Irene’s POV

That email lay in my inbox, cold and without warmth.

"Due to the position quota being filled, your application for the library assistant position has been cancelled."

Immediately following was another one: "Regarding Your Scholarship Review Notice—Please Submit Additional Supporting Documentation."

I stared at the screen, my fingertips sliding on the trackpad until my knuckles turned white.

The library assistant job was my only source of pocket money at this ridiculously expensive school, and the scholarship was my entire foundation for staying here.

Now, these two lifelines had been cut in the same minute.

On the campus forum's anonymous section, discussion threads about me had already reached over a hundred replies.

"I heard that Irene Perot got in through her stepfather's connections?"

"What stepfather? Maybe it's a sugar daddy."

I irritably clicked to comment below.

"The sugar daddy you're talking about is Queen Johanna's own father. Aren't you afraid she'll leak your nudes?"

After posting that, I closed the webpage, grabbed my backpack, and rushed into the rain.

The rain hit my face, ice-cold and piercing, but it couldn't extinguish the fire rising from the bottom of my heart.

Ms. Miller from the Academic Affairs Office sat behind her desk, her bean-paste-colored lips opening and closing like she was chanting sutras.

"Sweetheart, it's not that we won't help you," she pushed up her glasses, her eyes evasive. "The review process is just like this. The system shows that your materials... are somewhat questionable."

"Questionable how?" I pressed forward a step, my voice very low. "My transcript, papers, assignments, activity records—they all stand up to scrutiny. You say I used connections, so tell me, whose connections did I use? My stepfather sent me here and paid tuition—is that called using connections?"

Ms. Miller was stunned by my question, then put on a stern face: "Irene, please watch your language. We're not saying it's definitely your problem, just that currently the evidence is insufficient and we can't make a determination. Please go back and wait for notification."

"Insufficient evidence." I chewed on those words and laughed out loud.

This was their logic. They didn't need evidence, just suspicion, and they could destroy a person.

Walking out of the administration building, the rain was coming down harder.

I stood under the eaves, watching the rain pound little craters into the ground. My phone vibrated—it was a message from Johanna.

"So what if your grades are good? You're still like a dog. If you know what's good for you, stop trying to seduce Henry by playing pitiful."

The attached photo was a selfie of her sitting in the back seat of a Rolls-Royce. The rain streaks on the window blurred the scenery outside, but couldn't hide that victor's smile on her face. Henry sat beside her, head down looking at his phone, seemingly completely unaware of what his fiancée had done.

I turned off my phone and stuffed it into the waterproof bag in the innermost layer of my backpack.

I pulled up my jacket hood and plunged headlong into the curtain of rain.

The rain instantly soaked through my clothes, painful as needle pricks.

I didn't want to go back to the dorm yet. I needed a place to calm down.

I walked forward along the pedestrian bridge by the river, mentally calculating how to resolve everything perfectly.

The river below the bridge had become turbulent from the downpour, the dim yellow lamplight shattering into golden scales on the water's surface.

I stopped in the middle of the bridge, the cold metal texture of the railing penetrating through my soaked sleeves into my skin.

For a moment, I really wanted to push Johanna into the river and make her shut up forever.

But she was just a spoiled little girl, after all.

"Beep beep"—a horn sounded.

A black sedan slowly approached, its tires pressing through standing water with a splashing sound.

It stopped a few steps away from me. The window rolled down, and warm light from inside the car flowed out, forming a stark contrast with the cold outside.

Vincent Green sat in the driver's seat.

He had taken off his suit jacket and changed into a dark gray cashmere sweater, the collar slightly open. He looked less rigid than usual, with a few more touches of lazy aggression.

He looked at me, his gaze like he was sizing up a drenched cat.

"Get in." He said, his voice not loud but carrying an unquestionable command.

I didn't move. Rain water dripped from my hair ends into my eyes, uncomfortably astringent.

He didn't seem in a hurry either, his hand resting on the steering wheel, fingertips lightly tapping the leather material.

"Your situation, I've heard all about it." He paused, the corner of his mouth curving into a smile without warmth. "Work-study position, scholarship, and those ugly rumors."

"So what?" I wiped the rain water from my face. "Is Mr. Green specifically waiting here for me to teach me a lesson on how to be a person?"

"To teach you how to be a winner." He leaned forward slightly, those green eyes appearing unfathomable in the dim light. "As long as you open your mouth and ask me, these troubles will disappear by tomorrow morning."

He extended one finger and tapped the windshield: "One phone call. Your job will be restored, the scholarship will arrive, those rumormongers will shut up. Even Johanna will personally apologize to you."

I frowned. I knew he wasn't joking.

The Green family was a well-known old money family.

Vincent was even the one in power in the entire family. As long as I said that word, I could immediately receive imperial protection.

I looked at him and suddenly laughed.

"Heh, how could I be worthy of troubling Mr. Green on my behalf? Moreover, Johanna is your nephew's fiancée—you're the ones who are family."

"If you help me, at most they'll fear you. Only if I do it myself will they hate me." I licked the salty rain water on my lips, revealing a slightly sinister smile. "That pleasure of stepping on your enemies, watching them struggle—that's something your lofty phone call can't give."

Inside the car window, Vincent's expression changed.

That certainty of controlling everything showed a crack for the first time. The provocative meaning in his eyes grew stronger, as if he had discovered some rare species he'd never seen before.

He laughed lowly, that laugh magnetic and dangerous.

"Interesting." He nodded, his gaze sharp as a blade. "Irene Perot, you're even crazier than I imagined."

He restarted the car, the engine roar drowning out the sound of rain.

In the last second before the window rolled up, he turned his head sideways and smiled crookedly, that smile full of malice and anticipation:

"Then good luck to you. But remember—"

"When you come crying to beg me after you've been battered and bruised, the interest will be ten times more expensive than now."

The car shot out violently, the splashed water drenching me all over.

I stood in place, soaked through, shivering with cold, yet feeling the fire in my heart burning even more fiercely.

I stared coldly at Vincent Green's car's rear end and gave him the middle finger.

Fuck off.