creamcheesequeen
A rivals‑to‑lovers, second‑chance romance set in the gilded halls of Manhattan's most elite prep school.
Seventeen‑year‑old Emily Patel has a plan: tank her first week at Hillcrest Preparatory so spectacularly that her social‑climbing father has no choice but to ship her back to the quiet New Jersey life she actually loved. Step One? March straight up to Hillcrest royalty, cause a scene, and watch the fallout burn.
She doesn't expect Alexander Gates-captain of the swim team, academic prodigy, and heir to a crumbling empire-to defend her instead. Worse, he does it with three possessive words that detonate her sabotage scheme:
She is mine.
Alexander is used to perfect grades, perfect manners, and perfectly contained emotions-until the girl who once shared his foster‑home nightmares strides back into his world with no memory of him at all. While his family's insider‑trading scandal shreds the Gates name, Emily is the one complication he can't afford...and the only one he can't let go.
Thrown together for a semester‑long chemistry project (fate has jokes), the two agree on a single rule: keep it strictly academic. But late‑night lab sessions turn into stolen glances, secret midnight runs through Central Park, and a slow unearthing of the past they once survived together.
As Hillcrest's glittering facade cracks-gossip, blackmail, and a prom‑night revelation that could ruin them both-Emily and Alexander must decide if the truth is worth the risk...and whether the version of themselves they pretend to be can survive the people they are underneath.