Chapter 39: Chapter 0039

•KAILA•

Aveline walked past me like I wasn't worth a second glance.

I stood there and watched her go, watched her step into the elevator and let the doors close between us, and the fury that had been simmering in my chest all morning boiled over.

I turned to Bria and Lena, who were standing behind me, wearing matching expressions of uselessness.

"Did either of you think to say something?" I asked.

Bria opened her mouth. I held up a hand.

"Don't." I reached past her and pulled my bag off her shoulder. "Go back to your rooms. Both of you."

"Kaila, we tried to—"

"You let her walk away." I looked at them both. "You stood there and watched her push past us like we were nothing, and neither of you did a single thing about it. You are completely useless to me right now, so please, go."

They exchanged a glance and said nothing. They knew better than to argue with me when I was like this.

I watched them disappear down the corridor before I adjusted my bag on my shoulder and walked in the other direction, toward the main entrance.

The morning air outside was cool. The driver had pulled the car around to the front of the driveway and was standing beside it, already waiting.

I slid into the back seat without a word, dropped my bag beside me, and pressed my fingers against my temple.

I pulled out my phone and called my mother before the car had even cleared the roundabout.

She picked up on the second ring.

"Kaila."

"I'm on my way home," I answered. "I'll be there within the hour."

"Good. We have things to discuss."

"Yes, we do," I agreed. "There's a lot you need to know." I hung up the call and slid my cell phone back into my handbag.

I leaned back against the seat and watched the academy shrink through the rear window as we drove down the long approach road toward the main gate.

I thought about how much I had sacrificed to belong here, how much my family had arranged and maneuvered to put me in the right place at the right time with the right person.

And still, somehow, there was Aveline.

We were slowing for the main gate when I saw him.

A car had pulled up along the side road just beyond the gatehouse, and Dominic was stepping out of it, his traveling bag left behind in the seat as he broke into a near-run toward the school entrance.

Something in his expression, even from a distance, even through glass, made my stomach turn.

"Stop the car," I instructed the driver. I knew in my gut that he stopped because of her.

The driver didn't stop.

"Excuse me, I said stop—"

"I'm sorry, Miss Kaila." His eyes met mine in the rearview mirror, apologetic but firm. "Your mother gave me specific instructions and told me there should be no delays. I'm not supposed to stop for any reason between the academy and home."

I pressed my lips together and said nothing. I turned back to the window but Dominic had already disappeared through the entrance, and we had already passed through the gate, and there was nothing left to see.

I spent the rest of the drive with my hands folded in my lap and my eyes on the road ahead.

My mother was waiting in the sitting room when I arrived home

She looked up when I came in and studied my face for a moment. She didn't say a word as I came into full view.

My father was in the armchair by the window. He got up from the couch when he saw me, which was more warmth than my mother offered.

"Kaila." He crossed the room and kissed my forehead. "Sit down."

I sat on the sofa and set my bag on the floor. My mother waited. She was good at waiting.

"I have done everything," I answered. I hadn't planned to start that way, without a preamble, but the words came out before I could arrange them. "I have made it clear to her, more than once, what her presence in the academy would cost her." I paused. "And he is still looking at her. He looks at me as if I were an inconvenience. How am I going to call him my husband when he doesn't even look at me the way he looks at her?"

My mother placed her teacup down.

"Dominic is still infatuated with her," I continued. "His stepsister. It makes no sense. It is embarrassing and it is humiliating and I have done everything I can think of, and none of it has moved him."

"Kaila," my mother sighed. "Stop."

I looked at her.

"You are working yourself into a state over a girl who has nothing," she replied. "She has no standing, no leverage, no future worth mentioning without her father's name behind it. You are Dominic's intended. That was decided long before either of you set foot in that academy, and it will still be true long after this girl is gone." She tilted her head. "And she will be gone."

My father sat back on his armchair and laced his fingers together.

"You don't need to worry about her anymore," he sighed. "You've done what you could from where you were standing, and now it's time to handle this properly." He paused for a moment. "Tomorrow, I'm going to pay a visit to Aveline and her father."

I looked at him.

"I'm going to make it very clear," he continued. "That her presence in Dominic's life is not something that can continue. And I intend to remove her from the picture entirely. Dominic will come back to you focused. Whatever distraction she has become, it ends tomorrow.”