Chapter 2
Lucas looked pretty satisfied with how obedient I was. He loosened his hold a bit, but didn't let me go. He switched to a dominant hug, half-dragging, half-hugging me out of the cafeteria.
"Sorry, everyone." He even had the audacity to turn back and nod at the stunned crowd, his voice annoyingly calm. "My girlfriend's having a little mood. Sorry for the drama."
Everyone was speechless.
Who the hell was throwing a tantrum? I wanted to break up with him, for real.
He pushed me into the passenger seat.
The door clicked shut, and he leaned over, hands planted on either side of me, boxing me in between the seat and his body.
"Tell me. Why are you making a scene?" Lucas leaned in so close that our noses nearly touched. His eyes were deep and unfathomable, swirling with an obsession I couldn't decipher.
"I'm not making a scene," I retorted, holding my head high in one last act of defiance. "I'm serious, Lucas. We're not right for each other. I want to break up."
"Not right for each other?" he let out a low laugh, his lips twisting into a chilly, mocking smirk. "What's so wrong, huh? Is it that I don't give you enough cash, or maybe I don't shower you with enough love?"
Seriously, did we even have love between us? Wasn't that something you made up in your head?
I took a deep breath, racking my brain for the lines the evil Chole from the original novel would use. "You're so dull. Being with you is plain boring.
"You spend all day either buried in books or running experiments. You never even have time to go shopping with me.
"What I want is a boyfriend who can hang out with me every day, buy me luxury bags, and take me traveling all over."
This shallow, materialistic rant should be enough to snap him out of it.
To my surprise, Lucas sat there, listening quietly.
When I finished, he suddenly reached out and gently stroked my cheek. His fingertips were icy cold, and the sensation was surprisingly sharp. "So, you were trying to piss me off in the cafeteria today, huh?"
Come on. What did he think? Was dumping coffee on him supposed to be some wake-up call?
"Yeah, so what if I was?" I turned my head away, dodging his touch. "Lucas, I've had enough. Let me go already."
"Let you go?" He grabbed my chin, forcing me to face him. "Chloe, who was the one who started all this?"
His voice was soft, but it struck me like a hammer, pounding right into my heart.
"Who was it that pulled up in a sports car, blocking my dorm, insisting I was the only one for you? Who stuck to me like gum, even after I turned down every girl in school?
"And now you say you've had enough?" With every word, his grip on my chin tightened.
"Chloe," he said my name slowly, almost crazily, the madness in his eyes nearly spilling over. "You were the one who barged into my world. So, unless I say so, you're not leaving."
Then he kissed me hard, punishing and possessive, like he was claiming me.
My mind went totally blank. I sighed helplessly to the System, "The mission's failed again."
Lucas brought me to his private lab, hidden away on the top floor of the most remote physics building on campus.
The entire floor was taken up by this single room, and people needed both a fingerprint and an iris scan to get inside.
Back when I was trying to finish my mission of "harassing the male lead," I had to spend ages persuading him to let me occasionally drop by.
Now, this place had become my prison.
"Stay here. Don't even think about running off," Lucas said, his voice icy as he pressed me down onto a soft sofa.
Then he turned and walked over to the lab bench, peeling off his soaked shirt, revealing a sculpted, powerful back.
I swallowed hard, instinctively averting my gaze. Seriously, he was a top-notch hot guy.
He slipped on a fresh white lab coat, instantly transforming back into an aloof academic genius. It was as if the guy who'd gone wild kissing me in the car was a completely different person.
He started messing around with all those precision instruments I couldn't even begin to figure out, acting like I wasn't even there.
I curled up on the sofa, plotting my escape and complaining to the System. "System, seriously, you've got to help me out. If this keeps up, how am I ever supposed to get back home?"
The System was silent for a moment before finally speaking up. "New mission detected. Please execute, host."
"Mission Name: The Fall of the Genius.
"Mission Content: Sabotage Lucas's ongoing "Quantum Entangled Photon Source" experiment, making all his data worthless.
"Mission Reward: 20% progress towards going home."
My eyes sparkled. "This is what I needed. He treats his experiments like they're sacred. If I ruin this one, he'll totally lose his mind and kick me out for sure. I'm in."