Chapter 1

Right after my exchange program interview, I become the center of a campus scandal. The headline is brutal.

"Top Student Caught Getting Into a Rich Woman's Bentley Late At Night. Did He Earn His Exchange Spot or Sleep His Way Into It?"

The post includes a 12-second clip of a middle-aged woman stepping out of a Bentley and opening the door for me.

Mark Stone, the campus heartthrob, wastes no time spreading rumors that I'm a sugar baby and that I stole his spot in the exchange program by sleeping my way to the top.

Bruce Jagger, my academic advisor, pressures me to give up my spot.

Hugo Lawson, my roommate, even packs up and moves out overnight.

But Mark isn't done. He publicly challenges me to bring the woman to campus and face him head-on.

So, I make one phone call and summon the very woman he's accusing me of sleeping with to come to campus.

Everyone expects me to get exposed in front of the whole school.

Instead, the woman walks up to me and addresses me respectfully in front of the entire crowd. "Mr. Durham, you called for me?"

Chapter 1

By the time my exchange program interview ended, my name was already trending at the top of the campus forum.

The comments were blowing up.

"Wait, isn't that Nate Durham from the finance faculty?"

"I heard he ranked first in the exchange program interview. Guess someone pulled a few strings for him."

"Sounds like someone's bitter. He managed to land a sugar mama. If you've got what it takes, go find yourself one, too."

"That woman looks old enough to be his mother. How does he even bring himself to sleep with her? Talk about having no standards."

Someone had dug up my class schedule, academic awards, and internship history.

Every scholarship I'd earned over the past three years suddenly looked like proof that some sugar mama was bankrolling my success.

I stared at the screen for a long moment.

"Nate, are you okay?" Hugo Lawson, my roommate, asked tentatively.

"I'm fine."

I scrolled through the post from start to finish, taking screenshots of every page.

By the time I reached the fifth page, I'd received a message from Bruce Jagger, my academic advisor, telling me to report to his office immediately.

I locked my phone and glanced back at the classroom where we'd just finished our interviews.

Mark Stone stood by the door, surrounded by several student council members.

When he caught me looking, he broke away from the group and walked over. "Nate, don't let those comments get to you."

He frowned, looking even more troubled than I was. "People are always quick to judge. I'm sure you've got your reasons."

I looked him in the eye. "What reasons?"

Mark seemed taken aback by my question. After a brief pause, he lowered his voice. "I'm not trying to judge you. I'm just saying, you need to be careful about who you get involved with."

Several people nearby turned to look at us.

Mark hadn't come right out and called me a sugar baby, but he'd all but confirmed that the woman in the video and I had an inappropriate relationship.

"Thanks for the concern," I replied.

I slipped my phone into my pocket and walked past him.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught his smirk.

When I entered his office, Bruce was sitting behind his desk, looking at the same post on his phone. "I'm sure you've seen the video everyone's talking about," he said.

I nodded.

Bruce's expression grew more serious. "Nate, it's just the two of us here. You can be honest with me. What's your relationship with that woman?"

"She drives me around."

Bruce raised an eyebrow. "You mean she's your chauffeur? The one who drives a Bentley?"

The question came out so quickly that he seemed to blurt it out before thinking.

I didn't know how to respond. I'd never told anyone at school about my family's background.

Bruce fell silent. His gaze shifted from my face to my canvas backpack.

I bought it at the university bookstore nearly two years ago for three dollars, and I'd used it ever since.

"On your student data form, you listed your father's occupation as a corporate employee."

"My dad does work for a company," I replied.

Just one that bore our family name, where he happened to own 62% of the shares.

Bruce clearly wasn't buying it.

He rubbed his temples, his tone softening as he spoke. "Nate, I'm not trying to pry into your personal life, but this situation has put us in a difficult position.

"We just had a meeting, and we've decided to postpone announcing the exchange program results."

"Why?" I asked.

"People are questioning whether the selection process was fair. The university needs to address those concerns.

"Then let everyone see the judges' scores. Release the interview recordings, too. I have no problem with a full review," I replied firmly.

Bruce sighed.

"It's not that simple. If you ask me, your best option is to withdraw from consideration voluntarily," he said, as he slid a withdrawal form across the desk toward me.

Chapter 2

I almost laughed. The post had been up for barely 40 minutes, and the faculty was already trying to get me to withdraw.

They certainly knew how to handle a problem quickly. Too bad they thought I was the problem.

"I'm not signing this." I slid the form back across the desk.

"Nate, don't do anything rash," Bruce warned.

"I'm not," I replied calmly.

"Do you have any idea how badly this could affect the faculty if the situation escalates?" Bruce asked, his brows furrowing.

"I didn't spread the rumor, and I didn't cause any of this," I shot back.

Bruce's expression hardened. "We have to consider how this will reflect on the university."

"So, to protect the university's reputation, I'm supposed to admit I didn't earn my spot and give it up?" I asked.

"That's not what I'm saying," Bruce replied, his expression growing uneasy.

"Then why did you already have the withdrawal form ready?" I pressed, holding his gaze.

The office fell silent.

Outside, students chatted in the hallway, their footsteps clicking against the tiled floor.

After a few seconds, Bruce tucked the form back into his desk drawer. "Then you need to prove that the woman in the video really is your family's chauffeur."

"Fine," I replied curtly.

"And in the meantime, stay off social media, and don't let her pick you up on campus," Bruce added, giving me a pointed look.

I got to my feet. "Until the investigation is over, please don't prepare any more withdrawal forms for me."

As soon as I left the office, I called Donna Page, who answered almost immediately.

"I'm waiting for you at our usual spot, Mr. Durham."

"Donna, don't drive onto campus just yet, " I said in a low voice.

"What's going on?" she asked, sounding concerned.

I briefly explained what had happened.

Donna was quiet for a long moment. "I'll come to the school and explain everything," she insisted.

"No, it's fine," I told her. "They're doing this to get at me, and I'll deal with it myself."

Donna fell silent again.

"Just go home for now. I'll take a cab," I said.

She still sounded reluctant to leave it alone. "Should I tell Mr. Durham Sr.?"

"Dad's in the middle of acquisition talks. I'll tell him once he lands."

He was in Grendia for the next few days, and once his team entered the negotiation room, they had to surrender their phones and other communication devices.

It wasn't worth interrupting the negotiations.

Mom was even harder to reach. Her research project was undergoing a confidential review, and she'd turned off her phone.

"In that case, I'll retrieve the footage from the dashcam," Donna offered.

After I hung up, my phone buzzed again.

The official student council account had shared an article.

The article didn't name me directly. Instead, it criticized the growing role of privilege and connections in university selection.

The person who'd shared it was Mark. He even added his own caption. "There's nothing wrong with wanting to get ahead, but not at the expense of people who actually work for it."

Within minutes, people flooded the comments with messages supporting him.

It was no secret among the finance students that Mark and I were competing for the exchange program.

He'd done well last semester, but my GPA was higher.

The committee evaluated candidates based on GPA, research experience, and their final presentations. Mark was slightly behind me across the board.

But as the post gained traction, he could now portray himself as the underdog, a hardworking student whose chances had been stolen by someone with powerful connections.

The story practically wrote itself.

A hardworking, handsome campus heartthrob, robbed of his chance by a scheming rival whose sugar mama pulled the strings.

It made for a much more compelling story than an academic tran ever could.

Chapter 3

The first thing I did when I got back to the dorm was contact the campus forum administrator and ask them to preserve the original post and its data.

I waited half an hour without hearing back.

Meanwhile, the post had exploded, going from just over 700 comments to more than 2,000. Someone even tracked down my social media account and dug up a photo of me at a formal event two years ago.

In the photo, I was wearing a men's watch. People quickly identified it as a luxury watch worth over 30,000 dollars.

"Here's your proof! What college student wears a watch that expensive?"

"Didn't he apply for financial aid?"

"Get your facts straight. That was someone else with the same name."

"Look at all these people scrambling to defend him. How much are they getting paid?"

The watch belonged to my grandfather.

Its face was worn, and it didn't even keep accurate time anymore. I'd only worn it once, on the anniversary of his death.

But no one cared about that. They just needed an expensive watch to make their sleazy accusations seem credible.

I didn't bother responding. I kept taking screenshots instead.

At 9:00 pm, Hugo came back to pack his things. He walked in without looking at me and started tossing his clothes into his suitcase.

"Going home?" I asked.

"No," Hugo replied.

He kept his back to me, packing faster with every passing second. "I've already put in a request to switch dorms."

The dorm fell silent except for the rasp of his zipper as he closed his suitcase.

"I'm sorry, Nate," Hugo said out of nowhere.

He hesitated, then glanced at me, his expression uneasy. "It's not that I don't believe you. It's just that someone posted a picture of us together, and now people are asking if I have a sugar mama, too."

I looked at him without saying much. "Right."

"My mom saw the post and called me three times. She told me to stay away from you," Hugo admitted.

"Then go ahead and move," I replied.

Hugo stood there for a long moment before finally grabbing his suitcase and leaving. The door clicked shut behind him, leaving the dorm eerily quiet.

I stared at the cold coffee on my desk, my fingers stiff. I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt.

Three years of living together, and one twelve-second video was all it took to drive us apart.

But I couldn't bring myself to blame him. Not everyone was willing to risk their reputation to stand by a friend.

At midnight, another post appeared on the forum.

"The Luxury Car Was Only the Beginning. Top Student Nate Durham Allegedly Spent the Night at a Five-Star Hotel with a Mysterious Wealthy Woman."

The post included two photos. The first showed Donna carrying my luggage as we walked into a hotel. The second was a screenshot of the hotel's check-in records.

The names listed were Donna's name and mine. Even the last few digits of my ID number matched.

This time, no one came to my defense.

My inbox was soon flooded with messages.

"Hey, handsome. Hook me up with her sometime. I'm younger than you!"

"What's it like sleeping with an older woman?"

"How much do you charge per night?"

I closed my inbox and enlarged the screenshot of the hotel records.

Three months ago, on November 17, I did stay at that hotel.

It was Mom's birthday.

Dad was called away on a last-minute business trip, so he asked me to take Mom to a formal dinner and spend the night with her at the hotel afterward.

Donna had driven us there and carried our luggage.

I called the hotel. After I explained things, the front desk attendant politely said they couldn't release their internal records to me.

"Someone's posted forged check-in records from your hotel online. I need the original records to prove they're fake," I explained.

"I'm sorry, sir, but guest information is confidential. We can only release those to the police or other authorized investigators," the attendant replied.

I frowned, trying to think of another way to get the evidence I needed. "What about the security footage? Do you still have it?"

"We typically keep footage for three months," the attendant explained. "You'll need to check with our security team to confirm whether it's still available."

Today was February 17—exactly three months since that night. The timing couldn't be a coincidence.

I stared at the calendar, a sinking feeling settling in my gut.

This wasn't a random act of malice. Someone had clearly planned this well in advance. They'd been keeping tabs on me for a while.

And that video of me getting into the car might not have been a coincidence, either.

Chapter 4

I pulled up my contacts and called Patrick Quimby, Durham Group's head of Legal.

Patrick picked up almost immediately. "Nate?"

"I've got a problem," I said, getting straight to the point.

"How bad?" Patrick asked.

"Someone's spreading sexual rumors about me and faking hotel records to make them look true," I explained, my jaw tightening at the thought.

I heard a chair scrape across the floor on the other end of the line.

"Don't delete anything, and don't reach out to whoever's behind this," Patrick instructed.

"I'm already saving screenshots," I assured him.

"That's not enough," he replied. "I'll have someone arrange for the evidence to be officially preserved."

His voice remained calm and measured. "Send me everything you have. The posts, chat logs, and the accounts involved."

The next morning, I'd barely stepped out of my dorm when I spotted a crowd waiting outside.

Several people had their phones out, recording me. One shoved a camera so close to my face that I could barely see past it.

"Nate, are those hotel records real?" someone demanded.

"What's your relationship with that woman?" another person pressed.

"Did someone outside the university pull strings to get you that exchange spot?" a third person asked suspiciously.

I ignored them and pushed through the crowd.

Then, Mark appeared out of nowhere. "Nate, I can help you."

"I don't need help from the person who started these rumors," I shot back.

His expression darkened for a moment before he raised an eyebrow. "Got any proof?" he challenged.

"Proof of what?" I asked.

"Proof that I'm behind the rumors." He flashed me a smug smile. "I didn't post anything, and I wasn't the one who filmed that video."

Technically, he was right.

When I didn't respond, Mark took it as a sign that he had the upper hand. "Didn't you say that woman was just your family's chauffeur?"

He stared straight into my eyes. "Why don't you have her come here and clear things up herself?" he challenged, a smug grin on his face.

"Unless you're afraid of what she might say."

"Fine by me," I replied without hesitation.

Mark clearly hadn't expected me to agree so easily. He faltered for a moment, then quickly recovered his composure. "Great. I'll be waiting."

Once I was away from the crowd, I called Donna. "Are you free the day after tomorrow?"

"Yes," she replied.

"Come to campus, then."

"What do you need me to bring?" she asked.

"Your employment contract, social security records, and the memory card from the dashcam."

"I'll bring everything," she assured me.

She paused briefly before speaking again. "Don't worry, Nate. We'll make sure everyone knows the truth."

"Okay," I said.

Just then, an email from the hotel came through. They'd confirmed that they could release the original check-in records only in response to an official request from the authorities.

A message from Patrick came in right after.

He'd tracked down the person who first posted the video, who'd admitted that the footage had been edited. The original video clearly showed Mom sitting inside the car.

Once we got the original footage and audio from the dashcam, Mark's entire story would fall apart.

The following afternoon, Donna drove to the office to pick up her employment contract.

Half an hour later, my phone rang. It was the hospital.

"Are you a relative of Donna Page?" the nurse asked urgently. "You're listed as her emergency contact."

My blood ran cold.