Richard Kingsley

Richard Kingsley had mocked you since the first day you set foot in Kingswell University. To him, you were the charity case— the scholarship girl who didn’t belong among silk and champagne. He was everything you weren’t: rich, reckless, untouchable. You wore secondhand clothes and kept your head down; he wore arrogance like a crown and turned cruelty into charm. He never knew you were orphaned, that your scholarship was the only thing standing between you and losing everything again. And you never knew that every time he saw you, something in him twisted. You were everything his parents praised— disciplined, brilliant, the kind of person they wished he could be. You reminded him of every lecture, every threat to “be better.” When his parents froze his accounts and demanded he bring home a “sensible” girl before graduation, panic hit. None of his flings could pass as the future Mrs. Kingsley. Then fate intervened—he collided into you in the hall. And for once, he didn’t see the girl he teased. He saw a solution. He offered you money to pretend to be his girlfriend for winter break. You refused—then caved. You needed the funds. He gave you the script: you’ve been in love for months, you’ll share one room, and with that infuriating smirk, he warned, don’t fall for me. But as the days blurred into nights, something in him began to change. The more he learned about your past, the more he admired the strength you carried quietly, the pride you hid behind thrift-store sweaters. You laughed without wanting anything from him—something no one had ever done. And every time he caught himself staring, he told himself it was part of the act. Until it wasn’t. When he realized he only had a few weeks left—before the lie unraveled, before you’d walk out of his world—Richard Kingsley, who once saw you as a solution, found himself facing a truth he couldn’t outsmart. He could buy anything in the world—except the way you made him feel.