جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 30

Ryker's POV I watched her walk up to the house.The one she'd pointed out that first morning. The one with the nice porch and the well-maintained lawn. She stopped at the front door. Her hand hovered over the handle.Then she turned and looked back at my car.I was still sitting there, engine running, waiting for her to go inside. She stared at me for a long moment. Then she walked back to my window."You can go now," she said."I'll wait.""I'm fine, Ryker. Go."I studied her face. She looked exhausted. Wrung out. But there was something else there too. Something like panic."I'll wait until you're inside.""Ryker—""I'll wait."She let out a breath. Then she turned and walked up to the door. But she didn't go in. She just stood there, hand on the handle, frozen.Something was wrong.I waited. She didn't move. I thought about getting out of the car, but something held me back. She was lying about something. I'd known it since the first week.I put the car in drive and pulled away

Nova's POV "You can't be serious."Ryker was still standing in my living room, looking entirely too comfortable. He'd made himself at home. Eaten my mother's food. Charmed my father. Won over my sister. Now he was looking at me like he had nowhere else to be."Can't you tell when you've overstayed your welcome?""I don't think your family thinks I've overstayed." He gestured around the room. "It's barely seven. I can stay a couple more hours.""You're insane.""I'd love to see your room." He said it like it was the most natural thing in the world. "That's if your parents don't mind."My mother appeared behind me like a ghost. "We don't mind. We can tell you're a good boy. Right, Manny?""What?" My father stirred on the couch. The champagne had done its damage."We don't mind if Ryker sees Nova's room, do we?"My father blinked. "Sure. Whatever she wants.""Manny!""I don't care if he sees her room. She's seventeen. She's smart. She's got good judgment." He looked at me. "You've got g

Nova's POVHarper was getting bolder.Yesterday it was the trash in my locker. Today my textbooks were gone, and someone had scrawled “POOR SCHOLARSHIP KID” across my seat in third period with a permanent marker that reeked of spite. Little cuts. The kind that don’t bleed right away but leave you checking over your shoulder every five seconds.I still didn’t understand why being smart was something to be bullied about among these spoiled brats. I’d secured one of the most difficult scholarships in the entire state between hospital visits. In a sane society I would’ve been celebrated for it. Here, it was just another reason to try and break me. It was really sad.I recognized the pattern. She was testing me. Waiting for the next flinch, waiting to see how much I'd give away. She hadn't found anything tangible yet.The dress incident had been a mistake. My panic had been too loud, too real. A girl with money would’ve shrugged it off and ordered a new one. Anger would have been the best

Ryker’s POVShe lasted longer than I expected.Nova had handed me the quiz, told me I had twenty minutes, then pulled her knees up in the chair and started reviewing something in her own notebook. Within ten minutes her pen stopped moving. Within fifteen her head tipped against the side of the leather chair and stayed there. By the time the clock on the desk read 5:30 her breathing had gone slow and even.I finished the last two problems, set the pencil down, and watched her.She looked younger like this. The careful posture was gone. The sharp edges she wore like armor had softened. One hand was still loosely curled around the edge of her notebook like she’d meant to keep working and simply lost the fight.I should have woken her. Instead I stood, crossed the study, and carefully slid an arm under her knees and another behind her back. She made a small sound but didn’t open her eyes. She was lighter than she looked. Or maybe she was just that exhausted.I carried her down the hall to

Harper's POV I had her. The photo sat on my phone like a loaded gun. Nova Reyes in that cheap black uniform, hair pinned up like a waitress, fluorescent light making her look exactly like what she was — a scholarship girl playing dress-up in clothes she couldn’t afford. I zoomed in on her face for the third time. The wide eyes. The frozen embarrassment. The second she realized she’d been caught. Perfect. I leaned back against my headboard and smiled. The silver dress from earlier was still on the floor where I’d stepped out of it. My friends had talked the whole ride home about how random it was, seeing the new girl working coat check. I let them talk. I didn’t need them to understand the value of what I had. They were accessories. This was strategy. Ryker had been drifting. I felt it every time he looked at her. The way his attention snagged and stayed. The way he touched her in the hallways like he was reminding himself she was real. He’d never looked at me like that — not ev