He Was Supposed to Forget Me

The blinds in the office were half closed, slicing the afternoon sunlight into narrow bands across Evelyn’s flushed cheeks.

She was trapped in the corner of the sofa, her back pressed into the soft cushions while Everett leaned over her, his shadow swallowing her whole.

One hand braced against the back of the sofa beside her ear. The other locked around her waist, holding her so tightly it felt as if he wanted to press her into his bones.

There was nothing gentle about the kiss.

Evelyn had already lost count of how many times he had kissed her.

His lips covered hers, coaxing and demanding at once, before his tongue slipped past her defenses and tangled with hers. She barely had time to breathe, much less swallow, and a trace of moisture escaped the corner of her mouth.

Her pale fingers clenched the collar of his shirt. When even that became too much effort, her arms went weak and slid around his neck instead.

Like someone drowning and grabbing the first thing within reach.

Except her lifeline seemed determined to drag her under with him.

“Mmm… Everett…” She tried to turn her head away, but he stole every breath before she could take it. The air in her lungs was disappearing far too quickly.

She pushed weakly at his chest. Her palm met the hard heat of muscle beneath his shirt, but he did not move. He came down over her like a wall.

Her eyes reddened with frustration. So did the tip of her nose. Her full lower lip was already swollen from his kisses and gleamed faintly with moisture.

“No more… seriously, no more…” Her voice came out soft and breathless, so sweet that even her refusal sounded like she was pouting.

Everett ignored her. He did not even open his eyes. His long lashes remained lowered as his palm cradled the back of her head and pulled her straight back into him, deepening the kiss.

His Adam’s apple shifted once as he swallowed her broken little whimper along with the rest of her protest.

Tears finally gathered on Evelyn’s lashes. A helpless sound escaped her throat, too faint to become a proper complaint.

Just then, a restrained knock came from the office door. Vincent, the Sterling family’s chief steward, had impeccable timing.

“Young Master, the board meeting begins in five minutes. All department directors have arrived.”

The kiss paused.

Everett’s lips were still touching hers when he opened his eyes, their hot breaths mingling between them.

He did not let her go immediately. Instead, he caught her lower lip between his teeth in a slow, deliberate bite before finally drawing back a couple of inches.

His breath swept over her face. The corners of his eyes were faintly red, and the usually cool, restrained expression he wore had been replaced by something far more intense.

Evelyn was dizzy from being kissed. Her lips were parted, a hint of shine still at one corner, and her unfocused eyes made her look almost unfairly beautiful.

Everett brushed a few loose strands of hair away from her face. “Wait here for me.”

His voice was low and rough, desire still lingering in it. His thumb grazed her swollen lower lip and pressed down lightly before he straightened.

One side of his shirt had been pulled loose from his trousers. A button had popped open as well. He fixed the hem with one hand, ignored the missing button, opened the door, and disappeared down the corridor.

Evelyn collapsed against the sofa and stayed there for a long moment, as limp as a balloon with all the air let out.

She stretched her legs over the armrest. Her toes pointed, then curled inside her stockings.

A minute later, she sat up and immediately summoned the System.

“Can your mission settings include an option to refuse physical intimacy?”

She touched her swollen lips, and the more she felt them, the more annoyed she became.

“Look at this. He kissed me like he was trying to eat me alive. My tongue is still numb.”

The System: …

“Say something!”

[Host, personal experiences related to plot execution do not fall within the System’s feedback parameters.]

“What do you mean they don’t fall within your parameters? Can’t you show me a little sympathy? I’d never even held hands with a guy before this, and you threw me straight into a French kiss on day one. Don’t you think that’s a ridiculous leap?”

[The Host is advised to focus on the mission objective.]

“That is the most useless corporate answer I’ve ever heard.”

Evelyn rolled her eyes and shifted upright on the sofa.

Her skirt was wrinkled beyond saving. One button of her knit cardigan had come undone, revealing the clean line of her collarbone.

A faint red mark rested there, left behind when Everett had lost control a little earlier.

Evelyn stared at it for two seconds, then silently fastened the button.

“How much longer do I have to live like this?” she sighed, and this time the exhaustion in her voice was entirely genuine.

[Plot Correction System notice: 150 days remaining until mission completion.]

Evelyn dropped her head against the back of the sofa and stared blankly through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Come to think of it, she had already been in this world for a month.

A month ago, she had been a fresh college graduate.

One night, with nothing better to do, she showered, climbed into bed, and started reading an elite-family campus romance on her phone, making sarcastic comments as she went.

Then she reached the part where a vicious supporting character with the exact same name as her—Evelyn Cole—was personally ruined by the male lead.

She could not resist posting a comment: This male lead is brutal. Is there something wrong with his head?

The moment she sent it, her chest tightened.

Her vision went black.

Apparently, she died on the spot.

When she opened her eyes again, she was here.

Not metaphorically. Not in a dream. She had landed inside the story as Evelyn Cole, the doomed villainess who shared her name.

Her reaction at the time could be summarized in four words: Are you kidding me?

Fortunately, the timing of her arrival was not the worst it could have been.

In the original novel, the villainess Evelyn Cole had already been written out before the main story even began.

After repeatedly targeting the heroine, she was crushed by Everett in retaliation. Her family went bankrupt, and she was eventually shipped overseas by her own relatives. From then on, she existed only as the occasional “crazy ex-girlfriend” mentioned by side characters. She did not even get another scene.

But the version Evelyn had fallen into was different.

It took her several days to piece together the truth from the System’s fragmented explanations: she had not entered the original novel at all. She had entered a fan-rewritten version created by the book’s readers.

In this version, the original Evelyn’s role had been extended by six months.

Her mission sounded simple enough: play Everett’s girlfriend, keep the obsessive male lead stable, and hold the story together until the true heroine finally appeared.

The original heroine was Ella Hughes, a sophomore at Brandon State University. Beautiful, top of her class, resilient, kind—the standard heroine package for a sweet romance novel.

She was the complete opposite of Evelyn, a spoiled heiress who had been indulged since childhood.

Ella fell for Everett the first time she saw him, but the difference in their social status made her keep those feelings to herself.

Later, repeated contact through a project gradually made Everett notice her.

As for the original Evelyn’s younger brother, Elliot Cole, his connection with Ella began on a stormy day.

Ella kindly lent him an umbrella, and Elliot remembered her afterward.

Then Evelyn kept complaining about Ella in front of him—calling her fake, dramatic, unworthy. Ironically, the more she complained, the more curious Elliot became.

The more his sister hated someone, the more he wanted to see for himself what that person was really like.

Consumed by jealousy over the attention Ella received, the original Evelyn schemed against her. The plan backfired spectacularly, isolating Evelyn from everyone around her until even her own brother took Ella’s side.

And what happened to the original Evelyn in this rewritten version?

The System had answered vaguely: “Unexpected self-awareness. She refused to continue the assignment.”

Evelyn had nearly seen her life flash before her eyes. A fictional character could go on strike now?

The System did not give her much time to complain. It simply bound the mission to her.

So here she was.

If she completed the mission, she would receive one hundred million dollars and be free to choose any city she liked and continue living in this world.

If she failed, she would be forced to follow the original villainess’s disastrous ending to the letter.

Just thinking about it made Evelyn shiver.

One month here had been enough for her to get a fairly clear picture of the male lead.

Everett Sterling, twenty-one years old. Sole heir to Sterling Group. Student council president of Ashford Academy.

To the outside world, he was the perfect gentleman heir—soft-spoken, elegant, never raising his voice, never losing his composure. The girls at the academy practically worshipped him.

Evelyn knew better.

The Everett described in the novel was arrogant, obsessive, and deeply antisocial.

Anyone who truly crossed him tended to disappear from the story very quickly.

The original “Evelyn Cole” had only dated him because he wanted a convenient distraction. He had never touched her. She had basically been a decorative girlfriend he kept around because it suited him.

Which was why the current situation made absolutely no sense.

On the very night Evelyn arrived in this world, Everett had kissed her until she cried.

The next day, he had even shown up to apologize with a perfectly innocent face, claiming he simply “hadn’t been able to control himself.”

Evelyn had nearly exploded.

This Everett was not acting like the one in the book at all.

But the System insisted it was only a minor deviation and would not affect the mission.

“Forget it. I’m done thinking about this.”

Evelyn patted her cheeks, stood from the sofa, and padded barefoot across the soft carpet toward the floor-to-ceiling window, stretching her arms above her head.

Her reflection looked back at her from the glass.

For a second, she simply stared, caught between familiarity and embarrassment at the sight of herself.