The gilded elevator doors of the Pembrooke slid open, bringing Veronica into the sprawling, dimly lit luxury of their new apartment.
She found her mother in the dining room, looking over a stack of legal documents.
Veronica set the greasy takeout bags on the polished mahogany table.
“Burgers and onion rings, straight from Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe.”
Hermione abandoned her paperwork instantly.
She pulled out a burger and took a bite with great relish, practically groaning at the taste.
“I have been dreaming about this exact burger since we left New York.”
Veronica unbuttoned her coat, draping it over a chair.
She hesitated for a moment, her mind flashing back to the intense, dark-haired boy in the diner.
“Mom…
have you ever heard the name Aleksander Morozov?
I know I’ve seen him somewhere before, but I just can’t place it.”
Hermione stopped chewing.
The relaxed, nostalgic look completely vanished from her face.
She lowered the burger back into the wrapper, her dark eyes locking onto her daughter.
“Why do you want to know?”
Veronica shrugged, pouring herself a glass of water.
“I just met a boy named Aleksander at Pop’s.
He rides a Ducati, wears a bespoke blazer over a t-shirt, and just transferred here from Osaka, Japan.
The locals in the diner practically had a meltdown when he introduced himself.”
Hermione’s eyes went wide.
She quickly wiped her hands on a napkin, snatched her phone from the table, and rapidly typed a name into the search bar.
She tapped on an image and spun the phone around, sliding it across the table to Veronica.
“Was this the boy you met?”
Veronica looked down at the bright screen.
It was a high-resolution press photo of Aleksander.
He was wearing a sharply tailored, dark suit, standing at a sleek podium and smiling confidently at a massive crowd of reporters.
“That’s him,” Veronica said, a wave of shock washing over her as the pieces finally clicked.
“That’s exactly him.”
“Veronica,” Hermione breathed, her voice trembling with a sudden, intense excitement.
“That is the CEO of Apex Industries.”
Veronica stared at the screen.
She knew the name Apex.
“The company that makes the Elysium Med-Bay?”
“And their daily tech, their aerospace division, and their new energy field project,” Hermione confirmed, standing up from the table.
She began to pace, her mind spinning with the implications.
“The Med-Bay single-handedly shook the global medical industry to its core.
He completely monopolized global healthcare in a matter of months.”
“But he’s sixteen years old,” Veronica questioned, still struggling to reconcile the boy who had charmed her at the diner with a global corporate titan.
“He is a once-in-a-generation genius,” Hermione stated, her voice laced with a deep fanaticism and a subtle, unmistakable hint of lust for the sheer, untouchable power the boy wielded.
“When the news first broke, I was just like you.
I was completely distrustful.
A teenager building high-level technology?
It sounded like a PR stunt.
But he did a live interview.
The world’s top scientific intellectuals came on stage to try and debunk him, to prove he was a fraud.
He humiliated them.
He outpaced their math, corrected their theories, and proved to the entire world that it was all him.
He built Apex into a mammoth.”
Hermione stopped pacing and looked at Veronica, her eyes gleaming with calculation.
“From what my contacts in the financial sector understand, he was homeschooled in Japan and passed college-level fields before he was twelve.
But recently, he stepped out of the spotlight.
The rumor was that he was taking a break to actually get a social life.
It seems he chose Riverdale to do it.”
Hermione stepped closer, reaching out to gently grab Veronica’s shoulders.
“Veronica, do you understand what this means?
The Lodge family name is in the mud right now because of your father.
But this boy…
he is untouchable.
You need to grab this chance.
You need to become friends with him.
Get close to him.”
Veronica’s expression immediately hardened.
She looked at her mother’s calculating eyes and felt a cold knot form in her stomach.
“No,” Veronica said, her voice dropping to a firm, disappointed register.
“I am not going to get close to him just to use him.”
“Think of the advantages.
If you have the ear of Aleksander Morozov, the doors that will open for us—”
“I said no, Mom,” Veronica interrupted, pulling away from Hermione’s grasp.
She grabbed her purse from the counter, her jaw set tightly.
“He was actually nice to me.
For the first time since Dad’s arrest, someone looked at me without judging me for my last name.
I’m not going to ruin that by treating him like a stock option.”
Without waiting for a rebuttal, Veronica turned her back on her mother and walked silently down the hall to her room, leaving Hermione standing alone in the dining room with the cold burgers.
Hermione stood alone in the dining room, listening to the sharp, definitive click of Veronica’s bedroom door shutting down the hall.
Instead of feeling frustrated, a slow, calculating smile crept onto her lips.
She knew her daughter perfectly.
Veronica’s fierce defensiveness wasn’t a rejection of the boy; it was undeniable proof that she was already genuinely captivated by him.
The seed was planted.
Hermione walked slowly back to the table, her mind shifting gears.
She realized that trying to force Veronica into a clumsy, orchestrated scheme would be a massive strategic error.
Aleksander Morozov possessed a world-class intellect.
He had outsmarted seasoned corporate sharks and global intellectuals before he even could drive.
If the Lodges tried to blatantly deceive him or force a relationship, his mind would detect the manipulation instantly, permanently blocking any avenues to his immense power and wealth.
The approach had to be entirely organic.
She had to let the high school dynamic run its natural course.
But that didn’t mean Hermione had to sit idly by on the sidelines forever.
She turned away from the cold food, her gaze catching the heavy, gilded mirror hanging above the mahogany console table.
She took a deliberate step closer, her dark eyes critically scanning her own reflection in the dim light.
She smoothed a hand down the immaculate, tailored line of her dress.
She noted the sharp, pristine elegance of her features, the sophisticated confidence in her posture, and the undeniable, mature allure she still carried effortlessly.
“I still look good,” Hermione muttered to the empty room, her reflection offering a sharp, predatory smirk.
There was more than one way to secure the Lodge family’s future.
She would let Veronica play the noble, independent teenager.
She would let the two of them circle each other in the halls of Riverdale High.
And when the time was right, Veronica would inevitably bring the young Trillionaire back to the Pembrooke.
Once Aleksander stepped into her territory, Hermione decided she would put her own plans into action, ready to see just how much the Lodge family’s fortunes could change.
[A/N: Hermione and Alice could work too.]