The first time i met Calix Elijah Montemayor, I knew i hated him.
Not in the dramatic, petty kind of way. Not in the "he's annoying but hot" way that my friends loved to romanticize.
No. I hated him in the kind of way that crawled under your skin and sat there, like a splinter you can't remove. Small but sharp. Always present.
He didn't do anything special that night. He just looked at me like he already had me figured out.
Like i was predictable.
Decorative.
Replaceable.
And maybe i was.
I was twenty-one, clutching a champagne flute at some Forbes Park engagement party i didn't even want to attend, wearing a gown i didn't pick, with last week's career failure still echoing in my mother's voice: "Maybe you're just not trying hard enough, Ysabelle."
I had just dropped out of another attempt at law school. The Zobel legacy demanded perfection, and i couldn't even decide if i liked the person i was becoming.
I had no idea what i was doing with my life, only that i didn't want it handed to me anymore.
And then there was him.
Calix, standing by the bar in a perfectly tailored suit, taller than i remembered from the news articles, colder than he looked in interviews.
Everyone else whispered his name like he was some kind of demigod. Professional athlete. Business heir. Montemayor perfection.
But the moment he spoke to me, I realized why we would never get along.
He wasn't just cold—he was calculating. He liked to look for weakness and i was bleeding self-doubt in that dress.
"You're the Zobel girl, right?" he asked, like I was an item on a menu. "Thought you'd be taller."
I smiled. Bit back a retort.
And from that moment on, it was war.
Because i refused to be another rich girl defined by her last name.
And he hated people who hadn't earned their spotlight.
We were designed to dislike each other.
And for three years, we did.
Until something changed.
Until the war between us got quieter.
Until the night he kissed me.
And nothing made sense after that.