Chapter 128: Who?

NORA’S POV

The silence inside the cab of the truck was deafening.

Outside, the freezing wind swept across the asphalt of the empty commercial lot, rattling the wiper blades against the windshield. Inside, the heater hummed low, but it did nothing to take the chill out of my blood.

Knox didn’t move away. He stayed leaning over the center console with his thumbs resting against my jawline, breathing slowly. He stayed still and steady for me while everything outside fell apart.

Beneath the dashboard, my phone was vibrating continuously in my coat pocket.

On the center cup holder, Knox’s phone buzzed every three seconds, the screen flashing with a ceaseless barrage of group chat notifications, texts from teammates, and missed calls from unknown campus numbers.

I swallowed hard, the lump of panic in my throat finally easing.

"Knox," I said softly, though my voice was raspier than usual.

"I’m here," he murmured, his thumb brushing over my cheekbone one last time before he slowly eased back into the driver’s seat. He didn’t drop his guard for a second, his gray eyes fixed on mine. "Talk to me, Nora."

I pulled my trembling hands into my lap, reached into my coat pocket, and took out my phone.

The lock screen was a blur of incoming messages. Those who had my contact asking if the rumor was true. Classmates from the library asking how much Knox had paid me. People I hadn’t spoken to in three semesters forwarding the link with skull emojis and question marks.

I ignored the messages and opened the Briar Buzz notification directly.

The headline glared back at me in bold red text: THE CAPTAIN’S BOUGHT GIRLFRIEND: BRIAR HOCKEY CAPTAIN PAID HONORS TUTOR $6,000/MONTH TO FAKE RELATIONSHIP AND FIX GRADES.

My stomach twisted into a knot, but I forced myself to look past the lurid text straight at the high-resolution photographs attached.

There weren’t just blurry snippets; there were two clear, high-resolution photographs uploaded side by side in a swipe carousel.

I stared at the first image.

Written in bold, aggressive black ink across the top margin of a lined sheet of notebook paper were two sharp words: Knox’s Terms.

Below it were the five rules he had drafted two months ago in his room:

Nobody finds out this is fake. Not your roommate. Nobody. You are convincing. In public, you act like you want to be there. You attend the Boosters Gala with me in four weeks. You do not interfere with my life outside of study sessions. You do not fall for me.

And at the very bottom, scrawled in my own angry, defiant handwriting with a thick ballpoint pen, was the final line:

Neither of us falls for the other.

Beneath that, both of our signatures were clearly visible.

My thumb trembled as I swiped the screen to the second photograph, and a gasp ripped from my throat.

The second image showed another folded sheet of lined paper. But this one was in my own neat cursive, titled Nora’s Terms.

It detailed my mandatory tutoring schedule, the doubled hourly rate, and the fourth term written out in plain, devastating black ink: You arrange the bank penalty fee payment for my mother’s bakery. Up front.

Both of our signatures were at the bottom of that sheet, too.

My heart hammered violently against my ribs.

"Knox, look at this. Both of our contracts are in the post."

Knox turned his head, his brow furrowing as he leaned across the console. "What?"

"Both of them," I insisted, thrusting the glowing screen toward him. "Slide one is your sheet. And slide two is my sheet. Both sheets are online."

Knox stared down at the screen. The muscle along the edge of his jaw feathered, then locked tight.

I pinched the first image, zooming in past the torn edge of Knox’s lined paper to examine the background.

The paper wasn’t resting on white dorm laminate or a library table. It was lying flat on dark, polished mahogany wood grain. And right beside the upper corner of the paper was a distinctive, hand-engraved brass corner bevel.

"Look at the surface under your sheet," I whispered, the realization hitting me like a physical blow to the chest. "That’s dark mahogany with an engraved brass corner. Knox... that’s your furniture. That’s the top of your nightstand."

Knox stared at the brass engraving, his knuckles whitening where his large hand gripped the steering wheel.

"Someone was in my room," Knox rasped coldly.

His bedroom was his safe place away from his father and the team’s relentless pressure, but someone had broken that trust. They had walked into his house, gone upstairs, opened his nightstand, and laid out his contract under the lamp to photograph it.

I looked at him, my pulse racing as the impossibility of it hit me.

"Knox, when was the last time you saw your contract?" I asked. "Did you take it out? Did you leave it somewhere?"

"No," the word was barely louder than a breath, but it carried weight. "The night we signed it, after you left, I folded it into fourths. I put it in the bottom drawer of the antique nightstand beside my bed at the SinBin. I tucked it under my grandfather’s watch case. I haven’t opened that drawer in two months."

"And mine was supposed to be tucked away in the pocket of my binder," I whispered, a sickening chill creeping down my spine. "How did anyone even know we wrote contracts? We were the only two people in that room when we signed them. How did someone know they existed, and how did they get photos of both?"

"Whoever did this didn’t stumble on anything by accident," Knox said, his teeth clicking together as he clenched his jaw. "They knew exactly what they were looking for, and they hunted down both copies."

"But who?" I asked, my voice barely carrying over the hum of the heater. "Who could get into your bedroom without you knowing and find it?"