Chapter 186: The Trap

People liked to say a man’s tears were his best weapon.

That saying needed one condition added to it: the woman watching had to like him first, or at least care enough that his pain mattered.

Giselle was exactly that kind of woman now.

Elias’s eyes had only gone red. He had not even let the tears fall yet, and Giselle was already losing ground.

People often said geniuses had high IQs and low emotional intelligence, but that was not quite fair. Fast learning was their gift. Emotional blindness usually came from disinterest, not inability. If they cared enough to study people, they learned as fast as they learned anything else.

Giselle had once been like that. She had ignored most social warmth because it seemed unnecessary, noisy, and inefficient. But after spending time under Victoria Frost’s control, watching her mother move through rooms, manage silence, offer tenderness like a blade hidden in silk, Giselle had learned more than she wanted to admit.

So now, faced with Elias’s hurt expression, she realized almost immediately that she had made a mistake.

His reaction was proof enough.

If Victoria were here, she would probably take Giselle’s dignity, throw it on the ground, and grind it beneath her heel with one calm sentence after another. Then she would make Giselle figure out how to repair the damage herself.

Giselle opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

She wanted to explain, but explaining meant lying to Elias, or at least covering the uglier parts of her suspicion. Looking at his red eyes and stiff little expression, she found she could not do it.

So, after a silence that stretched awkwardly between them, Giselle lowered her voice.

"I’m sorry."

She chose to apologize.

She chose to admit she had misunderstood him.

Elias seemed to understand what had happened. He looked at her for a moment, then said slowly, "You thought... I wanted to go because of her?"

Giselle’s eyes shifted away, searching the path, the trees, the students passing at a distance. In the end, her gaze returned to his face.

"Yes," she said.

Her tone was calm. It sounded like a simple admission: she had misunderstood, so she apologized. Nothing more complicated than that. If a mistake had been made, she would face it directly.

But Giselle did not seem to notice how tense she looked.

Elias noticed.

For a second, even he paused.

Then the corner of his mouth almost rose.

He caught it in time and forced the smile back down.

His eyes were still red, though the wetness gathered there had stopped threatening to spill. He set his small face into a serious look, as if he were trying to show how offended he was after being wronged. Unfortunately for him, his voice came out too low and too wounded to sound fierce.

"I didn’t even know she was coming," he said. "I only wanted to go to the gala."

He looked down.

"With you."

"I’m sorry," Giselle said again.

Even Victoria would never have expected this. Giselle, who could stay silent through punishment, scolding, humiliation, and pressure, was apologizing to Elias again and again as if the words came easily when they were for him.

This was not only surrender.

It was indulgence.

Giselle looked at him and continued, "I misunderstood. I thought you wanted to attend because you wanted to see... that person."

She did not say Serena’s name.

Elias understood why Giselle had thought that.

Of course he understood. That was why he had laid the trap that way. Her suspicion had not come from nowhere. His past behavior around Serena had made him look hesitant, torn, and unable to let go. Giselle had every reason to think his old feelings might still be alive.

That was the point.

Elias softened, as if moved by Giselle’s honesty.

"I’m not going for her," he said quietly. "What is she to me now? She isn’t anything anymore. We ended a long time ago."

Giselle gave a small nod.

From beginning to end, he had not said Serena Blackwood’s name.

Then she stilled.

Was that because Elias truly no longer cared?

Or because he cared too much, so much that even saying the name felt like exposing himself?

It was only a guess.

She had already wronged him once today. She had already made his eyes go red. How could she question him again over a thought she could not prove?

"I’m sorr..."

The apology barely began before Elias’s eyes widened. He stepped closer at once and lifted one hand, pressing the pad of his finger gently against Giselle’s lips to stop her.

Giselle looked down at him.

His fingertip was cool and soft against her mouth.

Elias’s face was serious. "Enough. Don’t apologize again, or I really will get mad."

Giselle’s lips curved faintly. She reached up and took the hand he had placed against her mouth.

"All right," she said. "I won’t."

Her fingers closed around his.

"Now that you know, do you still want to go?"

Elias’s face shifted.

For one instant, he looked wary, but then he noticed the faint smile at her mouth. Her voice was not sharp. She was asking, not accusing.

He relaxed and breathed out.

"Of course I’m going. Why wouldn’t I?" he said, gathering himself again. "I can’t skip my own school’s gala just because she happens to be there. That would make it look like I still care about her."

The logic was clean.

If Serena’s attendance made him avoid the gala, it would only prove she still had weight in his heart.

Even so, Giselle felt another concern settle in.

Elias sounded too determined.

The more he insisted he did not care, the more it sounded like he was trying to convince himself. Giselle began to think it might be better not to let him go to the auditorium at all. If he saw Serena in person, if Serena spoke to him, if the old wound reopened, what then?

But Elias had already said he wanted to go.

If Giselle stopped him now, she would look as if she still doubted him.

She did not want to do that twice in one day.

So even though she disliked the idea, she nodded.

"I’ll go with you."

If Elias or Serena tried anything, Giselle would be there to stop it.

Elias’s face brightened. He stepped in and hugged her arm with easy affection, clinging to her as if her answer had made his whole day.

"Giselle, you really are my best Bestie."

Inside his mind, his smile sharpened.

Now, even if he went to see Serena, and even if something old seemed to spark again, it would not be his fault.

Giselle had chosen not to stop him.

If anything happened later, the person who had failed to prevent it would be the sweet little virgin beside him.

Captured.

[System Theta: That’s awful...]

Giselle had been led by the hand the whole way. Step by step, she had followed him into the pit and still thought she was the one protecting him.

The purpose of this setup had been simple: make it impossible for Giselle to stop him from going to the auditorium to see Serena.

Elias did not agree with System Theta’s judgment at all.

"Who said it was easy?" he replied in his mind. "The first step was hard. I needed someone to mention Serena where Giselle could hear it, so she’d misunderstand me."

Originally, he had planned to walk her around campus until afternoon.

Westbridge was full of students. Sooner or later, a few boys would gossip loudly about Serena Blackwood’s appearance at the gala. He only needed Giselle to hear it once.

He had just gotten lucky that the opportunity appeared so quickly.

[System Theta: Host, you’re amazing!]

Elias smiled.

"You may rise."

[System Theta: ...]

Evening came soon.

Westbridge was still Westbridge. Even on the night of a major anniversary gala, classes went on as scheduled. A top university did not suspend academics simply because someone had arranged speeches, flowers, cameras, and rich donors in an auditorium.

By the time Elias finished class, Giselle had already been waiting outside the classroom for a while.

He saw her and immediately bounced toward her like an excited rabbit, careless of the students nearby. He wrapped both hands around her arm and smiled up at her with open sweetness.

"Let’s go," he said.