All Chapters of The Heiress Nobody Wanted : Chapter 11 - Chapter 14

Ariel spent the ride home replaying every word of the conversation with Theo, trying to figure out where exactly it had gone wrong, whether there'd been a sentence she should have said differently, a moment she could have caught before it slipped past her. She barely noticed the mansion's gates sliding open until the car had already stopped in the driveway.Nathan was waiting on the front steps, arms crossed, an expression on his face she hadn't seen from him before."I saw him drive off," he said, before she'd even gotten out of the car. "Theo. From the parking lot. He looked like someone had just handed him a puzzle with half the pieces missing.""That's about right," Ariel said, tired."What did Britney tell him?"Ariel filled him in as they walked inside together, the whole ugly shape of it, the implication that she'd known who Theo's family was before she ever needed a ride, that the friendship had been calculated from the start. Saying it out loud made it sound even smaller and

The weeks that followed settled into something almost like peace, if peace could exist in a house where Britney's smile never quite reached her eyes and an unknown number occasionally still buzzed Ariel's phone with fragments that never added up to a full picture.Ariel's academic standing at Crestmore had become impossible to ignore. Her name started appearing on department shortlists, quietly at first, then less quietly. Mrs. Whitfield stopped her in the hallway one morning between classes, a printed list in hand."You've been nominated for the Whitmore Science Prize," Mrs. Whitfield said, not quite hiding her satisfaction. "Faculty vote, not student. Nobody can accuse you of campaigning for it.""I didn't know that was a thing I could be nominated for.""Most students who deserve it don't. That's usually the point." Mrs. Whitfield handed her the list, Ariel's name near the top, sandwiched between two seniors she barely recognized. "The ceremony's in three weeks. Try to look surpris