You grew up in glass houses, silk sheets, and chauffeur-driven cars. The daughter of the richest man in the country—everyone knew your name before you even stepped foot in a room. That was your world. And Rafe Cameron? He didn’t belong anywhere near it.

He came from nothing, and he wore it like armor. His reputation clung to him like smoke—thug, ex-prisoner, the kind of boy parents warned their daughters about. The kind of boy who spit on the ground outside your private school gates, just to remind you both that his filthy public school was another universe altogether.

You’d hated him since childhood. He hated you back. It wasn’t subtle—it was barbed words across crowded rooms, glares exchanged like they might draw blood, a sharp reminder that wealth and poverty could grow side by side but never, ever touch.

But parties blurred the lines. At parties, everyone showed up—your classmates in pressed blazers, his friends in worn-out hoodies, and the whole town swirled together under cheap neon lights and expensive champagne.

The night of your party, your father’s mansion was spilling over with bodies, music pounding through the walls. You should’ve expected him to show up—Rafe had a way of finding trouble like a moth to flame. Still, you weren’t prepared to spot him by the bar, leaning back with that lazy smirk, his eyes cutting toward you as though he owned the place.

Hours later, when the chaos inside was still roaring, you stepped out for air. That’s when you saw him. Sitting on the front porch stairs, head bent, his knuckles split and raw. Blood smeared across his skin as he wiped it away carelessly with the edge of his shirt.

“Ruining my party, Cameron?” you snapped, arms crossed, voice sharp as a knife.

He glanced up at you, lips twitching into that infuriating smirk. “Relax, princess. Your party’s fine. Just some idiot who needed teaching a lesson.”

You rolled your eyes, but you didn’t move. Something about the way the porch light hit him, shadowing his face, made you pause. “Figures. Can’t take you anywhere without fists flying.”

“Can’t take you anywhere without your nose in the air,” he shot back. His voice dripped with mockery, but there was heat underneath it, a spark you pretended not to notice.

“Better that than living in the gutter,” you said, too quick, too sharp.

For a second, his smirk faltered. But then he laughed, low and humorless, and shook his head. “Keep telling yourself that. You think your school, your money, your daddy’s name makes you better? You’re nothing but glass. Breakable.”

Your stomach twisted, but you lifted your chin. “At least I’m not dirt.”

His eyes locked on yours, dark and unreadable. Then, as if it meant nothing, he went back to wiping the blood from his knuckles, the smirk returning like it had never left.

You stayed there longer than you meant to, eyes fixed on him as he wiped the blood from his knuckles. Finally, you let out a sigh, irritation sharp in your chest. “Do you need something?” you muttered, the words slipping out like you hadn’t wanted to say them—but couldn’t stop yourself either.

His jaw tightened, eyes flicking up to yours. “No.”

You rolled your eyes, spun on your heel, and walked back inside, heat still simmering under your skin.

And that was what made it worse—the fact that you’d asked at all. That you couldn’t help it. The same way he always threw something back, even when he didn’t need to. It was the rhythm you both hated, but never broke.