Vivienne
We pull up in a custom matte-black Rolls-Royce Phantom.
Because of course we do.
What's the point of being born with a diamond spoon in your mouth if you're not going to shove it right into the sky and twirl?
The driver opens the door and the world practically pauses. Camera phones lift. Mouths gape. A pigeon literally flies into a lamppost. I step out in my heeled Louis Vuitton boots, floor-length ponytail flowing dramatically in the breeze like I paid it to, and throw my arms open like I'm greeting the red carpet.
"HELLO, ELLESMERE!" I sing.
Damien steps out after me—because obviously I make a show of it and he ruins lives just by existing.
He doesn't pose. He doesn't smile. He just stands there in that black hoodie over his med-school lanyard, expression blank like he couldn't care less if the queen herself came back from the dead and proposed marriage.
Someone gasps.
A girl drops her coffee.
And I swear, I can hear another one whisper, "Is that Damien Ashford?!"
I loop my arm through his before he can walk off. "Walk with me, handsome. Let's crush hearts together."
"You're being loud again," he mutters.
"Correct. Also hot," I say cheerfully, tightening my grip.
This is how it's always been: Damien with his cold stares and zero patience, and me with my sunshine-and-champagne energy, yapping his ear off until I wear him down.
Except now… I'm in love with him.
Which is inconvenient. And painful. And maybe fatal, if I keep catching feelings at this rate. But also? Kinda thrilling. Like wearing stilettos on marble stairs.
As we strut through the archway of Ellesmere University—him moody, me magnificent—I tilt my head toward him. "Do you think they'll remember our entrance?"
"They'll remember you screamed at a building."
"True," I beam. "And you? You look like you just stepped out of a billionaire vampire movie. Which is very on-brand, actually."
He doesn't reply, but I catch it—the faintest smile. Barely there. The rarest species on earth.
And just like that, my heart goes boom again.