The Bet That Broke Us

1 Everyone at Easton University thought Rowan Crawford, the untouchable golden boy of the campus, had me wrapped around his finger. What they didn’t know was that I was a bounty hunter. I was the girl who had taken a $30,000 deposit from my wealthy, vindictive roommate with one specific mission: to make him fall in love with me, and then publicly break his heart. But on our one-hundredth day together, at three in the morning, I watched Rowan drive across the city just to bring me hot cinnamon rolls from a 24-hour bakery I’d absentmindedly mentioned. And in that quiet, sugar-scented moment, I realized I was the one who had fallen. Completely and irreversibly. I had the $30,000 saved up in my bank account. I was going to give it back to my roommate, come clean to Rowan, and beg for his forgiveness. Until I stood in the stairwell of the engineering building and heard him laughing softly through the crack of the heavy fire door, talking to someone on his phone. "Yeah, she's high maintenance," he said, his tone dripping with lazy amusement. "But the way she throws a tantrum? It actually reminds me a little of you. I figured, I’ve got nothing better to do. She’s a decent enough placeholder to kill the time." I looked down at my phone screen, where my banking app displayed the newly minted $30,000 balance. Why was I out here catching feelings when I could be catching a check? I wasn't giving the money back. And I certainly wasn't keeping the guy. It all started when Sloane Kensington, my trust-fund-baby roommate, confessed her undying love to Rowan—the undisputed genius of the computer science department—and got publicly rejected. She became the laughingstock of the Greek system. That night, she stormed into our dorm, threw a checkbook on my desk, and wrote out thirty grand. "Harper," she’d sneered. "You need the money for your grandmother’s medical debt, don't you? Get Rowan to fall for you. Then, in front of the whole school, drop him like he's trash. Let him see what it feels like to be humiliated. When it’s done, I’ll write you another check for thirty." For a scholarship kid working three part-time jobs and surviving on ramen, sixty thousand dollars was a life-altering amount of money. Shamefully, I took the deal. Once the contract was sealed, I went to work. I annoyed him, I cornered him, I brought him coffee—I relentlessly chipped away at his icy exterior until, a month later, Easton’s resident iceberg finally thawed. After we made it official, my strategy shifted. To speed up the process of making him sick of me, I became the girlfriend from hell. When he was leading his team at the MIT National Hackathon, I called him crying, saying a stray cat had scratched my hand. He pushed his keyboard away, abandoned his team, and paid a surge-pricing Uber just to take me to urgent care for a tetanus shot. When it was ten degrees below zero in the dead of winter, I posted on Instagram at midnight that I was craving hot roasted chestnuts from the North End. He rode his bike through a literal blizzard, pedaling ten miles each way, and showed up at my dorm with the paper bag tucked inside his coat to keep them warm. Even during a charity 5K run for my PE credit, when I faked stomach cramps and squatted by the track whining, he didn't care that the entire bleachers were watching. He just scooped me onto his back and carried me across the finish line. Seriously, what normal college girl could survive that kind of overwhelming, all-consuming devotion from a guy who looked like he belonged on a billboard? By the thousand-and-first time I watched Rowan kneel in the dirt to tie my shoelaces, I knew I was doomed. I couldn't break his heart. To return Sloane’s deposit, I pawned the only thing of value I owned—my late mother’s antique gold locket. I took an advance on a freelance translation gig. I barely slept. But finally, I scraped together the thirty grand. On the evening of our hundredth day together, I was ecstatic. I had the bank draft in my pocket and a gray cashmere scarf I had spent five sleepless nights knitting in a shopping bag. I practically sprinted to the engineering building, ready to confess everything. Then, I reached the third-floor landing. The heavy fire door was slightly ajar. I heard Rowan’s low, gravelly voice. He was leaning against the window, on the phone with a girl. His tone held a fond, helpless sort of indulgence. "Yeah, she's a handful. Too smart for her own good," he murmured. "But the way she acts out... it reminds me of how you were when we were kids. Might as well keep her around. She’s a good distraction." Boom. The winter wind howled through the cracked window, sinking into my bones until my blood felt like slush. I looked down at the plastic bag in my hand. The densely knitted cashmere. The tiny, scabbing prick marks on my index finger from the knitting needles. He didn't cater to my every whim because he loved me. He did it because I was a knock-off. A cheap imitation of the real girl who held his heart. A bitter laugh bubbled up in my throat. I reached into my pocket and pushed the envelope of money as deep down as it would go. Forget it, I thought. Feelings were expensive, and I couldn't afford them. I had acted my ass off for this money. I earned it. Ten minutes later, Rowan walked out of the engineering building holding a breathtaking bouquet of custom-dyed, ice-blue roses. I stepped into the flurry of the season's first snow, tilted my head up, and delivered the lines I had rehearsed in the mirror a hundred times. "Rowan, we’re done." "I never actually liked you. I took thirty thousand dollars from Sloane Kensington to play a game. The goal was to make you obsessed with me, and then make you miserable. Mission accomplished. I'm bored of you now." The gentle smile on Rowan's face froze. His dark, striking eyes locked onto mine, searching for the punchline of a sick joke. "Harper. Say that again." I forced the corners of my mouth up into a careless, hollow grin. "I said, I was only ever in it for Sloane's money. The check cleared, and you just got dumped. Do the math." All the color drained from his face. The tendons in his hand jumped as he gripped the flowers. For ten agonizing seconds, the silence stretched between us. Then, the corner of his mouth twitched upward into a ghost of a smile. His voice was absolute zero. "Fine. You want out? You're out." With a sudden, violent swing of his arm, he hurled the expensive bouquet straight into the metal trash can by the door. The delicate blue petals shattered into the dirty slush on the pavement. He stepped on them with the heel of his boot. "Remember what you said today, Harper. Next time you see me on campus, you better turn around and walk the other way. Looking at you makes me sick." He popped open his black umbrella and walked into the blizzard without looking back. I stood there, letting the snow gather on my eyelashes, until my vision blurred. I finally raised a numb hand to wipe my face. Don't worry, Rowan, I thought. You won't have to see me. In three days, I was taking a fully funded exchange spot at a prestigious translation institute in Paris. We were never going to see each other again. By the time I got back to my dorm, my puffer coat was soaked through. Sloane was sitting at her vanity, applying lip gloss. The second I walked in, she practically vibrated with glee, shoving her phone in my face. "Harper! You absolute genius!" she squealed. "You literally just dumped him, and he already accepted my friend request on Instagram! I’m wiring you the second half of the money right now." I recognized his profile picture immediately. My chest tightened painfully, but I gave a stiff nod. "Thanks, Sloane. Have a nice life together." Sloane raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow, looking me up and down with sudden suspicion. "Though... I have to ask. Rowan is gorgeous, and he treated you like a queen. Did you really not feel anything for him? You're not going to regret this and try to steal him back once he and I are together, right?" I bent down to pull off my wet boots, my voice deadpan. "Relax. I got the three-year study abroad program in Paris. My flight is the day after tomorrow. I won't be around to ruin your aesthetic." Sloane’s eyes lit up. She offered a fake, high-pitched "Oh, I'll miss you so much!" before turning back to the mirror, humming happily as she picked out a dress for her date. At seven o'clock, the roar of an engine echoed in the courtyard. Sloane leaned over the balcony, grabbed her designer bag, and gasped. "Oh my god, he actually drove the Porsche to pick me up! We're going to that new French place downtown. Harper, you haven't eaten, right? Why don't you tag along? Consider it a farewell dinner. My treat." I wanted to say no, but I needed to walk to the campus post office to ship some boxes anyway. I grabbed my coat and followed her down the stairs. Parked under the amber glow of the streetlamp was Rowan’s familiar black Cayenne. He was leaning against the door in a long wool overcoat. At the sound of our footsteps, he looked up. His eyes bypassed Sloane entirely and landed straight on me. For one charged second, we locked eyes. Then, as if he had just stepped in something foul, he looked away in disgust. Sloane cheerfully hooked her arm through mine, projecting her voice. "Rowan! Harper looked so sad eating dining hall food all by herself. I figured we could bring her along?" "No thanks, I’m just dropping off a package at the—" Before I could finish, Sloane pretended to slip on a patch of ice. She yanked hard on the sleeve of my coat to "steady" herself. Riiip. The flimsy pocket of my coat tore open. The gray cashmere scarf I had spent five nights knitting tumbled out and landed right at the toe of Rowan’s leather boot. The edge of the scarf had flipped over, revealing a line of small, red embroidered text: [For R. Happy 100 Days. — H] Rowan stared at the embroidery. His pupils blew wide. The blood drained from my face. I scrambled to bend down and snatch it back. "Sorry. It's just some trash I was meaning to throw out." But before my fingers could graze the wool, Rowan bent down and grabbed it. His eyes flicked to my right hand, landing on the tiny, healing needle pricks covering my index finger. A cold, mocking laugh escaped his chest. "If it’s trash, let me help you. Wouldn't want you to get your hands dirty." Without breaking eye contact, he walked over to the overflowing dumpster by the dining hall—the one that smelled of rotting food and stale beer—and tossed the scarf right in. The scarf I had bled over. Then, with perfect chivalry, he opened the passenger door for Sloane. I glanced inside. The little sticker I had put on the glovebox that said Harper’s Throne had been violently scraped off, leaving an ugly, sticky residue behind. Right at that moment, a loud, obnoxious voice echoed across the quad. "Harper, you absolute menace! I’m freezing my ass off out here!" My childhood best friend, Brody Miller, skidded to a halt on his electric scooter. He shoved a heavy thermal thermos into my hands. "The organic bone broth and iron supplements! I waited in line at that holistic place for two hours for this. Hurry up and mail it to your grandma!" Rowan, who was about to get into the driver’s seat, froze. He turned his head slowly. His eyes were murderous as they bore into Brody. When he spoke, the words were laced with venom. "You work fast, Harper. Barely finished my contract and you've already found your next sugar daddy. What's the going rate for this one?" I gripped the handle of the thermos until my knuckles turned white. I looked him dead in the eye. "You're the only job I ever took, Rowan. Because you were the easiest paycheck I ever cashed. Let's go, Brody." I climbed onto the back of Brody’s scooter, wrapping my arms around him, and we drove off into the snow without a single backward glance. The next morning, I was sitting in the library finalizing my withdrawal paperwork when my academic advisor called. She sounded devastated. "Harper... I don't know how to tell you this. Your full-ride fellowship for grad school? The Board of Trustees vetoed it this morning. They struck your name entirely. Did you... did you upset someone in the Crawford family?"