Maya Hart, a scholarship student from a working-class Chinese restaurant family, enters the elite Evercrest Academy. On her first day, she drops a potted aloe plant onto the leather shoes of Adrian Blackwell, the son of the school’s chairman, to stop him from bullying another scholarship boy. From that moment on, she becomes the new target of Adrian and his clique—Caspian Cross and Julian Voss.
Maya endures daily humiliation: coffee runs, torn clothes, vandalized locker, and public mockery. But she never breaks. Beneath Adrian’s violent exterior lies a boy who was moved to the farthest wing of his house at age four to avoid his parents’ screaming, and who watched his mother leave at twelve without a backward glance. He has never been shown love, and doesn’t know how to give it.
Caspian invites Maya to his family estate as his date, dressing her in a white gown originally designed for his former love, Seraphina. When Seraphina unexpectedly appears, Maya realizes she was only a stand‑in. She flees barefoot into the snow. Adrian chases after her, wraps his own jacket around her shoulders—and for the first time, something real passes between them.
Victoria Ashford, who is secretly engaged to Adrian, hires two actors to fake food poisoning at Maya’s family restaurant and livestreams the “scandal” to ruin the Harts. To protect her family, Maya cuts ties with Adrian. But Adrian uncovers the truth, exposes Victoria at a formal engagement dinner, and walks away from his family—with
