Chapter 267: Just a Simp

Elias’s smile deepened.

"See?"

[System Theta: Oh no.]

Its brand-new analysis function had been wrong.

Before Serena could look toward him, Elias turned his face back to the window as naturally as if he had been staring at the tarmac the whole time. Outside, the ground crew moved around the private jet with disciplined restraint, not hurried enough to look panicked, not idle enough to look relaxed. The plane remained exactly where it was. A service cart sat near the stairs. The flight crew kept their distance. No one had come to explain anything to the young man in the window seat.

Serena ended the call.

By the time she walked back to him, Elias looked up as though he had only just noticed her return. He pushed out his lower lip, the spoiled little pout arriving with perfect timing.

"When can we take off?"

After their brief time together as big sister and dependent little lover, Serena had begun to understand some of this new Elias’s habits. A pout like that did not mean simple impatience. It meant boredom, irritation, and a temper he was holding back only because the person in front of him was her.

She could understand why he felt wronged.

He had barely arrived in the Maldives. He had not touched the ocean. He had not walked on the beach. He had been promised another trip later, then rushed onto a plane because of a company emergency he had accepted for her sake.

Serena looked down at him.

Then she bent and kissed him.

Elias paused only for a beat before lifting his face to meet her.

This time, he was not as pliant as before. He answered her like a little fish slipping through her hands, quick and playful, letting her catch him for a second before turning the kiss into a game. He did not resist. He made her work for it. The difference was small, but Serena felt it sharply.

When she finally drew back, she stayed close for a moment, faintly dazed.

She had not known a single kiss could taste so different from the same mouth.

"What is it?" Elias asked.

He blinked at her, head tilted slightly, as if he could not understand why she was staring.

Serena’s expression softened.

This version of him was a treasure chest with no bottom. Every time she reached in, he gave her something new: obedience, arrogance, tears, greed for affection, childish temper, little flashes of cruelty, and tenderness that landed precisely where she was weakest.

She smiled and shook her head. "Nothing. We may have to leave a little later than planned."

"Why?" Elias looked genuinely confused. "Didn’t you say something urgent happened at the company?"

His brows pulled together.

Serena could see the anger gathering. Not a full explosion yet, but close. In his mind, the logic was simple. If work was urgent, the plane should already be in the air. If the plane was not leaving, then she had lied to him.

Serena sat beside him and slipped an arm around his waist with the ease of someone claiming a familiar place.

"Because," she said, "one of your classmates wants to see you."

She placed the blame on Giselle with perfect calm.

The moment she received the call, Serena had understood. Giselle must have figured out enough to move. The girl herself did not yet have the reach to stop Serena’s jet at a foreign private terminal, which meant she had done the one thing pride should have made impossible.

She had called Victoria Frost.

In that regard, Serena and Giselle understood each other far too well. Giselle could immediately guess who had taken Elias. Serena could immediately guess who had blocked the takeoff.

A strange little symmetry.

"A classmate?" Elias asked, wrinkling his nose. "Which classmate?"

Serena kept her voice light. "Giselle Frost. Does that name mean anything to you?"

Her body betrayed her before her face did.

One hand rested against the black fabric covering her thigh. Her fingers tightened until the material caught under one nail and tore a thin run through it.

Elias saw the movement from the corner of his eye.

His lashes lifted.

Serena’s pupils narrowed, waiting for the answer she had paid far too much to secure.

Elias spoke without hesitation.

"No impression. I don’t know her."

Serena’s smile brightened at once.

"Is that so?"

Her relief was not visible in any vulgar way, but it moved through her all the same. The name had not drawn tenderness from him. No recognition. No panic. No instinctive guilt. Giselle Frost, who had held his hand, shared his bed, kissed him in the pool, and searched the resort for him, had become nothing in his mouth.

Elias frowned, appearing to think hard.

"Let me try to remember." He looked up, brows knitting together. "She’s not even in my major. I think we’ve crossed paths at the library a few times, maybe? That doesn’t make her my classmate."

The more he spoke, the more annoyed he sounded.

"Seriously. I barely know her. Why does she want to see me? Who even is she?"

The uglier side of his new personality showed itself then. To anyone other than Serena, he no longer bothered to hide his temper. The sweet, dependent boy who clung to his big sister had a small tyrant inside him, and that tyrant did not like strangers interfering with his comfort.

"And you too, big sister." Elias turned the complaint on Serena without fear. "Why didn’t you ask me first? I don’t want to meet some random person just because she asks. What if she’s one of my simps? Do I have to meet every desperate girl who likes me?"

He even complained about Serena.

And Serena nearly smiled.

The girl who had once held a place in Elias’s heart, however small or confused that place had been, was now only a random simp in his eyes. The reversal filled Serena with a satisfaction so fierce she had to lower her lashes for half a second to hide it.

She cleared her throat.

"Eli, you can say that in front of me," she said, keeping her voice mild, "but if you do see her, you should be a little polite. She is still a fellow student."

"I won’t."

The rebellion came instantly.

"She’s not my fellow student. She’s just a simp. A simp." Elias looked offended by the very idea. "She doesn’t even deserve to get on her knees and kiss my shoes."

Elias’s mind laughed.

Insulting Little Miss Inexperienced to Serena’s face, while using the kind of venom Serena once would have aimed at Liora, was oddly satisfying.

[System Theta: Host...]

"What?"

[System Theta: Nothing.]

The system had no useful comment. It only felt that Elias’s hobbies were becoming increasingly difficult to categorize.

Serena sighed as though exhausted by him.

"Fine. Then I’ll send her away when she comes. But you are not allowed to speak to people like that."

"Hmph."

Elias answered with a cold little sound through his nose.

Serena stood.

The moment she turned away, the smile she had been restraining finally appeared. It spread slowly, uncontrolled now that Elias could not see her face. Her eyes, however, remained dark.

So Giselle had noticed.

So what?

The affection Giselle stole while Elias was vulnerable had been returned to its rightful owner. What never belonged to someone could not be kept by wanting hard enough.

Serena gave a light clap.

A flight attendant appeared from the front of the cabin, fast enough to prove she had been waiting for the smallest signal. This was Serena’s plane. Even grounded, it obeyed her in every visible way.

Serena lifted her chin. "Bring me a bottle of red wine."

"No," Elias said at once.

Serena stopped.

That, she had not expected.

She looked back. "What is it, Eli?"

Elias’s brows pinched together. Even the tip of his nose wrinkled with displeasure.

"Big sister, you still have to go back for a company meeting. How can you drink?"

So that was why.

Concern.

Serena’s smile opened fully before she could stop it. She returned to him and sat down, one arm sliding around his waist again. The flight attendant lowered her eyes and pretended not to hear the intimacy in the exchange.

"I suddenly feel like having some," Serena said. "It’s all right. It won’t affect work. Will you have a little with me?"

Elias’s face showed clear disapproval.

He hesitated, then nodded reluctantly.

"Only a little. And you’re not allowed to drink too much. One glass."

He held up one slender finger.

Serena took that finger into her palm and drew it toward her. She lowered her head and kissed the tip of it.

"Fine," she said, eyes curved with warmth. "Whatever Eli says, I’ll do."

Elias pulled his hand back at once.

He lowered his head, suddenly shy, and began rubbing the kissed finger with his other hand as though the sensation remained there. The performance was delicate enough to make Serena’s gaze soften again, and ridiculous enough that System Theta fell silent out of self-defense.

Inside, his thoughts went in an entirely different direction.

If he asked Serena to transfer him all her assets, would she do it?

[System Theta: You really dare to think anything.]