It was a Monday morning and Harry finally attended his first class for the week.
Ms.
Smith dropped her chalk into the groove of the blackboard with a sharp clack, brushing the white dust from her fingers before turning to face the tiered rows of students with a polished, professional smile.
“Well, there you have it for today, class. Study hard and ensure you approach all of your upcoming assignments sparingly, okay? Do not rush the material,” she projected clearly across the room, tapping a manicured finger against her lesson planner.
“And remember, my specific module assignment is due this coming Thursday, so make sure that you complete it on time is that clear?…. But except for Harry, of course. Since he has only just joined our ranks this semester, his specific due date will be a bit delayed to allow him to catch up.”
Harry offered a polite, silent nod of gratitude from his middle-row desk.
The moment the exception left the lecturer’s mouth, a ripple of movement went through the lecture hall.
His classmates couldn’t help but steal covert glances across the room, their lips moving in faint, rhythmic murmurs that hummed against the concrete walls.
Harry didn’t even need to strain his ears to know exactly what they were thinking.
To them, he was an enigma—a noble-tier anomaly carrying a heavy, blood-soaked history they only dared whisper about in the dark.
Before the murmurs could crystallize into actual conversation, the heavy wooden doors of the lecture hall were slammed open with a violent, echoing crash that caused several students in the front row to startle out of their seats.
The room went dead silent.
As every pair of eyes trailed toward the sudden intrusion, the unmistakable hierarchy of the St Jude’s academy manifested on the threshold.
The inner circle of the Mayfairs had arrived, flanked by an imposing wall of personal servants, uniform-clad security guards, and elite escorts who moved with synchronized, clinical precision.
Instantly, the atmosphere became suffocating.
The commoner students scrambled toward the front and sides of the rows, dropping their eyes and bending their spines into rigid, 90-degree bows to greet the Mayfairs as if their very lives depended on the depth of their submission.
Even Ms.
Smith quickly smoothed her skirt and lowered her head.
Her academic authority completely evaporating under the sheer weight of the Mayfair name.
Only Harry remained entirely unmoved.
He sat squarely in his seat, his arms loosely crossed over his chest, mildly impressed but thoroughly disgusted by how naturally everyone in this institution groveled at these people’s feet.
It truly repulsed him.
“It is certainly not every day that we find ourselves visiting the commoners’ classes just to meet someone face-to-face,” Molly broke the silence, her voice smooth and dripping with aristocratic arrogance as her heels clicked against the linoleum.
“Standard protocol dictates that we simply summon the person to come to us instead. But… since we are dealing with Harry McGuire, I suppose we can always make a rare exception for our special person isn’t it?”
Molly offered a sharp, cat-like smile as she approached Harry’s desk.
Before she even reached the empty desk beside him, two of her personal servants rushed forward, meticulously flattening a silk handkerchief across the wooden seat to ensure her clothing wouldn’t touch the commoner dust.
Only when it was perfectly laid out did she elegantly sit, crossing her legs.
Just behind her, stepping out from the shadow of his massive security detail, Andrew slowly followed.
His new silver-headed cane tapped rhythmically against the floorboards, his dark eyes locked onto Harry’s face with a permanent, plastered smile that looked entirely too warm to be real.
“Everyone else in this room,” Andrew began casually, his tone conversational as he gave a lazy, dismissive wave of his gloved hand, “—except for Harry, who obviously doesn’t belong to the Mayfairs’ immediate circle… get lost immediately.”
The command was deadpan, completely devoid of heat, yet the absolute authority behind it caused an immediate, frantic exodus.
The students practically tripped over themselves to scurry out of the back exits, and Ms.
Smith didn’t waste a second gathering her papers before slipping past the guards.
Within thirty seconds, the massive lecture hall was hollowed out, leaving only the primary players and the silent wall of guards at the doors.
“Now we can talk freely,” Andrew murmured.
He pulled a heavy oak chair from the front row, spinning it around to sit directly across from Harry’s desk, his sharp smile never wavering for a single fraction of a second.
Harry pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a single, deliberate finger.
He calmly snapped his notebooks shut, sliding his pens into his leather satchel before packing them neatly aside to clear the workspace between them.
“So, we meet again,” Harry said, his voice flat and unimpressed.
“I can’t exactly say that it’s a pleasure to see you guys again. But how fancy, seeing the grand Mayfair elite descending all the way down here to the commoners’ classes.”
“Well, isn’t this exactly where you chose to hide yourself away after all, Harry?” Andrew teased, leaning his forearms on the edge of the desk, his eyes gleaming with dark amusement.
Harry let out a low, humorless chuckle, leaning his back entirely against the rigid support of his plastic chair.
“It’s called circumstances, Andrew.”
“So, tell me…” Harry snickered, tilting his head slightly, his silver-gold hair shifting over his shoulder.
“What exactly do I owe the immense pleasure of having such prominent figures visiting me at such a humble, low-tier place today?”
“You already know exactly why I’m here, Harry,” Andrew smirked.
With a slow, deliberate movement, as he reached inside his tailored blazer and pulled out a thick, high-grade plastic sleeve containing several crisp sheets of parchment—the contract.
The moment the document hit the wood, Harry’s expression darkened, a low, defensive snarl rattling in his throat like a cornered beast.
“Yeah, I know why *you’re* here,” Harry shot back, his silver eyes flashing behind his lenses as his gaze drifted past Andrew’s shoulder.
“But as for the rest of your little entourage—”
Harry looked at each of the accompanying figures one by one, his stare piercing right through the glass of his spectacles with a lethal intensity that caused a few of the younger domestic servants to visibly flinch and step back.
Bryson, standing just to Andrew’s left, glared right back at him.
His jaw was tightly clamped, the raw, historical hostility evident in his narrowed eyes as his hand twitched near his belt.
Bryan, conversely, remained quietly observant on the perimeter.
His posture was relaxed, his face a neutral mask; after all, he harbored no active malice toward the McGuire heir, though his eyes carried the subtle weight of a man who still felt he was owed a few outstanding debts from the past.
Andrew chuckled softly, nodding his head in quiet approval as Harry’s fierce gaze finally snaked its way back to lock onto his own. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
“You’ve still got that sharp edge, I must admit. Three years away hasn’t dulled it at all.”
“The only thing that changed about me during those three years was becoming a father,” Harry snickered, his posture leaning slightly forward, ensuring his eyes never left Andrew’s for even a heartbeat.
“Everything else still remains exactly the same. Even the incredibly sharp tongue that you happen to hate the most.”
“I can tell,” Andrew kept his gaze perfectly maintained, his pupils dilating slightly as the space between them seemed to warp into an isolated, psychological zone.
It was a private battlefield where they were communicating through micro-expressions and old, dangerous familiarity, completely bypassing the verbal dialogue everyone else in the room was listening to.
“And besides Harry, I don’t really hate that sharp tongue of yours because it is easily one of my most favorite parts about you.”
Molly leaned closer over the desk, her manicured fingers snapping sharply right in the empty space between their locking eyes, breaking the spell.
“Take it easy on my boyfriend, Andrew,” Molly chimed in, her tone dripping with mock sweetness as she rested her chin on her hand.
“Just say what you came here to say so we can leave this drafty room.”
“Boyfriend?” Harry repeated the word, looking at her completely dumbfounded, his brow furrowing in genuine disbelief.
Behind them, Bryson hissed loudly, his fist slamming violently against the top of a neighboring student desk with a resounding *thud*.
“Molly, how could you!” he barked, his face flushing with anger.
“You know damn well this guy is an absolute enemy of our house!”
“Oh, please, Bryson. He’s not an enemy if he already has a child carrying our shared bloodline,” Molly countered smoothly, not even looking back at him as she inspected her nails.
“He may be Andrew’s baby daddy, but he is my boyfriend now. Just call it modern family dynamics.”
“Sorry, but I’m not interested in whatever twisted game you’re all playing,” Harry said coldly.
With a swift, dismissive motion of his forearm, he swayed Molly’s hand entirely away from his desk space, making sure his absolute rejection was loud, clear, and unyielding.
Molly didn’t snap back; she just let out a soft, amused smile and let her hand drop, her eyes trailing over to Andrew’s face.
She knew exactly which buttons to press; Andrew’s jaw had tightened into stone, a dark, volatile anger seething just beneath his skin, masking itself behind his frozen smile.
“Everyone, excuse us,” Andrew commanded suddenly, his voice dropping into a register that made the guards at the door instantly straighten.
“Every single one of you out. I want to speak entirely alone with Harry.”
Andrew leaned back into his chair, deliberately crossing one long leg over the other, his fingers tapping a slow, lethal rhythm against the silver handle of his cane.
“But, Andr—” Molly started, her smile faltering.
“Now, Molly,” Andrew interrupted.
The words were deadpan, perfectly flat, and so utterly cold that the sheer weight of command left no room for negotiation.
He didn’t look at her; his eyes remained fixed entirely on Harry as the room began to clear.
Molly clicked her tongue, rising gracefully from her handkerchief-lined seat, gesturing for Bryson and the guards to follow.
The heavy lecture hall doors slammed shut behind them, the sound echoing through the empty rows, signaling their absolute isolation.
Harry let out a long, exhausted breath through his nose.
“I don’t even know why they bothered coming along from the very beginning.” Andrew confessed.
“You do know that she is older than you, right?” Harry murmured, his tone shifting into something unnervingly casual.
“Only by a single year,.”
“At least that counts for something in high society, doesn’t it?”
“No, it doesn’t… at least not to me,” Andrew snapped.
Without warning, Andrew lunged forward, gripping the edges of Harry’s desk and pulling his chair so close that their knees physically brushed underneath the wooden desk.
Harry scoffed, an immediate, defensive reflex causing him to pull his legs back to break the contact, but Andrew merely let out a low, dark chuckle at the reaction.
“You really need to stop constantly pushing me away, Harry,” Andrew whispered, his face inches from the glass of Harry’s spectacles.
“I am, after all, the father of your child.”
“You and I both know the true, horrific dynamics between us,” Harry replied, his voice dropping into a harsh whisper.
“Don’t try to suddenly act compassionate or play the doting parent now. It doesn’t suit you.”
“All of that past rot doesn’t matter anymore,” Andrew insisted, his eyes drilling into Harry’s.
“As long as you claim Lolleta as yours, and as long as Lolleta only knows you as her father, then you are technically my family. You are raising my child as your own, within my sphere of influence.”
Harry sighed deeply, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he stared at the pristine plastic sleeve resting between them.
The exhaustion of the endless psychological warfare was starting to bleed through his defenses.
He leaned closer, his voice turning strictly business.
“So… about this contract. What exactly are the core conditions?”
“Read it for yourself,” Andrew replied, sliding the smooth plastic sleeve a fraction of an inch closer to Harry’s chest.
Harry let out another sharp sigh, pulling the crisp sheets out.
His eyes scanned the legal formatting, tracking the intricate, ironclad clauses drafted in Mayfair ink.
“This is fucking too much,” Harry muttered under his breath, his brow furrowing as he flipped through the dense pages.
“Couldn’t you have summarized it all into a single page?”
He clicked his tongue in irritation, continuing to read through the heavy legalese.
Stripped of the corporate filler, the primary clauses were remarkably straight to the point: Andrew would legally bound himself to never take Lolleta away from Harry’s physical custody, no matter what family pressure arose, so long as Andrew was granted absolute, unrestricted access to be a part of her life at all times.
But as Harry’s eyes hit the middle of the third page, his movement stopped entirely.
“Wait…” Harry’s voice tightened, his head snapping up to lock onto Andrew.
“You want Lolleta to also come here? To the campus? No, Andrew, you know better than anyone that this place is—”
“–Is infinitely better than that prison you call your family house, that is what I am absolutely sure of,” Andrew cut him off cleanly, folding his arms across his chest as he leaned back. Read the latest chapters at novelping dot com.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Harry’s silver eyes narrowed, his defensive instincts flaring.
Andrew kept his lips locked tightly in a thin, enigmatic line, refusing to elaborate on the internal decay of the McGuire estate.
Harry stared at him for a long moment before shaking his head in sheer frustration.
“So… you want her to stay at the specialized family housing on the elite northern ridge?”
“Yes,” Andrew answered simply.
“She will have every single thing she could ever need there, fully secured under the Mayfair’s care and support. She will be much closer to both of us during the academic terms… and as for you, I need you under my wing at all times.”
Harry’s hand tightened against the edge of the paper.
“What exactly is that supposed to mean, Andrew? Under your wing?”
“You will become my Vice President for the student council,” Andrew stated, his tone as casual as if he were discussing the weather.
“What?!” Harry practically hissed, nearly rising from his seat.
“That way, you will be closely, systematically protected by my personal network, and you will be forced to be much closer to me where I can see you,” Andrew explained, his lopsided smirk returning.
“Andrew… I can let you get closer to your daughter for her sake, but I will absolutely never let you get closer to me,” Harry declared, his voice hard as iron.
“It is entirely for your own safety, you stubborn idiot,” Andrew countered, his voice dropping into a serious, threatening lower register.
“You are not nearly as safe as you think you are on this campus, Harry. With the rumors spreading like wildfire that you are uniquely capable of falling pregnant, every desperate house in the lower tier wants to knock you up pretty damn bad. They want a permanent blood tie with the McGuire main line, and they want to use you to get closer to your father for massive political leverage if they can’t get to Noelle. After all didn’t Jace prove that much to you the other night?”
Harry stiffened on his chair.
“So trust me, you are a target. Stay on my side.”
“I don’t want to,” Harry spat back instantly.
“You don’t have a choice; it is a mandatory clause of the contract,” Andrew said smoothly.
“You and I will start on a completely clean slate.”
“Then I won’t be signing this damn contract today, then,” Harry countered, tossing the sheets back onto the desk with a flick of his wrist.
He leaned in, his eyes burning behind his lenses.
“And knowing you, Andrew, beneath all this talk of protection, you probably want your hands wrapped tightly around my neck really badly.”
An unsettling, heavy silence hovered for a moment between them, the empty air of the lecture hall magnifying the sound of their shallow breathing.
Then, slowly, Andrew’s smirk broke into a wide, genuine smile.
“So what now, Harry? Are you going to try and run away from me again?” Andrew mocked softly.
“Do you honestly think I will ever let you leave my sight a second time?”
“Our friendship ended a long time ago, Andrew, and we both know exactly why,” Harry said, his voice dropping all of its defensive armor, leaving only a cold, stark reality.
“So being close again… it’s completely impossible. The reality is that the two of us actually want to kill each other so bad that it sours the air. I know you want me dead, more than anything else in your life.”
“So, what makes you think that I’ll willingly get close to you?” Harry added, reaching up to push his glasses firmly back into place before tucking a stray lock of his golden-silver hair behind his ear.
Andrew bit his lower lip, a menacing, predatory smirk fully playing across his features.
He possessed the kind of striking, charming smile that would normally make half of the student body swoon and melt on the spot, but Harry wasn’t a girl, and he was completely immune to the Mayfair charm.
His face remained a stern, frozen mask of cold defiance.
“I’m sorry that I stabbed you and nearly killed you five years ago,” Andrew murmured, his tone dripping with an unsettling blend of mockery and dark nostalgia.
“But can we please just be friends again now?… Or at least raise Lolleta together?”
“Raising Lolleta together, yes. But ever being your friend again? That is an absolute no,” Harry dictated.
“Harry, do you really think you actually have a choice in this room huh?”
Harry flinched, his head quickly snapping up as the sudden change in Andrew’s tone hit him like a physical blow.
“This contract means absolutely nothing to me,” Andrew chuckled, his voice turning dead and hollow as he slowly stood up from his chair.
He casually buttoned the front of his tailored blazer, straightening the lapels before leaning his tall frame all the way across the desk, hovering directly above Harry’s head like a shadow.
“The paperwork was just to muse you. To see how much pride you had left.”
Andrew reached down, his strong fingers clamping firmly around Harry’s chin, forcing his face upward to look directly into his eyes.
Harry huffed, his jaw tensing as he tried to pull away, his eyes darting aside in pure irritation, but Andrew’s grip was unyielding.
“The very moment that you stepped foot back onto this campus, you should have known that you were already caught completely into my web,” Andrew whispered, his dark eyes seemingly void of their usual grey color, turning into twin abysses of absolute obsession.
“Along with our daughter. You are never leaving me again, Harry. You will be my Vice President, and you will be by my side for every single one of the twenty-four hours in a seven-day week. You are stuck with me for the rest of your life. So go ahead… do your worst to run away.”
Andrew lingered for a fraction of a second, his gaze dropping to Harry’s lips before he suddenly tilted his head and left a sharp, deliberate peck right on Harry’s flushed cheek.
“Tomorrow evening,” Andrew whispered against his ear, his voice sending a cold shiver down Harry’s spine, “we are going to get my daughter from your house… before I kill that bastard Lloyd with my own bare hands.”
Harry’s eyes widened in shock.
“What are you—”
“See you tomorrow, Harry,” Andrew winked.
With a smooth, fluid turn on his heel, Andrew grabbed his silver cane and marched down the center aisle, the lecture hall doors swinging open as his guards reformed their wall around him.
The moment the doors clicked shut, Harry scoffed loudly, violently wiping the skin of his cheek with the back of his sleeve, his expression a mix of profound disgust and rising panic.
He could already hear the heavy footsteps of the commoner students gingerly walking back inside the room, keeping a massive distance from his desk while covertly stealing frantic glances every now and then.
Harry gripped the edge of his desk until his fingernails dug into the wood, his chest heaving as the trap closed around him.
‘He did that entirely on purpose…
right in front of the windows.
That fucking maniac.’