Flora’s Guide to a Second Chance at Love and Life

"Who says we're definitely going to lose?" Brianna huffed, clearly annoyed. "And having her here doesn't mean we're going to win either!"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it." Ivan tried to calm her down. "But it took a lot of effort to get her on board. We even helped a small company just to bring her in. If she leaves now, wouldn't all that be for nothing?" "Yeah, Princess, we'd be totally at a loss!" The others chimed in quickly.

"All this talk, you just want to keep her around, don't you?" Brianna accused.

Ivan cleared his throat. "It's also for your own good."

Brianna still looked skeptical.

"What's done is done at your cousin's place. Getting mad now won't change anything. Think about it. If you keep Flora here, under your watchful eye, she's like a lamb ready for slaughter. Letting her go would be doing her a favor, wouldn't it?"

Brianna started to feel swayed but was still grumpy. "Do you think Flora's computer skills are better than mine?"

"She... she's just better at the hands-on stuff. She's not even a computer science major, so her theory can't be as strong as yours," Ivan said, feeling a bit guilty for bending the truth. "She can't possibly be better than you. Keeping her on the team and outshining her with your skills would be much sweeter, wouldn't it?"

would be too kind. I'll keep her here and make her life miserable! She thinks she's hot stuff for being the national top scorer? I'll show her what real talent

that did the trick. Ivan

felt a collective weight

about the Princess. She might be high-strung and fiery, but she was easy to

not allowed to talk to Flora! You all have to

nodded, feeling a bit exasperated. "Princess, we're

"Yeah, I'm starving too."

were in the

on edge the whole time, almost tearing up

head out.

and followed

out of the classroom, they bumped into

Ivan said warmly, only to get a hard stomp on his foot from