Blinded By The Past
The Hockey Prince's Secret Ice Queen
All I wanted was to find a computer genius to process the non-linear dynamic equations for my ecological model. Instead, I found myself cornered by Julian Andrews, the university's hockey prince, trading a public, staged kiss for his academic support. To finalize our "deal," I was dragged to the campus ice rink. The cheerleaders and puck bunnies immediately swarmed him, mocking my plain clothes and treating me like a pathetic joke. Brooke, the head cheerleader, even set up a figure skating competition with a date with Julian as the grand prize. She performed a basic spin, blew him a kiss, and smugly waited for me to fall flat on my face and humiliate myself. His hockey teammates laughed from the sidelines, watching me try to support Julian as he stumbled around the ice like a newborn giraffe. But as I held his warm hand to keep him from falling, I couldn't help but feel something was terribly wrong. Why was a top-tier athlete faking such awful balance? And why did his ice-blue eyes stare at me with such knowing anticipation, as if he already knew about the professional figure skating past I had spent years trying to bury? "Just let go and skate." He whispered, slowly releasing my hand. I took a deep breath, glided to the center of the rink, and landed a flawless double Axel. As the entire rink fell into a dead, shocked silence, I realized I had just exposed not only my own hidden past, but also the biggest secret of the campus god.
Chapter 1 No.1
Sage POV:
"Let me kiss you."
The request was a low, hurried murmur—warm, quiet, and laced with the faintest edge of mortification.
Stunned, I snapped my head up toward the sound.
Julian Andrews filled my vision. He easily towered a head over me, his lean, athletic frame silhouetted against the bright morning glare, casting a long shadow across the cobblestones. Briar University's star forward. Team captain. The athletic department's untouchable golden boy.
Campus rumor had it that Julian was notoriously indifferent, never sparing anyone a second glance.
Behind him, a solid wall of navy-and-gold varsity jackets blocked the brick path. His teammates were whistling, shoving each other, and effectively cutting off my only exit.
The sudden commotion immediately bottlenecked the morning foot traffic. Whispers rippled through the crowd, and within seconds, a dozen students reached into their pockets out of sheer muscle memory, black camera lenses catching the light as they aimed squarely at us.
Julian's sharp eyes tracked the movement, his jaw tightening into a hard, irritated line.
Before I could take a single defensive step back, he closed the distance between us. Leaning down into my space, his broad shoulders shifted in a subtle, fluid maneuver—throwing up an impenetrable physical wall that completely shielded my face from the intrusive glare of the cameras.
His sharp, striking face hovered breathtakingly close. His deep baritone brushed against my ear, lost to the autumn wind, meant for me alone:
"Sorry to drop this on you," he whispered, his pale blue eyes disarmingly earnest, holding a quiet heat that sent a tremor straight down my spine. "The guys backed me into a locker-room dare... but I'm not here to use you as a joke. We can fake it. Angle it so it looks real—whatever you're comfortable with. Just help me get them off my back, and I owe you one."
It was only then that my brain finally rebooted.
What on earth? He's actually trying to kiss me?
A sharp flare of pure absurdity hit me, and my gaze dropped to my reflection in the dark glass door of the adjacent building: an oversized, faded gray hoodie that swallowed my frame whole, soft, thin jeans worn at the knees, bare-faced dark circles carved beneath my eyes from forty-eight hours of non-stop coding, my dark hair hastily twisted into a cheap plastic claw clip, and a pair of oversized, thick black-rimmed glasses sitting heavy on the bridge of my nose, completely hiding my face.
I looked like a refugee from an all-night disaster. How had Briar's golden prince ended up in front of me?
When I looked back up, my breath trapped in my throat anyway. He was too close, his clean scent of winter mint and cedar wrapping around my senses. Having those pale blue eyes staring straight down at me made my chest tighten in a way I really didn't want to acknowledge.
"Clock's ticking, Cap!" Landon howled from the sidelines, hands cupped around his mouth as the rest of the players lost their minds laughing. "Plant one on her, or enjoy the five-AM bag skate!"
A raucous chorus of barks and chest-thumping went up from the team.
A few yards away, two girls heading toward the dining hall froze in their tracks, pointing their phones.
"Wait, who the hell is that?" one of them laughed loudly, zooming her camera in on my face. "She looks like she just crawled out of a dumpster. There's no way Julian's actually kissing her. Post it on Sidechat right now—this is going straight to number one."
The cruel words hit like a splash of ice water, snapping me out of my daze and instantly killing the stupid flutter in my chest.
I hated the attention.
Four years ago, after my family and my former training partner framed me and destroyed my competitive skating career, I swore I would never be public entertainment again. I buried my name, switched majors, and hid behind oversized fleece and thick glasses just to live an invisible life. If I ended up on the campus forums with Julian Andrews, the internet vultures would dox me before noon—and drag up the toxic scandal I had bled to walk away from.
My research was already on the verge of falling apart. I didn't have time for this circus.
I locked my grip around my heavy binders, my knuckles straining white.
"Find someone else for your dare, Andrews," I said coldly, taking a step back to put distance between us, my voice tight with adrenaline. "I'm not interested in being part of your game. Move."
I kept my head down, attempting to brush past him.
"You're Sage Kelley, right?"
The sound of my name brought my boots to an immediate halt.
I blinked up at him, caught completely off guard.
"Professor Beaumont's senior research student," Julian straightened up slightly, his cadence measured and even, carrying an intellectual sharpness that seemed impossible beneath a varsity jacket. "I saw your Havenwood Creek senior capstone proposal sitting on his desk over Sunday dinner."
My heart gave a hard, hollow thud. Professor Beaumont was my academic advisor—and the guardian of the final research endowment my late father had left behind.
Julian leaned in slightly, his voice dropping to a near-whisper against the whistle of the wind. "I spent an hour going over your codebase."
My lips parted. "You... read my proposal?"
"Your simulation keeps crashing because your core fluid algorithm strategy is flawed," Julian murmured, his pale blue eyes deadly sharp. "And Uncle Des mentioned that if you don't deliver a working version by this Friday, the department is pulling your grant—which means you don't clear your senior thesis, and you don't graduate in May."
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
Friday was the deadline. If the funding was pulled, the project died, my senior capstone failed, and I would be forced to stay another semester without my degree. Worse, my father's final ecological legacy would be reduced to scrap paper.
I had been panicking over that exact deadline for two days straight, and Julian had just laid it out like it was nothing.
Worse, I couldn't even brush him off. I had heard the rumors about Beaumont's nephew—the CS prodigy everyone in the department talked about. I just had never realized it was him.
"I know how to fix your algorithm," Julian stated plainly, laying his cards on the table, his gaze locking onto mine with an unshakeable, quiet certainty. "Help me get through this bet. In return, I'll rewrite your boundary calculations tonight. Deal?"
Haunted by the past
Tina is born in a traditional family who hold traditional values sacred, but a whim of obsession which she mistakes for love makes her defy the ways of the tradition. The gods are not happy, but it's too late for her and she can't avoid the repercussions because it's the will of the gods.
Blinded by the alpha clans
Amelia is a sweet, timid girl who is oddly kept very sheltered from the world by her parents. All she yearns is to get out there and experience some life. However, the troubling dreams that follow her tell her an all different story of a possible past life. Are they just dreams or is everyone aroun
Blinded By Her Betrayal
The scent of lilies was thick, sweet, and suffocating. It was my wedding day, a grand affair Chloe had meticulously planned, even insisting on a custom-designed lighting fixture for the venue. Then the world exploded: metal twisted, glass shattered, and a crushing impact stole my sight, leaving me
Held by the Past
"Some loves are eternal, some secrets are deadly." When Elena returns to her small hometown to settle her late mother's affairs, she is thrust into the orbit of Adrian, the enigmatic heir to the estate her family once served. Their connection is instant yet fraught with tension, as the shadows of t
Blinded By His Betrayal
The day began like any other. I, Ava Hayes, lived a fairytale life, the ballerina wife to tech mogul Mark Thompson. Our world, seemingly perfect, was a carefully constructed illusion. Then, a car accident stole my sight, plunging me into a suffocating darkness. Mark became my devoted shadow, my
Blinded By His Love
Drake O'Rourke is an ex-cop-turned-guardian. Drake's presumptuous demeanor and weighty drinking have lost him more than one work in California, and he can't bear to turn down his new task. He appears for work for Nicolas Templeton, a notable tycoon. Yet, it turns out it isn't Mr. Templeton he's prot
Blinded By Love, Betrayed By Him
I was an architect, designing futures, and I finally had my own: a baby with my fiancé, Ethan Riley. Then, a brutal attack left me in darkness. Ethan told me it was a mugging, that they saved me but couldn't save my eyes. I believed him, clinging to him in my new black world. But then, one night,
Be Your One And Only
The day Irene was dumbed by her boyfriend was the same day that she got engaged. Drunk in sadness and alcohol, Irene found herself answering a tipsy "yes" to Aaron's invitation to marry. By the time she sobered up, she found herself whisked in a marriage with a man she barely knew. At first, each
Blinded Dreams
Wynter Grizelle King is a heiress, but beneath her glamorous exterior lies a fierce desire to prove herself as a veterinarian. In her final year of college, she believes she has found true love in Sean, whose charm and ambition seem to mirror her own dreams. Their relationship feels like a fairy tal
The Blinded Wife's Sweet Revenge
The day I found out I was pregnant was the same day I lost my sight. I woke up in a hospital, my world plunged into impenetrable darkness, but my fiancé, Ethan, was there, his hand in mine, murmuring reassurances. Then, through the fog of pain, I heard another conversation - Ethan, whispering to t
Chasing the Past
Amber Siobe Kennedy, a famous bitch heart breaker in abroad expectedly received a good treatment from her own family. She decided to run away from home and go back the Philipines with her friend. Enrolled in the well-known school, and met a famous playboy at school. What will happen when these two
Visions Of The Past
When Anabelle turned eighteen, she started having dreams, they haunted her every night. Plagued by recurring dreams about the forest with the strange vampire, then the dreams turned to her seeing this poor girl being tormented by her people, and eventually set ablaze, murdered for defending the vamp
Voices from the Past
<h3 ALIGN=CENTER><p>PUFF,<br \/>PUFF,<br \/>PUFF<br \/>CHUG,<br \/>CHUG,<br \/>CHUG<br \/><\/p><p>ALL ABOARD!<\/p><\/h3><\/p><p>Two trains are heading West. One is a shiny train, moving fast. The other Is an old train, moving not so fast. What can they have in common? Much more than you think!<\/p><
The Billionaire's Past
His determined enough not to let her go again. So he take all his courage to say these words to her. “Why can’t it be? Why can’t it be the two of us? Why can’t we be lovers? Only friends? Her psychological condition is the main reason. Her emotion is always splitting. The young man belongs to a wea
Ashes of the Past
Twelve years ago, her life was ruined. Erynna Monte's, a beautiful and free spirited twelve years old girl, watched as her sister-her only family was killed, and she could only hide and watch in pain. From that day, the love, and warmth Erynna portrayed turned into hate. Along with the death of her
Blinded Alpha's Curse
The story begins with a description of a common day in the life of Anne Marie Delacroix, Countess of Holst, a woman with a troubled past and marked by the contempt of her kingdom due to her recent divorce. Anne Marie receives an unexpected proposal from the emissaries of the Lycan kingdom: to marry
Blinded Bride, Vengeful Heart
The world was a blur, then nothing. I woke up to blinding darkness and a chemical stench, my eyes replaced by thick bandages. Panic set in fast. Then, Liam, my fiancé, was there, his voice a balm. "What happened? Our wedding is tomorrow." He soothed me, but a cold dread seeped in. I was blind.
Their Blinded Betrayal
I was dying of aggressive leukemia, my last chance for life, a revolutionary CAR T-cell therapy, within reach. My own family - my husband, David, and my parents - colluded to steal that life-saving treatment, diverting it to my cousin Jessie, who feigned vague illnesses for attention. Condemned to
Sins of the Past
Marie Mirey is a famous actress who one day meets a writer named Jonnathan. Between them, a passion and a desire awakens that is forbidden because eMarie has a boyfriend. Still, they can't help but attract each other. What Marie doesn't know is that Jonnathan has a dark past and that a mysterious p
Shadows of the past
Lovey Rylan, a good secret agent, finds her once thrilling career now a tiresome routine. But her world is turned upside down when a powerful enemy from her past resurfaces, threatening everything she holds dear. Forced to confront buried traumas and navigate a web of deceit, Lovey must rely on her
