Villain’s Favorite 55

 

Chapter 55 Got It 

Annie’s attention caught on the brooch in his hand. 

She smiled and said she understood, then added casually, “That brooch is beautiful, by the way.” 

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She deserved some real compensation for all of this. A girl had to collect something tangible for her trouble. 

“Like it? You can have it,” Toby agreed without any hesitation. 

He still wore that same unhurried expression, flipping the jewelry case open and shut in his hand. 

Inside it was an antique necklace he’d bought from a collector who’d needed to liquidate quickly. 

Toby liked fine jewelry of serious value, but he never kept any of it. He always ended up giving it away. 

He was thoroughly traditional in that particular way. 

Ornate accessories were not part of how he presented himself. 

A man should look like a man, and beautiful things belonged on girls, 

Most of what passed through his hands ended up with Annie eventually. 

The moment the call ended, her smile dropped entirely. 

That insufferable boy. 

He always had something he needed from her. 

She arrived at the international class in a mood and performed her usual sweep of the room before pulling out an empty chair and sitting down beside the two siblings. 

Maya was sprawled across her desk, sketching something. 

Annie held up her compact mirror and studied her own reflection at length. 

Then the corner of her mouth curved into something light and deliberate, and she said without looking up, “I’m going to be your brother’s fiancée someday.” 

Her voice was soft, but the declaration underneath it was anything but. 

She glanced at the two of them. “Your parents won’t have any objections, I assume?” 

Maya hesitated for two seconds, clocked Alfred’s silence, and stepped in. “Our parents are pretty regular people. If you’re serious about getting engaged to him, you’d need to deal with his grandfather.” 

What does his grandfather have to do with anything? 

Annie didn’t press the point. “All I need to do is win him over.” 

She went back to studying herself in the mirror. Her features were lovely and polished, the smile at the corners of her eyes softening her look, while the ambition behind them was plainly visible to anyone paying 

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Chapter 55 Got It 

attention. 

Alfred spoke up in his flat, even voice, which was unusual enough on its own. “The two of you are basically just running a transaction, aren’t you?” 

A transaction? 

Annie turned to look at this ghost of a child. “Meaning what, exactly?” 

“Exactly what it sounds like,” Alfred said. “My brother really loves a fair exchange. You want something from him, and he’ll take something from you in return.” 

As for an engagement, Alfred had his doubts Toby would ever actually agree to one. 

Maya lifted her head from the desk, twirling her pen between her fingers. “He’s always been like that. Everything’s a negotiation with him.” 

Every conversation she’d had with Toby had circled back to terms and returns. He processed the world in trades. 

The two of them went back and forth like that, easy and uninterrupted, and Annie felt something distinctly cold settle over her. 

No matter how she positioned herself, she was the outsider in this room. 

Annie snapped her compact shut with a sharp click, her expression tight, and walked out without another word. 

“Why did you drive her off?” 

Maya reached over and poked his cheek, which had very little give to it. 

Alfred had done it deliberately. 

Low emotional intelligence didn’t mean low intelligence. 

He didn’t generally say this much to people he barely knew. 

The dimple in his cheek flickered faintly where she poked it, his expression staying exactly as neutral as always. “She’s annoying. She comes here every single day. 

“I was just telling her the truth.” 

Toby was a deeply particular kind of person. 

If you came near him with an agenda, he’d identify it and turn the whole thing into a mutually agreed-upon transaction. 

Coming from money the way he did, he could flip on a trade partner faster than anyone expected. Anyone who took Toby’s word at face value deserved whatever followed. 

By noon, the classroom had mostly emptied out. 

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Chapter 55 Got It 

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Some students had been picked up in cars, while others had gone to the school’s dining hall. 

Maya ate quickly. By the time Alfred was still picking at his food with the disinterest of someone not particularly motivated to eat, she had already finished. 

“Inhaling food will give you a stomachache someday,” Alfred told her. 

Maya grinned. “Not a chance. You know nothing about the cast-iron stomach you develop growing up in a group home.” 

She’d always eaten fast. 

Even when Thomas had tried to correct the habit, the most it had produced was a slightly more composed appearance. The pace itself had never slowed down. 

She finished quickly, decided she wasn’t waiting around for Alfred to pick his way through his meal, and headed back to the classroom early. 

A soft, unsteady sound of crying floated out from inside the room before she even crossed the threshold. 

Maya stopped where she was and assessed the situation. 

She was absolutely about to turn around and leave. 

She wasn’t the class counselor. 

Asking Maya to console someone in distress would end with her somehow rerouting a hundred perfectly ordinary children into deeply unconventional life paths. 

“Are you leaving too?” 

The crying girl had noticed her attempted retreat. 

Phoebe lifted her red-rimmed, swollen eyes and looked directly at Maya. 

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This Time. I’ll Be the Villains Favorite Daughter