WHY I MUST LIVE
/1/129726/coverbig.jpg?v=d952b45e9b05aae9f5803a8b2c8d4fc6)
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?"
/0/3819/coverbig.jpg?v=5e15d25435fcb6b48da50295b1ddf845)
Ladies Must Live
From the book:Certain human beings are admitted to have a genius for discrimination in such matters as objects of art, pigs or stocks. Mrs. Ussher had this same instinct in regard to fashion, especially where fashions in people were concerned. She turned toward hidden social avail-ability very much
/0/58544/coverbig.jpg?v=29197dee04e684e10ddcf2e53ffb6a93)
THE LOVE I MUST HATE
My name is Lisa and I am only attracted to girls. I realized that since the day I began to feel my genitalia. But no one must know about it; not when I live in a religious girls' high school. It is considered unholy to love a fellow girl. It is against the school rules, and a rumor about it will re
/0/54055/coverbig.jpg?v=20240514100516)
Why Can't I Be Yours?
When an eighteen-year-old virgin decided to leave Louisiana, her home town for Texas, an alien town, she was oblivious that the journey of her independence would become one of longing for a man's love and attention. With her love built on a misconception, she was unaware that Charles Jackson; the m
/0/24036/coverbig.jpg?v=6c632480adaccfd2246a81630eb1068d)
Why Me
Why Me? Have you ever questioned this yourself? Bullying -> Love -> Hatred -> Romance -> Friendship -> Harassment -> Revenge -> Forgiving -> ... The story is about a girl who is oversized or fat. She rarely has any friends. She goes through lots of hardships in her life, be in her family or school
/0/55058/coverbig.jpg?v=79660a16c9ff094c97b5b2307d8fe5ad)
And Yes, I Can Live Without You
The handsome heir of a powerful billionaire is linked up with a low class but irresistible looking waitress as a result of a carefully executed plan initiated by his step-mother who intends to benefit from her husband's will. But The heir can only access his father's properties when he gets married.
/1/118693/coverbig.jpg?v=ca0ca1f2ad5607643958758ae98cabed)
I Breathed Silver So She Could Live
I labored in the lethal silver mines for three years, letting the toxic dust rot my lungs just to afford medicine for my sister, Snow. But on the seventh day after her death, our biological parents—Alpha Silas and Luna Elara—finally showed up. They hadn't come to mourn. They came to claim her cold
/0/21963/coverbig.jpg?v=4d560c2a2817f7804b45c07c5d1d8089)
WHY ME?
Ty, just another skateboarding HS junior, was minding her own legal business when she gets stuck in the middle of a mafia fight with guns, knives, and potato launchers, only armed with her trusty skateboard. What does she do? Runs for her life only to get captured and asked to marry one of the three
/0/42468/coverbig.jpg?v=216babecfcee9efa01d43754663fd185)
Why me?!
Nathalia finds herself going from one jeopardy to another. Do you think there'll be light at the end of the tunnel for her? 'Why me?!' is a cringy yet exciting experience you don't wanna miss, grab your popcorns and get readyyy.... don't forget your tissues also.
/1/103658/coverbig.jpg?v=4afb3fed4a508ef3890e580df58dc3f5)
To Become The CEO I Must Marry The Nerd Girl
The young billionaire is sitting with his dying grandfather, who is about to give him all his money. The problem is, his grandson is a spoiled brat who faked his university degree and knows nothing about running a tech company that specializes in AI technology. His only chance is to use someone to d
/0/45880/coverbig.jpg?v=41d7363189e843f36599e0d5c9f75430)
You must be mine
Valerie had a perfect life going for her with her family and Andrew whom she found herself growing feelings for, but it all changed when an arrogant billionaire Carson was mesmerized by her. They tried all they could to refuse his offer but he was adamant in getting her. Valerie could feel her who
/0/5097/coverbig.jpg?v=4c57b7d21cea0e32b256da3093870bd3)
The Reason Why
This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not
/0/31820/coverbig.jpg?v=20260518235340)
Live With 2 CEO
After my mother left my father to be with a rich CEO, my father fell ill and left me for good. Before my father died, he gave me a letter of inheritance that made me have to live in the same house with 2 twin CEOs who have different characteristics. Alex CEO who has a cold and annoying nature Alan C
/0/18635/coverbig.jpg?v=273480d1a7442d3c23f7a251ca5c4fd4)
Live Twice, Love Once
Kate, a top coroner from the twenty-second century, had landed the exciting opportunity of time traveling. She went back in time as a sexy cheerleader, a completely different persona than her original one. In all the books that she had read, the heroine would meet all kinds of charming, handsome
/0/80964/coverbig.jpg?v=3a16a1f79d94d92b99bcbbdfe0af1dba)
The Alpha Must Die
She craved a normal life... Her main goal was to live "the happily ever after" version in the Cinderella story. Unbeknownst to her that life was never a bed of roses. In a twinkle of an eye, Emilia almost lost her purpose in this world, a mysterious accident stole her parents and left her under the
/1/126321/coverbig.jpg?v=eff3e0ff5c41eec43913e896d8b2912f)
You Cheated First, Why Cry When I Marry Your Brother
Chantal was only one day away from marrying Kayden Cole, the man who supposedly saved her life after a tragic accident left her blind. But an anonymous text led her to a hotel suite, where her heightened hearing caught the unmistakable sounds of her fiancé in bed with another woman. Standing outsi
/0/1886/coverbig.jpg?v=20171121104718)
Why Men Fight
To all who are capable of new impressions and fresh thought, some modification of former beliefs and hopes has been brought by the war. What the modification has been has depended, in each case, upon character and circumstance; but in one form or another it has been almost universal. To me, the chie
/0/38162/coverbig.jpg?v=2af7ad1b5fd6d8b5e19e674e63c1b9d0)
Billionaire Ex-wife: I Can't Live Without You
"Love is blind!" Lucinda abandoned her beautiful and comfortable life because of a man. She married him and slaved off for him for three long years. One day, the scales finally fell off her eyes. She realized that all her efforts were in vain. Her husband, Nathaniel still treated her like shit.
/0/38500/coverbig.jpg?v=50b407a799a3ebfb0ca9cd89e46cbae8)
Daring to Live
Sweet, fiercely loyal and introverted despite being a famous Pop Star, Harper Isabel Romano does not believe in the concept of romantic love- even though she has sung ballads about it. Between her busy schedule and her tattered, destroyed heart, she has no desire for a relationship or anything aki
/0/13490/coverbig.jpg?v=4cde03c7cbebb3b2019db869d6fa0bc7)
/0/25340/coverbig.jpg?v=20260518174417)
Why We Fell
"He was like a hurricane who caught me in his wild emotions and left me lost with no one to hold on." Olivia Harris is a well-renowned model who seems to have her life altogether; until he crosses paths with Karl Jayden Ford, her college sweetheart. Love, Lust, Despair, Betrayal. As Jayden tries t
