I realized everything had spun out of control during a trip to the movies.

Dean and I were watching a romance film, and the couple on the screen had just started kissing. I turned, wanting to whisper something to him—only to see him behind me, making out passionately with her. His hands were already where they absolutely shouldn’t have been.

Rage flared up in my chest in an instant.

I shot to my feet, yanked up the tub of popcorn, and dumped it over Dean’s head, then tossed my soda all over the two of them.

“Dean! You fucking asshole!”

The theater erupted into chaos.

I used the confusion to bolt, running out into the night. I crouched under a streetlamp and burst into tears.

I could practically hear my heart shattering.

Dean had gone way too far this time.

Still shaking with anger, I went straight to the Shepard house and blew everything up.

I stormed over there, flung open the door, and barreled straight into someone.

My eyes were swollen red from crying, my head full of rage. My voice came out sharp and harsh. “Move.”

The man stepped aside at once, giving me space to enter.

Mr. and Mrs. Shepard had just finished catching up with their eldest son, who’d returned from studying abroad, and their good mood dropped off a cliff the moment they saw me.

“Paige, weren’t you at the movies with Dean? What happened?”

The question hit a raw nerve. My control snapped, and I started sobbing even harder.

Between tears and sniffling, I spilled everything to Dean’s parents—every humiliating detail.

By the time I finished, both of their faces had gone cold.

“Don’t worry,” Mrs. Shepard said, her tone like ice. “Auntie Shepard will make sure he gets a proper lesson. He’ll give you an explanation.”

I was crying so hard I could barely breathe. Someone kept quietly handing me tissues at my side. I assumed it was Auntie Shepard, so I just took them one after another, wiping my tears and blowing my nose. I must have looked absolutely pathetic.

When I finally cried myself out, my eyes were swollen and aching. I said goodbye and left.

The whole time, I never once noticed that there was an extra young man in the Shepard living room—and that he was the one who had been silently, thoughtfully passing me all those tissues from start to finish.

That was the first time I met Grant Shepard.

We didn’t exchange a single word.

When Dean got home, he’d already washed the popcorn and soda from his hair and face, though his clothes were still damp.

He didn’t even have time to change before his father’s fists and his mother’s scolding came down on him. It only ended when he finally promised to break up with Fiona.

Once he’d escaped to his room, he called me.

“Paige Ellison, you traitor! I haven’t even confronted you yet, and you already ran crying to my parents?”

I was still furious, and my words were anything but gentle. “Dean, you know exactly what you did. If you’re not going to break it off with her, then go straight to my parents and call off the engagement.”

Dean went and broke up with Fiona.

Fiona refused to accept it.

Backed into a corner, Dean told her the truth—that I was actually his fiancée. In return, he got a slap across the face.

Fiona stormed off in a rage.

They were one week short of their one‑month anniversary when their relationship officially ended.

Dean and I went back to our little two‑person world.

But once something changes, it never really goes back to the way it was.

Soon I was getting dragged through the mud online. Fiona’s roommate spread a story that I was the other woman who had ruined their relationship.

I opened the school forum, and almost every post was cursing me out:

“Didn’t peg her for a disgusting mistress.”

“She’s like some freaky third wheel. They’re on a date, and she just won’t leave.”

“Listen, she’s famous for being Dean’s little lapdog. Everyone on campus knows how hard she grovels.”

“Don’t be friends with her or she’ll steal your boyfriend too!”

…

The insults went on and on. I actually hesitated, wondering if I should explain.

I could have told them Dean and I were engaged.

But if I did, it would make it official: Dean was a complete asshole.

After all, having a fiancée and still going out to find a girlfriend? That’s trash behavior, plain and simple.

I had no idea that this was exactly the trap that high‑level green‑tea bitch Fiona had laid out for me.

Because I didn’t respond, I stupidly walked right into her trap.

Dean is the heir to the Shepard family—a walking pile of money.

Fiona had only been dating him for a little over twenty days and had already gotten plenty of benefits out of it. How could she possibly give up the golden jackpot she’d finally landed?

Very soon, a new “bombshell” shot to the top of the school forum—

“Fiona publicly states that Paige Ellison is not a homewrecker, and that she and Dean actually broke up peacefully.”

I clicked the link.

Onscreen, the campus belle Fiona was crying so hard she looked like a fragile little flower in the rain, delicate and pitiable.

Everyone watching felt their hearts ache. They all started guessing that Fiona must have been threatened by Paige Ellison into saying these things.

The key point was: this video actually moved Dean.

The moment Fiona’s “clarification” went online, I was still being torn apart by online abuse.

But the one who started it all got exactly what she wanted—she and Dean got back together.

Dean came to me and told me he would go and cancel our engagement, and that we should both move on with our lives.

By then, I’d finally seen him clearly.

After being hit by both cyberbullying and a breakup, I understood one thing very well: Dean was not someone I could entrust my heart to.

I might as well have fed my sincerity to a dog.

I’d saved up enough disappointment to last a lifetime, and I’d already decided to leave him behind.

“Yeah. My parents will be home this weekend. Remember to come by then.”

After “settling” things with me, Dean was in a great mood and went home, ready to “settle” his parents.

When Mr. and Mrs. Shepard heard he wanted to break off the engagement, they were furious. They grounded him on the spot.

Once again, the Shepards played the ruthless parents tearing apart a pair of “star-crossed lovers,” this time Dean and Fiona.

Auntie Shepard called Fiona and invited her out to dinner.

The next day, Fiona was on the phone with Dean, crying her heart out.

She poured out her so-called deep love and told him that, so as not to disturb his relationship with me, she planned to go study abroad.

The moment Dean heard that, he lost his mind for his precious damsel in distress.

After three days of being grounded, he was finally let out—right in time for the weekend. Without another word to his parents, he ran straight to my house to break off the engagement.

I hadn’t thought he’d actually come to do it.

He couldn’t even wait a week.

Even though I’d already decided to end things, when the moment truly came, it still hurt like hell.

My parents respected my wishes. When they saw me nod, they sighed and finally handed the engagement token back to Dean.

My dad said to him, “Dean, once you take this token and leave today, there will never be anything between you and Paige again.”

By tradition, both families’ elders should have been present for something like this, but breaking off the engagement was already a slap in our family’s face.

And it wasn’t as if I couldn’t live without Dean. Breaking it off was fine by me.

Dean took the jade pendant and at least had the decency to say something polite: “Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Ellison. I’m the one who isn’t worthy of Paige.”

My dad just waved him off. “Go. And don’t come back.”

In the end, Dean and I were simply not meant to be. Somewhere along the road, we just…fell apart.

Dean patted the dust off his ass and walked away, leaving a giant mess behind for me to deal with.

The rumors about me at school spun more and more out of control.

The more I thought about it, the more wrong it felt. I had someone trace the IP addresses and finally discovered that everything had been orchestrated by that green-tea bitch Fiona.

But I’d found out too late.

All the posts on the forum were already extremely unfavorable to me.

One after another, people were saying I’d used my family connections to force apart the tragic lovers Dean and Fiona.

I became a school celebrity—the kind where, wherever I went, someone was secretly taking photos.

Famous in the worst way possible.

So fucking annoying.

The Ellisons and the Shepards weren’t forming an alliance through marriage. We were basically forming a blood feud.

I was so pissed off by all the noise that I simply logged into the forum, pulled up the hottest posts on the front page, and replied to them all in one go.

If they wanted to be heartless, then I wouldn’t bother being polite.

Let’s all go down together.

The top hot post: “Mistress uses her powerful family to drive away the original girlfriend, only to have the guy run off too!”

I replied directly: “Thanks for the invite. I wish that scumbag and that cheap bitch are chained together for life—may they stay together for a hundred fucking years.”

Second hot post: “Didn’t Paige Ellison just end up losing both the man and her dignity, only helping the true lovers get together?”

I kept typing: “Did I steal your family’s man or your family’s money? I hope you and your love rival end up as a happily ever after couple too.”