Ice & Prejudice

Chapter 13

Nik's POV:

I woke up with a throbbing headache, the kind that made you swear off drinking forever—well, until the next time.  I wasn't one to normally drink much, especially not during season. But with friends like Harvey and Dickie it was inevitable every once in a while. My head felt like it had been run over by a Zamboni, and I was struggling to remember which way was up. Squinting against the harsh sunlight streaming through my blinds, I groaned and fumbled for my phone on the nightstand. 12:54 p.m. Damn. I'd really slept in.

I swiped through the notifications on my lock screen, a few messages from my step-mother, a couple of missed calls from Noah from last night. But then, something caught my eye. An Instagram notification from yesterday at 7.17pm: @ria_winters accepted your follow request.

I sat up a little straighter, suddenly wide awake. Victoria Winters—Miss Ice Queen herself—had actually accepted my request. I'd sent it on a whim a few days ago, not really expecting her to accept. Curious, I opened Instagram and tapped on her profile.

Her account was private, which made sense. She didn't strike me as the type to broadcast her life to the world. She had 202 followers. Classmates, family, close friends, co-workers. The usual. Her profile picture was one of a cat behind a steering wheel looking traumatized—but I wasn't here for that.

I scrolled through her feed, which was surprisingly sparse. The oldest post was from 2018—her and her sisters at what looked like a family barbecue. Cute, I guess. They were all laughing, one of the other Winters girls concentrating on throwing a marshmallow on Victoria. She looked...happy.

Most of her posts were like that, actually. Places she'd visited, random nature shots, some pets—a fat cat with huge green eyes that practically screamed "feed me" and a scruffy dog with a lopsided grin. But when she was in the photos, those were the ones that caught my attention.

There was one with her holding a kitten she and one of her sisters had found, grinning like an idiot as the tiny furball licked her nose. Another showed her leaning against an old brick wall with her sisters, all wearing matching sunglasses, probably on some weekend trip. And then there was one of her alone, sitting on a swing, her face half-hidden by the shadows of tree branches, smiling at another cat she most likely found that was now in her lap.

The tiniest hint a smile on her soft, delicate face. Those dimples visible again. Those damn dimples—

God, she was... I shook my head, trying to dismiss the thought. No, she was infuriating, not attractive. Definitely not.

Still, I couldn't help but linger on those pictures a little longer than necessary. I wasn't a stalker—I was just...curious!

But then I made the mistake of clicking on her tagged photos.

The very first image nearly made me drop my phone. There she was, smiling up at some guy who looked like he'd walked straight off a runway. Seriously, the dude was all chiseled jawline, perfect dark hair, and one of those ridiculously confident smirks that made you want to punch him straight in the face and shake his hand at the same time. They looked way too comfortable with each other, way too close.

The caption was something cheesy like, "Reunited with my favorite person. Nothing better than to spend the day with someone who knows you inside and out," and I had to suppress the urge to throw my phone across the room.

What the fuck does that mean?!

Who the hell was this guy?

I tapped on his profile: Benjamin Monroe. Open account, thousands of followers. The dude was clearly a model, which only made me scowl harder. The bio was all about fashion gigs and where he'd be traveling next. And of course, his latest post was the one with Victoria, tagged just a few hours ago.