Love or Die CEO’s Daily Dose of Swoon

Chapter 8

Latham strode into the classroom, his arrival predating the bell’s chime by mere seconds.

He dropped a stack of thick papers onto the desk at the front, Daniel, would you mind handing these out?”

A hush fell over the room as Cordelia, seated at the back, watched necks crane and bodies lean forward in anticipation. As the papers made their rounds, a cacophony of sighs and gasps peppered the air from every

comer.

Daniel, a slim figure with glasses that seemed too heavy for his face, approached Juliana and handed her the

paper.

Curiosity bubbled up from the desks, “What do you get?”

Juliana glanced at her score with a mix of ease and pride in her voice. “A”

“And you nailed that with these brain–busters? Impressive!”

Juliana feigned modesty. ‘Oh, it’s nothing. I’m still trailing behind Hanley”

“No need to compare with that guy who is been raking in math awards since he was in diapers. But you know, you’re two peas in a pod, academically speaking.

Amidst the surrounding exclamations of admiration, Juliana inevitably drifted her gaze to the back row

With a hint of teasing, she said, “Daniel, would you be a dear and check my cousin’s grade?”

Fumbling through the papers, Daniel didn’t find Cordelia’s but instead pulled out Hanley’s and promptly handed it over…

Before the commotion could settle, Latham announced from the front, “This math test, there’s only one perfect score in the entire grade, and it’s from our class!”

“Wow!”

“Hanley’s got to be the man, right?”

As the class buzzed with astonishment, Hanley quietly exhaled in relief.

been a toss–up on a few questions,

a genius,”

curled his lips into a

arranged for him to marry Juliana, a relief in itself. A guy like him deserved nothing but the best,

too

his eyes as Daniel placed a paper on his

glanced at the result. His smile froze, ‘A? Was there some

warmest congratulations to Cordelia! Her grasp of mathematics

classroom, briefly as still as a tableau, erupted into whispers and turned heads, all eyes on the

back row.

slowly lift her head, her gaze sharpening on him. Then, with a slow

to Hanley’s cheeks as if

frozen, her mind a loop

“Class dismissed!”

the review just in time

than the room erupted into

“Screech!”

as Merry, Cordelia’s front–row neighbor, swung around in her seat. With the laxity of a ragdoll, she leaned on Cordelia’s desk. “Hey, you’re Cordelia, right? I’m Merry,” she announced, her vibrant pink hair and dramatic makeup reminiscent of a cartoon character. She popped

for a moment, replying

“The whole school is buzzing on the forum about whether Hanley can cling to his top spot. I gotta say I’ve had it up to here with Hanley and Juliana, prancing around like they own the place just because of

with a

were embarrassing, so they called off the engagement?

her first impression of Merry being

papers. The first thing was check Cordelia’s

Cordelia, paper in hand, just in time to catch Merry’s comment. “Hanley is no one–trick pony,” Juliana interjected. “He excels in

she did

“B+. Cordelia, with this result, do you think you can take the

whether Cordelia beats Hanley or not, but she’ll definitely better than you. What’s there for you to

I suppose you have no room for pride.” Merry chuckled, “Oh, I couldn’t be

off, fuming.

the school day,

bother to look. Grades were just a number to her. She grabbed her bag and was the first to head