Claimed by the Cold Heir

Everyone in the cafeteria was waiting to watch me get crushed.

Adrian Kingsley didn't do warmth. Student council president, first in our year, the coldest boy at Hawthorne Preparatory. The kind of cold where one look could make a teacher lose their train of thought.

Ten minutes earlier, the most beautiful girl in school had cornered him under the courtyard tree and confessed, letter and all. He didn't look up from his book. He gave her three demerits, makeup and dress code and earrings, and walked away without a second glance.

Then she turned on me.

Which is how I ended up standing at his table, in front of the entire school, eyes squeezed shut.

"I like you." I braced for the laughter.

Adrian Kingsley, who never spent a word he didn't have to, looked right at me.

"Okay," he said.

Chapter 1

The shadow reached me before she did. Then the hand.

Blair Vaughn had me by the strap of my bag before I'd even caught the click of her heels down the hall.

"Senior year, section eight." She looked me over like she was pricing a stray. "You saw me crash and burn out there. Bet you loved it."

"No." I kept my eyes on the floor. Blair Vaughn was the kind of trouble you did not make eye contact with. "I didn't. Really."

I hadn't loved anything. I'd wanted the bathroom. Instead I'd come around the corner straight into the prettiest girl at Hawthorne pouring her heart out under the courtyard tree.

She'd looked incredible doing it. Chin up, letter in both hands, the whole speech.

Adrian Kingsley hadn't even slowed down.

He'd let his eyes move over her once, the way a prefect counts violations, not the way a boy looks at a girl. The mascara. The earrings. The two buttons she'd left undone.

He read the demerits off in a flat, bored voice, never once really looking at her, then walked away and left the prettiest girl in school standing there like a struck match.

Now that same girl was staring at me, and something behind her eyes had gone bright and mean.

"Here's how this goes." She hooked an arm around my shoulders, sweet as poison. "I am not choking on this alone. Lunch. Dining hall. You walk up to Kingsley and you confess. In front of God and everyone."

"I"

Her fingers were already in my hair, pulling the pins.

My bun came down all at once, hair spilling loose. I reached to fix it on instinct.

"Leave it." She tucked a strand behind my ear and studied me like a project. "Better. You should wear it down."

"But we're not allowed." My hands hovered. "It's against dress code. I'll get a demerit"

"You'll get a demerit because I said hair down." Her smile had teeth in it. "I am not going down one point short. If I bleed today, everybody bleeds."

Chapter 2

I didn't take in a single word any teacher said that morning.

Every clock in the building was dragging me toward the dining hall, toward Adrian Kingsley, and I kept running the numbers on exactly how badly this would go.

Because here's the thing about Adrian Kingsley.

He was the most famous student at Hawthorne, and not in a way you could argue with. First in our year. Student council president. The face on the admissions brochure. Old money, the kind with a family name carved over a doorway somewhere. And, without a word of exaggeration, the most beautiful person I had ever seen.

He was also cold in a way that made people handle him carefully. Not shy. Cold. Like something kept behind glass under a sign that said do not tap. One look from him could make a grown teacher lose their place. And you got the feeling, though I couldn't have told you how, that whatever he held down that quiet would be a very bad thing to stand in front of.

He lived at the top of a pyramid I wasn't allowed to look up at.

And then there was me.

Winnie Doyle. The name doesn't mean anything. I was just born at night.

My parents divorced when I was small. I went with my father. My mother married a man who was good to her and, from the day she left, quietly became someone else's mom. Then my father remarried too, and a new woman moved in with a daughter and a son, and just like that I was the spare chair no one had planned for.

So I learned to be good. Easy. I agreed with everything, kept myself small and smooth and simple to keep around.

My dad used to bring presents home from his work trips. Two of them. One for the girl, one for the boy, and a lesson for me about how the oldest is the one who gives way.

I was younger then, and he was still someone I looked up to, so once, just once, I let the question out.

"Why didn't you ever buy three?" It came out soft. Too soft. Not a drop of spine in it. "You always knew there were three of us. Was there just never a share for me?"

He went still with the presents in his hands.

It was the first time in my life I'd pushed back on anything.

Then I saw his face change, and something in me lost its nerve, and I smiled and smoothed it over before it could cost me a thing.

"Give them to the little ones." Light, easy, waving it away. "I'm the oldest. I don't even like this stuff."

I'd said it so many times I could have done it in my sleep, because I was scared. Scared they'd decide I was difficult and stop wanting me around. Scared there was no chair with my name on it in that house either.

At school, I had a nickname. Punching bag.

The one anyone could shove without it costing them a thing. When somebody needed a place to dump a bad mood, that was me.

They kept waiting for me to crack. To hand over the tears, the begging.

I never did. I gave them a girl who smiled through it, who crouched down, gathered her knocked-over books off the floor, squared them into a neat stack, and kept smiling the whole time.

Because my world was already dark enough, and I was going to let the light in anyway. It's a big world. I refused to believe there wasn't one single person in it who could love me.

Adrian Kingsley's world was all daylight. Wide and clear. Not one thing in common with mine, not in this lifetime.

Which was exactly why, when Blair Vaughn's glare cut across the room and dared me to back out, I gave the smallest nod.

For the rest of the morning my hands would not hold still.

Even the school's golden girl had struck out. Blair, gorgeous and untouchable, hadn't earned so much as a glance.

So where was a nobody like me supposed to find the nerve to walk up to him at all?

Chapter 3

Fine. Let them laugh. A humiliated Blair Vaughn was scarier than any of them.

So at the busiest minute of lunch, with her stare pinned to my back, I crossed the dining hall to the boy sitting alone in his usual pocket of cold quiet, and stopped at his table.

I breathed in. "Adrian."

He looked up. His eyes settled on me, flat and unhurried.

My throat closed on its own. I swear he was the most beautiful person I had ever seen, and I stood there like an idiot and lost every word I'd lined up.

His brow moved, the smallest crease. "Did you need something?" Low. Even. Polite in the way a locked door is polite.

Across the room, Blair caught my eye. She smiled a smile I couldn't read, lifted one slim finger, and tapped the skin beside her eye. Then her lips shaped a single silent word.

Keep going.

Half the hall had already turned to watch. He was always the center of the room. That was just physics.

I made myself do it. "A-Adrian. Hi. I'm Winnie. Winnie Doyle, section eight."

He said nothing.

And from somewhere I will never be able to explain, my voice came out three sizes too loud.

"I like you!"

The dining hall went dead silent. Heat crawled up my face.

Adrian looked at me, and kept looking, and the hand resting on his fork pulled tight.

Turn me down, I begged the universe. Fast. Let me run.

And then, into a room full of people waiting to watch me come apart, the cold voice arrived. Quiet. Steady. And if you listened, if you really listened, not steady at all underneath.

"Okay."

I rushed straight into the little speech I'd rehearsed to save face. "It's fine, really, you don't have to do this, I know you didn't huh? What? Okay?"

I stared at him. I'd misheard. I had to have misheard.

But Adrian Kingsley, who spent words like they cost him something, held my eyes and said it again, slower, like it mattered.

"Okay. We're together now."

Then he stood.

He stood.

He reached past every stunned face in that cafeteria, lifted my tray, and set it down in the seat beside his.

I gaped at him. All six feet and change of him shifted under my stare, turned his head away, and pushed his silver-framed glasses up his nose. The tips of his ears had gone a suspicious red.

I was dating Adrian Kingsley. In front of the whole school. The boy I'd filed under do not touch had somehow become my boyfriend.

I looked around for Blair. She'd vanished.

Under a hundred curious stares, Adrian finished his food without a word, then got up and walked off somewhere.

The whispers came instantly.

"Did he just ditch her? Weren't they literally just together?"

"He was messing with her, obviously. Look at him. Why would he date her? I don't even know her name. She's clearly nobody."

I let out a breath, because, honestly, same. Thank God he hadn't meant it.

One second later, Adrian came back. With a yogurt drink.

He cracked it open without a word and set it beside my tray.

Two seats down, a girl's mouth actually fell open. And me, I just sat there, because it was the exact flavor I liked. The one I drink every day without fail, the second I finish eating.

The one I had never told a single soul.

I picked it up and took a small sip. "Thank you."

He wasn't joking. Somewhere under all that noise, the thought landed quiet and cold and certain: what if he had never once been joking?

Chapter 4

By the time I turned back, Adrian had sat down beside me again, his eyes fixed anywhere but my face, the red creeping from his ears down his neck. "Of course."

I chewed and tried to do the math. Was Adrian Kingsley embarrassed? That couldn't be right. I'd watched this boy address the entire school without so much as a flush. All those eyes on him, and his face had never once changed color.

Maybe it was an allergy. Maybe that was why he'd gone red all the way down his throat. That seemed serious. And then it landed: he was sitting there, quiet and still, because he was waiting for me to finish eating.

I panicked and started shoveling food in, big bites, one after another.

Adrian noticed. His hand lifted, stopped, hovered, and finally landed on my back in two careful pats. "Slow down. There's no rush."

I nearly came out of my skin. Everyone said the student council president was hard on people, quick-tempered, that the rest of the council was scared stiff of him.

So this was a hint, wasn't it. He wanted me to hurry. And there was no way on earth I was going to make Adrian Kingsley wait on me. I put my tray down. "I'm full."

"Full." He didn't buy it for a second. "You're actually full."

I nodded hard enough to hurt my neck.

He frowned. "Then drink your yogurt. And eat more from now on. You barely touched that." He picked up both our trays like it was the most natural thing in the world.

I trailed after him. People kept shooting me looks, envy and disbelief, the whole way out. Outside, he set me in the shade and went to wash the trays himself.

I wanted to tell him. I really did. It's a joke, someone put me up to it, you don't have to do any of this.

But then I watched him rinse a lunch tray with the same focus he'd probably give a national final, and the words dried up in my mouth.

He'd stepped into this so fast it unsettled me. Not a flicker of hesitation, like the role had been his all along.

And I couldn't make it add up, however I turned it over. Blair Vaughn confessed to him, with a letter, and walked away with a demerit. I came up with nothing. No letter. No reason. Nobody. And he said okay?

He was playing along. It was the only version that made sense. The most unreachable boy in school did not fall for the girl nobody could pick out of a crowd. He was humoring the joke, and any second now he'd let it go.

I stayed careful around him. Stiff. Because we were not from the same world, and I knew it. Not out of self-pity. I just knew, plainly, without any drama, that I didn't measure up to him.

But the boy the whole school called untouchable had this endless, quiet patience with me. He'd seen how nervous I was, I think. He never said so. He just kept being good to me.

No one had ever been good to me like that. That was the whole problem. It was too much to say no to.

This freezing, unsmiling boy would coax me for ten minutes straight just to get a few more bites into me. He caught every small thing I did and had the fix ready before I'd finished doing it. He'd pass my desk on his prefect rounds through the study hall and leave my drawer full of snacks.

And here was the strange part. He knew what I liked. Every single time, the snacks were exactly the ones I would have chosen myself.

Our classrooms were three floors apart. The whole school marveled at it. Every day, third period, without fail, Adrian came to fill my water bottle for me.

I didn't want him making that walk. I told him over and over I could do it myself. Adrian, as it turned out, was stubborn down to the bone.

So I asked him straight out. "Why are you so good to me?"

He laughed, soft, barely there, and in those dark eyes there was room for exactly one person.

"I should be good to you." A pause. "You don't know this, Winnie. I've waited a long time for this. Longer than you'd believe."

He was nothing like the Adrian Kingsley the rest of the world talked about.

I told myself it was an act, that any day now he'd stop.

But no one had ever looked at me like I was the only person in the room. No one had ever waited on me. And the thing I couldn't say out loud was how badly I already didn't want it to end.

Waited a long time for this, he'd said.

I didn't dare ask him what he meant.

Chapter 5

For days before he left for the competition, Adrian hovered over me like a nervous father, tugging my sleeve to remind me of one thing, then another, then another.

I'd gotten by just fine on my own before him. He couldn't seem to make himself believe that.

"You sound like somebody's dad," I told him.

He caught the tease in my eyes and seemed to surface from somewhere, awkward. "Sorry. I keep treating you like a kid."

"Go win your competition," I said gently. "I can take care of myself."

"Okay."

Then Adrian was gone, off to his training camp, and the truth was, I didn't quite know what to do without him.

With Adrian standing guard, I'd almost forgotten who I actually was. Winnie Doyle. Section eight's punching bag.

And the people who'd made a hobby out of me were never going to let me walk.

The money went first. Funds the class had pooled for a party, gone, and when the class president asked around, someone in the back row said my name.

"Pretty sure I saw Winnie leaving super late yesterday."

"Yeah. Yeah, I think I saw that too."

"Then it's her. Who else in this class even looks like they'd need the money?"

There it was again. I think. Two words that can hang anyone, no evidence required, and somebody always believes them.

Just like now. One by one, every head in the room turned toward me. The looks said it plainly. Come on, Winnie. Just admit it. You took it.

In the back, the ringleaders watched me with the corners of their mouths curled up. Rich kids, connected kids, a little pack that had clotted together back in first year and made a sport out of other people. If they said it happened, it happened.

Had a single one of them actually watched me leave last? Of course not.

They could say it so easily for one reason only. Everyone knew I was always the last one still at my desk. My family didn't have one connection to smooth my way, so I threw everything I had at the exams. I wanted a future. To kids who'd never lost a night's sleep over theirs, that kind of effort was a punch line. And me staying late became the peg they hung whatever they wanted on.

"Winnie's the thief."

The room just accepted it.

I looked up at the class president and said it one word at a time. "I was the last one to leave. I didn't steal anything. Pull the security footage."

He looked at me, and his eyes were sorry.

He hadn't even opened his mouth when one of the girls from the pack rose and started drifting toward me, taking her sweet time.

"You want the footage." She smiled. "Funny thing. Somebody wiped yesterday's tapes. Clean."

Her hand came down on my shoulder. "Stop making excuses, Winnie. We all know it was you."

I looked at her. She wasn't even bothering to hide the contempt.

The class president couldn't hold my stare. He just gave a small nod. "It's, it's true. The footage got deleted somehow. That's why I had to ask the class."

"It's not a small amount. We have to get it back, or I can't explain it to the teacher."

And watching him flinch away from me, it clicked. This wasn't footage that had gone missing. This was a room that had already decided I'd take the fall.

The girl loved how fast the rep folded. Her smile stretched wider. "Winnie, if you were really that desperate, we're all classmates, we'd have helped you. But how could you steal?"

Chapter 6

"Someone like Adrian actually liking you? God. He'll be so disappointed when he finds out."

The whispers went around the room. The old me would have taken it. Sat there and swallowed it whole.

Not this time.

My hands closed and opened and closed again. Then I stood, and I knocked her hand off my shoulder.

I pulled my bag out of the drawer, cold-faced, and ripped the zipper open. Everything inside cracked down onto the desk, and the whispering died all at once.

Every single thing I owned, laid out in front of them.

"That's everything in my bag." My voice didn't shake. "Go ahead. Look. Do you see this money you keep talking about?"

The room held still for one beat. Then the pack in the back cracked up.

"Oh-ho." One of the boys leaned forward, delighted. "Somebody's finally been pushed too far?"

The laughter swelled, and the rest of them joined in. My face started to burn, traitor that it was, red climbing all the way up my neck.

So that was what standing up for myself got me.

But I kept my chin up, red face and all, and I did not look down. "I didn't take it."

The girl's eyes went flat and cold. "What are you even fighting for? So you landed Adrian and now you think you're somebody? You really think you're in his league?"

"I didn't take it."

"Who else in this class would? Name one other person who can't even afford to chip in for a party. Go on, Winnie. Name someone."

The rest of them came in loud and clear.

"Yeah, it's got to be Winnie. Her clothes are all too small and she still wears them. Never see her buy anything new."

"Right? Everything she owns looks worn out. Even her shoes. Like she got them secondhand."

Something went hollow in my chest, because it was all true. Next to everyone else in that room, I was the only one who looked like she needed the money.

I was the poorest kid in the class. I had been for as long as I could remember. New clothes, new shoes, none of it was ever mine. Everything I owned was whatever my stepsister had outgrown and tossed.

I was the older one. Somehow the hand-me-downs still only ran one direction. I was even a little taller than her, but one pout from her and my dad's face would tighten.

"Winnie. You're the big sister, be reasonable. She doesn't want your leftovers."

I'd never minded any of it. As long as it fit, it was fine. It had just never once occurred to me that being poor would be all the proof anyone needed.

I didn't know how to argue my way out. Nobody wanted to believe me. Nobody actually cared what was true. They wanted a name to pin it on so the whole thing could be over.

So I just kept saying it. "I told you, it wasn't me. I didn't steal anything. I stayed late to do practice sets, that's all. I never touched that money."

A boy in the back grinned. "If it wasn't you, why are you blushing? That's a guilty face if I've ever seen one."

Sweat prickled along my hairline. The harder I tried, the worse it got.

Because I'm exactly the kind of person who goes red from the sheer fear of being blamed, guilty or not. I couldn't stop my own face. I couldn't make a single word land. And right then, standing in front of all of them, I had never felt so helpless in my life.

Then, BANG.

The back door slammed open from the outside.

The room dropped into silence. Every head turned toward the doorway on instinct.

Blair Vaughn stood there with a yogurt drink in one hand and something vicious in those pretty eyes. She didn't say a word. She walked straight up to the desk of the boy who'd been running his mouth, and looked down at him.

"Move."

Chapter 7

The boy had barely gotten to his feet when Blair, something lethal in her eyes, drew back her foot and kicked his desk clean over.

In the middle of that huge classroom, the back rows sat in wreckage, and not one person dared make a sound