Chapter 107: Wrong Approach

"And that will be all for today’s—"

"Thank God. Finally." Starlight jumped to her feet, cutting Mikhail off before he could even finish his sentence. "I’m fucking out of here."

They had barely done anything in the so-called corrective conduct session, unless forcing her to have breakfast with them and watching movies also counted as part of it.

"Sit down, Starlight," Mikhail said, looking completely caught off guard by how quickly she had moved. "Don’t be too hasty."

Starlight turned toward him with a defiant smirk. "Today’s session is finished, isn’t it? You just said so yourself, which means I’m free to go."

"Watch your manners, for Moon’s’ sake," Nikolai snapped, his voice dropping into a stern warning as his eyes narrowed at her. "Just because today’s session is over doesn’t mean you can suddenly forget your manners."

"Why should I watch my manners when the session is already over?" Starlight shot back, folding her arms across her chest. "Prince Mikhail just said that it’s over, so I’m free to behave however I want now. We’re no longer in session. You can’t keep correcting me anymore."

"Do you even understand what this whole corrective conduct program is about?" Mikhail asked, studying her with a patient but pointed look. "It’s not simply about how you behave while you’re sitting in this room with us. It’s about changing the way you conduct yourself in general. That means even when you’re not in a session, you should still watch how you speak, how you behave, and how you treat the people supervising you."

Starlight stared at him for a moment before letting out a tired sigh. "Right, okay. It was my mistake, and it won’t happen again, Your Highnesses," her voice dripping with obvious sarcasm. "Can I go now?"

Mikhail exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand over his jaw as he watched her. Starlight Dawson was seriously a handful. He wasn’t even sure the two of them could handle her with the way things were going. Were they even going to make any progress in getting closer to her at this rate? He had expected resistance, but her sheer determination to push back against almost everything they did was becoming something else entirely. "Don’t you want us to give you a ride back to Eclipse House?" he asked.

"No, thank you. I don’t need a ride, Your Highness," Starlight replied with a polite smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. "I’m not that lazy that I need a car to drive me from one underground garage to another garage when it wouldn’t even take ten minutes to walk."

"Fine, then," Mikhail said, giving her a resigned look. "But you’ll be needing this."

He tossed a matte-red card toward her, and Starlight caught it instinctively before looking down at it. "You’ll be needing that whenever you come back here," Mikhail explained, leaning back against the leather rest. "In case you didn’t realize, this is the Red Lounge, where most of our sessions will be taking place. As I’m sure you saw earlier, the private elevator leading up to this building doesn’t have floor buttons like the rest of the academy buildings. You’ll need that card to access this floor."

Starlight nearly scoffed. Only a blind person wouldn’t know this was the so-called Red Lounge. She twirled the card between her fingers, eyeing its matte-red surface with mild amusement. Even the access card was red. With a small shake of her head, she shoved it into her side pocket. "Okay, bye, then."

She took a few steps toward the exit before stopping in her tracks. Turning back around, her eyes swept over both brothers, her expression shifting into something sharp, perceptive, and utterly unapologetic. "Uhm...Your Highnesses, I want you two to know that I value my independence a lot, like a whole lot. So I really wouldn’t want this corrective conduct session to turn into an excuse for you two to keep interfering with my life. Though, I have a strong feeling you wouldn’t care about what I think or how I feel. You will keep forcing yourselves into my life in the name of these fake-ass corrective conduct sessions, whether I like it or not, which I think is totally ridiculous, by the way."

She gestured toward them with a dismissive wave. "It’s very obvious that you two are doing all of this to get close to me for whatever reason. Even a senseless person could sense it. I don’t care enough to figure out what that reason is, but trying to take over my time and keep me around you as much as possible isn’t going to work. No breathing being is ever going to appreciate having her freedom cornered like this."

She tilted her head, letting a mockingly thoughtful look cross her face. "So, here’s a tiny bit of advice from me. If you’re actually interested in me the way I think you are, then why not try doing it the right way? Like wooing me like real gentlemen. It might work a lot better than using a fake legal contract to keep me around you. You two should stop being cowards and try being honest about your intentions. Maybe you’ll have better luck that way."

With that, she turned and walked out of the Red Lounge before either brother could respond.

Mikhail stared at the door she had just walked through, his mouth parted slightly in genuine surprise. Why hadn’t they thought of that?

When a man wanted a girl’s attention, the best way was always to court her properly. Why, then, had they gone through all these roundabout ways just to keep her close? What really thrilled him was the way she had said "you two" instead of simply telling one of them to try. That meant she wasn’t completely against the idea of the two of them coming at her together.

"Seriously, why didn’t we think of that?" Mikhail said, still staring at the entrance. "Maybe she’s right. We could have simply tried to woo her from the beginning instead of going through all these ridiculous measures."

"Do you think she would have made it easy for us either way?" Nikolai asked. He remained seated, his expression thoughtful as he stared at the door. "That girl is untamed and stubborn. She would have definitely found a way to fight us if we’d chosen to simply court her. She’s obviously giving us that suggestion because she’s looking for a way to get out of the conduct section."

"I guess you’re right." Mikhail chuckled, finally turning away from the door. "But you have to give it to her. She’s certainly clever."