Chapter 2
Michelle
If revenge is a dish best served cold, then Greg Sterling was a Michelin-star chef, and I was currently eating a twelve-course meal of hypothermia.
I woke up shivering. Not the cute, movie-star kind of shivering where you pull a duvet up to your chin and look adorable. No, this was a bone-rattling, teeth-clacking violent tremor that started in my toes and worked its way up to my jaw.
I cracked one eye open. The room was bathed in the harsh, unforgiving grey light of a Maine morning. My breath puffed out in a white cloud in front of my face.
"You have to be kidding me," I croaked. My voice was rough, unused to the dry, frigid air.
I threw off the heavy blankets—my down comforter, a wool throw I’d stolen from the living room downstairs in the middle of the night, and my cashmere coat—and swung my legs out of bed.
My feet hit the floorboards, and I actually gasped. It was like stepping onto an iceberg.
I marched to the thermostat on the wall. The little plastic cover was gone—ripped off by the Neanderthal next door—and the dial had been aggressively taped over with what looked like hockey tape.
Written on the tape in black Sharpie, in handwriting that was annoyingly neat and blocky: 62 DEGREES. PUT ON A SWEATER.
"Psychopath," I whispered, tracing the letters. "Sadist. Control freak."
I grabbed the corner of the tape and yanked. It didn't budge. He’d used the industrial stuff. The kind they probably used to patch up the boards in the arena after he slammed someone’s head through them.
I slumped against the wall, pulling my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around myself.
This was my life now. Living in a frat house masquerading as a Victorian mansion, ruled by a dictator with thighs the size of tree trunks and a personality to match.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I scrambled for it, desperate for a connection to the outside world, to civilization, to warmth.
Incoming FaceTime: Chloe (The Shark)
I hit answer and propped the phone up against my bottle of La Mer night cream.
"Tell me you're miserable," Chloe said immediately.
There was no "Hello." No "Good morning." Chloe barely had time for pleasantries.
She was in her second year of law school at Columbia, fueled entirely by espresso and rage.
She was sitting in a library, surrounded by stacks of books, looking impeccable in a sharp blazer and her signature dark eyeliner.
"I am currently freezing to death," I said, holding up my trembling hand. "Look at this. My nail beds are turning blue. Do you know how much this manicure cost? Dead people don't have cuticles this good."
Chloe smirked, taking a sip of something that looked like sludge. "Good. Suffering builds character. You’ve been living in a bubble of room service and private jets for too long, Vane. Welcome to the real world."
"The real world sucks," I snapped. "And it smells like wet dog and testosterone."
"Speaking of testosterone," Chloe said, her eyes narrowing. "Did you meet him? The landlord? The Captain?"
"Greg," I spat the name out. "He calls himself 'The Gavel.'"
Chloe choked on her coffee. "Shut up. He does not."
"Okay, fine, he doesn't call himself that. But the large, hairy creature named Beef told me everyone else does. And honestly? It fits. He walks around like he’s personally responsible for gravity holding us all to the earth."
I stood up and began pacing the room, trying to generate body heat.
"Describe him," Chloe commanded. She had a weakness for emotionally unavailable men with authority issues. It was her only flaw.
"He’s… big," I admitted, hating the way my mind instantly conjured the image of him in the doorway last night.
The way the grey hoodie strained across his chest. The way his eyes, dark and flat, had tracked my movement.
"Like, unnecessarily large. He takes up all the oxygen in the room. He has this scar on his hip..."
"How do you know he has a scar on his hip?" Chloe interrupted, her eyebrows shooting up.
I froze. "I… noticed. When he was threatening me."
"Threatening you? Or flirting with you?"
"He told me to put clothes on and turned off my heat," I said. "He looked at me like I was a pest infestation he needed to exterminate. There was zero flirting. He hates me, Chloe. It took less than three hours. I think that’s a new record."
"He doesn't hate you," Chloe said, dismissing my trauma with a wave of her hand. "Men like that don't hate women who look like you. He’s intimidated. You’re a lot, Michelle. You’re a sensory overload.
You walked into his monk-like existence wearing lingerie and blasting Doja Cat. You broke his brain."
"He broke my thermostat!" I yelled at the phone.
"So fix it," Chloe said. "Or, better yet, go to class. You have that Merchandising seminar at ten, right? The one you swore you were actually going to take seriously this time?"
I groaned, flopping back onto the bed. "Don't remind me."
"Michelle," Chloe’s voice dropped. The sarcasm vanished, replaced by the tone she used when she was talking me off a ledge.
"You promised. No more spiraling. No more getting kicked out.
You finish this semester, you get your degree, and you launch your label.
You don't need your dad's money if you make your own. "
The words hit the tender spot in the center of my chest—the void I tried to fill with noise and clothes.
"I know," I whispered. "I’m going."
"Good. And stay away from the hockey player," Chloe added, looking back down at her books. "Guys like that—captains, obsession-driven, rigid—they don't play games. And playing games is the only thing you know how to do."
She hung up before I could argue.
I stared at the black screen of my phone. She was right. I played games because games had rules, and if you knew the rules, you couldn't get hurt. Real life? Real intimacy? That was chaos. And I had enough chaos in my head already.
I looked at the taped-over thermostat one last time.
Put on a sweater.
"Fine," I muttered. "I’ll put on a sweater."
Forty minutes later, I was standing in front of the mirror, armored up.
My "sweater" was a cropped, distressed Alexander Wang knit that cost more than the Honda Civic parked in the driveway next door.
It hung off one shoulder, revealing a strap of black lace.
I paired it with leather leggings that fit like a second skin and my combat boots—the ones with the metal plating on the toes.
I applied my eyeliner like I was preparing for battle. Sharp. Lethal.
I grabbed my bag—a tote big enough to carry my laptop, my sketchbook, and my emotional baggage—and headed for the door.
The hallway was quiet. The door to the "Dungeon"—Greg's room—was shut tight. I paused in front of it for a second. I could hear… nothing. No music. No TV. Just silence.
Did he even sleep? Or did he just power down like a robot, standing in the corner of his room awaiting a reboot?
I hurried down the stairs, past the kitchen where a stack of meal-prep containers sat on the counter, labeled with days of the week. Chicken. Rice. Broccoli. Every single one.
"Psychopath," I said again, shaking my head.
I stepped out into the world.
The campus of Blackwood University was undeniably beautiful, in a depressing, gothic sort of way. The buildings were all dark stone, covered in dormant ivy that looked like veins creeping up the walls. The paths were cleared of snow, salted heavily.
Students bustled past, heads down against the wind. Everyone looked serious. Everyone looked like they belonged.
I kept my head high, my sunglasses on despite the grey sky.
I could feel the eyes on me. I always could. It was a sixth sense I’d developed around the time I turned sixteen and my father’s net worth hit the billions.
Is that her?
The Vane girl?
I heard she got kicked out of Parsons.
Look at those boots.
The whispers were like gnats, annoying but harmless. I turned up the volume on my AirPods, drowning them out with heavy bass.
I wasn't here to make friends. I was here to prove a point. To my father, to Chloe, to myself. I was going to finish this degree. I was going to design a line that wasn't just "influencer trash," as my father called it. I was going to be someone.
I reached the Arts building. It was the oldest on campus, a cathedral of stone and stained glass. My seminar was on the third floor.
I walked in, shaking the snow off my coat. The heat of the building enveloped me, and for the first time that morning, my shoulders relaxed.
I found the classroom. It was small, intimate. Seminar style. Twelve students sitting around a large oak table.
I took the only empty seat, near the back.
The professor, a woman with wild grey hair and oversized glasses, was already talking.
"—sustainable sourcing in luxury markets is not just a trend, it is a survival necessity. Now, I want you to pair up for the semester-long project. You need a partner who balances your weaknesses."
Great. Group projects. The seventh circle of hell.
I looked around. A girl with purple hair and a nose ring was staring at my bag. A guy in a tweed jacket was avoiding eye contact.
"I'll work alone," I said, raising my hand.
"Collaboration is part of the curriculum, Ms. Vane," the professor said, not even looking up from her roster. "Find a partner."
The girl with the purple hair slid her chair over. "I'm Sarah. I like your boots."
"Thanks," I said, my voice flat. "They’re for kicking people."
Sarah laughed. "Cool. We can work together. I'm good at the boring stuff—spreadsheets, sourcing logistics. You look like you're good at the visuals."
I looked at her. She didn't look at me with the hungry, transactional gaze I was used to. She just looked… normal.
"Fine," I said. "But I pick the aesthetic."
"Deal."
The class dragged on for two hours. For the first time in months, I actually took notes. I sketched in the margins of my notebook—silhouettes, fabric drapes, textures. It felt good. It felt like me.