Blurb：
Caleb Reed's words cut deeper than any blade, especially for Claire who endured his cruelty for far too long. When Chloe sabotages the debate tournament, Caleb's unexpected leniency reveals a painful truth about his toxic affection. This enemies-to-lovers romance explores Claire's journey from humiliation to empowerment against the handsome yet vicious Caleb Reed. Will she continue accepting his verbal abuse or finally confront the debate society's sharp-tongued king? Discover a story of betrayal, redemption, and the price of loving someone like Caleb Reed who treats kindness as weakness.Content：
Caleb Reed has a tongue like a scalpel.I've always been on the curvier side, and when the sample for a photoshoot—a delicate white lace dress—arrived from the online boutique, he'd smirked.
Are you seriously going to humiliate yourself in that? Anyone who sees you will think a sausage is trying to play dress-up.
I've lost count of the number of times Caleb's words have broken me, but I always convinced myself to let it go. He was devastatingly handsome and outrageously generous, and I forced myself to believe that was enough.
Until the incident with the freshman from the debate society, Chloe. The night before the finals, she leaked our entire case file to the opposing team.
Normally, this is the kind of catastrophic incompetence that would have had Caleb sneering, asking if her brain was just for decoration.
But this time, all he did was toss her a pack of tissues and turn his face away.
"What are you crying for? It's ugly."
1
Chloe's sobs were a theatrical performance.
"I'm so sorry," she wailed. "It's all my fault. Because of my mistake, everyone's disqualified!"
Five minutes earlier, the tournament organizers had officially booted us from the competition. Months of grueling preparation, all of it gone before we even had a chance to step on stage. The air in the hotel hallway was thick with fury.
"A mistake?" one of our teammates shot back. "You call that a mistake? Who 'accidentally' prints out a dozen copies of our entire strategy and leaves it neatly stacked in front of our opponent's hotel room?"
Chloe's voice hitched. "I'm sorry… I must have mixed up the room numbers…"
That just fanned the flames. "Our rooms are all next to each other! You're telling me you don't remember where we are, or even where you are staying?"
Another teammate piled on. "Just stop. You could cry a river and it wouldn't be enough to fill that empty head of yours."
Caleb, who had been leaning against the wall in silence, finally pushed himself off with a sharp sigh.
"Dude, your breath stinks," he said to the guy. "Seriously? You think ganging up on a freshman makes you look tough?"
A stunned silence fell over the group. Caleb wasn't just our star first-chair debater; he was the undisputed king of verbal evisceration.
Under any other circumstance, a screw-up this colossal, this blatantly intentional, would have had Caleb coldly dissecting the person's entire genetic lineage. He would've asked, with genuine curiosity, if their parents were siblings.
But this time, he just fished a pack of tissues from his pocket, tossed it at Chloe's feet, and averted his gaze.
"It's done. Crying isn't going to change anything."
Watching him, my heart pricked, a sharp, thin sting. It felt deeply, uncomfortably wrong. Caleb was sharp-tongued and allergic to comfort. I thought back to the countless times he'd made me cry. He'd stand there, hands shoved in his pockets, impatiently tapping his foot on the ground.
"Are you done yet? It was a minor thing. How long are you going to drag this out?"
Everyone was now looking at me, the team president, waiting for a verdict. I pushed down the strange, sour feeling in my gut and focused on Chloe.
"Whether it was intentional or not, your actions have consequences for the entire team. You're no longer a member of the debate society. Don't come to any future meetings or events."
Her eyes widened, fresh tears spilling over. "Claire, I know you've never liked me, but everyone makes mistakes! Are you really going to take away my chance to pursue my passion over one little slip-up?"
A teammate scoffed. "What passion? You can barely string a sentence together! The only reason you ever got to speak was because Claire gave you her own talking points, and even then you stammered through them and dragged the whole team down!"
"And this wasn't a 'little slip-up'!" another added. "This was the championship tournament! This was everything! How can you call that a small thing?"
Before Chloe could answer, Caleb's voice cut through the air, low and dangerous.
"Enough."
He turned his gaze on me. "Claire, you're the president, for Christ's sake. Are you just going to stand there and watch your team bully a freshman?"
He raked his eyes over me, a dismissive, head-to-toe scan. Then, he let the final words drop, soft and lethal.
"Oh, right. I forgot. You're leading the charge."
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The End