Ficorpio
Chapter 1
The girl Adrian Sterling loved had applied to a second-tier university.
So he changed my college applications from the top schools in Beijing to that same second-tier school.
“Why?” I asked him.
“She’ll be scared going so far away by herself,” Adrian said mildly. “Keep her company. And keep an eye on her, so some other guy doesn’t steal her away.”
Before the application deadline closed, I changed my choices to the farthest university I could find in South China and boarded the flight south alone.
An hour before the National College Application Portal closed, I had planned to switch my first choice to a university in the south.
But when I logged in, I found that every single one of my ranked choices had been changed to the second-tier university Vivian Hart, the campus belle, had applied to.
My heart lurched. Sweat broke out across my forehead as I changed each choice back one by one, then submitted everything with three minutes to spare.
Only after I calmed down did I remember something.
Aside from me, only one person knew my password.
So I called Adrian Sterling. “Did you change my applications? I ranked first in our grade, and you wanted me to go to a second-tier school?”
Adrian gave a faint laugh. “Vivian will be afraid going to college alone. Keep her company. She’s used to being taken care of like a princess. She needs help with everything—meals, daily life, even going to the bathroom.”
I frowned.
Vivian’s scores weren’t high. Adrian had hired several private tutors for her and picked the best second-tier university she could realistically get into.
But my score was nearly two hundred points higher than hers. I could go somewhere much better.
Fire burned through my chest.
“Then why didn’t you change your own applications?” I snapped. “You still filled yours with elite universities.”
Anger crept into Adrian’s voice. “Is this really worth making a scene over? Besides, the deadline is already closed. You can only go with Vivian now.”
Everyone knew I had always been Adrian Sterling’s devoted little shadow.
If he threw away the breakfast I made for him, I worried he would go hungry and ran to the convenience store to buy him another one.
When Vivian Hart, the girl he liked, injured her leg, I was the one who spent three months at the hospital taking care of her without complaint.
So of course he thought I was Vivian’s personal nanny. Whatever university she went to, I should follow and look after her.
But Adrian didn’t know the reason I had treated him so well.
I had taken money from the Sterling family.
I was a scholarship student from a poor background.
One million yuan to spend three years playing nanny to a wealthy heir was not a bad deal.
I had only told him my password before because I was still tied to the Sterling family.
Now the agreement had expired.
I was free.
Chapter 2
“Adrian Sterling,” I said into the phone, “from now on, we’re strangers.”
I hung up before he could answer.
Vivian Hart and her crowd were at the class reunion, too.
The looks around the table turned strange the moment I walked in. People kept glancing between us, eyes flicking back and forth with barely concealed curiosity.
I sat there calmly.
Then Vivian stood, carrying a box of chocolates. She set it in front of me with that soft, gentle smile she always wore and said, “Chloe Bennett, we’ve graduated now. Don’t steal anymore, okay? If you want to eat something, you can just ask me.”
The room fell into hushed whispers.
My expression changed at once.
I knew exactly what she was implying.
Back in our sophomore year of high school, Adrian Sterling had given me a small, pretty box of chocolates.
I didn’t understand how a few pieces of chocolate could cost over a thousand yuan, but if someone was handing it to me for free, I wasn’t going to refuse. I shoved it into my bag immediately.
During the next break, Vivian suddenly started crying. “My chocolates are gone!”
I had just come back from the bathroom when I found her going through my backpack. Then she pulled out that box of chocolates from inside it.
Everyone turned to look at me.
Their eyes were full of interrogation, suspicion, and blame.
I hurried to explain. “Adrian gave me that box. He said he bought one for you and one for me. If you don’t believe me, ask him.”
I turned and looked at Adrian like he was my last chance.
Vivian seemed to realize then that she might have accused me wrongly. Her face flushed bright red, and she stood there holding the chocolates, frozen and uncertain.
In a tiny voice, she began, “I’m sorry…”
Adrian looked at her, his eyes full of pity.
Then he turned to me and said loudly, “I never gave you any chocolates. You must have stolen them.”
For a moment, I stood there as if I’d been struck by lightning.
Thief. Poor and shameless. Stealing other people’s things.
The words slammed into me one after another.
After that, no matter how I tried to explain, the label had already been nailed to me.
Everyone talked over me.
“If you didn’t steal them, then why were her chocolates in your bag?”
“Adrian said he never gave you any. Are you so broke you can’t even afford food, so you have to steal from other people?”
“You’re a scholarship student. Can you really afford chocolates worth a thousand yuan?”
“Liar. Don’t hang out with her anymore.”
After school, I confronted Adrian and asked him why he had done it.
He slung his backpack over one shoulder and said, “Vivian’s running for class president right now. If people accuse her of framing someone for theft, it’ll hurt her campaign. Besides, didn’t you see her face? She was so embarrassed she couldn’t get out of it.”
I clenched my teeth so hard I wanted to throw my backpack at his head.
Chapter 3
Adrian reached out, messed up my hair, and “comforted” me. “Relax. Vivian found her box of chocolates. She left it in the nurse’s office. She won’t make you pay for it.”
That was when I finally snapped. I swung my backpack into him as hard as I could.
“Hiss—Chloe, are you insane?” he cursed.
And now Vivian was giving me a box of chocolates again.
It was naked provocation.
Around us, my former classmates were already murmuring.
“Vivian is so generous. She actually forgave a thief.”
I took out my phone and played the full recording from that afternoon after school—my conversation with Adrian.
Adrian’s careless voice came through clearly.
“I know you didn’t steal them.”
Two years ago, I had wanted to release that recording. But the Sterling family’s butler had given me 200,000 yuan.
Between being cursed at for two years and taking 200,000 yuan, I weighed my options and chose the money.
We had agreed that I would keep the secret only until graduation.
Now I could let everyone hear it.
Vivian’s face went deathly pale. She stood there with the box of chocolates in her hands, suddenly unsure where to put it.
The whole room exploded.
Because of that incident, I had been cursed at for a long time. The words thief had been carved into my desk and even scratched into my seat.
“So Chloe really did like Adrian back then. She even protected Vivian because of him.”
“Then why is she exposing the secret now?”
“It has to be love turning into hate. She saw Adrian and Vivian together and snapped. Honestly, that’s pathetic. No dignity at all.”
“Vivian knew Chloe didn’t steal anything and still didn’t explain? That’s pretty awful.”
Vivian began to cry, swaying as if she might collapse.
Adrian rushed to steady her. Then he shoved me hard and snapped, “It’s been so long. Why bring this up now? Stop making things difficult for Vivian.”
I staggered from the push.
A glass on the table shattered. The broken pieces sliced into my palm.
“She brought it up first!” I shouted.
Then I lunged forward and slammed into him.
Adrian hit the floor hard.
They talked about what happened at the party like it was the most fascinating scandal of the year.
For days, they picked it apart from every angle and eventually landed on one conclusion: I was still desperately in love with Adrian Sterling.
And because Adrian was with Vivian Hart now, I no longer had the chance to be his loyal little shadow, so I had turned all my bitterness on poor, delicate Vivian—the campus belle everyone adored.
That night, when I got home, I found heart-shaped candles and flowers arranged beneath my apartment building.
My first thought was that some lovesick guy was proposing to his girlfriend.