Riley's POV
The air in the honors lounge always smelled of expensive wood polish, old paper, and the faint, bitter scent of over-caffeinated ambition. Usually, this was my sanctuary—the one place in Hawthorne Academy where quiet was a requirement, not a suggestion.
It was a room designed for the elite, with its high vaulted ceilings and emerald-green velvet curtains that muffled the sounds of the bustling campus outside. Here, I wasn't the girl from the wrong side of the tracks; I was a GPA, a set of perfect test scores, a scholarship student who had earned her right to breathe the same filtered air as the wealthy.
But today, the sacred silence was broken. It wasn't the wind against the glass or the distant chime of the chapel clock. It was the rhythmic, steady, and utterly annoying tap-tap-tap of a thumb against a phone screen.
I didn't even have to look up from my bag to know who it was. The energy in the room had shifted the moment he walked in, turning the atmosphere into something heavy and volatile.
Jax Thorne's boots—scuffed, vintage leather that probably cost more than my entire year's tuition—were propped up on my mahogany study table. Not just any table. My table. The one in the far corner, tucked away from the drafty windows and hidden behind a pillar, where I had spent every Monday afternoon for three consecutive years. It was the only spot in this entire school where I felt like I could actually think.
"You're in my seat," I said. My voice was as flat as the pages of the heavy textbook clutched to my chest, though my heart was beginning to pick up a frantic, angry rhythm.
Jax didn't move. He didn't even blink. He just shifted his weight slightly, his expensive leather jacket creaking in the stillness of the lounge. A single lock of dark, chaotic hair fell over his forehead, shadowing eyes that were currently fixed on a TikTok feed. He looked like a king who had found a new territory to conquer, and I was just a peasant complaining about the borders.
"I don't see a nameplate, Evans," he drawled, his voice a low, honey-thick baritone that always seemed to grate against my nerves. "Maybe the Dean forgot to engrave your 'Queen of the Nerds' title on the wood. he rolled his eyes
"Rule number one, Jax." I stepped closer, the heat of frustration rising up my neck and staining my cheeks. I could feel the eyes of a few younger students on us, watching the inevitable train wreck that always occurred when we were in the same room. "*Respect the grind. Some of us are here to actually earn our futures, not just inherit them."
Finally, he looked up. He did it slowly, as if the effort of acknowledging my existence was almost too much for him to bear. His eyes weren't just brown; they were the color of dark, aged whiskey, and they held that familiar, lazy spark of provocation that made me want to scream.
"Rule number one is actually 'don't be boring,' Riley," he countered, leaning back until the chair groaned under his weight. "You should try it sometime. It might get those stress lines out of your forehead."
I slammed my three-inch-thick Calculus textbook onto the table. The thud was loud and violent, echoing off the mahogany and making a freshman at a nearby desk jump so hard his pen skidded across his paper.
Jax didn't even flinch. He didn't even move his feet. He just watched me, a slow, infuriating smirk spreading across his face—the look of a man who knew exactly which buttons to push to make me explode.
"I have a 4.2 GPA and a meeting with the scholarship board in exactly one hour," I whispered, leaning down so only he could hear the venom in my words. I could smell him now—cold winter air, expensive cologne, and a hint of something that smelled like trouble. "That meeting is the difference between me graduating or going back to working three jobs just to buy groceries. If you don't move your feet in the next three seconds, I will use this compass to see if you actually have blood in your veins or just liquid gold."
I pulled the sharp metal tool from my bag, the point glinting under the lounge's chandeliers.
Jax's smirk faltered for a fraction of a second—a tiny, almost imperceptible crack in the armor. It was the only victory I'd had all day. He dropped his legs to the floor, the heavy thud of his boots echoing like a gavel. He stood up, and the world seemed to shrink. He towered over me, a physical manifestation of the Thorne family's dominance over this town.
"Careful, Evans," he drawled, stepping into my personal space until I was forced to tilt my head back just to keep eye contact. I could see the faint, jagged scar on his jawline—a reminder that even golden boys got into fights. "People might start thinking you actually have a pulse. And we both know that would ruin your 'Perfect Robot' reputation.
."
He swiped his phone off the table and began to walk away, his presence lingering in the air like a storm that hadn't quite passed. He got about five paces toward the door before he paused just past my shoulder
"Oh, and Riley? Check your pocket. You dropped something."
My heart skipped a beat. I didn't remember dropping anything. I reached into the side pocket of my uniform blazer, my fingers brushing against a texture that didn't belong—a thick, high-quality cardstock that wasn't there five minutes ago.
I pulled it out, my breath catching in my throat. It was a small, cream-colored envelope with the school's crest embossed in gold. My name was written on the front in a hand I didn't recognize. I tore it open, my hands beginning to tremble as the words came into focus.
Mandatory Meeting: 4:00 PM. The Dean's Office.
The blood drained from my face. Underneath the formal, printed text, someone had scribbled a message in messy, hurried ink that looked like it had been written in a fever:
Rule number three: Never trust a Thorne.
I looked up sharply, my eyes searching for Jax, but he was already gone. The heavy oak doors of the honors lounge were still swinging shut behind him, the sound muffled by the thick carpets.
I looked at the clock on the wall. 3:05 PM.
The scholarship board meeting was at four o'clock in the West Wing. The Dean's emergency meeting was at four o'clock in the North Tower.
One was my future—the culmination of years of starvation and study. The other felt like a trap, a dark invitation into the very chaos I had spent my life trying to avoid.
I sank into the chair he had just vacated, the wood still warm from his presence. I looked at the compass in my hand, then at the golden crest on the envelope. My life had always been a series of calculated risks, a bridge built of logic and hard work. But as I stared at the messy ink of "Rule Number Three
" I realized the bridge was burning.
If I went to the board, I kept my scholarship but ignored a direct order from the Dean. If I went to the Dean, I missed the board and lost my funding.