Chapter 2

Keira bit her lip until the sting grounded her. Pacing away from the trauma ward into the quieter, carpeted expanse of the second-floor corridor, she drew a sharp breath and swiped the green icon to bring the phone to her ear.

"Come up to my room right now," Alexandre said. His voice was as smooth and melodic as ever, but underneath lay a sharp, entitled arrogance. "I have questions, and you’re going to answer them."

Looking out toward the far end of the hallway where the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the snow-covered street below, Keira gripped the phone, forcing her voice to remain cold and steady. "I’m not coming."

"Keir."

The familiar abbreviation—a privilege he had commanded for four years—made her throat close with sudden grief, but she swallowed it down with venom. "You have no right to call me that. We broke up."

"Broke up?" Alexandre let out a dry, ugly scoff. "Since when are you so damn obedient? What, is this because of that kid who hauled nine hundred and ninety-nine roses into the terrace café on the square? His name is Camren Durham, isn't it? Do you even know who he is?"

"Alexandre, stop being so unreasonable! You were the one who ended it. Don't drag anyone else into this."

"I regret it, alright? I changed my mind," he sneered, his tone turning venomous through the receiver. "If you think you can toss me aside and play house with your little student, you’re out of your mind."

A burning heat rushed up Keira’s neck, stinging her eyes red. Alexandre had always been this way—an indulged son of privilege who treated everything and everyone as disposable playthings. But did his reckless birthright give him the license to shred her dignity so casually?

At the center of the hall, the brass elevator bell chimed softly.

Keira had reached the far glass window, her silence stretching across the line as she fought to steady her trembling breath. To Alexandre, those few seconds of quiet sounded like guilt—like a tacit confession.

His temper flared, completely shedding whatever refined veneer he had left.

"Keira Henson, you were hired to be a substitute instructor, not to seduce the undergraduate boys! A girl like you and someone like Camren Durham? You don't stand a chance in hell—"

"Enough!"

The word tore from her throat before she could stop it.

Four years. Four years of quiet devotion and patience, and this was what he reduced her to in the end—an opportunistic flirt using her classroom to hunt an heir.

Fury and humiliation collided, snapping the last thread of her composure. She gripped the phone until her knuckles turned bone-white, standing right beside the tall corridor window, and let out a broken, furious laugh.

"Fine! If that’s what you want to believe, then yes! That's exactly the kind of person I am! I love my student! I like Camren Durham! Are you satisfied now?!"

She screamed the confession into the phone, her chest heaving, and violently slammed the end button.

The line went dead. A scalding rush of tears broke past her lashes, spilling down her burning cheeks.

Keira raised the sleeve of her oversized sweater, roughly scrubbing the wetness from her face. She leaned against the cold window glass, letting out a long, ragged exhale to steady the wild pounding in her ribs.

Behind her, the elevator doors slid smoothly open against the carpeted second floor.

Then, from the quiet space directly behind her, a low, velvet baritone cut through the hall—wholly unfamiliar, effortless, and terrifyingly calm:

"You like Camren Durham?"