Chapter 2 I despise girls like you

"Why do you have my name in your file?"

He smiled. Not a nervous smile or an apologetic one. Just easy and unbothered, like my question had landed somewhere pleasant.

"Are you not curious about who I am first?" he asked.

"No."

"Most people are."

"I'm not most people. I want to know why my name is in a file you're carrying."

He looked at me for a moment. Then he laughed. Short and genuine. "You're sassy. I like that already."

I didn't thank him for it. "Answer the question."

He adjusted the files under his arm. "Kylian Ashford. I work for K&L Beauty and Supplies. Our CEO sent me here personally to identify students for an upcoming campaign." He paused. "Your principal gave me a shortlist of names."

"My name."

"Your name," he confirmed. "Trixie Baker." He tilted his head slightly. "And Dalton Yates."

The corridor went very still around me.

Of every name in this building. Every single student in this school and the universe had reached into a hat and pulled out that one. I felt the shock move through me before I could stop it and I saw from the way Kylian's expression shifted slightly that he'd noticed.

"We're still working through the final details," he said. "Once everything is confirmed, we'll contact you through the school officially."

I nodded. My mouth felt strange. "Fine."

I walked away before he could say anything else.

---

The cab ride home was twenty minutes and I spent all of it staring out the window with Dalton's name running circles in my head. By the time I got inside, I had a headache forming behind my left eye.

Amara brought food to my room without me asking. She set the tray on my desk and left quietly and I sat on my bed and didn't touch any of it. I just sat there thinking about the note, the sign, the way he'd moved me aside without looking at me, and now this. His name is next to mine on a list in a stranger's file. I couldn't tell if I was angry or exhausted. Probably both.

I heard the cars pull up outside just before seven.

---

Dinner was already on the table when I came down. Trisha was seated with her Oxford file sitting beside her plate like a guest. She waited exactly long enough for everyone to settle before she spoke.

"I was selected for Oxford Theater of Arts," she said, directing it at her mother with a smile that was designed for my father to see. "The investors came today and they chose me."

Her mother made a sound of pure delight and reached across to squeeze her hand.

My father looked at Trisha, then at me. "And you?"

"I wasn't selected," I said.

The table went quiet.

My stepmother set her glass down. "You missed the assessment," she said. It wasn't a question. "I see."

"I'll find another route —"

"Your father has supported this for three years." Her voice stayed calm and pleasant, which was always worse than if she'd raised it. She turned to my father. "Three years, David."

My father looked at me with that expression I had memorized by now. Tired. Already decided. "We'll talk later," he said.

We both knew we wouldn't.

Trisha cut her food neatly and didn't look at me and I sat there and ate four bites and counted the minutes until I could leave.

---

I lay in bed that night and thought about my mother.

I was two when she died. I had no real memory of her, just pieces of things I'd been told and one photograph my father used to keep on his desk. She was smiling in it. She looked like someone who laughed easily.

I remembered the day Kiara came.

I was seven. Trisha was seven too and I hadn't understood why a woman I'd never met was walking into our house with a suitcase and a daughter my age and my father's hand on the small of her back. I remembered standing at the top of the stairs watching them come through the front door. I remembered Trisha looking up and seeing me and not smiling.

Later that week I asked my father who Trisha was.

He sat me down and told me that Trisha was my sister.

I remembered not understanding. I remembered asking how. I remembered my father's face doing something complicated that he covered quickly with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

I understand it better now.

I cried quietly into my pillow until I fell asleep.

---

I took a cab to school in the morning.

Trisha had already left with the house driver by the time I came downstairs, which was normal. Her mother owned every car on that driveway and Trisha made sure nobody forgot it. At school, it was even louder. I heard her in the main corridor before I'd even made it to my locker, telling Edna and Paula and whoever else was listening that her mother bought her a new car last week, that Trixie's mother was a peasant woman who left their father bankrupt and in debt, and if it wasn't for Kiara Cole this family would have had nothing.

I walked past without stopping.

I had learned a long time ago that reacting was the point.

Third period. History. I was staring at a diagram of the Ottoman Empire when the door opened and the secretary looked in and asked for me by name.

I followed her down to the principal's office and pushed the door open and the first thing I saw was Dalton. He was seated already, one ankle crossed over his knee, looking at his phone with the expression of someone who found most things beneath his attention. He didn't look up when I walked in.

Kylian was standing near the window. Beside him was a young woman I hadn't seen yesterday mid-twenties, sharp eyes, a leather folder open in her hands.

"Miss Baker," Kylian said. "This is Monica. My assistant manager."

Monica nodded at me once. Professional. Efficient.

I sat down.

Principal Adeyemi laid everything out plainly. K&L Beauty and Supplies. A national youth campaign. Two students were selected for their profile and their talent. The contract would be signed at the company's annual gala. Both sets of parents needed to be informed and present before anything was made official.

"We want to be transparent," Kylian said. "You were both chosen because you're good. Not as a favour, not arbitrarily. Trixie, you're eighteen. Dalton, you're nineteen. The campaign needs authenticity and you both have it."

Dalton said nothing throughout. He just sat there with his jaw set, staring at a fixed point on the wall, and when the principal indicated we were done he stood up first.

I followed him out.

He stopped in the corridor and turned so fast I nearly walked into him. He stepped forward and backed me against the wall, one hand pressed flat beside my head, his voice dropping low.

"Nobody finds out about this," he said. "Not one person. You don't tell your friends, you don't post about it, you don't mention my name in connection with yours."

I held his gaze and said nothing.

"I mean every word." His eyes were flat. "I cannot stand someone like you. Don't make this more complicated than it needs to be."

He pushed off the wall and walked away without looking back.

I stood there for a moment, jaw tight, and then I turned.

Kylian was in the doorway behind me.

He wasn't smiling. He was just watching me w

ith those calm, steady eyes and I couldn't tell what was in them. But he'd seen everything. Every word of it.

I looked away first.