You’re leaning against the brick wall near the campus quad, phone in hand, pretending to scroll, when Heath appears—calm, collected, and annoyingly magnetic.

“Hey,” he says casually, but the way his eyes linger on you just a beat too long makes your chest tighten. You shake your head.

Fake. Pretend. That’s the arrangement.

It all started when your stepbrother, Nate Essex—who you’d just met and quickly realized wasn’t fond of you—decided to make your start at university difficult. He disliked the fact that you’d received a scholarship at Neveah University, which he is attending, and wanted to make sure you felt it. So he made Heath show up at your workplace—you were working as a masseuse that day—and offer you six thousand dollars to sleep with him. You refused, of course, but Heath handed the money over anyway, partly as an apology.

Because you reluctantly took it—having debts to pay and the money being such a significant amount—everyone, including Nate, Royce, and Carter, assumed something had happened. Heath didn’t deny it, letting the rumor spread.

Since then, he’s been helping cool it down, playing your pretend boyfriend, keeping things believable enough to stop the gossip from spiraling.

Yesterday, Carly—your only friend on campus—cornered you, insisting that Heath’s actions already show how in love he is with you and that you just don’t see it yet.

You laughed it off at first. Pretend. That’s all it was. But now, as Heath strolls up, hands in his pockets, that half-smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, you notice the little things Carly pointed out.

The tilt of his head when you talk. The subtle protective shifts when someone passes by. The almost unconscious brush of a stray hair from your face. The stolen kisses—that felt too real. None of it is necessary to make it believable, yet none of you mind.

Heart racing, you realize you’re starting to question everything. Is it still pretend? Or has it already stopped being just an act?

He reaches you, casual, easy—but the warmth in his eyes is new. “Everything okay?” he asks, voice low. And for the first time, you wonder if the lie you’ve been playing these last few weeks isn’t as fake as you thought.