Jenny & Jay - Volume 1
Johnny Simmons thrives on competition-whether in the pool, in playful bets, or in charming his way through life. He's used to being in control, but when Jane Shepperd enters his world, she proves to be an unexpected challenge.
Assigned to his study group, Jane is sharp, unfiltered, and unimpressed by his usual charm. Their first real interaction is filled with witty banter, subtle tension, and a clash of personalities that leaves Johnny both frustrated and intrigued.
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Chapter 4
The next day, although there was no training, I couldn't sleep and arrived earlier than the others. Even so, I wasn't the first-Jane was already there. As usual, she didn't pay any attention to me, buried in her book and just as stylishly indifferent as before.
"So, what kind of traveling, little girl?" I asked, grinning, waiting for her to put down her book.
"Excuse me?" She looked at me over the pages.
"The traveling that kept you from having a dog," I reminded her.
"Yeah, right. Until a few years ago, we traveled a lot, so we didn't get a dog." A brief answer, but it wasn't enough for me.
"Why did you travel?" I was genuinely interested.
"My dad's job required it. He was an international architect." Strangely, I didn't see any emotion on her face.
"Any other questions?" she smiled. "Or can I continue reading?"
Her smile was definitely beautiful.
"Have you been to many countries?" I asked quickly, signaling I still had questions.
"A few."
Behind me, Brian arrived and quietly sat down, fiddling with his phone.
"You know, if your sentences were longer, I wouldn't ask so many questions," I teased, making her smile.
"Do you speak multiple languages?"
"I can make myself understood in a few countries, yes," she said.
I had a feeling this was a modest answer.
"Didn't sleep well?" she suddenly asked, her beautiful eyes smiling mischievously.
"Why?" Her personal question surprised me-it wasn't like her.
"Your hair didn't turn out right, so I thought you were sleepy," she laughed, and Brian quietly smiled.
I went to the bathroom to check my hair, but it was perfectly fine. By the time I returned, more people were in the room, and Jane had just put away her book, waiting with a cheerful smile.
"You see, Pretty Boy, if I were you, I'd let me read," she said softly, winking.
Brian grinned, and I chuckled quietly at her teasing. Clever move.
I wanted to respond, but Shannon appeared and sat in front of me. Jane silently moved to the furthest empty desk.
Apart from biology and history, she never sat near me. That day, I only saw her at lunch-she was eating with Paul.
--
At dinner, Mom brought up an interesting detail.
"Son," she said, "I met Mrs. Tashiro today. She's an interior designer."
"I didn't know. Though I don't talk much with Paul-that's more the new girl's habit," I noted.
"How come?" Amber asked curiously.
"Paul doesn't sit at our table; he always eats with Jane," I said.
"Have you invited him to sit with you?" Dad asked.
"If he wants to, he will," I said. "Though then the smarty-pants would probably want to join too."
"Interesting name her parents gave her," Dad noted with a smile, but I didn't react.
"I'm curious about who this girl is," Amber said seriously.
"There's no need-you wouldn't like her," I said. "She doesn't even have friends. Paul only sits with her at lunch because he did on the first day, and now it would be rude to move. That girl never talks to anyone."
"I guess not even with you," my sister teased.
"She'd be happy if I brought some color to her boring days, but she's not that lucky," I said arrogantly.
"I see," my sister said, coughing lightly, while my parents suppressed a smile.
-
Just like every other day that week, Jane was already in the classroom reading when I arrived the next morning. I'd gotten up early on purpose, hoping to beat her there.
Of course, I still took the time to fix my hair-I wanted to look good. Jane looked just as well-dressed today as ever: a jeans and her usual sci-fi tee.
"Hey, little girl," I said, sitting down across from her and turning my chair around- even though today, we wouldn't be sitting close. "How many languages do you speak?"
"Hey," she sighed loudly from behind her book. "Is the library open at this time?" she asked, ignoring my question and starting to pack her book away.
"It opens as soon as the school opens," I answered matter-of-factly.
"See you later, then." She picked up her backpack and left the room.
I had no idea what that little nerd thought of herself-just walking off in the middle of a conversation. One thing was certain: I didn't like her.
I slid back into my usual seat just as Brian arrived. "What's wrong?" he asked, noticing my sulking.
"I don't like the new girl," I muttered. "She just left in the middle of a conversation."
"How rude," Brian said, suppressing a smile.
Her behavior stuck with me the rest of the day, even though I didn't speak to her again and only saw her at lunch- eating with Paul, as usual.
--
That evening at dinner, Amber was talking about some upcoming contest, but I barely listened-the new girl's rudeness kept swirling in my thoughts.
"How was your day, son?" Dad asked.
"The new girl is the rudest person I've ever met," I blurted out.
"What did she do?" Mom asked.
"She just walked out in the middle of a conversation," I said.
"Maybe something urgent came up," Amber offered with a smile.
"Going to the library doesn't sound urgent," I muttered. "I don't like her," I added.
"Oh, that's painfully obvious, son," Dad chuckled, exchanging glances with the women.
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9.6
For five years, I was Barron Santana's elite bodyguard and loyal shadow. I stood between him and bullets, giving him my youth and my entire heart.
But last night, the CEO announced his engagement to a flawless socialite on national television.
Heartbroken, I got blackout drunk and ended up crashing on the couch of Cassidy Gross, a billionaire tech CEO who saved me from a bar creep.
When I showed up late to work, Barron locked me in his freezing office. He pinned me against the glass, smelling Cassidy's cologne on my clothes.
"Are you already looking for your next meal ticket?"
He snarled the words, treating me like a cheap whore. When I defended myself, he pulled out a silk handkerchief and wiped his fingers, acting as if my very touch contaminated him.
Then, he coldly ordered his assistant to draft my termination papers.
Five years of risking my life for him, thrown away like garbage just because of his twisted ego.
Devastated, I ran out and collapsed in the hallway, sobbing uncontrollably until a kind coworker gently pulled me into his arms to comfort me.
I didn't know Barron had followed me out.
Seeing me clinging to another man, his legendary control completely shattered, replaced by a dark, violent possessiveness.
But it was too late. I was done playing his obedient dog, and it was time to take Cassidy up on his offer.
9.7
Emaline Finley was drowning in massive debt to keep her dying father alive, even enduring a humiliating blind date with an arrogant man just to find a financial lifeline.
But the fatal blow came from her former best friend, Kitty. Kitty, who was already engaged to Emaline's ex-boyfriend, deliberately told Emaline's father that his expensive treatments were bleeding his daughter dry.
Out of extreme guilt, her father threw away his life-saving medication and checked himself out of the hospital to die at home. When Emaline found him, he was coughing up pools of bright red blood, his lungs rapidly collapsing. As the paramedics rushed him away, Kitty called to gloat, mocking Emaline's poverty and telling her to go watch her father die.
Emaline was completely shattered, suffocating under the sheer injustice of it all. She had been betrayed, stripped of her dignity, and was now forced to watch her only parent slip away because of a cruel, spiteful lie.
Just as her world went dark, a wildly wealthy stranger stepped in. Cullen Preston, the mysterious man who had witnessed her humiliating date, paid the astronomical medical bills and brought in the city's top surgeon to pull her father back from death. But his salvation wasn't charity.
"Consider it a dowry."
He bought her father's life, and in exchange, he demanded Emaline as his wife.
7.2
I thought I was just marrying a middle-class commercial pilot who proposed to me in a Brooklyn cemetery to fulfill his grandmother's bizarre dying wish.
But when an arrogant pilot tried to harass me at the airport, my "ordinary" husband suddenly appeared, his eyes like chips of ice.
"Take your hand off my wife."
With that single cold command, he had the airline's top executives groveling and the man practically fired on the spot.
Everyone called him "Mr. Chandler." He handed me an exclusive black Centurion card, claiming it was just a standard "manager's perk." His retired parents, who supposedly ran a small business, visited me wearing Patek Philippe watches. I ignored all the glaring red flags, foolishly believing I had just lucked into a stable, caring marriage after a lifetime of disappointments.
Yet, despite his constant, suffocating generosity, he kept a physical wall between us. After a kiss so desperate and hungry it felt like he had been starving for it his entire life, he violently pushed me away.
"We should take this slow."
I couldn't understand why a man who looked at me with such intense, possessive devotion would treat our marriage like a sterile business deal. Why was he orchestrating every perfect detail of my life while refusing to even share a bed with me?
I had no idea that the man sleeping in the guest room wasn't a pilot at all. He was Harmon Chandler, the ruthless billionaire emperor of the Chandler Group. And he had been secretly monitoring my every move for ten years.
9.0
Once a pampered princess, Alaina now clutched a deactivated American Express card, staring out at Central Park. Her family’s fortune was gone, her life, over.
Her family's Hamptons estate, a four-generation legacy, was seized by Dyer Capital. The name hit her: Hardin Dyer, the poor boy she’d once scorned, had returned.
Hardin marched in, serving a divorce agreement. He'd orchestrated her family's downfall for revenge, giving her 24 hours to vacate his property. Penniless, her father faced prison, needing $50 million. Her mother forced her to beg Hardin, who sneered, offering the money for her body. Alaina ripped up the contract.
Hours later, her father had a heart attack. Desperate, she became "Lexi," a club girl enduring humiliation. In the Viper Room, Hardin's lackeys demanded she lick whiskey off his shoe for $10,000. Hardin watched. Outside, her brother Ashton's hand was threatened for a $3 million debt. Spirit shattered, Alaina returned, knelt on broken glass, offering to sign. But Hardin declared her family "dead," offering $10 million for her body, commanding her to use her mouth.
In a furious act of defiance, Alaina threw whiskey in his face, snatched the check, and fled. Yet, when he finally took her, a searing, foreign pain and blood on the sheets revealed a shocking truth: he had never touched her three years ago. Why had he let her believe such a monstrous lie?
7.2
Elmore Thomas rushed into the emergency room, clutching his feverish seven-year-old son, Buddy, tightly to his chest.
When the privacy curtain was pulled back, the air in Elmore's lungs vanished. The attending physician standing under the harsh lights was his wife, Kendal—the woman everyone believed had burned to death eight years ago.
But there was no tearful reunion. Kendal looked at him, and her eyes froze into impenetrable ice. She treated him like a biohazard, strictly referring to him as the family member.
Worse, she didn't recognize Buddy. She comforted their crying son with the same gentle warmth she used to reserve for Elmore, completely unaware she was soothing the baby she thought had died.
Days later, Elmore watched from the shadows as she picked up another boy outside a prep school, her left hand flashing a massive diamond engagement ring.
When his butler accidentally recognized her, Kendal shielded her new stepson with pure disgust in her eyes.
"Tell that psychopath to sign the divorce papers immediately. I have a new family now."
The words 'new family' echoed in Elmore's skull, tearing him apart. For eight years, he had lived in a hell of guilt and madness, raising their son in the shadow of her ghost. How could she just erase their past? How could she give her tender smiles to a stranger and look at him with absolute revulsion?
Standing in a luxury ballroom, Elmore squeezed his hand until his crystal champagne flute shattered, thick blood dripping onto the rug. The murderous obsession in his dark eyes returned as he called his lawyer.
"Freeze her divorce application. Use every dirty trick in the book. She isn't leaving."
8.6
Aubree pushed Ezra down the grand staircase, crippling the only man who silently protected her.
She thought she was finally escaping his control to be with her true love, Foster Newton.
But she had no idea it was a vicious trap meticulously set by Newton and her sweet, innocent cousin, Brandi.
Once Ezra was driven out of New York in despair, Aubree's life became a living hell. Her father completely disowned her. Brandi smoothly took over her home and her millions in inheritance.
"You were just a stepping stone for us, Aubree."
That was the last thing Newton sneered before leaving her to die.
Lying on the freezing floor, her warm blood pooling in her palms, Aubree finally saw the horrifying truth. She had destroyed her own family and ruined the one man who genuinely cared for her, all for a pair of greedy parasites.
Endless regret and suffocating hatred consumed her fading consciousness. Why was she so blind? Why did she let them manipulate her into destroying her own life?
Then, her eyes snapped open.
A violent wave of dizziness hit her. She looked down at her pale, flawless hands. There were no deep cuts. There was no sticky blood.
She was back. She had miraculously returned to the exact night she pushed Ezra, just two hours before his private jet was scheduled to leave forever.
Hearing her father's furious roar outside her bedroom door, Aubree didn't cower.
She wiped the smeared makeup from her face, her eyes turning dead cold. This time, she was going to make Ezra stay, and she was going to send those leeches straight to hell.