His Smokescreen Is Now the Woman He Can’t Have Chapter 01

His Smokescreen Is Now the Woman He Can’t Have Chapter 01

The moment I heard Caleb Sterling laugh as he told someone my infatuation with him was nothing but a “useful, safe smokescreen,” I was done with him.

So I stopped pretending to be the weakest link in physical training just to earn a single, careless word of advice from him.

I stopped following him all over West Point like a shadow.

I became the quietest cadet in formation, letting him walk right past me as if he were a stranger.

He didn’t last long.

In front of everyone, he blocked my path, his voice cold as he pinned me with the same eyes I’d once adored.

“Elara Vance, stop playing these ridiculous games.”

I met his gaze. For the first time, I didn’t look away. I said only two words, my voice calm.

“Yes, sir.”

He froze.

…

Caleb Sterling stood rooted to the spot.

For the first time, the superiority and impatience that always colored his features gave way to open shock. In his blue eyes, I could see the reflection of my own expressionless face.

“What did you say?” he asked, as if he hadn’t heard me.

The cadets around us turned to look, and a hush fell over the training field. Before, a single glance from him would have had me scrambling to his side.

Now, I simply repeated myself. My voice wasn’t loud, but everyone nearby heard it clearly.

“I said, yes, sir.”

I used to think my feelings for him meant something. Anything.

When I first arrived at West Point, I was saddled with the scandal of my father’s dismissal. People avoided me. No one wanted to be on my team. No one wanted to say more to me than was absolutely necessary. Only Caleb, born into a military dynasty and the academy’s golden boy, offered me something that looked like kindness.

It was during a winter field survival exercise. The Hudson Valley wind sliced at my face. My stamina gave out and I collapsed into the snow, my chest burning, my lungs feeling sealed shut.

Caleb was our squad’s cadet leader. He stood over me, his disgust barely concealed. “Elara Vance, on your feet. If you can’t handle this, wash out of West Point.”

His words made me try to push myself up, but I didn’t have an ounce of strength left.

The cadets behind him began to snicker.

Just when I thought they would leave me in the snow, Caleb suddenly turned, blocking their view. He bent down and, in one swift motion, shoved something hard into the outer pocket of my pack.

His voice was a low command.

“Eat it. Don’t slow down the whole squad.”

It was a high-calorie military energy bar.

In my most humiliating moment, he had given me a lifeline disguised as an insult.

From that day on, my eyes were always drawn to him.

I’d thought that if I worked hard enough, if I was obedient enough, I could apply for a post-graduation assignment in his family’s unit, just to keep following him. It wasn’t until that night at the officers’ club that I realized how foolish I’d been.

It was a general’s birthday reception. Isabelle Davenport stood at Caleb’s side, her arm looped through his. In her evening gown, she was the undisputed star of the night.

Isabelle asked softly, “Caleb, people on campus have been talking about us lately. Will that affect you?”

I hid behind a large potted plant, my heart hammering against my ribs.

Then I heard Caleb laugh—a gentle, easy sound I had never heard from him before.

“What’s there to be afraid of?” he said. “Elara Vance is so obviously obsessed with me it’s a running joke. With her as a smokescreen, who’s going to suspect us? People will just think she’s having another one of her pathetic episodes.”

Isabelle laughed, leaning against his shoulder. “But I feel a little bad… using her like that.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Caleb’s voice turned cold. “A girl with a family scandal like hers is lucky to be useful for anything. She’s just a pathetic, harmless fool who’s barely hanging on at West Point.”

My blood ran cold.

So all my desperate efforts to follow him were, in his eyes, just a useful smokescreen.

So the feelings I had cherished so deeply were, to him, just the obsession of a pathetic, harmless fool.

That night, I wrapped myself in my blanket and cried without a sound, soaking my pillow through. When dawn broke, I told myself, *Elara, wake up.*

From that day on, my exit strategy from West Point officially began.

The memory faded. I looked back at the man in front of me.

Caleb stared at me, his eyes—the ones I had once loved—now filled with nothing but irritation and impatience. Clearly, he couldn’t stand the loss of my constant orbit.

“Elara,” he said again, his tone a warning.

I took a breath and lifted my chin, my fingers tightening without my realizing. My voice was soft. “It’s nothing, sir. I’m just preparing for the next physical fitness test.”

“Preparing?” He sounded as if I’d told a joke, the corner of his mouth twitching. “You? Elara, stop the act. You could train until graduation and you’d still just barely pass. You don’t deserve to wear that uniform.”

The words were cruel.

I stood motionless and watched him turn away with his usual, casual arrogance.

Only after he was gone did I slowly unclench my hand. In my palm was a folded sheet of paper, damp with sweat. It was a tactical simulation assignment.

The instructor’s red ink stood out sharply: “A+.” Beside it was another comment: “Perfect strategic simulation.”

Everyone at West Point thought I was someone who was barely scraping by, relying on the last vestiges of my father’s connections. No one knew that for years, I had deliberately kept my scores on every physical test at the bare minimum. But in every academic course, from military history to engineering mechanics, I had earned nothing but A’s.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t do it.

It was that I couldn’t let anyone see.

Just yesterday, the MIT admissions office had called. They were very interested in my academic record.

I politely declined.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve already received a full scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania’s architecture program.”

The University of Pennsylvania wasn’t MIT, but its architecture program was still one of the best in the country. More importantly, the offer had come through a confidential channel. If I took it, I could disappear completely from the world of these military families.

Because my transcript was so strange, my tactical studies instructor, a colonel I deeply respected, called me into his office. He suspected me of academic dishonesty.

I didn’t explain. Instead, in front of him, on a blank sand table, I recreated a classic historical raid in thirty minutes and then presented a revised, superior operational plan.

The old colonel stared at the sand table for a long time before finally looking up at me.

“Child, why?”

At that moment, the dam finally broke.

“Sir, do you know what it’s like to have people watching you constantly, just waiting for you to make a mistake?” My voice trembled. “After my father was dismissed, I lost all my protection. In eighth grade, I got straight A’s and was admitted to West Point Prep. The day before school started, someone reported me for bullying a classmate. That classmate’s father happened to be one of my father’s old rivals.”

“I lost that chance. From that day on, I understood. In this world, it’s safer to appear a little weaker, a little dumber. I’ll only be truly excellent one more time—the day I leave this place for good.”

I played the part of the straggler. I played the part of a lovesick girl, shamelessly obsessed with Caleb Sterling. It was the only way to make the people watching me dismiss me as a joke and look no further.

The old colonel was silent for a long time. In the end, he just patted my shoulder.

“Hold on until graduation. Get your degree,” he said. “Then you’ll be free.”

Free.

I folded the A+ assignment again and slid it back into my pocket.

It was almost over.

But when I dragged my exhausted body back to the dorm, the atmosphere in the room was thick with tension. My roommates saw me and quickly looked away, as if they wanted to say something but didn’t dare.

And standing in front of my bed was the person I least wanted to see.

Caleb Sterling.

I didn’t know why he was there. His face was a thundercloud as he strode toward me.

He stopped right in front of me and demanded in a voice like cold steel, “Elara, did MIT call you?”