The Quarterback’s Warm-Up Girl Walked Away

For fifteen years, chess prodigy Audra Vale has been the invisible backbone behind world-champion grandmaster Damon Cross—patching his flaws, mapping every opponent, and letting him use her as pre-match stress relief while he flaunts his sponsor’s daughter publicly. Heartbroken, she quits and joins a leading European chess AI project in Paris. There she builds her own legacy, finds true love with Julian, and leaves Damon to his crumbling career.