Then he walked away, leaving me shaking against the car.
I looked down at my phone. 8:47 AM. I'd missed my chemistry midterm.
And somehow, that felt like the least of my problems.
By lunch, the photo had gone viral.
Not just school viral actual viral. Someone had posted it to social media with the caption "Blackwood's bad boy FINALLY claimed," and it had exploded. Thousands of likes. Hundreds of comments. Students I'd never spoken to were staring at me in the hallways.
I sat alone in the library, trying to process what had happened, when my phone buzzed.
Unknown number: "Cafeteria. Now. Don't make me come find you. - K"
My hands trembled as I typed back: "We need to talk about this."
His response was immediate: "We will. After you play your part. I'm waiting."
I could refuse. I could go to the principal, explain everything, hope they'd believe me over Kai Thornton.
But then I remembered Marcus's threat. The way Kai had said he knew everything about me. The photo that made us look like a real couple.
I was trapped.
With legs that felt like lead, I walked toward the cafeteria. Through the glass doors, I could see Kai sitting at a corner table, alone as always. But now every eye in the room was on him on us waiting to see what would happen next.
He looked up as I entered, and that cold smile returned.
"There's my girl," he said loud enough for everyone to hear.
I forced myself to walk over, to sit down across from him, to pretend my heart wasn't trying to escape my chest.
Up close, I noticed things I'd missed before. The exhaustion shadowed beneath his eyes. The way his jaw was clenched too tight. The fresh bruises on his knuckles that definitely hadn't been there this morning.
"Smile," he ordered quietly. "You're supposed to be happy to see me."
I smiled. It felt like my face might crack.
"Better." He reached across the table and took my hand, his grip firm and warm and absolutely terrifying. "Now listen carefully, because I'm only going to explain this once."
Around us, phones were lifting, cameras pointed in our direction.
"For the next three months, you belong to me. You'll convince everyone at this school that we're madly in love. You'll make it believable." His thumb traced across my knuckles in a gesture that probably looked tender to observers. "And if you do a good job, I'll make sure nothing bad happens to you or your scholarship."
"And if I refuse?"
His smile widened, but his eyes stayed cold. "Then I'll make sure everything bad happens to you. Starting with making sure that chemistry midterm you missed becomes an automatic fail."
My stomach dropped. "You can't"
"My stepmother is the dean, Aria. I can do whatever I want." He released my hand and leaned back. "So what's it going to be? Three months of pretending to date me, or three years of watching your dreams crumble?"
I wanted to throw my water in his face. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run.
Instead, I heard myself say, "Fine. Three months."
"Good girl." He stood up, and the entire cafeteria watched as he walked around the table. My breath caught as he leaned down, his lips brushing against my temple in a kiss that looked real but felt like ice.
"Welcome to hell, baby," he whispered against my skin. "Try not to get burned."
Then he was gone, leaving me sitting there with the entire school staring, my life officially destroyed, and the worst part?
The absolute worst part?
Where his lips had touched my skin still tingled.
And I hated myself for noticing.
The rest of Monday passed in a blur of stares, whispers, and screenshots.
By the time the final bell rang, I'd been tagged in forty-seven posts, received three hundred new follower requests, and had my locker vandalized with the words "Gold Digger" in red lipstick.
Sophie Chen found me scrubbing at the letters with a wet paper towel, my hands shaking with a mixture of anger and humiliation.
"Oh my God, Aria." She grabbed my wrist, stopping me. "When were you going to tell me you were dating Kai freaking Thornton?"
I turned to face my best friend, the only person at Blackwood Academy who'd bothered to befriend the scholarship kid. Sophie was everything I wasn't confident, stylish, from old money but she'd seen past the wealth gap from day one.
Now she was looking at me like I'd grown a second head.
"It's… complicated," I managed.
"Complicated?" Her voice pitched higher. "Aria, that's Kai Thornton. He doesn't date. He barely speaks to humans. And now suddenly he's calling you 'baby' in front of the entire school?" She crossed her arms. "Spill. Now."
I opened my mouth, then closed it. What could I say? That I was trapped in a fake relationship with a dangerous boy who was blackmailing me? That everything she saw was a lie?
Before I could formulate an answer, a shadow fell over us.
"Problem here, ladies?"
Kai leaned against the locker beside mine, looking completely at ease despite the fact that half the hallway had stopped to stare. He was dressed in his usual black jeans and leather jacket, but somehow managed to make the school's strict dress code look like a suggestion rather than a rule.
Sophie's eyes went wide. "Oh. Um. Hi, Kai."
"Sophie." He nodded at her, then his gaze fixed on me. "Ready to go, Aria?"
"Go where?"
"Home. I'm driving you." He said it like it was obvious, like we'd discussed this.
We definitely hadn't discussed this.
"I take the bus," I said slowly.
"Not anymore." He pushed off the locker and held out his hand. "Come on. We've got an audience, and you're doing that thing where you look terrified of me. Not a great look for a girlfriend."
He was right. At least a dozen students were openly watching us, phones out, recording. I could already imagine the TikToks: "Kai Thornton's new girlfriend looks scared of him LOL."
I forced my expression to soften and took his hand. His fingers immediately intertwined with mine, warm and steady and completely overwhelming.
"I'll text you later," I told Sophie, who nodded mutely, still staring.
Kai led me through the hallway, and it was like the Red Sea parting. Students pressed against lockers to let us pass. Teachers looked away. Even the security guard nodded respectfully at Kai.