Chapter 4Noisy Men

I had already drafted the IOU while sitting in the hospital waiting room.

On the drive back, I held it out to Asher, but he refused to take it.

I stubbornly kept my hand suspended in the air, playing the role of the fiercely independent, prideful poor girl to absolute perfection.

Asher finally sighed deeply, shaking his head in defeat as he accepted the piece of paper.

I could feel it. The way he looked at me had completely changed.

Whenever Brittany took his money, she never once politely declined. Half the time, she outright asked for it.

Before today, Asher probably did not think much of it.

But now, comparing her greedy behavior to my stubborn, tearful independence, Asher was obviously feeling a deep sense of whiplash.

Even though this amount of money was nothing to him, this was the fundamental flaw in the male ego.

I can give it to you, but you are not allowed to reach out and demand it.

More importantly, Asher originally fell for Brittany because of my face. He only bothered to learn about her "inner beauty" because he was captivated by my photos.

When Asher offered to drive me all the way back to campus, I politely declined.

I asked him to drop me off back at the hotel where I worked.

Just before I stepped out of the car, Asher suddenly pulled up a photo on his phone and asked me when it was taken.

I nailed the look of utter bewilderment.

"Why do you have a picture of me on your phone?"

Asher looked me dead in the eye. "My online girlfriend sent it to me."

I muttered softly, acting incredibly confused. "Online girlfriend..."

I suddenly froze, my eyes widening in horror as I slapped a hand over my mouth.

Asher's sharp gaze locked onto me. "You know something, do you not?"

I stammered, looking terrified, before finally spilling the beans about my three roommates and their massive online dating ring.

"That photo... my roommate Vanessa took it yesterday. She loves taking candid pictures of me in the dorm."

In reality, Brittany was the one obsessed with snapping pictures of me.

Even though all three roommates used my face, their methods were completely different.

Brittany preferred the organic route, constantly finding sneaky excuses to take real-time photos of me.

Penny was lazy, she just stole old pictures off my social media feeds.

Vanessa, the female lead, was the true mastermind. She used advanced AI to manipulate my face into whatever videos or photos she needed. She even used deepfake software to video chat with her targets.

By pinning the blame entirely on Vanessa right in front of Asher, I was throwing her straight under the bus.

The floating text instantly exploded, cursing me out with every vile word in the dictionary.

Watching Asher's face turn completely thunderous, I slowly closed my eyes.

The comments insisted that Asher would eventually fall in love with Vanessa's brilliant mind anyway. I decided I was going to sever that little red thread of fate right here, right now.