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Chapter 88: Still Water
publish date:
2026-08-18 15:39:55
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Across The Ice: Falling for my ex’s biggest rival Chapter 130: Something Out Of Our Control
I opened the link Ava had sent and found Sophie’s story, posted less than an hour earlier. It was a glossy photograph from a groundbreaking ceremony, complete with a gold ribbon and a sign that read Thank You to Our Generous Donors behind a cluster of smiling administrators. The caption said: So proud of my dad for funding this incredible new wing. Education matters so much to our family. I nearly scrolled past it. I was too exhausted to care about another Whitfield display of generosity. Then Ava’s message appeared beneath it. Iris. Look at the school name on the banner in the background. That’s your dad’s district. I zoomed in, watching the letters sharpen one by one until there was no room left for denial. The district. The school. The timing. It all fit too neatly to be an accident. Sophie hadn’t simply done it. She had made sure I would find it. I sat in the library with the laptop casting a pale glow across my face, already understanding what it meant. Even with the distric
Across The Ice: Falling for my ex’s biggest rival Chapter 129: Twenty-Two Years
My father found me in the kitchen the next morning. The way he pulled out the chair across from me, careful and deliberate, told me before he spoke that whatever he had to say was not going to be minor. “I need to tell you something,” he said as he sat down, folding his hands on the table. “I was let go yesterday.” I lowered my mug. “What?” “Budget cuts. Position eliminated.” He said the words plainly, as if he were trying to hear them himself. “Twenty-two years, Iris. I started teaching there the year before you were born. Yesterday afternoon, they called me into the principal’s office and told me it was over. Effective immediately.” “That doesn’t make any sense. You’re tenured. You’ve never had a single complaint in over two decades.” “I know.” He rubbed his jaw, looking more tired than angry. “I asked the principal directly. I pushed for specifics, but he couldn’t give me anything useful. He kept repeating the same budget language, and it didn’t match anything I’d heard about
Across The Ice: Falling for my ex’s biggest rival Chapter 128: How Do I Prove Myself
Dean showed up at my father’s house less than twenty hours after the photo went live. I knew it was him before I reached the window. His car came up the driveway too fast, the familiar sound carrying through the quiet house with enough force that I recognized it immediately.My father opened the door before I could make it downstairs, and Dean’s voice rose through the hall. “Sir, I need to see Iris. Please.”“She’s upstairs.” My father’s voice had taken on the careful edge it always acquired when he was deciding whether someone posed a threat. “Go easy.”Dean found me sitting on the edge of my childhood bed. The room looked almost exactly as it had when I left it, which somehow made everything worse. The old bookshelf stood crooked against the wall. The curtains had faded in the sunlight. Even the bedspread I had hated at sixteen was still there, and now I felt an unexpected, almost painful attachment to it.“Iris.”“You drove three hours.”“I would have walked if I had to.” He crosse
Across The Ice: Falling for my ex’s biggest rival Chapter 127: The Chauffeur
Dean had asked me to join him at the charity event and the after-party Harold Whitfield’s foundation was hosting that weekend. I told him I was too tired, too far behind on my capstone, and too worn down by everything that had already happened between our families to spend another evening in a room full of people who had watched Sophie try to destroy my career. He understood. He didn’t argue or try to change my mind. He went with his father instead, because business had a way of claiming him whether he wanted it to or not. Ava and Ryan were there too, part of the hockey and sponsor crowd that always seemed to gather around events like that. I went to my father’s for the weekend instead. The distance helped. So did the thought of not having to watch Sophie move through the room in whatever new performance she had prepared. I found out about the photo the same way I found out about most things lately: through my phone, which lit up with three messages in quick succession while I sat
Across The Ice: Falling for my ex’s biggest rival Chapter 126: Harold’s Requirement
My father’s office looked exactly as it always did, all glass walls and an uninterrupted view of the city. Arthur stood at the window with his back to the door when I walked in, his hands clasped behind him. He only did that when he was trying to decide how much of the truth to give me at once.“You wanted to see me,” I said, taking the chair across from his desk.“I did.” He turned, and the tiredness in his face made me sit a little straighter. “Harold Whitfield called me this morning.”“About what?”Arthur came around the desk and sat down, folding his hands in front of him. “He wants to formalize a proposal between you and Sophie. Marriage, eventually. He’s presenting it as a strategic alliance between our companies, to take place after you graduate.”For months, I’d been waiting for some version of this conversation. That didn’t make it any easier to hear. The vague threat I’d been carrying around finally had a name, a timeline, and a business plan attached to it.“I want to be cl
Across The Ice: Falling for my ex’s biggest rival Chapter 125: Ignore Her
“What did she mean?” I asked once we were back in the car, the parking structure shrinking behind us until it disappeared from view. “The part about your fates being sealed. What was she talking about, Dean?” He didn’t answer immediately. His hands remained steady on the wheel, his attention fixed on the road. When he finally glanced at me, I didn’t see the guarded expression he wore whenever he was keeping something from me. He looked genuinely confused. “I don’t know. I have no idea what she’s referring to.” “You’re sure?” I pressed. “Your father hasn’t mentioned anything? You haven’t overheard something?” “Iris, I promise you, I don’t understand it any more than you do.” His gaze returned to the road. “Sophie says a lot of things that aren’t true. I think you should ignore her.” I wanted that to be enough. I wanted Sophie to have thrown out the cruelest thing she could think of simply because she knew it would get under my skin, with nothing real behind it. That was easier to
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