Chapter 1

Frederick Pendelton's engagement announcement came through the law school's internal email. He was marrying another professor from our department.

The second I saw it, my stomach dropped like I'd missed a step in the dark.

No tears. Just this crushing weight in my chest that made it impossible to breathe.

To keep from completely losing it on campus, I let my best friend Chloe drag me to a Sigma Chi party.

I needed cheap tequila and bass loud enough to drown out my thoughts—anything to kill this pathetic, hopeless thing I felt for him.

By eleven p.m., my phone stayed silent.

Any other night, if I wasn't home by now, Frederick would've already called twice.

I kept pulling up our texts.

Cursor blinking. Started typing, deleted it. Started again, deleted again.

I couldn't find the nerve to ask him about the engagement.

Finally, in that basement thick with sweat and stale beer, the alcohol won.

I let Chloe talk me into her spectacularly stupid plan—she used her curling iron and some concealer to fake a hickey on my neck.

"Jen, look at me." She grabbed my shoulders over the music. "If he gives even half a shit about you, this'll make him lose his mind."

Drunk and desperate, some pathetic part of me actually believed her.

I stumbled home just after midnight, heels in hand, the room still spinning.

Frederick was on the couch like I knew he'd be, face lit by his laptop screen. Video call.

"The mermaid cut looks incredible on you..." His voice had this softness I'd never heard. "Don't worry about it. I'll fly up this weekend and we'll go together."

He'd never talked to anyone like that.

When the door opened, he glanced up.

"Jennifer just got back. I'll call you later."

He ended the call and stood.

The second his eyes hit the mark on my neck, something in his face cracked.

His jaw locked. Those gray-blue eyes went dark and dangerous—like he was two seconds from hunting down whoever touched me and breaking their hands.

But it only lasted a heartbeat.

He shut his eyes hard, killing whatever he felt. When he opened them again, he was back to being the controlled guardian.

"You seeing someone?"

His voice came out rough but flat.

"Yeah."

"Are you sleeping with him?"

I twisted the fabric of my dress between my fingers, heart pounding. "That's none of your business anymore."

He didn't answer right away. Just pressed two fingers to his temple.

Five seconds of suffocating silence.

I waited for him to explode the way he always did.

The man who'd raised me had always been a control freak—I thought he'd lock me in my room, then make whoever touched me disappear from campus.

None of it came.

He dropped his hand. The look he gave me was so calm it scared me.

"You're eighteen, Jennifer. I can't tell you who to date." He said it like he was reading terms and conditions. "Just be smart about it. And cover that up before you leave the apartment. It looks cheap."

Then he turned and headed for the stairs.

Total indifference. Not even a fight.

That cold detachment broke something in me.

Panic hit. I lurched forward and grabbed his shirt, eyes stinging.

"You saw what I posted, didn't you?" I stared up at him, voice shaking. "You saw all of it."

Last week I'd put everything on my private story—every inappropriate feeling I had for him spelled out.

Only he could see it. And I'd watched him view it within an hour.

He knew. He had to know.

Frederick went still.

He turned back, looking down at me with exhausted eyes.

"Jen," he sighed. "You're young. It's easy to confuse dependence with something else. I'm not going to hold some late-night post against you."

"I don't believe you." The alcohol made me reckless. I grabbed his collar and pulled myself against him.

Tequila and his clean aftershave. I pressed close enough to feel his chest go rigid, tilted my face up until my lips almost brushed his jaw.

"You can't tell me you don't feel anything—"

Frederick's throat worked.

"Jennifer. Stop."

His voice came out wrecked. His hand clamped down on my waist hard enough to bruise. For half a second I was sure he'd snap and kiss me.

He didn't.

Those scarred hands jerked up to my wrists like I'd burned him. He peeled me off and shoved me back an arm's length away.

"You're drunk." He turned his face, wouldn't look at me. "Go to bed."

He went upstairs without another word, leaving me alone in the dark.

I sank down on the bottom step, biting my lip hard enough to taste blood, shaking with sobs I tried to muffle.

Light spilled from under his bedroom door upstairs.

The apartment was so quiet I could hear everything—him laughing softly on the phone about bridesmaid dresses and wedding flowers.

I was a joke. I didn't even have the right to be jealous.

Because he was right. I was the one who crossed the line. Legally, to everyone who mattered, I was just a responsibility he'd taken on.

Frederick was my legal guardian, eleven years older than me, and the youngest law professor at this Ivy.

Seven years ago, a multi-car pileup killed my parents.

I was eleven, standing in a cold hospital hallway, when I met twenty-two-year-old Frederick for the first time.

He showed up in a black coat, soaked through, with this heavy, drowning look in his eyes I didn't understand then.

He walked up, crouched down, and took my hands in his—cold, covered in burn scars.

"Come with me," he said, voice raw. "I'll take care of you. I promise."

I found out later he'd cut ties with his old-money Philadelphia family to do it. Used his entire trust fund to adopt me.

He'd been obsessively protective since I was twelve. But lately, the control felt like something else.

Senior prom, some guy asked for my number—he transferred schools two days later.

That same night Frederick backed me against the bathroom counter and scrubbed my lipstick off with his thumb until my mouth was raw and swollen.

He made me change out of anything low-cut with one look. Wouldn't let another guy get within three feet of me.

The way he watched me, controlled me—I'd convinced myself it meant something more.

When I posted that confession, I was gambling. Betting he'd stop pretending and finally admit he wanted me too.

I lost.

He announced his engagement instead.

He'd chosen the cruelest way to reject me—by pretending I never mattered at all.