How to Love You Wrongly (Cardan's POV)

He's perfected the art of pretending he doesn't care - until she makes it absolutely impossible.

Cardan Greenbriar isn't supposed to try, not that he ever does. That's always been his thing - drift through classes, charm the teachers, make girls drool over him. But Jude Duarte is different. She doesn't play by the same rules. She doesn't look at him with stars in her eyes as most girls do - she meets him glare for glare, line for line, like she's been waiting her whole life to outshine him.

When the casting list goes up, and as usual, his name sits at the top - with her name right below- he's stuck opposite her in the Academy's biggest production of the year. It's supposed to be a joke. A punishment. Except somehow, between rehearsal notes and stolen glances, it blooms into something far more dangerous than hate. Infatuation, maybe?

Because she's no longer just competition anymore, she's the one and only person that can see through him. His charades, his masks - and yet, he can't decide whether to push her away or pull her closer.

Onstage, he's meant to love her.
Offstage, he might just mean it.
And if Jude Duarte is his rival, his muse, and his beloved all at once, then so be it.

He's never learned to love the right way. But for her? He'll love her the only way he's ever known - wrongly.