The Ring That Made Him Love Me

Chapter 1

I once thought that after I brought the ring to campus, Adrian Sterling would start chasing me.

I was just an ordinary girl, but he kept telling me I was the prettiest woman in the world. Around us, no one thought he was joking. The people who saw it all believed he was serious, that the campus heartthrob had really fallen for me.

I even turned Adrian down once and told myself that was the end of it. I thought we would go back to being nothing more than classmates, that I could keep my distance and leave it at that.

But the next day, the ring was gone.

Adrian blocked my way and looked at me like he was seeing a stranger. “Who are you?” he asked.

I froze.

The ring had changed the way people saw me. That much was obvious now. It was too strange, too unreal. I had somehow spent so much time with this girl who looked completely different in everyone else’s eyes, and I had never once noticed the truth hiding underneath.

Then time snapped back.

I returned to the day before, to the time before Adrian had recognized me. The ring that should have been on my finger was back in the box in my bag, as if nothing had ever happened.

My hands were shaking when I opened the package. Inside, tucked beneath the ring, was a sheet of instructions.

Only then did I understand what had happened.

The ring carried magic. It didn’t just alter appearance perception. It could also rewind time. And because I had failed to win Adrian over, it had dragged me all the way back to the start.

I stared at the ring for a long time.

This time, I did not put it on.

No matter how magical it was, no matter how impossible it seemed, I couldn’t let myself walk back into the same disaster again. I closed the box, put it back in my bag, and held on to that small, impossible thing like it was the only proof that the first timeline had ever existed.

Megan had dragged me to the dinner venue with the rest of our classmates, and by the time I got there, I already had a bad feeling about how the night was going to go.

I had barely settled in when Adrian Sterling arrived.

The room changed the second he walked through the door. It was one of those shifts you could feel before you even looked up. Conversation thinned out. A few people straightened in their seats. More than one person turned to stare.

He looked polished and easygoing in a way that made him stand out even in a crowd. His clothes were simple, but everything about him was expensive without trying to be. Clean lines, long legs, a face that was unfairly good-looking, and that sort of calm confidence that made people stop talking just to watch him pass.

Someone near me whispered, “Is he here for someone?”

Another voice answered, even softer, “Probably. Why else would he show up at our class dinner?”

Chapter 2

I kept my expression blank and lowered my eyes to my bowl, pretending I was more interested in the food than in the fact that every glance in the room seemed to keep sliding my way.

Then someone actually asked it out loud.

“Adrian, are you looking for someone?”

He smiled faintly, as if the question amused him. “No. I just wanted to have dinner with everyone.”

His tone was light, but the moment he said it, the room got even quieter.

That answer sounded normal enough on the surface. The problem was that nobody here believed it for a second.

Not when he kept looking in my direction.

Not when he sat down, glanced at what was on my plate, and casually said, “If there’s anything you don’t like, order something else. Don’t force yourself.”

It was such a small line, spoken so naturally, that it almost made me forget how strange this whole situation was. Almost.

Because it wasn’t just me who heard it. The people around us heard it too.

A few classmates exchanged looks. A couple of them were openly trying not to smile. One girl’s eyes bounced between Adrian and me with undisguised curiosity, like she was watching a scene unfold right in front of her.

Campus gossip traveled fast. Everyone knew Adrian Sterling was the campus heartthrob. Everyone also knew he had been making no effort to hide his interest in me lately. Flowers, rides, public appearances, sudden acts of courtesy that made it impossible to pretend there was nothing going on.

And now this.

A dinner with all our classmates, said in the most ordinary tone possible, but placed exactly where everyone could see it.

I could practically hear the unspoken questions piling up around the table.

Was he serious? Was he really chasing me? How far was he willing to go?

I wished I could say I’d gotten used to it.

I hadn’t.

I picked up my chopsticks and tried to focus on eating. The food was good. That should have been enough. But no matter how carefully I kept my eyes down, I could still feel the attention circling the table.

Adrian stayed calm the entire time. He didn’t act impatient. He didn’t press me. He didn’t make any big declarations. He just ate with everyone else, answered a few questions when people asked him something, and every so often slid in one quiet line that made the atmosphere tighten again.

It was almost worse that way.

If he had been loud about it, I could have dismissed him as impulsive. If he had been reckless, I could have pretended he was only acting on a whim.

But he wasn’t.

He was careful.

That was what made it difficult to ignore.

By the time the dinner was winding down, the room had become a minefield of polite smiles and silent speculation. Nobody wanted to be the first to say what everyone was thinking, but nobody could stop themselves from thinking it either.

When people started getting up to leave, Megan finally leaned toward me and lowered her voice. “Sorry. I didn’t expect it to turn out like this.”

Chapter 3

I looked at her, a little surprised.

She gave me an awkward smile. “I invited you because I thought it would just be a regular class dinner. I didn’t know Adrian would show up and make it so… obvious.”

I almost laughed.

Obviously, she wasn’t the one who had made anything awkward. If anything, she had just been unlucky enough to get caught in the middle.

“It’s fine,” I said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Megan still looked a little guilty, but before she could say anything else, the others were already moving toward the door. The noise level rose again, chairs scraped back, and the room slowly broke apart into smaller groups.

Outside the venue, the air was cooler, and that only made the lingering tension feel sharper.

A few classmates were still whispering as they walked ahead of us.

“He really came just for her, didn’t he?”

“No way. That was too deliberate.”

“Did you see the way he kept looking at Chloe?”

I ignored all of it and kept walking.

Then Adrian’s voice came from behind me.

“Chloe.”

I stopped and turned around.

He was standing not far away, one hand in his pocket, his expression unreadable in the dim light outside the restaurant. Behind him, the last few classmates were still lingering at the curb, all of them trying very hard not to look like they were listening.

Adrian glanced at them, then back at me. “Go ahead.”

I frowned slightly. “You should go first.”

He didn’t move. “You go ahead.”

It was such a simple exchange that it almost felt stupid, except for the fact that neither of us actually budged.

For a second, the two of us just stood there while the people around us kept pretending not to notice.

Then I gave up first.

I looked at him one more time, still trying to figure out what he was doing, and all I got back was that calm, steady expression of his, as if he had already decided something and saw no reason to explain it to anyone else.

In the end, I turned away.

“Fine,” I said. “I’m leaving.”

And this time, Adrian finally stepped back and let me go.

“Chloe, don’t be mad at me.”

“Chloe, are you planning to ignore me forever?”

“How about we go get something to eat? I’ll pay.”

I looked at Adrian Sterling in front of me.

Before this, had he really known me?

He had.

I remembered that much clearly.

When we got into the taxi, he sat down beside me without saying much, but once the car started moving, he kept trying to talk to me again, as if the brief silence between us made him uneasy.

He did not sound like someone who was about to give up.

That was exactly why I found him even harder to read.