"I said it’s you. I was thinking of you."
1
I called out his ex-girlfriend’s name at the exact moment his emotions were about to overwhelm him.
Not just his most recent ex — I rattled off the names of his ex, ex-before-that, ex-before-that, and ex-before-that, too.
He had so many exes that I eventually had to pull up an Excel spreadsheet and, with dramatic flair, walk him through his entire dating history.
The spreadsheet filled seven pages. I only read the first page before he sobered up.
Max Sterling was one of those legendary trust-fund sons.
And how we met was a one-sided kind of accident.
In my sophomore year I took a part-time job at Pearl Tea Café.
Mr. Harrison, the exploitative owner, insisted the shop stay open until 1:30 a.m. to squeeze every minute of labor out of us.
That night I was getting ready to close up when a scarlet supercar screeched to a stop outside the door.
Max stumbled out of the car, drunk as a skunk, and planted himself in my shop, demanding I make him the strongest drink we had.
We don’t serve alcohol at a bubble tea shop.
But rich kids never do things the normal way.
I tried to reason with him, pleading that he go home and not ruin my closing shift.
He shoved a credit card at me and threatened to buy the entire night’s revenue of the shop.
Well, fine then.
I swiped his card and made him eight hundred cups of Peach Oolong.
I even printed the receipts, neatly stacked them, and left them on the passenger seat.
As for picking up guys after a drunken night? No way, sweetheart.
If he wanted to sleep in his supercar, fine—why would he come crash on my threadbare couch in my tiny rented room?
I’m not descending from the moon.
2
By morning, Max and his car were trending.
An app pushed a short video to my feed first thing: the scarlet supercar with its plate pixelated, surrounded by neat concentric circles of Peach Oolong cups.
I’m an honest worker.
If I made eight hundred cups, not a single one could be missing.
I had been up half the night making them!
The comments were full of laughing emojis, people guessing which idiot had turned a bubble-tea shop into a private nightclub.
That same morning the owner called me in. Urgently.
No mystery there.
I took a day off from school, grabbed the only decent phone I owned — a 998-yuan relic — and marched to meet him, head held high.
Refund? No way.
I didn’t force the guy to spend. He shoved his card at me and begged me to swipe it!
To be safe, I even filmed the whole thing. I wasn’t afraid to take it to the roof.
3
I walked in practically puffing with confidence.
Max and Mr. Harrison sat side by side, two documents between them.
One was a lawyer’s letter from Max.
The other was a fine from Mr. Harrison.
According to Max, my "malicious sale" could be downplayed as bad conduct or escalated to alleged credit-card fraud.
Pay up or go to jail, pick your poison.
Mr. Harrison didn’t dance around it: I was on the hook for the eight hundred drinks, but since I was staff he’d give me a 20% discount at market price.
By their logic, I would have to pay out of pocket for Max’s alleged loss on his card and then repurchase eight hundred Peach Oolong for the owner.
Did they think I was an idiot?
I slammed the video on the table before either of them could speak.
On the grainy screen, Max was flushed, clinging to the café table like his life depended on it. No matter how I reasoned, he kept yelling one line.
"Open my tab or I’ll wreck this place in two minutes!"
Then he’d clutch the door and wail: "She won’t have me," escalating to "Why would she dump me?" and finally, "I’ll never believe in love again."
I let the four-minute clip play out and then told Max, calmly, that I’d already done all the editing work. I had split it across seven or eight burner accounts and left drafts on every major video site.
The meme pack was ready to launch.
I even had a headline in mind: "Innocent Trust-Fund Boy Crying Becomes Meme."
Max went pale.
4
If his face hadn’t been that green, Mr. Harrison would have applauded me on the spot and lauded my dedication to sales.
I gave Max a way out: he could buy the drinks and I would delete the videos.
Ten thousand bucks isn’t shameful. Not losing face for quick cash is sensible.
Who doesn’t pay for trending attention these days?
Besides, I wasn’t pocketing a cent of it—the money would go through Mr. Harrison’s till. If he wanted to refund, he couldn’t find me.
I may have singlehandedly wrecked the fragile friendship between two second-generation heirs.
Those two were thick as thieves; if they didn’t have years of history, I’d eat my hat.
I hopped on my city shared bike and happily pedaled back to campus, already calculating my sales stats. A ten-thousand order—surely that deserved a "Sales Star" bonus.
Then a black SUV, clearly nicer than Max’s supercar, cut me off and pinned me against the curb.
Me and my busted shared bike sprawled on the pavement. For a second I seriously considered staging a fender-bender con to achieve instant wealth.
The window rolled down.
An elegant woman with "I have wealth and taste" written all over her face looked down at me.
"Lily Carter, right?"
I clutched my bag and blinked.
Then I heard that line that shows up a million times in CEO romances—the one I’d been secretly waiting to hear.
"I have one million dollars here…"
I nearly burst into tears and blurted the reply I’d been dreaming of.
"Okay, ma’am, I’ll leave your son right away!"
Who the son was, or whether he was worth a million, no longer mattered to me.
I don’t have standards when my back’s against the wall.
5
Aunt Victoria was decisive.
She handed me an agreement as soon as I got into the SUV.
The million was real—but not on the condition of me leaving her son alone.
I had to become her son’s round-the-clock personal assistant.
Duties included but were not limited to cleaning up his messes, helping him study, and, if possible, reforming him into a new man—double pay if successful.
Her reasoning was simple: her son was too unruly and needed someone to fix him.
Who could sell the guy eight hundred Peach Oolong and still refuse a refund? I was apparently a top prospect.
At that moment I knew nothing about where this job would lead. I only felt the dizzying joy of a salary that could double.
Double! Babies, double!
Two hundred thousand a year. After tax.
What did that even mean?
When I saw the five-thousand prepayment hit my bank account, I signed the contract without hesitation.
From now on, this trust-fund son was basically my father.
I stamped my name on the pledge like a general.
"Teach him or bring my head," I promised.
Aunt Victoria was delighted. "You’re the bravest assistant I’ve found."
Counting zeros on my bank balance, I asked what my golden benefactor’s name was.
She handed me a résumé with a sweet smile.
There he was in the glossy one-inch photo: the very trust-fund kid I’d just fleeced for eight hundred teas.
Oh, life.
What a dramatic turn. I trick Max out of ten grand in drinks, and twenty-four hours later he’s my new sponsor.
6
I attacked Max’s résumé like it was the final exam, studying it all night to find a weakness I could exploit.
Before I found any flaws, I discovered a shining fact: he went to my school.
And not just my school—he was in the department next door.
I was over in the Chemistry Department, the hazardous-duties, monk-cloistered zone. He was in the Languages Department, the place that housed the top three campus beauties.
I stood at the Languages Department door in my stained white sneakers and ratty bag and almost got blinded by the parade of well-dressed girls.
According to forum notes I’d scraped, Max was kind of infamous in his department. Only he could publicly confess his feelings in front of so many beauties and crash and burn in a way that would trend.
No wonder he drank himself silly that night.
I planned to stake out the department one week after class to map the top beauties’ routines and use that to worm my way into Max’s world.
No sooner had I stepped into the Languages Department than a rough hand yanked me aside.
"What are you doing here?"
Max stared at me, his face almost contorted.
"Didn’t you say you’d delete the video? What more do you want?"
I looked at him, baffled.
"Your mom told me to find you. Didn’t you know?"
Max snapped, enraged. "Your mom told you to come!"
This person could not be reasoned with.
To prove I was on assignment, not there for petty revenge, I had to pull out the contract I’d signed with Victoria Sterling and proudly announce to Max:
"From today on, I’m your mother’s person."
A six-figure salary, baby.
7
Mrs. Sterling’s authority was magnetic.
I felt myself shrink under Max’s stare, a little bit at a time.
Then, the moment I let my guard down, he did something I would never have guessed in a million years.
He snatched the employment agreement out of my hand and tore it up.
Not only did he rip it—he tore off the piece with my signature and shoved it into his mouth, chewing it like a snack.
He chewed with real relish and then looked at me with smug satisfaction.
The message was clear: "What can you possibly threaten me with now?"
I looked at Max with the kind of pity you reserve for the intellectually challenged.
Did this kid have some misunderstanding about contract preservation? Was he saying Mrs. Sterling was unreliable?
Yesterday there were three witnesses in the car. The agreement was in five copies: two lodged at the notary, one with Mrs. Sterling, one with me, and two video backups saved as electronic copies.
The piece he chewed was just the extra I planned to keep as a courtesy.
At that moment, I concluded Max wasn’t just a trust-fund kid—he was a not-very-bright trust-fund kid.
8
After triple-checking with Victoria Sterling that I wasn’t going to get fired, Max Sterling immediately switched gears and started squeezing me for everything he could.
He bombarded me with seven or eight nearly impossible tasks in less than a minute.
They ranged from taking attendance for him, doing his homework, delivering his takeout, and the kicker: I was supposed to infiltrate the enemy camp and dig up everything about our department big shot, Ethan Hart.
The earlier tasks weren’t the worst. It was that last one that nearly had me on my knees.
Everyone in our chemical engineering department knew Ethan was a rare pearl among a bunch of scrubs.
He single-handedly snagged scholarships, shone in department competitions, and was the professor’s favorite. The golden child, worshipped by us regular students.
Good grades, good looks—he was basically god-tier. Even if the lab chemicals had marinated him into a science statue, he still wouldn’t lose a hair. An untouchable legend.
I begged Max to delete the Ethan assignment.
He was adamant.
"Don’t even think about it," he said.
9
I wanted to ask why Max wanted Ethan’s info in the first place, but he put on a conspiratorial look and laid out his pricing.
"Public info—three bucks a piece. Private info—five. Privacy—ten. Past relationships—twenty. If you can date him for a day, I’ll count that as two hundred in wages."
Me: …You might not believe this, but within a week I accepted two jobs at once.
One: personal assistant/secretary—work hard, not bargain my body.
The other: go date my benefactor’s guy—sell myself, not my skills.
For money, I figured I could do both.
It’s just a crush. Close proximity wins. If I can get him, why shouldn’t I try?
But when I got back to the department, I realized I might actually lose this fight.
Max was clinging to the campus queen like a dog to a bone, standing right at the door of Ethan’s lab with a smile plastered on his face.
From the way he stood, he wasn’t leaving until Ethan came out.
10
In that moment I had a revelation: Max had just handed me a massive problem.
Capitalists are capitalists. Extracting money from them without getting ripped off is impossible.
My two-hundred-a-day depended on my being able to steal a man out from under the campus queen.
I dragged a little chalkboard into my room and sketched a relationship map.
Max liked the campus queen; she liked the god; the god liked studying.
I had Victoria Sterling’s pay to persuade Max to get serious, but I also had Max’s demand to seduce Ethan and block the campus queen’s path.
If Max could see the light and give up the queen, then my seduction would serve two goals.
If Max was just temporarily infatuated, then my trying to seduce Ethan would be overreaching and I’d become public enemy number one.
For the first time I deeply felt what it meant to hand my fate over to someone else—especially someone so unreliable.
I decided to take the long way around and gather more intel.
11
Max refused to give me anything. In his words, even if I were his mother parachuted in as an assistant, I couldn’t be a useless snack.
If I couldn’t even handle the god, what right did I have to ask for two hundred grand?
But I didn’t have the nerve to drag Victoria into this kind of mess again.
So I turned to Mr. Harrison.
Those two were close; maybe Harrison could spit out some dirt on Max. That would be a win.
At first Mr. Harrison was wildly skeptical, even spinning an entire melodramatic theory about a poor, scheming girl trying to con inheritance from a second-generation rich kid through some friend-of-a-friend setup.
I had to wave Victoria’s name like a banner to convince him I was officially on a commissioned love mission—Max wasn’t the target, but he was central to it.
To prove it, I cropped and played a snippet of Max coaxing me into seducing Ethan.
Mr. Harrison laughed so hard he held his belly for half an hour, then scolded me kindly, "I won’t say much, but one thing—do what he asks and he’ll pay you. But don’t expect that girl to make him settle down. That’s a pipe dream."
Got it. So Max was dumb and rich and easy to fool. Harrison was a true friend.
12
I wanted to buy Mr. Harrison dinner to say thanks, but he didn’t want my night market skewers.
He told me just to keep him updated on Max, which I happily agreed to.
Victoria hadn’t included confidentiality in my "employment agreement," so an extra connection was always good.
Max’s payment rule: pay for Ethan info by usefulness; if I beat the campus queen to him, pay by the day.
I wasn’t brave enough to fight the campus queen directly, so I focused on the info route.
At two hundred a day, I only needed seventy general-known tidbits about Ethan to equal that day’s pay. And I had one advantage the queen didn’t.
I was, in a broad sense, Ethan’s junior—
little!
sister!
Not literally, but I had access to the chemistry lab whenever I wanted. Could the campus queen say the same? Even if she was gorgeous, she’d only be lingering outside.
I spent three hours digging through all the award notices for Ethan, bribed a senior who did office grunt work, borrowed a copy of Ethan’s academic file, and compiled it neatly. I even made a resume-style file for Max, because—well, his reading level.
Max held the thick folder and went green.
"This is what you dug up?"
I shamelessly nodded and tried to sell it. "You have no idea how many favors I had to call in. I even got stuff down to where his ancestors might be buried. Who else would go this hard?"
Max squinted at me. "So you counted ‘what his dad’s name is’ and ‘that his dad is a man’ as two separate items?"
Me: …Fine. I admit I padded a few entries. Three bucks per entry, okay?
Max looked like he’d swallowed a mouse and transferred two hundred into my WeChat, clutching his chest and telling me to get lost.
"Next time, if it’s just common stuff like this, don’t come to me."
I opened the red packet fast. The crisp ping of coins dropping was music.
I thanked my benefactor and left. Mr. Harrison was right—Max was dumb and rich.
13
You can’t run the same trick twice. I couldn’t keep selling obvious facts to Max.
Next time, I needed real dirt.
The campus queen waited at Ethan’s classes every day, sun or rain. She never succeeded, but she never gave up either.
I passed by after class several times and saw Ethan politely refuse her invitations: "Not on the way," "I don’t have time," "Professor’s calling a meeting."
Once she was nearly in tears and Ethan still wouldn’t budge.
Clutching my textbook, I seized my moment and cut in.
"Is this Ethan Hart? Professor Bennett asked me to tell you—if you’ve finished your experiment to swing by his office. He’s waiting."
Ethan stared at me for two seconds like he was working through a problem. Just when I thought my plan worked, he asked, "Which office?"
Me: …I had no idea. There isn’t even a Professor Bennett in the whole department!
Dude, can’t you see I’m getting you out of this?
Ethan pulled his arm from the campus queen’s and put a hand on my shoulder. "Is the professor in his department office or the admin building? Take me there."
When his palm touched my shoulder, it was a clear SOS from the god himself. Better than I’d hoped.
I intended only to make my face familiar to him so I could have an in later. But this was perfect.
I locked eyes with him and said, "Okay, senior. Come with me."
I felt this was a rare highlight of my life.
In front of the campus queen, I had just escorted our department’s aloof god away. Whatever the reason, this was something I could brag about forever.
14
I led Ethan to the bio building—far from the Languages Department and the women’s dorms—and apologized sincerely.
"Sorry, senior, I didn’t mean to—"
Ethan kept that stoic, unbothered face, nodded once. "I know. Thanks. Who are you?"
I quickly opened my book to prove myself. "Hi, Ethan Hart. I’m Lily Carter, a sophomore in Materials and Chemical Engineering."
His eyes skimmed my name, then flicked to the textbook in my arms like he registered it.
Before he could say he wouldn’t see me again, I blurted out, "Are you applying for an overseas grant or the school’s excellence award?"
He took a step, then paused. His brow creased. "Something wrong?"
I whipped a printed resume and a USB drive from my backpack and handed them over. "I do office grunt work for Ryan Cole. He said you’ve been busy and your material drafts weren’t finished, and asked me to help organize them if I had time. I compiled your award records, your papers—I put all the electronic drafts on the drive. I didn’t fill everything I couldn’t confirm; you can double-check before you submit. I didn’t want to make mistakes."
When I had copied Ethan’s academic file, I chatted with the senior at the office. It was meant to boost my standing with Ethan. Now the opportunity had practically fallen into my lap—I wasn’t about to let it go.
Ethan visibly relaxed, took the materials, and thanked me more than once.
I took my cue and, saying I had class later, waved goodbye.
…number, and even his home address. Miss this chance and he might disappear, right?
15
Turns out Ethan Hart really is a good guy.
Not only does he keep score where it counts, he also pays back kindness.
While I was eating dinner, two friend requests popped up.
One came from a WeChat contact suggestion, the other from a QQ number search.
Both had the same note.
Ethan Hart.
I nearly snorted my entire bowl of snails through my nose.
My plan had been modest: cozy up a bit so that next time I add him on WeChat it’ll be smooth sailing, at least so Ethan knows who I am.
So the legend is actually this considerate?
I almost bowed and lit incense before accepting Ethan’s friend request.
After all, in the Chemistry Department there’s a ritual of worshipping Ethan before exams so you don’t fail.
You don’t blaspheme the genius.
Ethan’s profile, like his face, was concise and clean.
I scrolled his page and felt…emptier than before.
If I wanted the info Max Sterling needed, I’d probably have to get it indirectly from Ethan’s roommates.
Ethan’s icon blinked in my message list.
I assumed he was going to ask me to revise some materials.
Instead he sent me a compressed file.
When I opened it, there were three folders neatly organized.
Every single one was my morning class notes—typed copies, handwritten notes, annotated reflections.
Ethan’s message was two words.
“For thanks.”
I nearly worshipped the genius right then.
Handwritten exam-survival notes from the Chemistry Department genius—photographed, sorted, zipped up and handed to me!
I felt like my ancestors’ grave had sprouted blue smoke in blessing.
16
Max must’ve gotten wind of something somewhere too.
The day after I battled the campus beauty and male idol, he sent me a $20 red envelope.
Caption: Work hard. Do well and I’ll add a drumstick.
To prove my devotion, I immediately bought a fried drumstick in the cafeteria and snapped a photo for Max.
To show the money was used properly—no embezzling.
Max sent back a sullen emoji and said, “You add the drumstick when I tell you to?”
I looked at my immaculate plate, sighed, then swiped another duck leg and sent a second photo.
This time Max didn’t send a voice message. He sent another $20.
He said it was an advance—buy whatever you need, don’t keep tearing up your legs.
I fretted over the two words in my friend list: Ethan Hart.
I’d added him, but what do you even say? How do you talk to a genius?
He Bought My Heart After Midnight
Asking mundane questions felt like insulting his intelligence. Asking advanced ones felt like revealing how dumb I am by comparison.
Asking personal stuff might get me blocked.
Not asking left me no way to report back to Max.
So I hovered on Ethan’s WeChat for three days, watching.
Turns out I wasn’t late because his Moments were set to three-day visibility—he simply doesn’t post.
Just as I was panicking about how to get the contact info for Ethan’s roommates, the campus beauty beat me to it.
“Beat” isn’t quite the word.
More accurate: while I was eating, Madison Lane floated in with her tray and sat directly across from me.
In the instant she spoke, the noise from the three surrounding tables dropped in a creepy silence centered on her.
Madison: “You’re Lily Carter, right? Can we talk?”
I swallowed my braised pork and nodded fast.
“Go ahead, go ahead.”
She watched me with a confident smile.
“I checked your Chemistry Department professors—there’s no one named Professor Bennett.”
That’s it? You crossed half the cafeteria, drew a crowd, and your big reveal is that no one in our department is named Bennett?
People tend to flock to their kind. No wonder Max liked her.
I played along. “We don’t have a Professor Bennett. That day it was Zhang from our major who told me Professor Bennett from X University happened to be next door, waiting in the office for senior Ryan Cole—”
I wasn’t buying she’d actually confront Ethan.
You pick the softest fruit to squeeze, after all.
17
No matter how Madison tried to probe, I stuck to my line: Ethan and I are strictly senior-junior within the same department—nothing more.
When I chose my major, I didn’t even know Ethan existed in the Chemistry Department.
Madison looked half-convinced and left with her tray.
Using the pretense of helping out in the office, I messaged senior Ryan Cole.
Me: Senior, senior—what floor is Ethan’s dorm on? He borrowed my flash drive and never returned it.
He replied with a string of ellipses.
Then he called.
His breathless voice shot through the earpiece like a drill.
“What? Planning to move in with him and camp out?”
I caught on quick.
The chemistry dorms have three tiers: undergrad dorms, graduate dorms, and doctoral suites.
Undergrad rooms house four people and power gets cut on schedule.
Graduate dorms also four-to-a-room but with unrestricted utilities.
Only the doctoral suites are two-person units with nice amenities.
If I was serious about bedding down there, only a doctoral suite would do.
Normally Ethan should be in the graduate building, but since he’s the Chemistry Department’s golden boy, maybe a doctoral room could be arranged.
I seriously considered whether I could persuade Ethan to let me move into the doctoral building—could I round that up to Max paying me a $40 daily wage?
Living together isn’t dating, but it’s better than dating—you get the whole night too.
18
I found Max at a bar.
He’d managed to yank the center spot out from five hot girls who looked innocent enough.
His look when he saw me was like meeting a ghost.
“Who told you I was here?”
The proprietor—Mr. Harrison—was eager to distance himself. “Not me, I didn’t—she didn’t ask me.”
I straightened my spine and stared down the room.
“You couldn’t find this out? Do you think I’d accept a million from your mom if you can’t even do that?”
No idea why, but the second I said “a million,” all five girls’ eyes lit up.
Even the tipsy Max shivered.
I grabbed him and started pulling him out of the bar.
“I’ve been looking for you all afternoon. Don’t think ignoring calls and muting me will work—you’ve got business to discuss.”
If not for the money, I wouldn’t bother with him.
Max tried to look for backup.
Mr. Harrison dodged away like a pro.
One of the five girls—playful one—stepped up and tentatively called to me, “Sister-in-law?”
Me: … Max: … Mr. Harrison nearly choked laughing.
Apparently the poor-girl-turned-rich-son’s-wife who wins over the mother-in-law trope suited me perfectly.
19
I still dragged Max out.
Not because I’m strong—he’d just lost face.
And Mr. Harrison gave me a shove from behind at the right moment.
That kicked Max’s pride back into place in the cooling night air.
“What exactly do you want?”
I explained my plan succinctly.
In short: I move in with Ethan. It makes it easier for him to chase Madison, easier for me to tip him off. And if Madison ever storms the dorm, Max gets first notice to do precise interceptions.
Max repeated my request slowly, word by word.
“So you want me to go across departments and file an application so you can move into the boys’ dorm?”
I: … I had to admit—this guy nailed the difficult part of the ask.
Max huffed and pointed at his head. “Lily Carter, do you really think I’m an idiot?”
I was mortified. Does he not realize he’s the idiot in question?
20
Max didn’t say yes or no.
He shoved his car keys into my hand.
“You’re so capable—drive me home and then we’ll discuss.”
I looked at the scarlet supercar and then at the keys in my palm. Panic and conviction warred inside me.
“Aren’t you getting a driver?”
Max leaned on the door with a look that said: If you don’t let me degrade myself, I’ll drag you down with me. “No drivers. You drive.”
I felt the long-unused license in my wallet, swallowed hard, and hit unlock.
Information asymmetry is useful.
Max planned on using traffic cops and police checks to lock me into owing him favors so I couldn’t boss him around.
I had only one thought: if I wreck it, will he make me pay?
I gripped the wheel, braked hard, then eased off slowly.
The streamlined supercar crawled at 20 mph down the quiet road toward campus.
Max went from hopeful to snoring in under two hours.
21
I carried the passed-out rich heir back across the silent campus.
Thank goodness for our security guard who hates trouble. After showing my student ID and license and reporting my department and teacher, I was allowed to walk Max back to his dorm.
He lay on me like wet mud.
I, a tiny monkey carrying a heavy mountain, staggered less than five hundred meters before we stumbled and fell flat.
As we hit the ground, a pair of long legs walked right in front of me.
And then Max collapsed completely on top of me.
In a flash, my hand shot out and grabbed the pant leg of the person standing above us.
And I looked up, straight into Ethan Hart’s face—the stoic, mesmerizing face that made so many girls go weak.
Help. I’d been caught in the exact scene I was supposed to orchestrate: me, bribed by my sugar daddy Max to seduce Ethan, now discovered in a late-night, compromising situation—what a mess.
My brain registered only one thought.
My $40 per day gig—ruined.
From what I know of Ethan, I thought he wanted to kick me away on instinct when I grabbed his trousers.
But his upbringing and my status as a Chemistry Department junior made him bite down on that urge.
Ethan didn’t bolt. He crouched down, genuinely concerned.
“You okay?”
I struggled to free my head from under Max and looked up at Ethan with a pained expression.
"Senior… if I told you I just happened to pick up a gig as a designated driver, would you buy it?"
Ethan Hart: …I swear, at that moment, I could clearly read a sentence on Ethan's usually unreadable face.
"You tell me whether you believe me."
Ethan isn't Max Sterling. He's not easy to fool.
But he's got more conscience than Max.
So not only did he not expose me, he mercifully found a small utility cart for us.
A little cart the Chemistry Department uses to haul all sorts of supplies.
Watching Ethan grab Max by the collar and toss him onto the cart made my heart clench.
"Senior, last time when we dragged that waste container, didn't it leak a bit?"
Ethan glanced at me.
"The metal's not corroded. It's fine."
That was such a perfectly reasonable answer I had nothing to say.
I have to admit—that was a night worth remembering.
Ethan led the way, I followed behind. The campus was quiet in the deep of night.
Crickets chirped, moonlight was bright, a cool late-night breeze brushed past, and every time I lifted my head I could see Ethan's slightly thin shoulders.
The scene was incredibly romantic—if you ignore the cart's creaky tires from years of heavy use and Max's now-and-then long, melodic belch.
For a second I even envied Max.
Ignorance is bliss, after all.
No way I would have sat on the Chemistry Department's cart, even if Ethan was the one pushing it.
It turned out that even with a "big shot" halo, a rich kid's character bottom line is unpredictable.
Aunt Victoria's dossier had included Max's dorm number.
But I never imagined the guy could go three whole years without sleeping in his own dorm even one night.
When Ethan and I finally hauled him into the room after a monumental effort, I made a chilling discovery.
The bed that belonged to Max was buried under a mountain of stuff.
Between his late nights and physical labor, the big shot woke up in a terrible mood.
Ethan nudged Max's side with his toe.
"Wake up."
Max rolled over groggily and swatted Ethan's calf hard.
"If you keep making noise I'll cripple you."
Me: …Dorm-room onlookers: …Next thing I knew, the oblivious rich kid, without any hesitation, wrapped his arms around Ethan's leg and hugged it like it was the most natural thing in the world.
He even contentedly rubbed his face against Ethan's pant leg and left a damp mark.
I almost knelt to Ethan right then.
"Um… Senior, sorry. I'll dry-clean your pants and bring them back to you."
I guess my guilt-wracked, overly earnest expression left Ethan speechless for a beat.
The three dozing onlookers were wide awake now. Six pairs of wide, glittering eyes swung back and forth between Ethan and me.
I might be the first person in school history to formally meet Ethan twice and then ask for someone's pants to be taken off.
I don't really want to recall how Ethan pulled his leg out of Max's death grip.
All I remember is that when he dragged me out of the dorm, Max's face had a very clear size-42 shoe print on it.
I could already imagine the forum headlines the next day.
"Shocking! Unknown girl and Chemistry genius together do this to our school's rich kid!"
"Mysterious girl meets campus heartthrob at male dorm—girl asks heartthrob to strip!"
"Campus heartthrob's mystery girlfriend spotted, seen sneaking into male dorm with him"—each one more humiliating than the last.
I think Ethan was mad.
He maintained his cool, but his first sentence to me still revealed his displeasure.
"You aren't leaving? You planning to stay in the male dorm like some housemaid and clean his bed for him?"
I stared at Ethan, stunned.
I suspected the genius was angry—but I had no proof.
Ethan insisted on walking me home.
No matter how many times I promised him my rented place was close to campus, safe, and that I didn't look like someone people would want to harm.
None of that stopped him.
He gave me four words.
"Lead the way."
So I walked.
With zero dignity.
I felt like a prisoner being led to execution; each step felt painful.
The farther I left Max's dorm, the farther I drifted from my two-hundred-dollars-a-day dream.
Catching Max at the bar had been pure luck. If I couldn't use this chance to lock down my dorm transfer, who knew when I'd get another shot?
I wasn't walking—I was wasting my own potential earnings!
I really wanted to tell Ethan, "You don't have to escort me personally, really."
One rich kid getting that honor would have been enough. A nobody like me being treated like that by a genius shortens my lifespan.
Yet Ethan waited until I fumbled with my key and opened the door, then asked, mildly surprised, "You actually live here?"
I was speechless.
Bro, so all that was just to check whether I lived in the school dorms?
You could've just asked me—I wouldn't have lied!
Before Ethan saw my place, his look had carried a little contempt: "Poor girl, hustling at night for money, even walking home with a rich kid."
But after I pulled out the key, his expression turned into a complicated mix of pity, regret, admiration, and shock.
That mixture crested after I told him all the odd jobs I'm doing.
Honestly? This is nothing.
I hadn't even listed Aunt Victoria's single assignment yet. One job covers four years.
No one could stop me from camping outside the dorm of a second-generation rich kid.
Maybe feeling a little guilty, Ethan refused to let me walk him out and insisted firmly he'd take care of my morning absence.
If I'd known how Ethan would do it, I would've crawled into class just to sleep there.
But that's later.
At that moment I was asleep on my shabby bed, unconscious to the world—until Max, in a rare show of humility, stormed over and banged on my door.
I swear, if I hadn't woken up in time, Max probably would have kicked the shaky door right off its frame.
The rich kid's angry voice echoed down the hall.
"Lily Carter, get out here!"
"You're cowardly enough to complain but too scared to come out, huh!"
"Come out! Come out and I swear I won't beat you to death!"
Me: …In my whole life, it's my first time realizing one hangover symptom can be full-on Snow Aunt energy.
For safety I only cracked the inner wooden door open.
Max's face, twisted with rage, looked oddly comical through the slats of the old security door.
Some things never change with the rich.
As soon as I opened it he chucked his phone inside.
"Look at what you've done!"
It was a normal official notification text—but the content was alarming.
A notice telling Max to move into the graduate dorms in the Chemistry Department immediately.
He glared at me.
"Did you tell my mom something?"
Me: ???
Dude, my request was that I move into Ethan's dorm. You sent yourself there.
You're an arts major from another department—why are you stealing a genius from a Chemistry grad? Chasing the campus beauty, you got this reckless?
My phone dinged with a WeChat message at the perfect moment.
Aunt Victoria's name flashed on the screen like a gold-lit avalanche.
Max snatched my phone and unlocked it. A clean four-digit transfer had hit my account.
Quick and decisive.
And with the money came Aunt Victoria's enthusiastic voice message.
"Lovely Lily, good job—my son actually asked me what the requirements were to move into the grad dorms today. I'll double your bonus this month. Keep it up and get everything settled so my son can get everything he needs."
Max asked me what to do.
How was I supposed to know?
I was as passive as could be—the big shot got plucked from somewhere, slept it off, and was then shoved into someone else's arms by Aunt Victoria. He has no backbone, and he has the nerve to ask me what to do?
Still, there wasn't much I could do but comfort him.
"Look on the bright side. You like the campus beauty; she likes Ethan. If you live with Ethan, at least you can learn from him how to be a decent boyfriend for her."
I have no idea what in that hit Max's fragile pride, but he leapt up like a wounded general and started shouting in my tiny room.
"Don't belittle me!"
"I don't need to copy anyone to chase someone!"
"Stolen love isn't true love, you idiot who thinks you're so smart—what would you know!"
Me: …
Fine, fine. You know best. Your idea is: be ridiculously unique in your stupidity so the campus beauty falls for your one-of-a-kind flaw. Got it.
All my soothing words couldn't stop him. In the end it was Aunt Victoria's voice message that did the trick.
"Don't move in and I'll freeze your subsidiary card," she said.
So Max moved in—quickly and efficiently.
The rich kid barked orders while I ran back and forth carrying his stuff, and he stood there bossing me around like it didn't affect him.
"I think you're right," he said. "Close proximity helps. She's near Ethan, I'm near Ethan, so by rounding it up, I'm closer to her."
I watched his sudden logic blossom and applauded, expressionless.
News of Max moving into the grad dorm didn't make much of a splash.
Compared to my own explosive gossip, his move was nothing.
But I didn't expect this: it wasn't Max who sent me to the top of the campus forum—it was Ethan.
When Ryan Cole sent me the link, I was still sweating moving Max's stuff. He called as soon as I didn't reply.
"Lily Carter, I didn't expect this—you're this kind of person?"
I was holding the tiny speaker Max kept joking I’d be worth less than, one arm, and my phone in the other, breathing like a bellows.
After all, even the graduate building was still just a dorm—fancy inside, but no elevator.
Ethan lived on the top floor.
Ryan was completely beside himself.
“Hey kiddo, you’re way too cold to me. What kind of relationship do we have if you don’t even give your bro a heads-up about something this big?”
“No wonder you were scheming to move into Ethan’s dorm last time—so you’ve got connections, huh?”
Me: ???
Dude, what connections?
Can you speak normal human?
I finally caught a breather from Ryan on the phone and shoved a question in.
“What are you talking about?”
Then Max silently shoved his phone screen right in front of my face.
There was a new hot thread on our campus forum.
“Campus heartthrob crashes undergrad class—turns out he came only to sign attendance for a junior” The title was plain and to the point.
OP was concise, with pictures and no wasted words.
The first pic was a close-up of Ethan sitting in a Chemistry Department classroom—there wasn’t a blade of grass within a meter of him.
The second was a full classroom shot with the room number circled.
The third was a screenshot of the undergraduate schedule for the whole department, plus that day’s leave records.
Then OP cross-checked everything they could find and—bullseye—plucked my name out of the bunch of students and pasted it, uncensored, on the public board.
At that moment, Ryan’s voice in my ear and Max’s voice off the call overlapped perfectly.
Two nosy, enthusiastic gossip guys, speaking as one:
“Lily Carter, nice work.”
As Ethan’s senior, Ryan sounded so excited he’d lost his shape on the phone.
He kept praising me like crazy.
I didn’t let Ethan’s riches leak to outsiders.
Max, being the rich type, went full-tilt.
He threw money at it.
Then he descended from his throne and personally walked me to the lab building.
He even held my hand and gave earnest instructions.
Make sure you win Ethan over quickly—create an opportunity for him to be with the campus beauty.
If necessary, use the charm offensive.
And if the charm offensive isn’t enough, I’ve got alcohol—give it to her, get her to drink; even staged photos will do. Just get Ethan and you on the same bed.
I stood in awe of the billionaire playboy’s brain.
If Max hadn’t finished with that last line, I might’ve almost believed he really meant the compliments.
He said, “It’s just that Ethan studies so hard he’s practically blind—he can’t be choosy about looks.”
Thanks so much!
Like I needed reminding that I’m ugly.
If not for university rules and domineering Victoria Sterling breathing down things, with Max’s wild imagination, he probably would’ve offered me a floor spot in his dorm.
Then he’d skip nights at home, claiming it was “convenient” so I could seduce the big shot nearby.
I worried more about whether showing up in class now would get me literally devoured by Ethan’s fangirls.
But I didn’t have to worry long.
Things very quickly spiraled out of control.
When the post first went up, people were debating whether I shamelessly threw myself at the big shot and what tricks I used to get him to attend class for me.
Then an anonymous commenter barged in, claiming to have seen me stepping out of Max’s scarlet supercar late at night and being seen in suspiciously intimate behavior with another rich kid from the Languages Department.
The thread instantly veered off.
Some sockpuppet accounts started hinting I’d been hanging out with that other rich kid a lot, even claiming to have seen me prowling the Languages Department and asking around about Max—basically painting me as an obvious clingy groupie.
Replies flipped in an instant.
What had been about me daring to flirt with the big shot became, with the sockpuppets stirring the pot, that I was two-timing and of dubious character.
But the post reached its peak when the two big shots started an across-the-room exchange.
I don’t know if they’d planned it or it was just dorm synchronicity, but Ethan and Max both publicly posted to vouch for me.
Ethan: We’re just ordinary friends. We left the lab late that night and I signed attendance on her behalf so she could rest.
Max: You can insult my character, but don’t insult my taste. Am I really that blind?
The two messages came back-to-back.
Then Max, unrelenting, uploaded two photos: one a polished pic of the campus beauty, the other an unedited shot of me sweating and helping him move into his dorm.
Fame overnight, everyone knows.
Great. Now everyone knew not only that I might be two-timing, but that I was ugly and dramatic, too.
When the notifications popped, I went utterly black for a second, almost collapsing.
The truth about big shots: when they want to deliver a knockout, they don’t stop at one blow.
While the peanut gallery was busy speculating how Ethan’s late lab work linked to me sleeping with him, the big shot made another appearance in my classroom.
He barged in as the professor was saying class dismissed—strolled through the door like he owned the place.
I watched open-mouthed as Ethan greeted the teacher, then strode straight toward me.
Bullseye—no wasted motion.
I could feel my classmates’ hot, excited gossiping eyes glued to Ethan and me, lingering and devouring the scene.
Ethan handed me a manila folder.
“I looked at your schedule, so I came by today.”
I reached out and took it on autopilot.
“Okay, senior—got it—thanks, senior.”
He tapped the folder.
“Sign it and bring it to the lab. I’ll send you my schedule later.”
I nodded like a zombie.
“No problem, senior. Sure, senior. I’ll do it right away, senior.”
Ethan took a couple steps away, then turned back like he’d remembered something.
“If you have any questions, message me.”
I was frozen.
“Okay, got it, senior.”
He walked away satisfied, flicking his sleeve and leaving a field of gossip seeds, trembling to sprout.
I swear, during that whole encounter with Ethan I was operating on instinct alone.
From the moment I saw him my head was reduced to three questions: Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing?
Ethan had handed me a lab assistant application.
It had everything—my info and even the advisor’s signature.
Holding the blank form, I practically ran to Ethan’s lab.
“Senior, are you serious?”
Ethan looked up from between rows of bottles and tubes and glanced at me.
“Problem?”
I nodded so hard I practically bobbed.
In the Chemistry Department my grades weren’t the very worst, but I wasn’t top either. If Ethan needed an assistant and asked around, a swarm of girls would throw themselves at him.
I should feel lucky not to be used as a stepping stone.
Ethan set down the test tube he’d been holding, washed his hands at the sink, took the application from me, and read it again.
“I asked several instructors at the department; they all said your assignments are top quality—you're smart and hardworking. You’d be a really good assistant.”
Say what you want about shamelessness, but having the department’s idol look you in the eye and say your strengths out loud? Even someone shameless like me felt my throat go dry.
He took a small step back.
“Think about it—no salary. Do you still want it?”
I lunged and snatched the form from him, blurting out, “Yes yes yes—can I pay you instead?”
Probably because I was too excited, I tripped a little and stumbled forward, my hand landing on Ethan’s chest as I grabbed the paper.
Protecting the lab equipment instinctively, Ethan reached out and steadied me.
The distance between us was only the width of that application.
Then there was a clink—the sound of something hitting the floor.
Honestly, dropping a beaker in the Chemistry Department is nothing to joke about: minor—college property damage; major—chemical accident. You either pay or you risk lives.
I didn’t want to pay, and Ethan didn’t want to risk a mess.
We were still stuck like that—me half propped in his arms—when I scanned the lab.
All the instruments were exactly where they should be—no sign of anything falling.
Then I saw, framed in the doorway, the campus beauty at the threshold, looking like she’d just caught us red-handed—tears threatening.
At her feet was a perfectly neat lunch box.
My first instinct was to jump out of Ethan’s arms and distance myself, try to save my skin.
But then I saw Max skulking behind her in the doorway, watching like a schemer.
At that moment, my craving for a two-hundred-a-day internship that could double my salary and leap me into a paying position overrode my survival instincts.
I didn’t run. Instead, I clinged to Ethan’s shirt, pulling myself firmly into his embrace.
“What are you looking at? Haven’t you seen people doing experiments—no outsiders in the lab,” the campus beauty stared at me, then at Ethan, who, stunned, hadn’t pushed me away.
Suddenly she burst into tears and ran, leaving her lunchbox behind.
Max cheered, chased after her, and flashed two fingers at me.
I got the message. Two-hundred-a-day plan: on track.
Before I could even do the math on what my annual salary might become at that rate, I heard a barely audible chuckle above my head.
Ethan—the departmental idol with that famously expressionless face—was laughing.
My life felt complete.
I looked up at Ethan, who had that easy half-smile, utterly stunned.
“Senior, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lie to you. If you think the campus beauty is better, I can go get her back right now?”
Ethan grabbed my wrist, not letting me run.
"No, I agreed—so it doesn't count as you lying."
Then the big shot bent slightly and, to my shock, ruffled my hair.
"I'm not that terrifying. You don't need to be so terrified around me. Anything I don't object to, you can do."
Ethan nodded toward the direction the campus beauty had run off.
"For example, something like this—make a few more appearances."
Me: !!!
So after being tapped as Aunt Victoria's chosen assistant and being named by a rich kid to seduce someone, my third job was—unpaid—to shield my department's big shot from romantic trouble?
In that moment, my mind replayed a classic line from those domineering CEO novels.
Except it wasn't one CEO saying it to me—it was three CEOs, all at once.
"Woman, you're playing with fire."
And I really was.
Not only was I playing with fire, I was walking a high-wire while bursting into flames, doing a backflip without a safety rope.
I was freaking out.
On one hand, I couldn't let Aunt Victoria find out I'd been egging her son on.
On the other, I had to help Max trip up Ethan so the campus beauty wouldn't think she had a chance.
Now I had a new task—help Ethan fend off any would-be suitors.
The first two tasks were manageable. But protecting Ethan from admirers? That was lethal.
I dawdled in Ethan's research lab, not daring to go out.
If the campus beauty embellished the rumor as it spread, I might not even make it off campus alive today.
Ethan must've seen how jumpy I was; he took me to submit the paperwork in person.
The kindly old professor looked at me with the satisfaction of a parent whose kid finally learned to use power for personal gain.
He promptly approved Ethan's request for days off.
Ethan lead me out of campus like he'd done it a thousand times.
We weren't headed toward my shabby little rental.
I thought Ethan had more to tell me. Instead, he took me to a residential complex near the university.
Nice neighborhood, prime location. The only downside was the price.
Whether buying or renting, I couldn't afford it.
Ethan, however, signaled for me to open the door.
I stared at the sturdy security door that radiated safety, then at Ethan's nonchalant face. I stepped aside and, playing it cool, said I'd remember the way—there'd be no need to escort me next time.
Ethan looked a little helpless. "Did you not read the folder I gave you?"
Of course he'd guess—I had rushed to the lab the moment I saw the application form and hadn't had time to check the rest.
But there's no way I'd admit that, so I answered righteously, "Of course not. You're my senior—I trust you. Why would I check the folder? What could be in there?"
Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I saw the tips of Ethan's ears flush.
His face stayed composed. "Look now."
I pulled from the folder a key and an access card.
Ethan took them and opened the door.
"Technically, a graduate assistant is a volunteer and shouldn't be paid," he said. "But I can't have you working for nothing, and your neighborhood isn't safe. I sleep in the grad suite anyway and the place is empty. Consider it your rent."
I stared at the spotless, move-in-ready three-bedroom apartment he carried me into. My estimation of Ethan's generosity just climbed another level.
Compare that to me—still scraping by under the poverty line—while he, a grad student, clearly had enough to afford a place like this.
If there were a campus list of whom female students most want to marry, Ethan would be in a league of his own. Max couldn't catch up even on a rocket.
After helping me move in late that night, Ethan even sighed and lectured me.
"No matter how capable you are, you're still a young woman. Don't assume you're safe alone at night. If you need help, speak up—I will come if I can."
I swear, in that moment I heard my own heartbeat like a drum—abnormally loud, every beat practically shouting at me.
Lily Carter, you're done. You're falling for Ethan Hart.
After Ethan left, I immediately sent Max a celebratory message and asked how things were going with the campus beauty.
I had already created a misunderstanding big enough to scare her off, and I had Ethan's tacit approval. If Max couldn't close it now, he'd have a hard time keeping his title as the department's biggest dope.
But my message vanished into a black hole.
Max left me on read for a whole week.
This time he was even colder than before. He not only hid his Moments from me—he blocked the campus beauty's Moments too.
All I could find out was that he and the campus beauty had taken a week-long leave. No one knew where or why, and no return date.
Max's attendance was already spotty; I couldn't trust he'd actually be on campus after that.
I went back to the bar to look for him and caught Mr. Harrison—the nasty bar owner—trying to be helpful in his own blunt way.
"Don't bother finding him. When he comes back, he'll probably have broken up with that girl."
"Let's bet—next week, the one he's going after will definitely be you."
I spit my drink all over Mr. Harrison. "What did you just say?"
He made me stand, took two steps away, let me spin around a few times like inspecting me for faulty produce, then finally tossed me a Weibo account to check myself.
"She looks nothing like you, but her personality is the closest match. Maybe he'll break a new record with you."
I realized anyone close to Max probably had less-than-stellar judgment.
I flipped through the girl's Weibo as fast as I could. She posted normal daily life updates—no interactions with Max, barely mentioning him. If Mr. Harrison hadn't pointed me to her, I never would have connected her to Max at all.
I couldn't even pull off a body-snatching scandal—Max had elevated ghosting to an art form. The poor white moon he worshipped didn't even consider him a backup; Max was collecting memories like stamps.
I wasn't interested in Mr. Harrison's mysterious "white moon." I needed present help.
After confirming Max really wasn't on campus, I swallowed my pride and called Aunt Victoria to apologize.
She was cool as ever—she knew her son well. She didn't blame me for failing, just warned me not to repeat the same mistake. "One more slip-up and you're out."
Classic Aunt Victoria. I mentally cursed Max and the campus beauty a hundred times, then collapsed into the free apartment Ethan had provided.
A hundred bucks a day was paid now, but my million-dollar dream felt shaky. No matter how you did the math, this job left me at a loss. Max's paltry allowance couldn't heal the sting. The only comfort was the hope of getting close to a big-shot like Ethan.
Life tossed another blow when my phone rang and woke me from dreams of dwindling cash—the call was from Ryan Cole, and it filled the room with bad news.
Ethan's calls brought good things; Ryan's calls brought disaster.
"Did you make an enemy, Lily?" Ryan asked point-blank.
Well, yes—I had. I pissed off every fangirl on campus who wanted Ethan but couldn't get him.
I wasn't in the mood to be cheery; I was mourning my evaporated money.
"If you have something to say, say it. If not, hang up."
Ryan snorted. "You're not far from being hung out to dry."
"I was going to tell you myself, but I changed my mind. I'm sending you a link. See for yourself."
I clicked Ryan's link half-asleep—and woke up straight away.
The campus forum's pinned posts were graphic and vicious.
One was a post where Ethan and Max themselves came down to tear the truth apart—both big shots addressing the mess. The other was a newly exposed anonymous post accusing a girl in the Chemistry Department of using department connections to seduce Ethan, secure a special assistant position, then greedily try to switch to the wealthy Max. Apparently she'd coveted Ethan's charm and Max's money both.
Worse, Max had reportedly already succeeded in chasing the campus beauty; many had seen them walking hand-in-hand on campus. Two-timing and allegedly stealing someone's partner—she'd shattered the moral floor for scumbags.
The gossip mill ran wild. People dug through old threads and found photos of me showing up at Max's dorm in the middle of the night, pictures of me helping him move, a timeline that began when I first appeared around the other department and continued through my recent frequent presence near Ethan. They wove it into a full narrative: a crafty flirt building a career by stringing men along.
The thread was full of insults. My chest went cold.
Money can be earned again, but if Ethan believed I was morally compromised and kicked me away—what then?
The whole thing blew up.
Despite almost being socially dead on the forum, classes and experiments couldn't be skipped. But now I had the same treatment big shots get.
In class, my one-meter radius around me was a no-man's land.
Ethan remained composed, pretending not to see the posts. He basically kept me pinned in the lab, forcing me to stay until after midnight every night.
He insisted on walking me all the way to his place every time.
No matter how many times I told him that the neighborhood was totally safe, that it was really close to campus, that he should get rest early for both our sakes, Ethan just wouldn’t budge.
I wanted so many times to explain to the big shot that my relationship with Max was purely transactional—money for services—but if Ethan didn’t speak up and I started, it would’ve just looked suspicious, like I was overcompensating.
It was awkward.
Figuring out who leaked the rumor wasn’t hard, though.
I might have “offended” a legion of Ethan’s fangirls by proximity, but I was with him all day every day—except when I slept—so no one would dare get too extreme. The only one who’d truly crossed the line recently was Madison Lane.
I’d legitimately stolen Ethan from under her nose, right in front of her. That’s why she hated me the most.
But I still didn’t get it.
It would be fine if Madison silently judged me for wanting Ethan, so why drag Max into this? Is it some kind of honor for your own boyfriend to be caught by a girl like me?
Madison beat me to the lab that day.
Honestly, when she reappeared at the entrance I was a little surprised.
After that surprise came a pang of bittersweet amusement.
Max had chased after Madison so hard, and it’d only been a week—one week—and he’d already been humiliated. Compared to that, my little mess felt petty.
In the end, I lost neither Max nor Ethan. Max came back and asked me to help with his semester work—pretty transparently angling for me to take his finals for him. Ethan only wanted help with experiments; inorganic compounds were apparently more appealing to him than I was.
And Madison—she could go on trips with Max one minute and come back to play the sorrowful lovesick sentinel at Ethan’s lab door the next. I wanted to bury myself in a beaker and stay blind forever.
Ethan glanced at me, and I was about to step out and shut Madison down in person when she called out at the door.
“Ethan, I’m not here for you. I’m here for Lily Carter.”
Me: … Ethan: … I think this might’ve been the first time in his entire time at school that a girl flat-out rejected him to his face.
Didn’t he have any shame?
Madison didn’t seem to care about Ethan’s dignity.
After Ethan made it clear that I was working for him and couldn’t entertain visitors, she dragged me out of the lab anyway.
I couldn’t tell what she wanted. Her opening line was, “Do you really think he’s serious about you? Didn’t you look into how often he changes girlfriends? Which of his girlfriends lasts more than a week?”
Me: ???
I hadn’t noticed Ethan had the time.
Madison handed me a stack of printed A4 pages—one profile per ex. Name, age, major, how Max courted them and how long it lasted—neatly itemized.
She jabbed a chin at me. “Lily Carter, I’m telling you now: if I can’t last a week, don’t think you’ll be doing any better. You like thrills, fine, but set limits.”
I stared. If I remembered correctly, including her that made the fourth person who’d told me outright that I was the kind of girl who couldn’t keep a guy. Ryan had made a snide comment, Max had complained, Mr. Sterling had mocked me—fine, I could take those. But this was too much. They were all exes who didn’t last a week, at least I got an implied compliment out of it.
Madison waited for my reply. I was torn.
When you know more of the backstage truth than some bright, clueless girl does, you have to be careful about what she should or shouldn’t know. I was trying to think it through when Ethan’s voice came from behind me.
“I don’t care if she can’t last a week with anyone else. She’ll last with me.”
Madison’s smile cracked.
I turned and saw Ethan leaning against the corner wall, arms crossed, that half-smirk on his face.
“And I’ll guarantee it—she’ll last more than a week. As long as I’m on campus, she’s under my watch. I can say it and I’ll make it happen.”
Madison went green. I was thrilled.
I knew Ethan was talking about me being his assistant, but Madison didn’t know that. The whole point was the information gap. Ethan waved me over; I happily ditched Madison and ran to his side.
“Senior—say it,” I prompted.
Ethan looped an arm around my shoulders and nodded at Madison. “Don’t bother me if it’s nothing. And if you want to bring up that stuff you know, I’m not interested.”
Ethan for the win.
I gave him a secret thumbs-up.
He walked me back to the lab and lectured me as we went. “I saw those posts about you. Don’t worry about baseless rumors.”
I smacked my forehead when he said that. The person who posted only cropped photos of me going into Max’s dorm in the middle of the night, but Ethan had followed the whole thing that night. Of course he wouldn’t believe something so thin. Besides, most of my time was in the lab—any supposed “hookups with wealthy students from other departments” would only look suspicious if I had time for them, which I didn’t.
I relaxed. As long as my image in his mind stayed intact, everything was manageable.
I was basking in that comfort and didn’t notice Ethan still holding my hand. He walked me all the way into the lab and pressed me up against a bench, then pinched my cheek.
“Don’t take her words to heart. I can tell what’s real and what’s fake.”
Me: … Dude, that’s my line. You stole my line to shut me up?
I stared at Ethan, a little flustered. He pinched my cheek again.
Me: !!!
Holy—Ethan Hart, the cold chemistry god, pinching his junior’s cheek in the lab. Where did this plot come from?
I don’t know what about my dumbstruck face hit his soft spot, but he promised to take care of the rest and sent me back to my room before eight so I could study. He even solemnly apologized for not walking me home.
I felt oddly guilty in a grateful way. Living in his place rent-free, I should be content. But when something strays from the routine, more unexpected things tend to happen.
I’d barely reached the school gates when I saw Max squatting there, looking miserable. Beside him stood Mr. Harrison, expression complicated and resigned.
For a second I couldn’t tell who dumped whom in that messy romance.
My instinct was to pretend I didn’t see, but out of respect for Mr. Sterling I stopped and rapped Max on the shoulder. “Wake up. You’re not in your dorm yet.”
Before Mr. Harrison could even hush me, Max jerked his head up and flung his arms around my leg—just like he used to cling to Ethan’s leg—and hugged me hard.
In that moment I suddenly understood why Ethan once kicked Max in the face. I wanted to kick him, too.
This time, unlike last time when he fell asleep clinging to Ethan, Max grabbed my leg and practically wailed in my ear. “I was wrong! It was all a misunderstanding! Don’t go!”
Every word felt like a ten-thousand-word tragic backstory. The onlookers were instantly hooked.
I tried to pull away and looked to Mr. Harrison for help, but he gave me a helpless look, slipped into the crowd, and started stoking the gossip. “Another heartbreak?” “What did he do to deserve crying like that?” “Which department is he from?”
If I’d had a blade, I swear I’d have taken out Mr. Harrison first, then Max.
Max clung and sobbed, swearing his devotion. He said from the moment I first spoke to him he’d known I was special—not like the other floozies around campus. The more he hung out with Madison, the more he missed being with me. He talked about deleting those posts, about investigating the slander and clearing my name.
I rolled my eyes so hard my vision blurred. But Max wouldn’t let go; he only tightened his grip.
So I deployed my trump card. Thanks to Ethan’s strictness, my memory had been on fire lately, and the ex-girlfriend list Madison had handed me came in handy. I started whispering names into Max’s ear—one by one.
At each name, something shifted in his face. By the time I whispered the last name, Max looked awful.
“Who told you?” he growled, suddenly sober and furious, practically choking me with his question.
Before I could answer, a loud boom echoed from the chemistry building.
Everyone knows chemistry can be dangerous—one wrong move and things go south. Freshmen get lectured about all the lab accidents; Ethan always overdoses me with safety protocols. His experiment was theoretically risky today, but his procedure was meticulous—I’d trusted him implicitly and hadn’t thought twice as I left.
Dust and smoke shot up from the direction of the lab. I shoved Max away and sprinted toward the chemistry building.
Ethan was still in there.
Screw Mr. Sterling.
No ten sugar daddies in the world could compete with a big shot like him.
When I got to the Chemistry Department's entrance, campus security had already circled the research building and were keeping a perimeter. They’d also shooed away the nosy students who’d come to gawk.
The security guys were doing their jobs.
No matter how I argued that I was a student in the Chemistry Department, that I’d left something extremely important inside the lab, and even showed my lab access pass, the security officer only said one thing.
“It’s too dangerous. We can’t let anyone in.”
I was pacing outside, freaking out.
I tried to slip under the tape when the guard wasn’t looking.
But before I could get halfway through, someone grabbed my collar out of nowhere.
“What did you leave in the lab?”
Ethan’s voice was cool and a little hoarse.
I turned back, stunned.
He still looked exactly like the first time I’d seen him.
Cold, untouchable…like someone who didn’t belong to this world.
Ethan asked again, quieter.
“What did you leave in the lab? I looked around when I came out but didn’t see your bag.”
My legs went weak and I grabbed onto Ethan’s arm and sat down hard on the pavement.
He frowned, reached up, and touched my forehead.
“Where did you come from? Did you inhale something?”
I couldn’t help it—I gripped his hand.
“You.”
Ethan blinked.
“What?”
I looked at him and suddenly laughed.
“I mean you. I left you. I thought you hadn’t come out.”
The next second he pulled me into his arms.
The so-called cold big shot’s chest was not cold at all.
I could even hear his heartbeat under my ear—low and a little fast.
“I wasn’t planning to come out. Ryan said someone was bothering you at the gate. I got worried and came to check.”
Me: …So that’s what you call bringing up the one sore spot!
Why mention Max Sterling now?
Why even bring him up!
I fought to wriggle out of Ethan’s hold to explain—there was absolutely nothing improper between me and Max.
Instead, Ethan watched me and smiled so gently.
“I know. When I helped you move last time, I saw the agreement you signed.”
I felt awkward.
“I’ll quit my job soon,” I mumbled.
He seemed pleased.
“Good. But just now you said I was someone very important to you?”
Me: !!!
I was so wrong—he cared more about the lab than about me!
After all, the Chemistry Department’s golden boy couldn’t have his reputation tarnished.
Maybe my crush should stay locked up in my chest forever.
Then, while I was scrambling for something to say, Ethan spoke, word by word, in my ear.
“To me, you are also someone very important.”
He took my hand and pressed it to his chest.
“I think I’ve been bad at expressing myself. You probably didn’t notice. So I’ll say it again—I’m pursuing you right now. Did you realize that, Lily Carter?”
You might not believe it, but after setting a one-night record of selling eight hundred cups at the Pearl Tea Café, I somehow managed to snag my department’s golden boy.
And he—my golden boy—was the one chasing me.
I think I can brag about this glowing love story for the rest of my life.
