Reborn to Spoil the Billionaire

I lost a dare. Pierce shoved my shoulder, demanding I steal a bite from the scholarship kid's pathetic lunch.

What are you waiting for? Pierce sneered. Go. I'm dying to see the freak lose his mind.

My fingernails dug deep into my palms. The sharp sting grounded me.

I was back.

Ten years in the past.

I walked straight up to the boy. I reached down, grabbed the dry, rock-hard piece of stale bread from his tray, and took a deliberate bite.

He snapped his head up. His dark eyes locked onto mine, deadly cold.

Then, as the entire cafeteria fell dead silent in shock, I tipped my own tray over his. Prime filet mignon and rich, butter-drenched lobster tails piled onto his cheap plastic plate.

"Consider it payback for the bread," I said. "Try not to let it go to waste."

I stared down at the boy who was destined to become the ruthless titan of Silicon Valley. My lips curved into a bright smile.

"Nice to meet you, seventeen-year-old Evander. I'm seventeen-year-old Aurelia."

That year, he was drowning in his own dark shadows. And I just happened to be burning bright.

Chapter 1

"Aurelia, you lost the dare. Go take a bite out of his lunch."

When my eyes snapped open, my childhood sweetheart and current boyfriend, Pierce, was flashing his signature obnoxious grin, shoving me toward Evander's table. The circle of trust-fund babies around us fed off the cruelty, cheering me on.

"Yeah, do it! I'm dying to see the school's untouchable genius lose his cool."

"Genius? He's just a broke loser," another chimed in with a laugh. "He can flex his grades all he wants now. Once we graduate, he'll be fetching our coffee and working for us anyway."

I listened to them tearing Evander down. A cold, bitter laugh escaped my throat. Birds of a feather flock together. The social hierarchy was absolute, even in the supposedly innocent halls of our private prep school.

Pierce and I grew up in the same ultra-exclusive gated community. Our entire orbit consisted of old money and zero-consequence trust funds. I hated every second of it. But my parents heavily curated my inner circle.

If you didn't have a black card, you didn't exist to them.

Ten years ago, giving in to their peer pressure, I had walked over and taken a bite of that dry, rock-hard piece of stale bread from Evander's tray. Then, I had quietly left an imported chocolate bar next to his hand.

That was the only interaction we had during our entire high school existence. Back then, he always walked with his head down. Shoulders hunched, eyes fixed on the floor, doing everything possible to erase himself from the world. A decade later, he was wiped from my memory.

That was, until we crossed paths again in front of a cheap hot dog stand on a freezing, bitterly cold night. By then, the roles had brutally reversed. He was the reigning tech mogul of Silicon Valley, a billionaire titan wielding unchecked power.

And me? After my father's massive corporate bankruptcy and my husband throwing me to the wolves, I was the biggest walking joke in the city.

"Why did we drive all the way to this sketchy neighborhood for some garbage hot dog?" the girl standing in front of my cart whined, casually swinging a limited-edition Hermes Birkin.

"Hey, this isn't just some garbage hot dog. This is a golden hot dog made by the once arrogant, high-and-mighty Aurelia," a man's voice mocked.

"Mr. Sinclair, is this really the great Aurelia? She looks like a worn-out middle-aged maid."

"In the flesh. After her dad's empire went up in flames, Pierce dumped her in a heartbeat. Now look at her, scraping the bottom of the barrel."

"God, that's pathetic."

Hearing the gossip, the girl with the Birkin clicked her designer heels, stepping right up to my greasy cart.

"Vendor. Give me ten more hot dogs. Make sure they don't taste like total trash. I'm tossing them to my maids and drivers back at the estate."

I forced a sickeningly sweet, subservient smile. "Right away, miss. You are too kind."

The validation puffed her up instantly. "Make it twenty."

The man beside her grabbed her wrist. "Why are you buying so much junk? We're not eating that."

She curled her lip in utter disgust. "Obviously. Why would I ever put poor people food in my mouth?"

Poor people food.

Chapter 2

In the past, I loved having my private chef prepare exquisite salmon just to feed the stray cats. I wouldn't be caught dead looking twice at such cheap ingredients myself. The boomerang of my reckless youth had come back, hitting me right between the eyes. I pressed my lips into a thin, tight line, flipping the cheap meat on the street cart grill even faster.

"Let me help you."

When Evander suddenly appeared in front of me, dressed in a sharply tailored, billionaire-status suit, my mind went blank. He took mehomeless, broken, utterly ruined meback to his private mansion. No locking me up. No forced favors.

No strings attached. He simply treated me like an equal, giving me a roof over my head and securing me a decent job.

I owed him my life. I constantly racked my brain, trying to figure out how to repay him. But I came up empty.

Many nights, I'd sneak out to the kitchen for a glass of water and find Evander standing by the massive floor-to-ceiling windows. A lit cigarette would be pinched between his pale, slender fingers. The moonlight spilled over the floorboards like frost, swallowing him whole in its icy isolation. A hundred times, I wanted to walk up behind him, wrap my arms around his waist, and just hold him.

But I didn't have the right. I had zero claim on him.

Time bled on. He truly wanted nothing from me. He already had everything the world could offer. Taking me in was probably just an act of pity.

Just like how the old me used to pick up stray dogs off the street.

That was, until his relentless, workaholic lifestyle broke his body.

Cancer.

He even remembered my birthday. Even confined to his sterile hospital bed, he forced me to blow out candles and make a wish. He said a Princess's birthday always required a proper ceremony. Yeah.

In the end, he always called me Princess.

The disease had aggressively stripped him down to a ghost. His eye sockets were deeply hollowed out. The hand he used to place the candle on the cake was deathly pale, the wrist bones protruding sharply against his paper-thin skin.

He forced a weak, trembling smile. "Happy birthday, Princess."

His voice was barely a raspy breath. I had to lean my ear inches from his chapped lips just to catch the words. My vision severely blurred. He just kept staring at me, that ghost of a smile permanently fixed on his face.

"Hurry blow out the candles."

He looked at me like he was trying to burn my face into his retinas for eternity. Still smiling, his eyes drifted shut. The grip he had on my hand vanished. His arm dropped, dangling lifelessly off the edge of the bed.

The air left my lungs in a sharp, jagged exhale. My chest caved in under a suffocating weight. Tremors wrecked my frame, my fingernails digging into my palms until the skin nearly broke.

My jaw clamped shut. I blew out the candle, squeezed my eyes tight, and made my wish. God. For my twenty-seventh birthday send me back to seventeen.

I never expected the universe to actually listen.

When my eyes snapped open, my toxic circle of friends was shoving my shoulder.

"Aurelia, what are you waiting for? Go, I'm dying to see the freak lose his mind."

They aimed their vicious smirks toward Evander's table. Seventeen-year-old Evander sat completely alone in the darkest corner of the cafeteria. His back was rigid. Isolated.

Just like his twenty-seven-year-old self. Whether he was scraping by on pennies or ruling a billion-dollar empire, he was always entirely, utterly alone.

Seeing him breathing, young, and whole again a brutal lump formed in my throat. I bit the inside of my cheek hard to stop the tremor in my chin. I picked up my tray and walked straight toward him.

Seeing me approach, he instinctively flinched, shrinking his shoulders to take up even less space in the already cramped booth.

I looked down at his table. His large tray held nothing but a few dry, shriveled slices of whole-wheat bread, some wilted, yellowing lettuce from the free salad bar, and a bowl of clear, meatless broth.

A sharp, physical ache pierced through my chest, spreading straight into my bones. When the cancer hit him, he could have fought it with chemotherapy. He could have tried.

Chapter 3

The doctors had said his immune system was too compromised. Years of severe malnutrition during his youth had hollowed out his foundation. In the end, his body gave out before he even finished the second round of chemo. Looking at his pale, dangerously thin face now, my throat completely seized.

"Um can you let me eat"

I dug my nails into my palms, fighting the rising tide in my chest, but I still couldn't push a full sentence past my trembling lips. He must think I'm psychotic. I swallowed hard, forcing the lump down, and shut my mouth.

Right under his shocked gaze, I reached out, grabbed a piece of the dry, cold, rock-hard bread from his plastic tray, and took a deliberate bite. It was bone-dry and tough, like chewing on literal cardboard.

Evander, I'm so sorry. I'm too late.

When I finally lifted my eyes, I crashed straight into his lethal, freezing glare.

"Listen," he deadpanned, his voice pure ice. "There's plenty of free rotting lettuce over at the cheap salad bar. Save your privileged, elitist jokes for someone who cares."

The cafeteria had ground to a halt. Forks dropped. Eyes locked onto us. The whispers amplified into a buzzing roar, especially from the table right in front of us.

"God, Aurelia is ruthless. Actually messing with the untouchable genius."

"You high schoolers are the only ones calling him a genius," a girl sneered. "Back in middle school, his nickname was the cursed freak."

"Wait, why?"

"Because he literally caused his own parents' deaths. And he also killed"

At the word freak, Evander's fists clenched violently on the table. Thick blue veins strained against his pale skin. Before the girl could finish her sentence, I slammed my hands on the table and stood up.

"Did your parents skip the lesson on keeping your mouth shut about things you don't understand?" I fired back.

The girl blinked, stunned.

I leaned closer, my voice dripping with venom. "Actually, clearly they did. Having parents doesn't mean much when you're raised like trash."

She visibly shrank back, too terrified of my social standing to retaliate openly. "What is her problem?" she muttered to her friend. "Wasn't she the one messing with Evander in the first place?"

Heat flared in my chest. I stepped out of the booth, fully prepared to rip her apart.

A freezing grip wrapped around my wrist.

Evander.

"Sit down and eat." His voice was entirely flat. The dangerous tension had vanished from his face, replaced by a terrifyingly empty calm.

I sat back down. Right under the burning stares of the entire cafeteria, I picked up my tray and scraped my prime filet mignon and rich, butter-drenched lobster tails directly onto his cheap plastic plate. I flashed him a bright, eager smile.

"Consider it payback for the bread. Try not to let it go to waste. Oh, by the way, we've been in the same classes for ages, but we never formally introduced ourselves."

I held out my hand. "Nice to meet you, seventeen-year-old Evander. I'm seventeen-year-old Aurelia."

He stared at my extended hand, blank, as if I were speaking an alien language. Silence stretched between us.

"I'm full." He dropped those two words, stood up, and walked away.

I was left sitting there alone. In my other hand, the expensive imported chocolate bar I hadn't had the chance to give him was melting into a soft, misshapen lump from my body heat.

In my past life, even though I knew it was cruel, I had caved to Pierce's pressure and stolen a piece of Evander's pathetic lunch. Disgusted by the cheap food, I hadn't even taken a bite. Driven by a fleeting moment of guilt, I had simply tossed that chocolate onto his desk as I left. Pierce had laughed, mocking that it would be the best thing Evander tasted in his entire miserable life.

But ten years later, while organizing Evander's private billionaire study, I had found that exact same piece of chocolate. He had sealed it inside a custom glass display case, pumped full of inert gas to preserve it perfectly. It would never rot.

The memory slammed into me. A rush of blood roared in my ears, making my chest ache with a suffocating, heavy pressure.

Chapter 4

In my past life, finding that preserved chocolate had felt like peering into his deepest, darkest secret. But back then, as a disgraced heiress scraping the bottom of the barrel, the massive canyon between our social statuses had forced me to bury those thoughts. Besides, it was just a piece of candy. Did it really mean anything?

What right did I have to stand beside a billionaire titan anyway?

"Hahaha, Aurelia, that was ruthless! Dumping your leftovers onto the freak's plate. When it comes to completely humiliating someone, nobody beats you."

Pierce dropped into the seat right next to me. I stared at him, my stomach twisting in knots.

So that's how they saw it. To them, my gesture was just another calculated insult. God, is that what Evander thought too? I am such an idiot.

All I could think about was getting some decent protein into his system, but my execution had been an absolute disaster.

Trent slid into the booth opposite me, drawling lazily. "Why did you stand up for the freak, anyway? Those girls weren't wrong."

"Evander literally got his own parents killed, and his little sister. You keep getting close to him, his curse is gonna rub off on you."

Trent was a staple in our toxic little elite circle. He was the son of the school's biggest board donor, holding absolute power over the halls. He was a sadistic psychopath who loved terrorizing scholarship kids for sport, masking his brutal bullying as "just playing a little game."

In my past life, when my family's empire crumbled, Pierce's attitude toward me had flipped overnight. He actually started pushing me to get close to Trent, trying to practically pimp me out just to secure a massive corporate contract for his own family. And stupid, naive me had still held onto the pathetic delusion that they cared about me. After all, we had been friends for years.

That delusion permanently shattered during a joint family vacation, when Pierce conveniently slipped into the adjacent suite, and Trent walked right into my bedroom, locking the door behind him. That was the night I realized this entire circle was rotten to its absolute core.

I shot Trent a disgustingly cold look. "You're that superstitious? Then maybe you should stop doing such psychotic, vile shit before lightning strikes you dead."

Trent's face instantly drained of color, turning a furious shade of pale. "Excuse me, Aurelia? Say that to my face one more time."

Seeing the explosive tension, Pierce quickly grabbed my arm to play peacekeeper. "Woah, chill, Trent. Her brain is just fried today. Don't take it personally."

I yanked my arm out of his disgusting grip. "You're no better, you piece of trash."

I didn't even bother giving him another look. I grabbed a half-empty glass of iced club soda from the table and mercilessly splashed it directly across his ridiculously expensive, custom-tailored shirt.

They both froze, stunned into silence by the sharp physical attack and my venomous insult. Their brains couldn't compute how I had morphed into an entirely different person overnight. Before they could snap out of their shock, I spun around and marched straight out of the cafeteria. I couldn't stand breathing the same air as this rotten circle for one more second.

By the time I slid into my seat in the classroom, the bell had already rung. I had no choice. I'd have to track Evander down after class to explain that I wasn't deliberately trying to humiliate him with my leftovers.

This period was Advanced Calculus, my absolute least favorite class. Even though my mind was racing, I forced myself to stare straight at the dizzying, complex equations on the blackboard.

In my past life, my atrocious grades meant I completely bombed my college applications. After coasting through a mediocre university, I entered a business marriage with Pierce. I spent the first half of my life funded by my father's black cards, and the second half playing a kept wife. That was exactly how a person became utterly useless.

So when I was ripped out of that elite bubble, having zero real-world skills and a garbage resume, I plummeted straight into selling hot dogs on the street just to survive.

The universe had literally handed me a second chance. I was not going to screw it up. I forced my eyes wide open, pushing through half the lecture.

Unfortunately, I quickly realized a brutal truth.

Friends will leave you. Husbands will betray you.

Chapter 5

Advanced Calculus, however, was a lost cause. Because when you didn't get math, you just didn't get it. Listening to the lecture was like trying to decode alien hieroglyphics. I let out a heavy sigh and scanned the room.

My eyes locked onto the front-left row. That strangely familiar, yet entirely foreign figure sat rigidly straight, his intense focus burning holes into the chalkboard as his pen flew across a sheet of scrap paper. He was dangerously thin.

His cheekbones were sharp against his deathly pale skin, practically drained of all blood, carrying a faint, sickly grayish-blue tint between his brows. Compared to the terrifying, commanding aura he possessed ten years from now, the seventeen-year-old version of him was raw, guarded, and suffocating under his own inferiority.

"Aurelia! What exactly is so fascinating over there? Stand up and share it with the rest of us!"

Staring too intensely at Evander, I had gotten caught red-handed by the math teacher, Mr. Higgins.

I stood up without a shred of guilt, leaning casually against my desk with a smirk. "I was looking at Evander."

The entire class erupted into gasps. Evander alone kept his head down, his pen continuing its frantic scratching against the paper. But the tips of his pale ears turned a violent, visible red.

My grades were already absolute garbage, so my shameless confession sent Mr. Higgins into a sputtering rage. "Oh, really? Tell us, what exactly are you looking at? If you don't give me a proper answer, nobody is leaving this room today."

I flashed a brilliant smile. "I was looking at how handsome he is."

The classroom exploded.

Predictably, I was kicked out into the hallway. But thanks to my father's billionaire status, the school administration practically tripped over themselves to usher me into a plush, air-conditioned office within minutes.

The second the bell rang, I sprinted out to track Evander down to fix the cafeteria disaster.

He was buried in a textbook, his pen moving non-stop. He didn't even look up. "It's fine. I didn't think anything of it," he muttered, his voice deadpan.

A massive weight dropped from my chest. "Good. As long as we're clear."

He's surprisingly easy to talk to. Why did the old me always think he was this dark, unapproachable psycho?

He kept working. I didn't want to push my luck.

I gently slid the imported chocolate bar next to his elbow, leaned down, and smiled. "This is my absolute favorite. It's yours."

He threw it a single glance before his eyes glued back to the page. "Thanks. I don't eat sweets."

"It's literally amazing, trust me! Just try it."

I didn't give him a choice. I ripped back the gold foil and pushed the chocolate directly past his lips.

The soft, warm slide of his bottom lip brushed against my bare fingertip. An electric jolt of static shot straight up my arm, short-circuiting every nerve in my body. His head snapped up. His dark pupils blew wide open in pure shock.

I froze, completely paralyzed. Time flatlined. He was so stunned he didn't even chew.

Heat rushed to my cheeks, practically burning my skin. I dug my heels in.

"Told you it was good. I'm not lying. I'm bringing you one every single day."

I didn't wait for a response. I spun around and bolted down the hall.

After the final bell, Pierce aggressively blocked my path to the parking lot. I scowled, my patience instantly evaporating. "What do you want?"

He crossed his arms, his jaw tight. "What the hell is wrong with you today? Why are you suddenly playing savior to the freak?"

"Because I want to. Back off."

He lunged, gripping my shoulder hard. "You humiliated Trent today for Evander. Congratulations, you just painted a massive target on Evander's back. He's Trent's next toy."

"Is he completely psychotic? If he has a problem, he can come after me!" My blood spiked instantly at the mention of Evander being targeted.

Pierce's eyes darkened into a toxic, possessive glare. He snatched my chin, his fingers digging into my jawline. "Aurelia. Don't tell me you're actually falling for that trash?"

I wrenched my face out of his grip, scoffing in absolute disgust. "I'd rather fall for him than a toxic piece of garbage like you."

"Aurelia!"

That snapped his pathetic ego. He shoved me backward. My spine slammed against the brick wall as he crushed his mouth over mine. A tidal wave of putrid, suffocating memories from my past life crashed into my brain.

My stomach heaved. I gagged, bile burning the back of my throat.

Chapter 6

I shoved him off with everything I had and slapped him hard across the face. "Pierce, what the hell are you doing?"

He loomed over me, using his physical advantage to pin me completely against the wall. "What am I doing? I told you, the girl you saw the other day was just my sister! You're just using Evander to make me jealous, aren't you?"

Wow. This piece of toxic garbage was unbelievable. I opened my mouth to rip him a new one, but a shadow in my peripheral vision caught my eye.

Evander.

He was holding a small recycling bin, walking down the hall toward the classroom. As he passed, his eyes landed directly on Pierce and me. For barely a second. Then he looked away, completely unfazed, and kept walking.

My chest tightened painfully. Was he going to misunderstand again? Did he think I was only approaching him to piss off Pierce?

I found my opening.

Without a second of hesitation, I drove my knee forcefully straight up between Pierce's legs.

Pierce instantly doubled over in agony, his face turning a sickening shade of purple.

"If you're sick in the head, go see a therapist," I dropped the words and bolted down the hall after Evander.

"Evander!"

I had to sprint down two corridors before I finally caught up to him. I grabbed the sleeve of his faded hoodie. "I don't like Pierce! He's a toxic creep, and he just forced himself on me!"

Evander didn't stop. His legs were long, so his fast, aggressive stride forced me into a jog just to keep up.

"Aurelia," he replied without breaking his pace. "I have zero interest in your elite relationship drama. You don't need to explain yourself to me."

"He's not my boyfriend!" But then my brain caught up to the fact that we technically hadn't ended things yet. "I mean, we haven't officially broken up, but we are absolutely done!"

He stopped dead in his tracks. He turned to face me, his gaze dead serious and terrifyingly cold. "Aurelia. I don't have the time or the energy to be the new plaything for you spoiled rich kids."

"Do me a favor and stop talking to me. Thanks."

He ground the last word out through his teeth. Then, he turned and walked away without looking back.

His words hit me like a bucket of ice water. I stood there frozen in the hallway, the harsh afternoon sun streaming through the windows and stinging my eyes. Why did we always have so many misunderstandings? Why did we always miss each other?

It's fine, it's totally fine, I forced myself to breathe. I wasn't that pathetic, broken hot dog vendor scraping by on the streets anymore. So what if he rejected me? I took a breath and stepped forward to follow him again.

This time, he spun around. He pointed a rigid finger down the hallway. "Stop following me. Get out of my face."

A decade had passed, and yet we were right back where we started. In all the time I had known him, in both lives, he had never spoken to me with such raw hostility. I stared at the ice in his eyes, completely paralyzed. My hands went numb.

After a heavy, suffocating silence, I forced the corners of my mouth up into a stiff smile.

"Okay. Bye for now. See you tomorrow."

I turned around. A sharp burn pricked the corners of my eyes, and my throat tightened so hard I could barely draw a breath.

For the next few days, I stubbornly left an expensive imported chocolate bar on his desk every single morning. And every single time, it ended up straight in the trash.

I stared at the chocolate sitting at the bottom of the garbage bin for a long time. The crushing weight of it allthe disappointment, the helplessnesspressed down on my lungs, suffocating me like a rising tide. It's fine. It's fine.

It was just a misunderstanding. I could fix this.

Ever since Trent declared Evander his new target, the entire class had actively started sabotaging Evander's duties as the teacher's assistant for Advanced Calculus. Whenever Evander went around the aisles to collect assignments, the trust-fund kids would deliberately drop their papers on the floor, stepping on them with their expensive sneakers just to force him to bend down and pick them up.

So, I started doing his job for him. When I dropped another stack of neatly collected homework on his desk, he finally broke his silence.

"Aurelia," he said, staring blankly at the papers. "I quit being the TA. Please stop coming near me."

Chapter 7

My tiny, newly ignited spark of hope was brutally stamped out. Silence stretched between us for a few suffocating seconds before I refused to give up, forcing the question past my tight throat.

"Why?"

He lifted his head, his quiet eyes completely devoid of warmth. His thin lips parted, throwing out words so sharp and frozen they sliced right through me.

"Because I detest you."

I don't even remember how I dragged my feet back to my seat. For the rest of the day, I was completely hollow, a walking ghost. I just couldn't comprehend it. Why was it still this damn hard, even after traveling ten years back in time?

God, if you're listening, just tell me what the hell I'm supposed to do next.

"Aurelia, come to my office."

Just as I was drowning in my frustration, the summons came. The Principal was an insatiable, greedy prickthe exact kind of man my mother loved dealing with. she always ensured the school treated me like royalty by donating massive multi-million dollar endowments and gifting him limited-edition sports cars.

He flashed me a slimy, overly welcoming smile, asking if there was anything I needed assistance with. With tears threatening to spill, I laid out my entire dilemma.

When money talks, things get done instantly.

The Principal's efficiency was terrifying. Before the warning bell for the next period even rang, the entire classroom layout had been altered. I was officially Evander's new seat partner. As for Pierce?

His new desk was miles away, practically in a different zip code. He slammed his fists on his desk, his face twisting in a furious rage, but there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.

Under the administration's heavy-handed pressure and subtle threats regarding his academic scholarship, Evander had no choice but to swallow his resentment. He was forced to become my personal Advanced Calculus tutor.

Evander's explanations were half-hearted, but I forced myself to focus with undivided attention. Having lived through the brutal reality of being a penniless nobody, I refused to become a useless dependent who relied on some toxic man to survive.

But God. Advanced Calculus was an absolute nightmare. The geniuses lived in an entirely different dimension. Take Evanderhe pulled straight hundreds without even trying.

And the hopeless cases? That was me, someone who had literally scored in the single digits before.

I was currently staring at a problem he deemed a "total freebie," completely stuck.

"Mr. Higgins explained this exact concept twice in class, and I've personally broken it down for you three times," Evander muttered, his eyes tracking me like I was the dumbest creature on earth. "If you still don't get it, I highly suggest you give up on math entirely."

I slammed my pen onto the paper, a sudden spike of stubborn heat flaring in my chest. "Evander, you're seriously insulting me! Don't look down on me! I am absolutely solving this damn problem today if it kills me!"

Thirty minutes later

Evander leaned across the desk, looking down at my paper. A soft chuckle escaped his lips. "Pfft So your grand, furious revenge was just writing out the word 'Solution:' and leaving the rest blank?"

The corners of his eyes crinkled, his dark pupils instantly softening as a rare, brilliant warmth broke through his usual icy mask. It was mesmerizing. This was the first time I had ever seen him smile.

The entire world flatlined. My brain went vacant, and I could only stare at him like an idiot.

Perhaps my burning stare was a little too intense because his gaze suddenly locked back onto mine. The second our eyes met, guilt spiked in my chest