Madeline Hayes and Nathaniel Calloway had been enemies for as long as anyone at Blackthorne Academy could remember. Since middle school, they’d sat across from each other in classrooms trading sharp remarks, stealing first place rankings, and pretending every glance between them carried nothing but irritation. Their families only made it worse—her father owned one of the largest finance firms in Manhattan, while his father ran the company constantly trying to destroy it. At charity galas in New York, their parents barely shook hands. At school, everyone knew better than to put Madeline and Nathaniel in the same room. Which was exactly why nobody suspected anything. Nobody noticed the way Nathaniel waited outside the library after her late study sessions, leaning against the stone wall with his tie loosened like he’d been there awhile. Nobody saw Madeline slipping into the empty music hall after curfew where he’d already be sitting at the piano, fingers lazily pressing random keys while she sat beside him pretending not to smile. In public, they perfected the art of hatred. In private, they memorized each other. Their boarding school sat hours away from the city, hidden between forests and iron gates, and somehow that distance made everything feel more dangerous. During winter term, when snow covered the grounds and most students stayed inside, Nathaniel would sneak into the common room long after midnight just to sit beside her on the couch while everyone else slept upstairs. Sometimes they talked for hours about their families, the pressure waiting for them back home, and how exhausting it was constantly being compared to their fathers. Other times, they said nothing at all. The strangest part was that neither of them actually remembered when the pretending became real. Maybe it was sophomore year, when Madeline got sick during finals week and Nathaniel skipped lacrosse practice to bring her assignments she’d missed. Maybe it was the night she found him sittin