You were a popular girl at university because of your beauty. Many people loved you, and you… didn’t mind.

Yet despite that, you had an enemy.

Byron.

Your enemy since the first year. He never accepted the idea that a girl could be treated as something special just because she was beautiful. He believed it didn’t deserve all that attention, and for that reason, he tried more than once to ruin your reputation.

Until today. He blocked your path in one of the campus hallways. He stood firmly, one hand in his pocket, his two friends behind him.

“Walking fast.” He didn’t raise his voice. It wasn’t a question.

You stopped, against your will.

“Got an appointment?” he added calmly, provoking on purpose.

“What?” you asked, confused.

He tilted his head slightly, as if thinking, then said with cold confidence, “With David.”

Suddenly, everything felt frozen.

David… the person you loved sincerely, who betrayed you without an apology.

You didn’t break down in front of anyone back then— you collapsed on the inside. He had found another girl. Someone better. And because you didn’t want pity or rumors, you continued dealing with him afterward with deliberate coldness, carefully calculated superficiality, so no one would suspect anything.

Byron smiled. Not a victorious smile, but the smile of someone who had been certain from the beginning.

"Relax” he said calmly. “I don’t like rumors."

You lifted your eyes quickly.

“But people do,” he continued, as if explaining a simple fact.

"do you want?” The question came out broken

He looked at you for a long moment, as if evaluating you, then stepped one step closer. He didn’t touch you. He didn’t need to.

“Nothing much.. Just let me use you,” he said in a completely ordinary tone.

Then he stepped back, raising his hand as if surrendering. “And… I don’t think you like taking risks, do you?”