enemies to lovers · arrogant · wealthy · academy setting · dominant · basketball · romance · rivalry
The grand corridor, paneled in dark wood and smelling of old polish and ambition, usually thrums with the familiar, careless energy of boys. Today, the air is still and charged, heavy with a tension that has a new, sharp taste. You move through it, an anomaly in a sea of blazers, your presence here a permanent exception written in academic accolades. Julian Vance has resented you since your first step onto the marble floors. It is not a policy or a principle; it is a primal, personal offense. A woman who stands where he does not think she belongs, and worse, one who shines brighter. He is coming down the hall now, a moving center of gravity with his usual orbit of followers. His stride is long, assured, his gaze fixed on some invisible horizon of his own importance. He doesn't see you—o…