Laura “Are you telling me Lindsay and Gideon are divorced?” Ava was surprised when she asked that. She and I were in the living room of a massage parlor, wearing lilac terrycloth robes and drinking sparkling wine. As agreed, after I got off work, Ava and I went to the spa. So she and I were spellin
Laura “So, Lau. Did you manage to speak to your daughter?” Ava asked when I came back to them after leaving for a while to go call Annie on the balcony of the luxury massage parlor we were at. “Oh, yes. Yes, I did,” I replied with a relieved sigh as I sat back down. “She's just busy with an algebr
Anne I had just spoken to my mom on the phone, and she had asked me if I was really okay. I had clearly responded to her that I was fine, but at that point, I didn't know I was actually fine. Furthermore, I was still in my car, parked in front of the luxurious building that housed Amber Morton, Pe
Anne Peter took me inside the apartment, more precisely to his room, which was a place with such dark and heavy metal decor that it didn't surprise me that much because I knew him and that had been his way for a long time. He sat in an armchair and made me sit on his lap, so we could hug in a more
Anne “Can we make up for lost time? It would be so nice if I had the chance to woo you like a true lady deserves to be wooed,” Peter Morton requested, and his words made the butterflies in my stomach flutter with anticipation. He was practically asking me to be his girlfriend… Moved by his words,
Laura “Oh my God, this is so beautiful…!” I exclaimed excitedly as I entered the mansion's balcony. As soon as I returned home, Jason was waiting for me at the door of the house and covered my eyes with a blindfold, smiling mysteriously and guided me to that space to show me a surprise. He had pro
Laura “God in heaven, who must this person be sent directly by the devil to messed up our moment like that?” Jason cursed, sighing heavily, when my cell phone rang. I laughed a little. I also didn't like being interrupted while my husband and I were having our moment. “Sorry, babe. But it must b
Laura I couldn't deny that Annie was very suspicious today. The conversation we had in the morning, then Abby's complaints, and now the fact that she wasn't even answering her grandma's calls just made everything even more suspicious. My daughter wasn't the type of teenager who was always giving he
“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.