Madison, Nadia—they all spun through my head like a broken carousel. I wanted to tell my parents everything, collapse and ask for help, but the thought of seeing disappointment in their eyes—or worse, them trying to intervene at Oxwell to “save” me—made me swallow the words. I had to fi
Annie POV It was the weekend, and I was at home, trying to take deep breaths and pretend everything was okay. The Oxwell campus was a few hours away, giving me temporary relief from the chaos my life had become. Here, with my parents and the twins, I could at least try to be the old Annie—the exc
Max POV Walking beside someone who’d once meant so much to me felt strange. I couldn’t stop thinking that our breakup had been a waste, couldn’t stop remembering how happy I’d been with this guy, only to ruin it all because of my ego, because of a toxic fixation I had on Albert. Conrad Adams walke
Max POV was stunned when Albert told me that, my mouth even went dry because I wasn’t expecting to hear it. Conrad Adams was back. He was my boyfriend in my early twenties. I met him through Albert, who was close friends with him during the dark days of his family’s company. Conrad was a good guy
Max POV I was driving through the city with the radio on low, just a background murmur to keep the silence from swallowing me whole, when my phone buzzed on the dashboard. Zoey. Of course it was her. The girl had already wormed her way into my house like a high-heeled parasite, and now, apparently,
Annie POV After the moment at the mall, I returned to the dorm with a tight chest, carrying the bags with the blue dress Summer had insisted I buy. The plan was to distract myself, but Madison’s words—“racist,” “canceled piece of trash”—spun in my head like a broken record, mingling with Nadia’s re
When I met her last week at a council meeting, I could tell she’d be a challenge—confident, charismatic, the type who knew how to play the game. “Ugh, Madison Goodwin is here too. What a rotten day,” I grumbled, rolling my eyes. Of course Abby would get close to Madison—she was her adopted cousin.