2
He took my number and left.
I turned and went back upstairs.
I had looked into Nicolai Payne. He’d started his own company right after graduation, and it had been expanding ever since. Once he went back to take over his family’s conglomerate, Payne Industries, he was going to be astronomically wealthy.
Which is why I could never understand Chloe.
Maybe it was because my parents‘ constant arguments about money had ended in divorce, but the most important thing on my checklist for a partner was wealth. Money meant we would never have to fight about groceries or bills.
When I got back to the dorm, Chloe saw the roses in my hand and her face soured.
“You don’t have to worry anymore,” I said, setting the flowers down and toweling my hair dry. “He won’t be bothering you again.”
I expected her to be relieved, but her expression only darkened.
“You’re such a slut.”
…Excuse me?
She muttered the word under her breath, but it was loud enough to silence the entire room.
My hand froze. The towel slipped from my grasp and hit the floor with a wet smack.
I’ve never been one for violence, but in that moment, I slapped her. Hard.
Neither of us was prone to losing control, but that day, I saw an emotion in her eyes that was suppressed to its breaking point.
I couldn’t read it, and I didn’t want to.
Our other roommates were terrified. Some tried to mediate, some tried to hold us back. One said I’d gone too far, another said Chl-
oe was being a hypocrite.
But I truly didn’t get it. She had said she didn’t
want him. She had said
her hands, did it become “stealing“?
W was a nuisance. So how, when I took him off
