Chapter 1

My name was Cameron Westin. I was a junior and the deputy head of the public relations department of the student council.

After the holiday, the student council president, Oliver Vaughn, called me and put me in charge of leading our team in this year's National Undergraduate Innovation Competition.

The competition carried a lot of prestige, but it wasn't because the prize money was particularly generous. The real reason was that its exclusive sponsor, Drakos Group, was one of the country's top tech giants.

The winning team would receive job offers directly from core departments at Drakos Group's headquarters.

Oliver handed me the team roster. "Cameron, you've got the most experience with this, so I'm leaving it to you."

One freshman on the list immediately caught my eye—Mona Leach. According to Oliver, our academic advisor, Professor Hannah Fowler, had placed her on the team. Apparently, she was extremely passionate about the project and had been preparing for it for a long time.

For a freshman to get into a competition team at this level, either she was a genius or she had some kind of connection. Obviously, Mona's case was the latter.

As usual, I created a group chat for the competition. Then, I went down the member list, communicating them one by one.

The first few went smoothly.

Then, I got to Mona.

I tapped on her profile picture, which showed a sweet-looking selfie. I sent her a message.

A day passed, and there was no response from her.

I figured she hadn't seen it, or maybe she'd accidentally ignored my message. So, I sent her another message.

This time, I made sure to state that I was Cameron, and I was reaching out to her about the Innovation Competition.

That should have made it clear, right?

A few minutes later, a notification popped up on my phone. Mona finally texted me back.

She wrote, "I may be a freshman, but please have some self-respect. I have a boyfriend."

I stared at my phone screen, and my mind went blank for a moment.

Have some self-respect? What was she talking about?

I opened her profile again, wanting to take a good look at just what kind of person I was dealing with. To my surprise, her profile picture suddenly refreshed and changed to a new one.

Yesterday, it had been her selfie with a scenic landscape as the background. Now, it was a pair of cartoon couple avatars. It showed a man and a woman, both wearing striped shirts, with a huge red heart in the background.

Before I could even process her bizarre train of thought, another message came through.

Mona had sent me another text, saying, "I'm taken. Don't bother."

I frowned.

A wave of anger surged from within me, but in the next second, I thought that getting worked up over something like this would be beneath me.

I took screenshots of the two messages, intending to send them straight to Hannah and ask her to replace Mona. I didn't want a team member who had such serious problems with communication and comprehension.

But then, I mulled over it for a moment.

Maybe it was just a misunderstanding. A young woman who had just started college could be a little guarded and imaginative. Her reaction wasn't necessarily completely unreasonable, was it?

I swallowed my irritation and decided to put my phone aside for the time being.